The SPEAKER ( Hon. Bronwyn Bishop ) took the chair at 09:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
CONDOLENCES
Whitlam, Hon. Edward Gough, AC, QC
Debate resumed on the motion:
That the House record its deep regret at the death on 21 October 2014 of the Honourable Edward Gough Whitlam AC, QC, former Member for Werriwa and Prime Minister, and place on record its appreciation of his long and highly distinguished service to the nation and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.
Mr HAYES (Fowler—Chief Opposition Whip) (09:01): For many, myself included, Gough Whitlam was not only an inspiration but also the very reason for our enthusiasm for Labor politics. I had the honour of representing the electorate of Werriwa, which was held by Gough Whitlam throughout his political career.
He was a man with a vision, and certainly a vision for Australia's future. He was one not prepared to be constrained by traditional and historical ties but prepared to venture into new frontiers. Being the first Western leader of a major political party to visit China not only was groundbreaking at the time but also paved the way for our current day relationship not only with China but also with countries throughout the Asian region.
Gough became the member for Werriwa in 1952 and, following a redistribution, he and his wife Margaret and their children moved to Albert Street, Cabramatta, in 1955—a fact that is still quoted to me today by many of the more elderly residents at Cabramatta. When he became the member for Werriwa, the boundaries of the electorate map were much different to what they are today. As a matter of fact, his house in Albert Street is just down the road from my electorate office in Fowler. I had the honour of reminding Gough on many occasions that, in representing Werriwa and now Fowler, I have represented both ends of his old electorate.
Apart from meeting him at various party conferences and events, it was not until my by-election in 2005 that I had the opportunity for a more engaged discussion with Gough. Our early discussions around that period were a little frosty, given the fact that I was not the person he was supporting for preselection for his seat of Werriwa. For a while my meetings with Gough generally involved a fair degree of fair and trepidation on my part. In contrast, my wife Bernadette struck up a very close relationship with Margaret right from the start.
Gough was above all a reformer. During his leadership, he was able to reform and modernise the Labor Party. He made the ALP electable. He had the genius of being the first major political figure to comprehend the fundamental changes necessary for the Australian community. He understood that what the country needed was a new political focus on education, culture, social and infrastructure needs, particularly for the residents of the expanding outer suburbs and families of working-class backgrounds. My generation and those that follow are the direct beneficiaries of the Whitlam legacy.
Many people I meet in the various aged-care facilities in my electorate recall their encounters with the Whitlams—whether it was Margaret teaching their kids swimming at the local pool or just having the opportunity to speak to the great man at various local events or branch meetings. Locally, the Whitlams were revered and much loved. Invariably, I am told about Gough's commitment to enhance the basic infrastructure needs of the area. His campaign to establish an integrated sewerage system in Liverpool and Campbelltown in the Fairfield areas is still firmly lodged in the minds of many of the elderly residents of the area. While current generations might well take these developments for granted, if it were not for the tenacity of Gough these developments would have been some time off.
When I did meet with Gough in his office in Sydney it was for me like being in an inquisition. He always asked me about people he knew from the electorate and local branches as well as about developments occurring in the area. He was always interested. He always had his finger on the pulse. He did not regard Werriwa as something in his distant past. This is something I learnt to appreciate about Gough. He was not just the political giant of the Labor movement, which many have already spoken about in this place, but also someone who deeply cared about ordinary people.
I remember one round of discussions I had with Gough in his Sydney office. Somehow we got to talking about his time in the RAAF. He had been in 13 Squadron and flew as a navigator on a Ventura bomber. It was not only his clear recollections of events of this period that was so impressive; what took me by surprise was his unwavering loyalty to his flight crew. He stayed in contact with all the members of the flight crew after they dispersed from the air force. As a mark of the man's compassion, following the death of his pilot he remained in contact with his widow. While it is right that we remember Gough as a great of the Labor movement, it is his attention to people and their own particular circumstances that, for me and for many in my electorate, makes him truly great.
I offer my sympathies to his family. Edward Gough Whitlam, rest in peace.
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (09:07): It is my solemn duty to pass on the respects of the people of the Riverina on the death of the Hon. Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC and also to have a few reminisces of Mr Whitlam's time in Wagga Wagga and to pass on a few of the remarks of those who knew him and those who revered him.
In passing on some of the reminisces of Mr Whitlam, I bring to the House a bound edition of the Daily Advertiser—the Wagga Wagga newspaper. I know you are not allowed to use props, but I am sure it is okay on this occasion. So I will show my ALP friends across the other side, the front page of the edition which is headlined, 'Wagga's big welcome to Whitlam—five-hour visit'. The story reads:
The Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam, and his wife Margaret were Wagga's guests yesterday and for five solid hours wherever they went crowds applauded and whenever they turned welcome hands were extended. More than 480 people—many of them young children—crammed into the Wagga Civic Theatre to extend a Wagga welcome to the man who holds Australia's top political office.
Mr Whitlam visited Wagga to open the Schnelle Harmon grandstand on Eric Weissel Oval—
unfortunately now disused—
and the half-million dollar extensions to the Wagga Leagues Club. Three hundred sporting, civic and service leaders from Wagga and district attended the opening of the grandstand yesterday afternoon. Inside the Leagues Club later in the evening Mr Whitlam and his wife met more than 150 Labor Party supporters in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.
And I am sure the local Labor branch would love to get 150 local supporters at a function these days!
A spokesman for Mr Whitlam said, 'The Prime Minister did not know what to expect coming to a current Liberal stronghold.'
And I am happy to report that I am hopeful that it is now a strong Nationals stronghold.
But he was greeted with a right royal reception. Children, nuns, students, politicians, housewives and hundreds of working men thronged around Mr and Mrs Whitlam for their entire Wagga visit, which was Mr Whitlam's third to the city but first as Prime Minister.'
I can report that it was the first prime ministerial visit that Wagga Wagga had received since Robert Menzies came to town on Friday, 17 November 1961. So it had been quite awhile.
During his welcome to the Prime Minister, Alderman Gissing spoke of the tremendous number of playing fields provided for the community of Wagga and the role of the council and the local leagues club in maintaining these. Mr Whitlam understood the need for the Commonwealth to fund local government directly. He understood regionalism. I have to say that; I have to put that on the record. Mr Whitlam said he was flattered by the welcome he received from the people of Wagga. And you will love this quote, members opposite, and you can just imagine Gough—I will channel Gough here, 'And I was thrilled to see all the decorations as I drove along Wagga's main street,' he quipped, 'but I was later told that they were for Christmas, not me.' You can just see him saying it—those great quotes. He was quite the comedian, but very witty, as we all know.
I would also like to place on the Hansard some of the tributes that he has received from no less than the former Leader of the Nationals and Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, who said in The Daily Advertiser:
Unbelievably, Gough Whitlam as prime minister and ex-prime minister could recite correctly every (train) station from Junee to Narrandera in correct order, and he often did this when we were in conversation. Gough told me he used the wheat silos of the Riverina to assist his RAAF navigation training in World War II.
My final session with him was on the Ghan to Darwin in 2004 and, once again, he recalled in correct order, Marrar, Coolamon, Ganmain, Matong, Grong Grong and so forth.
That is amazing! That is just remarkable recall. The article continues:
Mr Fischer said he did not agree with much of Mr Whitlam's politics, but he respected his deep knowledge of the Riverina and also of military history, including the life and work of Sir John Monash—
who, of course, Tim Fischer is so deeply fond of.
I would also like to quote some of the Labor members of the Riverina, one of whom is my great mate Peter Knox. Peter never agrees with anything I say and nothing I ever do, but he is a great Labor member. I tell you what, if ever the Labor Party wanted to acknowledge somebody with life membership or something in the party, then Peter Knox is that person. He said, 'Gough with the was the reason I joined the Labor Party in 1972.' Mr Knox said he met Mr Whitlam on several occasions and was in awe of him. When he heard the news he said that it was a very big shock—even at his age. And it was a very big shock; the fact that Mr Whitlam passed away on 21 October 2014 at the grand old age of 98. I think he was one of those ageless figures who we all thought would just live on forever. None of us really expected him to go.
When Gough Whitlam visited Wagga Wagga on 15 January 1974, former Wagga Wagga deputy mayor, Mary Kidson, recalls being struck by a very tall and articulate man who made a captivating speech. He was one of those people who could really command an audience. I never met him, but certainly from seeing documentaries on television and reading a lot about him, he was one of those people who had presence. Mary Kidson told how fond she was of him and certainly of her great memories of him.
John Sullivan, who was the Country Party member for Riverina from 1974 to 1977 and who, even though he is an octogenarian, is still contributing greatly to public life as a councillor for Narrandera Shire Council recalled that he was in parliament at the time when Mr Whitlam was. He said:
We've lost one of the great characters of the Australian parliament and a prime minister that will be remembered for a long, long time.
We had a great rapport and I thought very highly of him.
I think that probably stretches across the bounds of parliament, the fact of that great respect that people had. We heard it last week in the condolence motion by the Prime Minister and others on this side for Mr Whitlam. Mr Sullivan continues:
I didn't appreciate some of his actions as leader of the Labor Party but as a man, he was very good.
There are others: Glenn Elliott-Rudder, who I bumped into at the shopping centre yesterday, described Mr Whitlam as a man of vision with a positive outlook. Indeed, he certainly was. Dan Hayes, the young president of Country Labor's Wagga Wagga branch said that the death of Mr Whitlam marked a sad day for the party. It was a sad day for the ALP, but it was also a day when we could celebrate the life of Mr Whitlam and, certainly, the great difference and transformation that he made to this nation.
I do praise Mr Whitlam for many of the things that he did, not least of which of course was also the acknowledgement that Catholic schools require funding from the Commonwealth. And I believe that he also understood regionalism—understood the great belief in decentralisation. If more members of parliament understood the great need for decentralisation the regional areas would be far stronger than they are now.
He also understood the need to have a trade relationship with China. We heard last week how he forged the way for that great relationship to occur. Australia's current ties with China have their origin in his efforts at what would have been a very difficult time. These moves laid the foundation for Australian business to establish a presence. One of the businesses that is really enjoying those links now is a company called Bee Dee Bags, which is based in Wagga Wagga. It is one of the fastest growing regional companies doing that sort of thing in Australia. 'China is going to be the economic powerhouse of the world in the future,' Bee Dee Bags founder Bruce Dicker said, and he acknowledged the role that Mr Whitlam played in that.
There are a lot of people in the Riverina—in fact, I would say most people in the Riverina—who mourn Mr Whitlam's passing, as do I. I really feel the need to pass on the condolences of all people in the Riverina for his loss and to pay respects to the surviving members of his family. May he rest in peace. Thank you for your contribution, Mr Whitlam.
Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (09:16): I am grateful for the opportunity to join others in paying respect to the life and work of Gough Whitlam and I thank all those who have shared their reflections and tributes in the course of this condolence motion. There is no escaping the fact that Whitlam is now not just a man and a Prime Minister, but a government, an idea, a symbol, an era and a legacy. That is a lot of freight to carry on the frame of one person—and yet we know that here was a person who could bear it, and we mourn his passing.
Whitlam was a Labor leader for whom no area of beneficial policy was too small or too large—from sewerage to cities; from legal aid to law reform. Others have spoken about the incredible range, speed, and courage of the Whitlam government's policy program, and of course the list of big-picture policies speaks for itself. I want to make the point that while some of Whitlam's reforms were foreshadowed, and while some of Whitlam's reforms may have occurred in any case, this measuring of preparation and possibility, of what had been started and might have been, should fall into their proper small proportion compared to what did occur and what was achieved by Gough Whitlam and his Labor government.
The Whitlam government changes that resonated for me, especially early in my personal and professional life, include the work on Aboriginal land rights and antidiscrimination, the creation of legal aid and the Law Reform Commission, the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18, the delivery of one-vote one-value reforms and the decisive shift towards a confident and distinctive Australian national identity—a place with our own stories on canvas, in print and film and our own national anthem.
As a Labor person growing up in the country, I was keenly aware of how Australia's electoral system at the state and federal level did not provide fair representation. Anyone who believes those discrepancies were minor should consider that in 1968 there were some House of Representative seats with more than 83,000 voters and some with fewer than 47,000. What Whitlam began in the early 1970s at the federal level, I am glad to say Jim McGinty continued in Western Australia some thirty years later.
As someone who trained as a lawyer and worked as the principal solicitor in a regional community legal centre, I know how much better and fairer our system became through the introduction of legal aid and through the work of the Law Reform Commission. And as a person with a deep commitment to the importance of human rights and the international rule of law, I recognise the enormous value of the Whitlam government's signing of more than 130 multilateral human rights and environmental treaties and in passing the Death Penalty Abolition Act, the Racial Discrimination Act and other laws that gave domestic force to Australia's international obligations. I honour Whitlam's attempt to introduce a Human Rights Bill—a reform whose time has well and truly come, yet a reform which remains to be secured.
I also want to say something about how change occurs. Much in the analysis of the Whitlam government and of Whitlam himself in the last week has sought to offer a balance between the momentous achievements, on the one hand, and the disruptions and drama, on the other, as if perhaps a better Prime Minister and a better government would have secured the incredible surge forward of Australia in so many areas more smoothly. This, I am afraid, is at best a lazy dualism and at worst a kind of story-telling designed to frame-out future major reform. Big change by its nature is disruptive and by its nature draws resistance. As Whitlam wrote, 'Mine was a government rich in personal and political drama,' and let us not forget that to a significant degree that drama was supplied by the obstruction and resistance of those who had a preference for the status quo, an attachment to privilege or who simply did not accept the legitimacy of a Labor government.
Through the long telescope of time, people and events become simplified and singular; they seem ordained, legendary, unbelievable. It is in the nature of history that now we see clearly the giant of Whitlam, but less clearly his colleagues and collaborators in government, and that we now mark the long shadows of Whitlam policy achievements, but hesitate, perhaps, to cast forward our own shadows.
For Labor, it seems to me that in remembering the leadership of Gough Whitlam and his cabinet colleagues, we should also remember the Nietzschean tenet that 'one repays a teacher badly if one remains nothing but a pupil'. One of the Whitlam lessons must surely be that each of us, and all of us collectively, have the opportunity to make our own contribution by looking forward, not backward, as we fight on our principles and values for positive change.
Like many Labor people I was privileged to meet Gough and Margaret—of course the telescope has to be wide enough for Margaret too, for she is Whitlam as much as Gough.
I would like to finish by saying that Gough Whitlam was a lovely man—always welcoming and interested, always encouraging and generous and good humoured. It was in the core of his being to give of himself, to impart some of his optimism and energy to those he met, just as he poured his optimism and energy into the course-changing government that he led, a government whose wellspring flows strongly in Australia today.
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (09:21): It is a privilege to deliver a very, very brief anecdote about my opportunity to meet Gough Whitlam. It begins with the observation that probably the lowest act of any hospital house officer is to switch off your pager—stop taking calls from the hospital—and then switch it on a few hours later and hand it over to your colleague who is taking over and tell you it has been a terribly busy shift and you have been unable to do all the work. I have to confess that the day Mr Whitlam was admitted to my hospital for a very brief stay I did that and spent three hours talking to Mr Whitlam. I am sure that my successor will forgive me on this one occasion for not doing my work during that shift. As I was warned in hushed tones by the ward staff as I went upstairs at St Luke's hospital in Sydney: 'Please go and admit Mr Smith, but by the way it's Mr Whitlam,' I could see administrative staff scurrying up from the ground floor where Margaret was dealing with all the paperwork. Many of them were quite daunted by the prospect of dealing with her.
Obviously, when I went in I was very trepid. I asked if I could have a bit of a chat. Mr Whitlam was very accommodating. I offered him a later time, but he said, 'No, no, let's have a chat now.' That was about 6 pm, and we chatted for about three hours. It was probably the longest admission I have ever done, but it was an absolute privilege to hear a complete history of Australian banking reform going back to the early 20th century. I realised as I walked in the room that he was seated on a hospital bed, looking very fit, and that even seated on the bed he was taller than me. I remember that my first political memory was when I was six years of age being hunched over a short-wave wireless radio on a tiny island off the coast of Papua New Guinea and my ashen faced mother looked up and said to me, 'Darling, Mr McMahon has lost.' That is one of the first political memories I have. Obviously it heralded the Whitlam era, for most of which I was overseas.
I guess, when I walked into that hospital room, I sense he could pick a Tory a mile off, with my haircut, distressed denim and pointy shoes, although today he would have a lot of trouble spotting his Labor colleagues as being Tories, sometimes. Basically, he explained his view of the world. It was impressive for me, being a super specialist trainee focused on one or two textbooks, to see a man who could cast his considerable intellect over a range of topics and talk about them almost indefinitely. That has been described before in this place.
He made an observation about Queensland which I loved, about his relationship with Joh Bjelke-Petersen. He did work in a bipartisan way, even with Joh, to get the South Bank cultural centre and museum off the ground. He remarked ironically then that, really, Joh should have named at least one of those great sandstone buildings on the Brisbane River after him, so there was little hint of political naivete, if not overoptimism.
He talked about a range of topics. He was generous in his discussions of other leaders who have followed him. He spoke at great length about people like Bob Hawke and Paul Keating in particular. I felt a little bit humbled to be listening even to those kinds of observations, which were incredibly frank and blunt. This was the measure of a person who spoke without any fear. He was a person who did that through his career, to the benefit of many. He would walk into a room and everyone would notice him and, I think, also enjoy and cherish every minute they spent with him.
There is an oft used and somewhat tired Shakespearian quote that 'the evil men do live after them and the good is oft interred with their bones', but I think even on this side one would have to confess that the great stuff that Whitlam achieved lives on even now and, in many ways, many of the things that we were most angry about at the time seem to have faded away. If that is a measure of his brief but luminous contribution then he has done a wonderful job as a former Prime Minister and we recognise him.
Mr KELVIN THOMSON (Wills) (09:25): It is a great pleasure and privilege to be able to pay tribute to the life and work of Edward Gough Whitlam and to extend my condolences on behalf of the people of Wills to his surviving family members.
Gough Whitlam was a towering figure in Australian political life. I think he was the greatest man that the Australian Labor Party has ever produced, and I think that he was the most influential Prime Minister during the course of the past 50 years. To listen to the speeches from both sides of the House you get a sense of modern Australian political history being divided into before 1972 and after 1972.
He did this after enlisting in the RAAF during the Second World War, which was of course a very dangerous thing to do. My father's brother, John, after whom I have my middle name, did the same thing but did not return. In 1972 I was a year 12 student and I had a bright orange 'It's time' sticker on my schoolbag. I remember after the election one of my school mates said that he too was delighted that Gough had won the election but believed that Gough would not be able to abolish conscription or take us out of Vietnam any time soon. I was crestfallen by this Realpolitik but delighted when something like 24 hours later Gough's two-man cabinet did precisely that.
His leadership and vision for Australia were the key things that inspired me to join the Australian Labor Party back in 1974. That was against the run of play—because, of course, his government was thrown out in no uncertain manner in 1975. But I believe that his legacy has proved to be so longstanding that he can lay claim to being the most influential Prime Minister and political leader of our generation. It is such a monumental body of work that I cannot do it justice here, but I do want to mention a number of aspects to it.
The first is the introduction of free tertiary education, which made such a difference in the lives of so many young Australians. The more I look at this and the more I think about it the more I think that it was a mistake for us to move away from that. The second is Medibank, which of course was the predecessor of Medicare, which gave Australia quite possibly the world's finest health system in which everybody, rich and poor alike, has guaranteed access to high-quality healthcare. The third is environment protection. Gough took Australia into the realm of national environment protection, moving to protect the Great Barrier Reef from oil drilling; introducing the World Heritage Convention to Australia and ratifying that; ratifying the Ramsar convention; and legislating for the National Parks and Wildlife Act. Another is the area of Indigenous affairs, with the passing of legislation to ban discrimination against Aboriginal people and establishing land rights and native title and returning land in the Northern Territory to the Gurindji people.
People will always draw on the aspects of someone's legacy that are consistent with their own views—and I am no different in that. I want to draw attention to the fact that, in 1974, he wrote that population growth was first amongst those issues which was leading to traditional forms of democratic government being under challenge. In July 1974 he said: 'I do not envisage any dramatic increase in our present population and, indeed, I would not wish to see one.'
No doubt he made mistakes, but the fact is that anyone who is Prime Minister makes thousands of decisions, and it is not possible to make thousands of decisions without doing that. You have to see his political circumstances against the background of coming to office after 23 years in opposition, bumping up against very entrenched forms of opposition in the public service and, indeed, right throughout Australian political life. You also have to have regard to his coming into office during that period of the OPEC oil shock in 1974 which generated unemployment and inflation throughout the Western world. Indeed, very few leaders who were unlucky enough to be in power at that time survived for very long after. He had titanic struggles with Malcolm Fraser. I can remember United States political commentators and analysts at the time remarking on the abilities of Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser and lamenting the fact they did not seem to have people of comparable political stature or calibre in their own country.
The best thing we can do to honour Gough's work and legacy is to do everything that we can to protect it, whether it is access to tertiary education, access to health care, environment protection affairs or the rights of Aboriginal people. But more than all those things, we should seek to honour the idea of politics as an honourable profession. Gough Whitlam would never have dreamt of a political career as a stepping stone to a cushy corporate job, post-politics. The idea of taking on a job as a corporate lobbyist or company director would have been anathema to him. What he did was go into public life because he believed in the capacity of individuals and of governments to make a difference—to improve people's lives and leave an Australia which was improved for the better. It is often said that everything we achieve, we achieve by standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. This was never more true than of Edward Gough Whitlam.
Mr WYATT (Hasluck) (09:31): I wish to associate myself with the comments of those who have spoken on the condolence motion to honour Edward Gough Whitlam ACQC, who was Australia's 21st prime minister. I offer my condolences to Gough and Margaret's children, Nicholas, Tony, Stephen and Catherine. Having lost my own father, I am acutely aware of the gap the loss of a parent means.
In death we celebrate the qualities of an individual. We acknowledge the achievements they made and the strides they undertook in order to reform and reflect a contemporary Australia.
In Aboriginal affairs there are three men who stand out significantly as being major reformers in Aboriginal affairs and the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people receive services and programs to enhance their quality of life. There was the Hon. Fred Chaney and the Hon. Ian Viner; but Gough, particularly, was held in hero status by many Indigenous Australians.
The Whitlam government Indigenous affairs policy area was the most transformational change; it changed the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were engaged in issues affecting their lives.
Let me cite a couple of quotes. These quotes are not untypical of those I have heard over the last week:
Mr Whitlam was a great friend of Aboriginal people and the land councils in the Northern Territory.
That was Samuel Bush-Blanasi, Northern Land Council chairman. Maurie Ryan, grandson of Vincent Lingiari, said:
He is part of our folklore, he will be remembered for hundreds of years.
Galarrwuy Yunupingu said:
In his time as Prime Minister Mr Whitlam was a great friend to Indigenous Australians. He always acted in a direct and determined way to resolve issues.
Many others have made similar comments across the nation.
From the perspective of the Aboriginal community, the Whitlam government established a policy of self-determination whereby the Commonwealth supported decision-making by Indigenous communities themselves. They relinquished the paternalistic control that previous governments had wielded over the lives of Indigenous people. Indigenous Australians welcomed the Whitlam government's empowerment of Indigenous people and the opportunity to make input into policy-making, and the abolition of discriminatory practices that limited their freedoms and opportunities. It was interesting when Gough Whitlam, in his 1972 election campaign speech, made it very clear that one of his focus areas would be to remedy the context and situation in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people found themselves. He gave an undertaking that he would reform many of the practices and also put into place a way of doing things for Australian governments that would be very different to that of the past.
The establishment of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs meant that for the first time there was a concerted focus by government on the range of issues that impacted on the lives of Indigenous Australians. The Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health was established as a small unit within the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and later on was transferred to Health, where it has become a significant structure that supports Aboriginal community controlled health services, state and Territory governments and Aboriginal communities in the work that is being undertaken to provide quality health care and services that will close the gap in life.
The establishment of Absec and Abstudy ensured that many young Aboriginal people across this nation could access secondary education to the end of year 12. Abstudy provided a pathway into tertiary studies that saw many graduate from university with degrees who would, in the future, hold leadership places. I think of Lowitja O'Donoghue, Charlie Perkins and many others who, through the university pathway, became great leaders who shaped the thinking of many governments. The other element that was important in the Whitlam era, and which is often cited in many of the interactions I have with Aboriginal people and organisations, was that it was the government that established the national Aboriginal council. The council is not just one individual advising government, but a number of people. Guidance to the government was sourced not from one or two, but from many. The practice in our society, in our Australian community, is to seek the views of so many in shaping policy and direction. That has always been a strength Aboriginal people saw in the Whitlam era. That is why there is often that association—that Aboriginal people tend to vote for Labor—because they saw it as a period in which they became a significant part of the agenda. They became a significant part of shaping their destiny and their future in concert with governments and government agencies. That tradition has been carried on and we now see a diversification of the political structures in Aboriginal society, which is in a sense a normalisation that you would expect when there is a bipartisan approach to the way we now deal with those areas where there are still gaps.
The thing that stuck most in my mind was in 1975 when Gough Whitlam returned land to the Gurindji people, which had been denied them in the 1971 Gove land rights decision. His famous hand gesture of pouring sand into Lingiari's hand was intended to symbolically reverse a similar act in 1834 when John Batman received sand poured into his hand by an Aboriginal elder when they struck their treaty in Melbourne, which was later seen to be not of consequence.
During the Whitlam era, Aboriginal affairs saw some significant changes in Aboriginal people's psyche; we engaged and walked with all Australians as equals. If I look back, from where we are now, to the period of the seventies, I can see that the relationships—the partnering and the friendships, the work that is being done, the economic enhancement that has occurred, the educational opportunities—have been significantly enriched. When you plant a small seed—and it grows into something big for others to follow and to implement—change becomes much more significant.
Our current Prime Minister and the previous Prime Ministers' commitment to constitutional recognition is a process emanating out of the period of the Whitlam government in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities found themselves to be an integral part of the society in which they lived. I recall all of this because I was part of the leadership fights. We had to fight for reform. We had to fight for the changes that were needed.
We also had to fight for an equal place at the table where our views could be accepted. I remember sitting at a table and asking a question about Aboriginal health. There were doctors on both sides. The answer given was not given to me. The doctor who gave the answer looked directly at his medical counterpart on our side of the table, four people away from me, and gave him the answer. So when he finished I said to him: 'Can I ask you the question again.' And he looked at me and said, 'I have given the answer.' I said, 'No, you did not give me the answer. You gave the answer to my colleague.' I think we have moved on from that time. Now, when you ask a question, the answer is given directly to you. Communities are finding that is much more the case now than it ever was. The paternalistic approaches that prevailed in our history changed when Gough Whitlam implemented Aboriginal affairs programs.
On behalf of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, I would like to acknowledge the contribution that Gough Whitlam made—the work that he did to transform the future, the work that led to many of the changes that we now take for granted. As I said, if I look back over the last 40 years at the changes and the differences that are felt and experienced in many Aboriginal communities—although they are still problematic in some areas—where we are now is far superior to where we were in 1972.
So I salute Gough Whitlam and I certainly salute all of those who were part of his journey and the contribution he made to the history of this nation. Thank you.
Mr MARLES (Corio) (09:41): It is an honour to be speaking in this condolence motion for Gough Whitlam. In doing so, I extend my sympathies to Gough and Margaret Whitlam's children and their extended family. There is obviously an enormous sadness that comes with death, but Gough Whitlam's life is a life to be celebrated. It was a huge and a long one.
On 22 July in 1967 the Corio by-election occurred in Geelong. Gough Whitlam had been the leader of the opposition for less than six months. The Labor candidate in that by-election was Gordon Scholes, a man who was 36 at the time, a train driver and the president of Geelong Trades Hall. The long-time Liberal member for Corio, Hubert Opperman, the very famous Australian cyclist—who was the Minister for Immigration in the Menzies and Holt governments—had retired to become the High Commissioner to Malta, and that triggered this by-election. It was the first federal election that Gough faced as the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the Labor Party.
Gough came down to Geelong 10 days before the by-election and spent the full 10 days in Geelong with his whole office and campaign team, marking out the kind of electioneer which he would be regarded in the future as having been. Incidentally, I was born nine days prior to that event, which means that Gough arrived in Geelong before me. So, when I came to Geelong, I found Gough enthroned in my home town. The reason for Gough's effort in relation to this by-election was that Labor had suffered an enormous defeat in the 1966 election; this was the first test for Gough as the Leader of the Opposition. So it mattered.
What emanated from that effort was an 11 per cent swing to Labor. Gough was embraced by the people of Geelong, as was Gordon Scholes. Corio came back to Labor hands for the first time in a number of decades, and it can be argued that this was the first electoral step that Gough took towards that day in December 1972—when it was, indeed, time.
Gough retained an abiding affection for Geelong—as he did for Gordon Scholes, who played his own role in Gough's story, as a predecessor of yours, Madam Speaker, on the 11th of November 1975. In a glittering career, one of Gough's greatest achievements was that he became, as Prime Minister, the No. 1 ticket holder of the Geelong Football Club. He returned to Geelong on numerous occasions after that first by-election—indeed, part of the story I am recounting I heard from the great man himself when he was in Geelong in 1997 addressing the Geelong West Football Club on the 30th anniversary of the Corio by-election.
If Gough embodied anything, it was modernity. He inherited a party that had split a dozen years before he became the leader. Indeed, he witnessed that split. He rebuild the party after the split and dragged to Labor into the second half of the 20th century, making us a modern party that was competitive and able to win an election. But that was reflected in the way in which he also was the emblem of modernity for Australia itself. The country he inherited at the end of 23 years of one-party rule was perhaps a country that was going through the stalest part of its democracy. Indeed, there cannot have been a less active and more stale period in this place than in the term of office from 1969 to 1972, when there was no legislative program. In fact, the speech that was made by the then Governor-General outlining the government's program after the 1969 election lasted precisely for one minute and a quarter—by today's standards that speech, outlining that term in government, was a shortened 90-second statement!
That was the country that Gough inherited. But with that, he embodied a whole range of new initiatives: in relation to opening up our higher education system to a whole range of people who had never had that opportunity before; making sure that women's place within our society, our community and our economy was where it should be; seeking to recognise China and to have a more modern outlook in our relationship with Asia; and repairing, as we have just heard from the member for Hasluck—or beginning the process of repairing—the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. I could go on, and each of these achievements have been spoken of at length by those in this debate, as is right and proper.
But there is one aspect which I do want to focus on in relation to that legacy, and that is in respect of Gough's view of regional Australia. We have heard a number of speeches about Gough being of Western Sydney and understanding the basic importance of infrastructure in our suburbs and in regional Australia. It is often perhaps most embodied by the step that Gough took in establishing the Albury-Wodonga Corporation, but in Geelong Gough was utterly pivotal in ensuring that the next university in the state of Victoria would be based in Geelong, which is what ultimately occurred with the establishment of Deakin University. But for Gough, Deakin would not have been in Geelong.
Gough saw that regional cities should be places where there are universities, where there are public services and where there are regional economies in their own right, such that Australia grows beyond simply being a series of city states. This was a grand vision, which is absolutely embraced by regional Australia today.
So, for Gough, Geelong was the embodiment of the kind of Australia that he wanted to see. And as Geelong goes through difficult times today, Gough's vision remains for us a beacon of hope about the kind of prosperous future we can achieve.
Mr WHITELEY (Braddon) (09:48): Madam Speaker, I do thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning on the passing of the honourable Gough Whitlam AC, QC, the 21st Prime Minister of this great country.
As the elected member for Braddon I represent everyone in this place. It is my job to give everybody a voice so, notwithstanding that my electorate were very divided politically during the historical constitutional events of 1975, it is more than appropriate for me to pay tribute to Gough Whitlam's passionate public service.
On behalf of the Braddon electorate I do convey our condolences to the family of Mr Whitlam. While many in this place and in the community have spoken great things about the man, his passing will nonetheless be a time of great sadness for his family, who have lost not just their father but their mother in very recent years.
When Mr Whitlam passed away last week, this parliament and the media were flooded with stories of Gough's wit, his wisdom and humour. It seemed that everyone had a personal story of Gough and they seemingly cherished the opportunity to tell it.
I, like many in parliament, was young—not as young as the member who spoke before me!—I was 15 and in my last year of high school, when the events that Gough is perhaps most famous for transpired—obviously, that was on Remembrance Day 1975. But I do remember a towering giant of a man: a statesman; and man who appeared to me to have presence, great wit, great intelligence and, despite any political differences that I may have grown to have, a man who one could not do anything but admire.
I did come to admire this man—not necessarily for his politics or for his time in office, but for the way he handled his dismissal and as the years rolled on. I have heard many people talk of Gough's upbringing, of his entry into politics, of his conviction and his government's success—or otherwise. There is much to be said about a person's convictions and their willingness to come to this place and to act on those convictions in a meaningful and tangible way. But, of course—for all of us—strength of conviction and an array of new ideas alone is not enough to govern a nation. And this, no doubt, is where political historians will do battle for many years to come.
Some in this place have spoken much about the Australia he inherited. But much could be spoken about the Australia he left. But that is not for today. Rather, I will confine my brief comments now to my observations of Gough and Margaret Whitlam in the years following his dismissal.
Too often history is littered with fallen political leaders beset with hatred, bitterness and malice. This was not so, however, with either Gough or Margaret Whitlam. I do not doubt for a moment that in the days and weeks and years that followed the dismissal, leading eventually to his resignation from the parliament in 1978, that Gough and Margaret felt a sense of deep hurt and disappointment in what had happened, and I am sure that forgiveness did not quite stretch far enough to reach the Governor-General of the day. However, it seemed to me that Gough did not allow these events to dampen his convictions or to cease in his contribution to Australian society. This attitude, it seems to me, was a testament to the strength of his character and allowed the legend of Gough to flourish, along with his sense of humour, his wit and his wisdom, as I said earlier. For me, though, his legacy in many areas of public policy will be debated for decades—and that is okay; that is politics.
But I do believe there is one characteristic of Mr Whitlam's life about which there appears to be agreement across the political divide, and that is his loyalty. What tremendous loyalty this man showed, over 70 years, to the love of his life. What tremendous loyalty this man showed to his children and those close to him. What loyalty this man showed to his mates in the 13 Squadron of the RAAF. But what stood out for me, as a member of parliament in both the Tasmanian parliament and, more recently, here, is that Gough Whitlam remained loyal to the political party that enabled him to become their leader and ultimately their Prime Minister. Through thick and thin, he was loyal to 'the one that brought him'. He stuck around as Leader of the Opposition after the massive and, in my view, justifiable rejection of his government by the Australian people. Following yet another defeat, he chose to move on from the rancour of this place, but he always found it in him to stand by future Labor leaders and prime ministers. I am sure there were many times when he would have privately cursed as he watched Labor prime ministers to come, like Hawke and Keating, in some way deconstruct his legacy. He could have chosen the path of bitterness, irrelevance and obscurity, but he did not. Gough Whitlam was a loyal Labor man dedicated to the cause of the party and always willing to stand up and be counted for his party when it counted. Ironically, this stands in stark contrast to the man who took the Prime Ministership from him on that eventful day in November 1975.
Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (09:54): GK Chesterton once said:
Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.
Progressives are at our best when our reforms draw out the golden threads of history. The notion that society is a contract between the past, the present and unborn generations is as powerful a guide for progressives as it is for those on the other side of politics.
No-one better understood the value of tradition than Gough Whitlam. When Prime Minister McMahon set the date for the 1972 election as 2 December, Whitlam noted that it was the anniversary of the 1805 Battle of Austerlitz, when Napoleon defeated the Russian and Austrian armies. It was, he said, 'a date on which a crushing defeat was administered to a coalition—another ramshackle, reactionary coalition.'
Gough knew his history. Visiting Australia in 1974, Gore Vidal was struck to meet a Prime Minister who took issue with the historical accuracy of Vidal's novel about the Roman Emperor Julian. 'It was,' Vidal later noted, 'an unusual experiment for Australia to choose as its Prime Minister its most intelligent man.' As Julia Gillard noted in her 2011 Whitlam oration, Whitlam, like his near namesake Whitman, could well have said, 'I am large, I contain multitudes.'
Gough Whitlam sought to change Australia but to do so from the standpoint of a deep understanding of the past. As he put it:
Rather than discard our authentic traditions, we want to restore and invigorate them. … Rather than overturn the true values of Australian society, we want to resurrect and foster those values.
Whitlam saw Australia not as a fearful fortress but as a proud nation with much to offer the world. He secured independence for Papua New Guinea and he cut Australian tariffs by 25 per cent—the beginning of the end for the old McEwenist policy of 'protection all round'. John Button said that Gough would often remark, 'When I opened China to the world.'
Gough Whitlam was no pacifist. The day after Pearl Harbor, he signed up for the Air Force, and he flew hundreds of reconnaissance, escort and bombing missions. But he knew the limits of our military action, and one of his first acts as Prime Minister was to withdraw our remaining troops from Vietnam, a conflict he described as 'disastrous and deluded'. Whitlam was proud of his nation, but he embodied the distinction that George Orwell drew between nationalism and patriotism. You can love your country, Orwell averred, without needing to claim it as better than all the others.
There was a central value that drove the Whitlam government. It was egalitarianism. Speaking in Ballarat in 1973, Whitlam said:
Egalitarianism—by whatever name we call it—is at the heart of the Australian tradition.
Whitlam agreed with Doc Evatt's view that 'Australian democracy was born at Eureka' and noted the 'auspicious coincidence' that the Whitlam government was elected the day before the 118th anniversary of Eureka. He put egalitarianism into action through universal health care, the Schools Commission, the World Heritage conventions, the Trade Practices Act, the Racial Discrimination Act, the land rights deal that led Vincent Lingiari to say, 'We're all mates now,' and sewering Western Sydney, which he said made us the world's 'most "effluent" nation'. He abolished imperial honours, and, as the Deputy Prime Minister noted last week, no-one would today imagine reintroducing knights and dames!
Paul Keating called the Whitlam government 'the resparking of Australian social experimentation', which was snuffed out prematurely with Gallipoli and Flanders. Whitlam's term in government was too short. If he had won in 1969—if Don's Party had had a happy ending—then Whitlam would have had three easy years to implement his social agenda. But his government had to face a major global crisis. It seems to happen to Labor governments. James Scullin was sworn in two days before the stock market crash. John Curtin was elected two months before Pearl Harbor. Kevin Rudd was elected a year before the global financial crisis. Gough Whitlam faced the oil shocks and the challenge of stagflation. Any analysis of that government's economic record must take the world economy into account. In Manning Clark's words, Whitlam was an 'enlarger', not a 'straitener'. Keating called him Fabius Maximus, Hawke called him Prima Donna Assoluta, and, yes, he is the only former Prime Minister with a prominent rock band named after him.
But he was always looking to do more. The to-do list he left us includes a republic, a human rights bill, fixed four-year terms and more work on the reconciliation journey.
The SPEAKER: It being 10 o'clock, the honourable member is interrupted. In accordance with the resolution agreed earlier, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.
PETITIONS
Dr JENSEN (Tangney) (10:00): On behalf of the Standing Committee on Petitions, and in accordance with standing order 207, I present the following petitions:
Falun Gong
To the Honourable Members of the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled:
This petition of certain citizens and residents of Australia draws to the attention of the House that Falun Gong is a peaceful meditation practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Falun Gong practitioners in China have been subjected to the most brutal and relentless persecution by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999, causing thousands to lose their lives from arbitrary detention and systematic torture. According to investigative reports published by human rights lawyer David Matas and former Secretary of State; David Kilgour, tens of thousands of illegally imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to forced organ harvesting for China's transplant market and lost their lives ( www.organharvestinvestigation.net).
We therefore ask the House to request the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister to openly and forthrightly call for an immediate end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China.
from 8,194 citizens
Asylum Seekers: Children
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of Christian Australian residents, draws to the attention of the House:
It is a well-attested fact that children held in detention for long periods suffer disproportionately from mental illness and high degrees of anxiety. Furthermore, the longer detention lasts, the greater is the proportion of those who develop these symptoms. We therefore request the House to:
Remove, as a matter of urgency, all children, together with their accompanying parents, from off-shore detention facilities, and that they be re-settled in the Australian community while their claims are being processed. We commend the Government for recent decisions regarding children in on-shore detention, and request that equal treatment be afforded to those on Christmas Island, Manus Island and Nauru.
from 175 citizens
Medicare
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This Petition of certain residents of the Federal division of Hotham and surrounding areas draws to the attention of the House the Abbott government's consistent attacks on Medicare. Petitioners note:
The Abbott Government is introducing a $7 GP tax every time people see the doctor. The Abbott government is imposing a $5 hike on the price of prescriptions.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Representatives calls on the government to abandon these new taxes and cease its attacks on Medicare.
from 4,395 citizens.
Petitions received.
PETITIONS
Responses
Pacific Haven: NBN tower
Dear Dr Jensen
Thank you for your letter dated 14 July 2014, concerning a petition lodged with the Standing Committee on Petitions regarding a proposed National Broadband Network (NBN) tower in Pacific Haven, Queensland.
I have separately addressed the various matters raised in the petition. It should be noted that NBN Co Limited (NBN Co) was consulted on these matters and that information provided by NBN Co is reflected in my response.
Planning processes
Approvals for the installation of freestanding towers, such as the proposed tower at 300 Pacific Haven Circuit, Pacific Haven in Queensland, are subject to state and territory government planning laws. Planning laws generally require a development application to be submitted to the local council and for the council to consult on the application. Any objections to the development application should be made in accordance with the relevant state and local government requirements. The Commonwealth government does not have the power to intervene in state, territory and local government planning processes.
NBN Co has advised that it held an informal information session for the Pacific Haven community on 12 June 2014 which was attended by about 30 community members. NBN Co has further advised that, as required by Queensland planning law, a further statutory consultation process took place in August 2014.
I would expect any potential impacts on property land values and road safety resulting from the construction of the tower to be considered as part of the planning processes.
Investigation of alternative sites
Site selection is an operational matter for carriers, including NBN Co. In selecting a site for a tower, a range of factors are considered including the area to be covered, its geography and the availability of suitable sites. The facilities need to be located close to the community they are servicing.
NBN Co has advised that it undertook an analysis of alternative sites, as requested by local residents. Five alternative sites were considered. NBN Co considered that these alternative sites did not present a better planning outcome. Potentially detrimental outcomes included minor to significant loss of service coverage area and reduced signal quality from the tower. That said, to address residents' concerns, I understand that NBN Co sought the permission of the land owner to install the proposed facility a further 40 metres from the front of the property.
Visual impacts
NBN Co seeks to strike a balance between providing valuable communications services and minimising any visual impacts on the community and local environment. NBN Co fixed wireless towers need to be located in, or near, the area for which they are designed to provide service coverage. While radio antennas need to be elevated above their surroundings to provide reliable, unbroken, communications, NBN Co proposes and designs its facilities to the minimum height necessary to provide good service to the local community. Subject to operational needs, NBN Co also seeks to maximise the distance of its proposed facility from the nearest adjoining land owners, so as to reduce any visual intrusion. NBN Co also seeks to take advantage of screening that can be provided by mature vegetation. Ultimately, concerns such as these need to be considered during planning processes.
Health concerns
The Australian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), within the Health portfolio, is the government agency responsible for advising about EME emissions. ARPANSA sets public health standards for exposure to EME. The relevant ARPANSA standard is the Radiation Protection Standard for Maximum Exposure Levels to Radiofrequency Fields — 3kHz to 300GHz (2002) (the ARPANSA Standard).
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) radiocommunications licensing regime obligates licensees of radio transmitters to ensure that their facilities do not exceed general public exposure limits of the ARPANSA Standard at publicly accessible places. All fixed wireless base stations in Australia must comply with ARPANSA exposure limits.
The ARPANSA exposure limits are set well below the level at which adverse health effects are known to occur. The ARPANSA Standard is based upon international best practice and is consistent with guidelines published by the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) which have been adopted by many countries.
Fixed wireless base stations produce low EME levels in the everyday environment. Sample signal measurements of typical transmitter sites indicate ground-level signals are a very low percentage of the ARPANSA Standard limits. ARPANSA advises that the standards are applicable for all types of radio transmission within stated frequency limits, including wireless broadband technologies.
Before wireless base stations are built, carriers produce a report that shows the predicted maximum levels of EME at ground level around the new facility. The Radio Frequency National Archive website at www.rfnsa.com.au contains an interne archive of fixed wireless base stations and radiocommunication facilities in Australia. The predicted maximum level of exposure from the proposed facility has been calculated at 0.042 per cent of that allowed under the ARPANSA Standard. A copy of the report is attached for the information of the committee. It should be noted that predicted EME levels are for a base station operating at its highest capacity and assumes that all transmitters are working at full rated power. In reality, base stations typically operate below full rated power levels.
ARPANSA has produced a factsheet on NBN wireless base stations and health. A copy of the factsheet is also attached for the committee's information and is available at www.arpansa.gov.au/RadiationProtection/Factsheets/is_nbn.cfm.
ARPANSA maintains continual oversight of emerging research into the potential health effects of EME emission in order to provide accurate and up-to-date advice to the government and the Australian people. ARPANSA published a report on its recent expert review of EME exposure literature in March 2014. The review found that the exposure limits in the ARPANSA Standard continue to provide a high degree of protection against the known health effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. Should scientific evidence indicate that the current ARPANSA Standard does not adequately protect the health of Australians, THE Government would take immediate action to rectify the situation.
Further information about EME is available at
www.acma.gov.au/theACMA/electromagnetic-radiation, which is a site managed by the ACMA. If the committee or petitioners wish to contact ARPANSA they can do so via www.arpansa.gov.au or by telephone on 1800 022 333.
Thank you for bringing this petition to my attention. I trust my reply will be conveyed to the residents of Pacific Haven.
from the Minister for Communications, Mr Turnbull
Medicare
Dear Dr Jensen
Thank you for your correspondence of 3 September 2014 (Ref: 958/1427) regarding the measures announced in the 2014-15 Budget measure to strengthen Medicare.
I acknowledge the issues raised in the petition and particularly the concern that the patient contribution measure will mean that families and pensioners will pay more for their health care. I trust the following information will be of assistance.
The government is determined to strengthen Medicare and to make our health system sustainable. This is particularly important given the ageing of our population and the costs of listing new medicines and public hospital funding at record levels.
In 2004, we were spending $8 billion on Medicare, today the figure is $19 billion and, without policy change, it is projected to climb to $34 billion in ten years' time. That is an 80 per cent increase.
The government tasked the National Commission of Audit to undertake an across the board examination of government spending and to make recommendations to ensure appropriate targeting of government programmes. The government is carefully considering all recommendations of the commission's report.
The commission looked closely at the current Medicare arrangements and reached some conclusions about what would need to be done in order to preserve Australians' access to affordable, high quality health care. Expenditure under Medicare has grown rapidly over the last decade, increasing 124 per cent in the last ten years. Further, in 2013-14, 275 million services were provided free to patients in a population of only 23 million.
The government has moved in the 2014-15 budget to put health expenditure on a more sustainable footing, to ensure that Australia can continue to afford a strong Medicare system. From 1 July 2015, all patients will be asked to directly contribute to their own health care costs. While the government will continue to subsidise a majority of the costs of Medicare services, the rebate for most GP and out-of-hospital pathology and diagnostic imaging services will be reduced by $5.00.
Previously bulk-billed patients can expect to make a contribution of at least $7.00 to the cost of most visits to the GP and for out-of-hospital pathology and diagnostic imaging services. Doctors will be paid a low gap incentive - equivalent to the current bulk-billing incentive - to encourage them to charge Commonwealth Concession Card holders and children under 16 years no more than the $7.00 contribution for ten visits in a calendar year. After the patient contribution has been paid ten times, the Medicare rebate is increased by $5.00 and the doctor will be paid an incentive if they provide the service to the concessional patient for free.
Bulk-billing will still be available to doctors to apply at their discretion (as is the case today) to patients who cannot afford the $7.00 patient contribution.
Savings from the budget measure will be directed to the Medical Research Future Fund to ensure Australia can continue to advance world leading medical research projects, attract and retain first class researchers and ultimately deliver improved health outcomes for all Australians.
More information about the budget measure is available at:
www.health.qov.au/ internet/budget/publishinq.nsf/content/budqet2014-factsheet-strenqtheninq¬medicare.
Thank you for bringing the concerns of the persons who signed the petition to my attention.
from the Minister for Health and Sport, Mr Dutton
PETITIONS
Statements
COMMITTEES
Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry
Report
Mr RAMSEY (Grey) (10:07): I table the report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry's inquiry into country of origin food labelling, A clearer message for consumers.
There have been a number of inquiries into Australia's food labelling system in the last ten years, even though most, including the extensive Labelling logic Blewett review, have focused on a wide range of issues surrounding food labelling and safety.
When considering an inquiry topic the committee was of the opinion that while other reports had made recommendations in the area of country of origin food labelling, considerable public confusion and frustration remained and that the topic was one which was repeatedly raised by consumers on media such as talkback radio.
Accordingly the committee requested support from the ministers of industry and agriculture to mount a specific inquiry into the issue with an aim of recommending possible modifications which would provide clarification to the general public while at the same time taking great care not to inflict anticompetitive burdens on our food manufacturers and growers.
The committee agreed on 27 March to undertake an inquiry into Australia's country of origin food labelling. During the course of the inquiry the committee received 54 submissions; seven supplementary submissions; held seven public hearings in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra; and spent a day in Adelaide visiting and meeting food manufacturers to gauge their views in the workplace environment.
It became clear very early in the inquiry that the 'safe harbour' descriptors were in some cases not providing any information to the general public as to the origin of food products. While in most cases industries are complying with the law, often using the 'safe harbour' descriptors, the general public do not understand what they mean.
It was made quite clear to the committee that the country of origin of food is not overly important to many and that relevant information is considered less important on heavily processed foods. However, to a significant and important sector of the market, country of origin information is important and clear information should be provided to the consumer.
The committee was of the opinion that any country of origin food labelling regime should not present an impediment to importers and/or provide non-tariff trade protection to our industries, but it should provide clear information to consumers who wish to make an independent choice to support either Australian farmers or food manufacturers.
The committee strongly supports the current labelling system's non-prescriptive manner in the way a food manufacturer or marketer should represent a particular food's country of origin status.
Some examples include front or back of pack labelling, focus on particular regions or specific countries for the origin of selected ingredients and logos or individualised wording. These are all acceptable as long as they provide the minimum information and are not false, misleading or deceptive. Consequently, the committee has limited its suggestions for change to the country of origin labelling system to adjustments to the 'safe harbour' claims.
It is the committee's opinion that none of the recommended changes would have any significant negative impact on Australian producers or manufacturers but that the core recommendations concerning the 'safe harbour' claims will provide common sense information that consumers can understand.
At the heart of the recommendations is that each item should have a separate reference to the ingredients and the manufacture of goods. It keeps the best of what is good with the Australian country of origin statements, provides some specialised language that puts some separation between food and other products in the Australian market and most importantly addresses the confusion surrounding the 'Made in Australia' and 'Made in Australia from local and imported ingredients' descriptors.
The committee would like to express its appreciation to all who have contributed their valuable time and shared their experience with us throughout the course of the inquiry. I, and I hope the rest of my committee, will be pressuring the government to respond in a positive matter to these recommendations and adopt them.
In closing, I would particularly like to thank my committee—my deputy chair, the member for Hotham; and other members in the chamber at the moment: the member for Durack, the member for O'Connor and the member for Indi. I thank them for attending this morning and thank the rest of the members of the committee for their hard work on this inquiry.
I must say that it is one of those experiences of the parliamentary committee system where everybody in the committee was working for a common goal and worked very well and cohesively together. I would especially like to thank the secretariat—in particular, Julia Morris, Anthony Overs and Lauren Wilson, who laboured very hard over these recommendations. (Time expired)
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (10:12): I want to rise today to endorse the report that has been given by the chair of the committee. We have been working as a really cohesive and committed team for about the last six months on this very practical and very important question of how we label food so that consumers know where that food has come from. It is important for industry; it is important for farmers and all types of food producers in Australia, but most importantly it is incredibly important to Australian consumers. As the chair has noted, one of the first things that we learnt in this inquiry was that when it comes to particularly fresh food, where that food comes from is actually the single most important factor for consumers in making decisions about what it is that they buy. We know that, in an increasingly globalised world, we live in a rather strange time where things that we eat can come from just about anywhere in the world, and consumers are saying to us that it is very important to them that they know where that food comes from.
Despite the clear importance of this, one of the second things that we learnt through this process is that there is very widespread confusion about how the labelling system works so that consumers can make good choices and so that producers can make it clear where it is that food comes from. Of the issues that we heard, the first is a very practical one. Where on the packaging is the labelling of where the food comes from? We heard that there is a great many categories of how you can label food is coming from one country or another, but those categories all come with different kinds of test how the claims are satisfied. We heard that different claims could be satisfied in different ways, just adding to the confusion there. Sometimes claims have different meanings and there is quite an extensive range of issues about how labels for country of origin in Australia interact with similar systems overseas—in particular, in New Zealand.
I will provide a few examples, so those in the gallery and those at home can get a bit of a flavour for what we are talking about here. One of the common labels that we see on food is the statement 'made in Australia'. Take the apple pie, for example. What we learned through this process is that if the packaging and pastry were made in Australia but the apples were imported from China, the product could be labelled 'made in Australia'. Any normal consumer would read that and think that the key ingredient in the apple pie—apples—would have been grown in Australia, but actually that is not the case. And we know that about 70 per cent of ham and pork that is bought by Australian consumers under the label 'made in Australia' is in fact grown and reared in another country. Again, this is completely confusing and completely at odds with what the normal person would read and think. Another confusing statement that we heard a great deal about was the claim 'made in Australia from local and imported ingredients'. We know that about 90 per cent of the apple juice in Australia that has this label is made from apples that come from overseas. Again, that is not clear to consumers in the labelling.
Producers also came out in quite some force to talk to the committee about the issues that they were facing. One of the really critical and, I think, damning facts about the current system is that when we talked to food producers around the country we found that they were not using the labels that are available to them. The labels are so confusing to consumers that producers actually make up their own language that they believe that they can satisfy. We can see that when consumers are confused, when producers are not using the system, then it is a system that is fundamentally not working.
The committee have come up with a set of recommendations that we believe will clarify the situation. I will leave it to those interested to access the report, which has been so beautifully written and so well researched by those on the committee staff who helped us. I have a couple of points I would like to make in closing. I want to make a special thank you to the committee staff—some of them are here in the chamber today—to Julia Morris, Anthony Overs, Lauren Wilson, Leonie Bury and Prudence Zuber. They were exemplary in how they resourced the committee, how they explored the areas that came up in the inquiry and how perfectly organised they were. They were fantastic to work with and I think that this report is a real credit to their hard work. To the other committee members—and some of them are in the chamber today—the public do not always see these really constructive moments in the parliament and I have to say that working on this report was one of them. We all came to it with the best of intentions to try to solve this particular policy problem facing Australia. The way that we work together is something that I am very proud of.
In conclusion, thank you to the member for Grey for chairing the committee and I commend the report to the parliament.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): The time allotted for statements on this report has expired. Does the member for Grey wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on a future occasion?
Mr RAMSEY (Grey) (10:14): I move:
That the House take note of the report.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr RAMSEY (Grey) (10:18): I move:
That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.
Question agreed to.
Constitutional Recognition of ATSIP
Report
Mr WYATT (Hasluck) (10:18): On behalf of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, I present the committee's progress report on the inquiry into Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. This progress report clarifies the joint select committee's views on the words proposed by the expert panel's 2012 report to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution. Among the recommendations is that section 25 of the Constitution be repealed and that the expert panel's proposed section 127A is not inserted into the Constitution.
Following the consultations of the committee, we have found that both of these recommendations have broad community support. The task at hand is to decide how the actual recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples takes form in the Constitution and how to ensure that the wording remains technically and legally sound.
To this end, the committee recommends the repeal or amendment of section 51(xxvi) to remove the reference to race and recommends that the parliament consider three structural options for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that are set out in the report. It is the committee's strong view that any proposal must preserve both existing Commonwealth laws relying on section 51(xxvi) and the Commonwealth's power to make laws with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
National active leadership must now be shown on this issue. I congratulate and thank the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for the constructive bipartisan dialogue they have been having on this very important issue. It is time to take this step further and I urge all members and senators to learn more about the proposals contained in this progress report and become part of the process. The committee is still conducting hearings across the nation, and the more Australians encouraged to become part of the process the more successful the referenda will be.
It is important that all members and senators are empowered to become part of discussions as well, and I urge all political parties to start the discussions on constitutional recognition. Contained within this progress report is the recommendation that each house of parliament set aside a full day of sittings to debate concurrently recommendations of the joint select committee as set out in the report with a view to achieving near unanimous parliamentary support for and to build momentum towards a referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution.
Constitutional recognition is not something to be scared of. We have a real opportunity here to enact lasting historical and well overdue change to our Constitution. We cannot lose this momentum or goodwill. I repeat again: national active leadership is needed now on this issue, and I urge everyone to become part of the process that is occurring with the joint select committee. Further recommendations made in the progress report are that a referendum should take place at or shortly after the next federal election in 2016 and that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013 be extended to align with the proposed timing of a referendum.
Finally, I want to thank everyone who has made a submission to the committee at a public hearing or in writing and the secretariat staff for their hard work in putting together a very extensive consultation schedule and preparing this report. I also want to take this opportunity before the end of the year to thank the other committee members: Deputy Chair Senator Nova Peris; the Hon. Christian Porter MP; Senator Bridget McKenzie; Senator James McGrath; Mr Shayne Neumann MP; Mr Stephen Jones MP; and Senator Rachel Siewert. They have been outstanding in the way they have conducted themselves in the business of the committee. All of the committee members have approached the task ahead of them with diligence, goodwill and a deep, meaningful respect. All have acted as parliamentarians rather than politicians, which is refreshing and essential to the success of the referendum. I commend the progress report to the House.
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (10:22): The Australian Constitution is incomplete. It is unfinished business. There is a void—a hole, if you like—at its heart. George Williams, Anthony Mason Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales says:
A silence lies at the heart of the Australian constitution. The document reflects Australia's history of white settlement, but fails to mention the much longer occupation of the continent by Aboriginal peoples. It is as if their history does not matter, and is not part of the nation's story.
It is a shame, a tragedy and a disgrace, and it needs to be corrected.
Bill Shorten has talked about the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people need a place of honour in the Constitution. The opposition leader is correct. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard called it 'a great piece of unfinished national business'. The committee, in its interim report—tabled on 15 July 2014—said that a successful referendum must:
recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this country Australia;
preserve the Commonwealth's power to make laws with respect to them; and
in making laws under such a power, prevent the Commonwealth from discriminating against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The committee has travelled the countryside, and in the next couple of weeks will literally have been from the Torres Strait to Tasmania. We have had dozens of submissions in relation to this report that we are tabling here today.
We have also had the benefit of the final report of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act of Recognition Review Panel, led by former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, Ms Tanya Hosch and Mr Richard Eccles. They make the point in their report that the support for recognition awareness has actually fallen from 42 per cent to 34 per cent. In that regard, I commend the member for Hasluck in his leadership and his chairmanship of this report. He is absolutely accurate: we need political leadership from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to take this forward.
With only eight out of 44 referenda actually being put to the people successfully, we need bipartisanship, popular ownership, popular education, a sound and sensible proposal and a modern referendum process—a point Messrs Anderson, Hosch and Eccles make so clearly. The moral force of the 1967 referendum cannot be forgotten. There needs to be both symbolic change and meaningful change—or real and substantive change—and Labor remains ready, willing and available to assist the government in a bipartisan way, as we did throughout the deliberations of this committee. There must be tangible change.
As Messrs Anderson, Hosch and Eccles say in their report:
To vote to change the Constitution, Australians need to accept that there is a gap or problem presented by the current words and that the proposed change will fix it. At its core, the public needs to see that the change is worth the effort of a referendum.
… … …
Over 22% of currently enrolled voters were not of voting age at the last referendum in 1999. More than 62% of voters—
including myself—
have never voted in a successful referendum.
The possibility of racial discrimination is of critical importance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They have referred consistently in their submissions to this inquiry of the dispossession of their land, the loss of their language and the destruction of their culture since colonial settlement.
Witnesses to the inquiry referred repeatedly to the long experience of suffering racial discrimination and their desire for constitutional protection against future discrimination. They perceive real and substantive constitutional change deserving of support from all Australians as a prohibition of racial discrimination. Co-chair of the expert panel, Mr Mark Leibler AC submitted that:
At every single consultation that we held, there was a reference to substantive recognition—'We want substantive recognition.' What did that mean? It turned out that substantive recognition means something to preclude racial discrimination.
Mr Leibler submitted to our inquiry:
If we do not give effect to something that is important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, we are wasting our time to begin with.
As Mr Les Malezer, the co-chair of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, reminded me recently, 'Nothing about us without us.' Noel Pearson, says on page 65 of his quarterly essay, A rightful place:
If conservatives assert that a racial non-discrimination clause is not the answer then what is a better solution?
We have a number of options in this report.
Witnesses, in their submissions both oral and written, overwhelmingly supported a prohibition against racial discrimination and real and substantive change; getting rid of the odious and repugnant section 25; not proceeding with the expert panel's proposal on section 127A; and real change deserving of Australia's full support.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): The time allotted for statements on this report has expired. Does the honourable member for Hasluck wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on a future occasion?
Mr WYATT (Hasluck) (10:27): I move:
That the House take note of the report.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 39 the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr WYATT (Hasluck) (10:28): I move:
That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.
Question agreed to.
BILLS
Telecommunications Amendment (Giving the Community Rights on Phone Towers) Bill 2014
First Reading
Bill—by leave—and explanatory memorandum incorporating a statement of compatibility with human rights presented by Mr Wilkie.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr WILKIE (Denison) (10:29): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
There have been some constants in my four years in this role. Interestingly, one of the constants has been the problems that communities right around Australia are having with proposals for the establishment of or the change to phone towers. I have been constantly surprised at how often this has come up and the range of areas affected and the range of community groups who are disaffected by these proposals.
Within my own electorate of Denison there was a very controversial proposal to establish a very a elaborate mobile phone tower structure in Sandy Bay, which caused the community all sorts of grief. There was another phone tower erected into Taroona, which again caused the Taroona community a great amount of grief. One proposal, which took up a lot of my time and which has now been built I regret to say, was the erection of a phone tower on the old Cadbury grounds at Claremont in the north of my electorate. This was a particularly troublesome development, one that exercised the community a great deal. When I did a poll of the local community in that part of Claremont, an overwhelming majority of the community did not want that development in that location, and yet it went ahead and it is now being constructed. And even as I speak, there is another controversial proposal for a phone tower at the end of Merton Street in Glenorchy, again in the northern part of my electorate. It is quite a remarkable proposal: this phone tower will be in someone's backyard and, because of the slope of the land, the transmitting rays will literally be just outside the window of a bedroom of an adjoining house.
So there are four examples in just four years in my own electorate. It would be fair enough to assume that those sorts of problems in those sorts numbers and more are occurring in electorates right around Australia. And certainly since I have become outspoken about the issue of phone towers and the anxiety that the developments are causing many communities, I have been approached, my office has been approached, repeatedly by communities right around the country saying that there are developments in their own areas and that and no-one seems to be listening. The telcos seem to have all of the rights, councils have a few rights and the communities seem to have no rights.
Hence, in 2011 I moved a private member's bill that would give communities greater rights. But that bill went nowhere because the then Labor government did not seem to be interested in bringing it on for a debate and for a decision. Even now, with a change of government—a Liberal-National government—there seems to be little appetite for change with the new government either. I do not know what politicians think their role is if it is not to represent their community. But yet it seems in Australia that powerful companies—whether they be the banks or the supermarkets or the telecommunications companies—seem to be all powerful and they seem to be able to dangle governments on fairly short strings, almost like puppets. These big companies seem to be able to do virtually whatever they want.
I will not be deterred because the problem remains. In fact, the problem in some ways is getting worse with the rollout of many NBN towers. The problem remains that there are developments going on all the time around this country that are, for very good reasons, concerning local communities that the developments are inappropriate or in inappropriate places. Yes, we do need phone towers, but the telcos really should be considering other places to put those phone towers. They should not be in the middle of heritage areas; they should not be out the front of a primary school or an early childhood education centre.
The problem is the telcos want the cheapest location and often that is in the middle of a heritage area or out the front of a school. They want it near a road, near power; they are not prepared to pay that little bit extra to perhaps move the tower to a less than perfect or perhaps a slightly more expensive location. So the problem remains and I am moving another private member's bill, one that would give communities greater power. This is not an attempt in any way to stop the rollout of phone towers or the enhancement of existing phone towers around the country. Of course we need these things—on my desk at the moment I have an iPad, I have a smartphone; they need towers—but the issue is where do we put them and do we listen to the communities when communities have legitimate concerns about exactly where those towers are going?
That brings us to this bill, and I would just quickly explain what the bill seeks to do. For a start, it expands the number of people who would require to be notified when a telecommunications tower is proposed to be built or substantially modified. Currently only the owner or occupier of the land on which the new tower will be built must be notified, meaning that owners and occupiers of land immediately adjacent to a major development may not even know about the development until construction commences. Specifically, the bill stipulates notification of those within 500 metres of any new tower. Some people have the misplaced idea that currently there is a requirement that everyone within 100 metres of a new tower be notified, but in fact not even that is enshrined in law and is often ignored.
This bill would extend the amount of time for owners or occupiers of affected land to respond. Currently in law people are given just 10 business days to respond after being notified, and this is obviously a very difficult task for some individuals or for local landholders and even a hard task councils, which often have to consult subcommittees or hold public meetings. This bill would give people who are consulted a much fairer 30 business days to respond after being notified of a development application.
The bill would restrict the type of developments that can be declared under legislative instruments, and in particular it would restrict the low impact determination that allows new developments to avoid scrutiny under the current law.
I do acknowledge that some projects must be classified as low impact and therefore regulated federally to assist development. But there have been numerous cases where low-impact facilities have had a high impact on local communities and there has not been a need for a development application.
This bill declares that no new telecommunications tower may be categorised as low impact and that, for an extension to a tower to be declared low impact, it must not extend the height of the tower by more than one additional metre.
The bill also would remove the ability of telecommunications carriers to extend the size and capacity of towers under the guise of routine maintenance, which goes on regularly at the moment. In fact, the bill would remove the ability of carriers to extend potentially highly visible antennae without scrutiny, which they can currently do.
In regard to developments in sensitive areas, the bill requires that ACMA—communications management authority—will have to be satisfied that all alternative less sensitive sites have been looked at and have been found to be unfeasible. In any case, the authority would not be allowed to grant a permit for a new phone tower within 100 metres of a community sensitive site such as a school or local landmark.
In closing, I am not trying to shut down telcos. I am just wanting to give the community more rights. At the moment, the telcos do not need a development application for a low-impact development. Even for a high-impact development where they do need to put in a development application, councils tend to approve them because councils know that ultimately the telco has all the power and the right of appeal to ACMA and any council decision can be overturned. So no wonder some councils just roll over. They feel bullied. They feel there is no point fighting the good fight on behalf of the local community even when the council thinks there is a fight to be fought.
This bill simply seeks to level the playing field and to give the community rights. I commend it to the house.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mrs Griggs ): Is the motion seconded?
Mr Bandt: I second the motion.
Debate adjourned.
MOTIONS
Budget
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (10:39): I move:
That this House:
(1) recognises that:
(a) over the next four years, total annual Commonwealth funding to Queensland is increasing by around $5.8 billion (including GST);
(b) despite the tight budget conditions, the Commonwealth is increasing annual funding for Queensland hospitals by 40 per cent, and schools by 47 per cent, over the next four years; and
(c) this represents a combined increase in funding to Queensland schools and hospitals of over 40 per cent by 2017-18, on 2013-14 funding levels;
(2) commends the Government for investing $13.4 billion to build the infrastructure of the 21st century for Queensland, including:
(a) $6.7 billion towards fixing the Bruce Highway; and
(b) almost:
(i) $1.3 billion towards the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing; and
(ii) $1 billion towards the upgrade of the Gateway Motorway North; and
(3) notes that the Queensland Government estimated the impact of the carbon tax to be $148 million in its 2013-14 state budget and its repeal will help support jobs and investment.
I am delighted to move this motion and I am pleased to see my Queensland colleagues, the member for Herbert, Mr Jones, who is in the chamber, and I note the member for Forde and the member for Capricornia are both listed to speak. The facts are that this coalition government is dealing with the legacy of debt, deficit and fiscal disaster left to us by the former Labor-Greens alliance, who thought it was fine to borrow vast amounts of money with absolutely no plans for paying it back. But, worse than that, they locked their borrowing plan in the years, hanging a millstone around the neck of future governments and generations of Australian children.
In Queensland, the Newman government is also saddled with massive debt from nearly 20 years of Labor fiscal ineptitude, and now they face the prospect of a Palmer United Party inspired Senate witch hunt backed by Labor and the Greens that will cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, continuing and demonstrating the fiscal irresponsibility of those three parties.
Yet, against this background and contrary to the misinformation spread by the Labor opposition, the coalition is still able to provide $5.8 billion in funding to Queensland for various key projects. The coalition is the highest education funding government in history as well as spending record amounts on infrastructure and giving my home state of Queensland funding for key projects.
One of those, of course, is the massive $6.7 billion that is being committed to fix the Bruce Highway, to floodproof it so that in the cyclone season towns, cities and producers are not cut off for days and weeks at a time. This is the government that sees problems an acts to fix them. The much-needed second range crossing in Toowoomba will receive $1.3 billion. This is much-needed driver to improve access to drive productivity increases in the agricultural sector in the rich farmlands west of Brisbane. The Gateway Motorway is also being funded, with $1 billion for this neglected area of traffic congestion.
Neglect and debt—a familiar tale in every state and territory which has had Labor leadership. And not just funding for infrastructure—over the next four years federal funding in health for Queenslanders will rise by 40 per cent on 2013-14 levels. That is right: not a cut but an increase of 40 per cent. So much for the false Chicken Little complaints that we hear from the opposition and Queensland Labor. This coalition government is actually increasing spending. The truth that our government does more for health than they ever did is indeed a bitter pill for Labor to swallow.
Education in Queensland will also get an extra 47 per cent over the next four years, yet somehow we hear constantly how the coalition has cut funding to education. It is not just direct funding that has made a difference to Queensland. The axing of the carbon tax has saved Queensland taxpayers another $148 million. This ill-conceived and badly executed economy-wide tax on families and businesses is well gone. It is better to have an empty house than a bad tenant, as they say, and not one family in this country should be sad to see this bad tax repealed.
The Abbott coalition government is the best friend Queenslanders had in at least seven years. Just imagine what we could have done if we had followed a competent government like the Howard government to see how much more we could have achieved. The fact is that the Abbott coalition government is delivering for the people of Australia and is delivering for my own home state of Queensland. I am delighted that my colleagues will be elaborating on those details. I commend this motion to the house.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mrs Griggs ): Is the motion seconded?
Mr Ewen Jones: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin) (10:44): In almost two decades of political activism and involvement, I do not think I have seen a more misleading motion than this one, and I stand up to oppose it. It takes a certain level of dishonesty and deceitfulness and doublespeak to move a motion claiming increased funding for schools, hospitals and infrastructure while simultaneously crowing about savings to the very same areas. For the member for Ryan, the forehead-slap moment will come when she realises you cannot claim extra spending and savings in the same areas simultaneously.
It was very cruel of the Treasurer not to point out to the member for Ryan that this government's own budget papers make the brutal cuts to schools and hospitals very, very clear. In discussing cuts to schools and hospitals, page 7 of the budget overview states:
These measures will achieve cumulative savings of over $80 billion by 2024-25.
These are not figures that the opposition has made up; they are there in black and white in the government's very own budget overview. The member for Ryan should read it. That fact alone torpedoes the claims upon which this dishonest and dishonourable and deceitful motion is built. The fact is that schools and hospitals around Australia will get $80 billion less in funding from this government than they would have got had Labor been re-elected. So it takes a great deal of duplicity for the member for Ryan to get up here and congratulate the government on the budget's funding of schools and hospitals.
Schools in my own area will be some of the worst affected. There are 27,500 kids who will cop funding cuts to the tune of $230 million over the next 10 years. The $30 billion cut to schools across Australia over the next decade is the same as cutting every seventh teacher. Parents, students and teachers in my community cannot afford this government's harsh cuts to education and schools. They certainly cannot afford the cuts to public hospitals either.
I had the pleasure recently of inspecting the Logan Hospital's brand-new emergency department and paediatric wing. The $175 million Logan Hospital redevelopment project was proudly funded by the last Labor government because Labor understands the importance of having a modern and well-funded public hospital system. This stands in stark contrast to the government, who will pull $50 billion—it is in their own budget papers—out of hospitals across Australia over the next decade.
The Metro South Health network which serves the people of my electorate will miss out on $26 million just over the next four years, with far more cuts to come in the years after that. At the same time, the government is charging people more to access basic health services and imaging services, with people in my electorate set to pay nearly $8½ million every year on the GP tax alone. Just a few weeks ago, we heard startling evidence from the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association that sick people will need to pay hundreds and even thousands to diagnose their conditions. Bills of this magnitude will be such a blow to people who are suffering from life-threatening diseases. With so many people being targeted by the budget, it is sickening to observe the backslapping and self-congratulation of government members in this motion.
Their record on infrastructure is not much better, with most of their achievements nothing more than the re-announcement of Labor commitments. And no discussion of infrastructure is complete without mentioning the NBN, which has been stripped and pared back till it is a fragment of Labor's original fibre-fuelled nation-building vision for the program.
The Prime Minister and Premier Newman are as one when it comes to hacking, slashing and cutting the services my community needs and our country needs. The only good news is that Queenslanders will get the opportunity to voice and vent their fury within the next six months. I urge the good people of my electorate to send Premier Newman and Prime Minister Abbott a message by supporting our fantastic local candidates, my friends Linus Power in Logan, Leeanne Enoch in Algester, Mick de Brenni in Springwood, Shannon Fentiman in Waterford, Duncan Pegg in Stretton and Cameron Dick in Woodridge.
This government, the LNP and the member for Ryan cannot be serious when they boast about their achievements in schools, hospitals and infrastructure. They should stop treating Queenslanders as mugs. We know that serious nation-building infrastructure like the NBN is worse off as a result of this government; we know that our schools are worse off as a result of this budget; we know that our hospitals will be worse off as a result of this budget; and no amount of dishonest, deceitful, dishonourable motions will camouflage those facts, as laid out so starkly in the pages of their own budget.
Mr EWEN JONES (Herbert) (10:49): I like the member for Rankin; I think he is hilarious! For him to stand there and say what he said was disingenuous in the extreme. He was part of the staff of the then Treasurer a couple of years ago when the Treasurer's budget speech started with 'these four years of budget surpluses I announce tonight'. He was the bloke who wrote the speech! So for him to come in here and say that we are sitting here saying that there is money going to health and education is a little bit simplistic. I note he does replace the previous member for Rankin, Craig Emerson, and I do thank the member for Rankin for not singing, 'There will be no education and health wipe-out there on my TV'! That is one saving grace of having him here. No doubt we will see the member for Lilley try and explain his position. Maybe the member Lilley can explain those words about the four years of budget surpluses he was delivering that night.
On 7 September last year, Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister elect, stood up in front of the Australian people and said: 'Australia is now open for business.' Joe Hockey, the member for North Sydney and the then incoming Treasurer, said, 'Infrastructure must facilitate commerce.' In Townsville, in my area, in 2011, in the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi, we saw a fantastic street project, a project which was about flood mitigation, pulled out of Townsville, for the funding to be shifted down to the south-east corner of Queensland by the then Labor transport minister, who was Townsville based as well. It is only now that we are getting that thing finished.
When it comes to all these things being their previous announcements, Labor have to understand that it is just like former Prime Minister Paul Keating spoke of the l-a-w law tax cuts; they were not e-n-a-c-t-e-d enacted. They were not enacted. Labor are very good at making promises, very good at making announcements, but it is about the f-u-n-d-i-n-g funding of them and the c-o-m-p-l-e-t-i-o-n completion and the d-e-l-i-v-e-r-y delivery of them. I say the words as well as spelling them for you.
When it comes to transport, when it comes to getting our goods to market, we must get these things organised. For those of you who do not live in North Queensland, what you must understand is that, every time there is a tropical depression off the coast of Queensland, in a lot of cases there is an immediate 25 per cent loading placed on all transport. That is because they know that, sooner or later, their trucks are going to be parked on the side of the road.
I was very happy after the 2012 election when Campbell Newman, the state Premier, got together with the federal opposition people to try and get a plan together to fix the Bruce. We have had the member for Grayndler come in here and tell us all about it, but it was all on 50-50 splits. What we have done in the time that we have been in government is do an 80-20 split, which is the way it should have been done, and $10 billion for road funding in Queensland on the Bruce Highway is a great start.
In my electorate we are now seeing Vantassel Street coming to completion. I have just opened the University Road upgrade, under the Black Spot Program, which is at the intersection of University Drive at Lavarack Barracks. We have announced the completion of Ring Road Stage 4. The Ring Road was, of course, brought in under the Howard government by the then member for Herbert, Peter Lindsay. We are fixing Dalrymple Road, which is a $20 million project. The state government actually fixed Blakey's Crossing. It used to be the Bruce Highway and it was an incredible link into North Queensland. It had never been fixed under any government, but the Campbell Newman state government, after taking my plan to fix it, finally delivered it. The Ring Road has gone to tender, and we have got more to come.
The big one in my region is the replacement of the Haughton River Bridge. The Haughton River Bridge is a shocking piece of work. It is very, very narrow. It has no guard rails. It would not pass anywhere. What we have to do now is put the planning in place to get it started and to get the farm buyback to straighten up the road so that we can get a bridge that actually stands up. I drove the Bruce Highway a couple of years ago—and I have spent a lot of time on the Bruce Highway—but I drove it with a critical eye. North Queensland has very little road verge and the worst bridges of anywhere in Queensland. It is something that we have to fix and it is something this government is fixing. I thank the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Deputy Prime Minister for actually getting these things together and putting rubber on the road when it comes to fixing these things. I thank the House.
Mr SWAN (Lilley) (10:54): I would like to congratulate the member for Ryan on her own goal. Moving this motion today points, yet again, to the cuts of $80 billion in health and education that are being imposed on state governments by this conservative federal government, which will smash the social safety net when it comes to affordable and accessible health and education in this country over the next decade. There is a day of reckoning coming with this $80 billion cut sitting there in the budget papers, in the Budget Overview on page 7: $80 billion—$50 billion in health and $30 million in schools. I congratulate the member for Ryan for coming in here and pointing to this essential fact. I know that she is ambitious. I know that she wants to reach greater heights, but she needs to demonstrate far greater depth than she did today in the presentation. So do all the other conservative members, because Queenslanders, in particular, now face a double whammy of not only these future cuts of $80 billion but also the abolition of the final two years of Gonski and those increases as well. As the member for Rankin said before, that is the equivalent of one in seven teachers across Queensland schools. That is before you get to the cuts in health, which are going to be savage in significant hospitals in or near my electorate: Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Prince Charles Hospital and, in particular, Redcliffe Hospital. Fifty billion dollars is a lot of money out of health in the future. It is a lot of nurses, doctors and wardies who go down the tube. It is a threat to the quality of care.
What is this all about? I think we saw, over the weekend, what it is about, with the speech from the Prime Minister about the future of the Federation. What it is really about is moving to that long-held objective of the Liberal Party of Australia, which is as old as any of the governments that we have seen since the 1970s, and that is to wind back the social safety net, to wind back health and education, to jack up the GST or indirect tax base and to provide more power and money to corporates. It is a shift in the tax mix. What they are going to do now, as these cuts flow through the system Australia wide—a threat to quality health and a threat to quality education—is they will mount the charge for an increase in the GST simultaneously as they open up huge holes in the tax base for corporate Australia, and they will say, 'If we want to provide quality health and education, we're going to have to jack up the GST, jack it up on punters; working people pay more and corporates pay less.' That is what goes to the heart of the speech given by the Prime Minister at Tenterfield over the weekend, and it will go to all of the positioning that we will see.
I say this: tax reform is about a lot more than jacking up a GST and lessening the burden on corporate Australia—a lot more. It will take a lot more than the threat to health and education to bring the Australian people to support such a change. But make no mistake; that is what is behind the trifecta of trickery that we have seen from the government since the budget early this year. First of all, it is behind their false claims of an economic emergency. It is about false claims about spending and the increase in the rate of spending, and it is about false claims about debt being unsustainable. All of that is to create an environment in which it may be acceptable for the Australian people to accept $80 billion worth of cuts, ripping the heart out of health and education and the social safety net, the GP co-payment and all of those unfair burdens which are currently being put on working Australians, particularly in my home state of Queensland, where, once again, there is a double whammy, because every one of these federal cuts is accompanied by a state cut and they are felt much more keenly in my home state. Of course, when you look at education, the government are going to cut something like $6.2 billion from Queensland schools and over $190 million from the schools in my electorate of Lilley. As I said before, that amounts to something like one in seven teachers. Then of course you get to health. I spoke in the House about that last week. There are savage cuts impacting on the quality of care in hospitals like Prince Charles and the Royal Brisbane. But all that it is about is a fundamental dismantling of the social safety net in this country by the conservatives in this country, who have always, always been very weak at taxing the strong and very strong at taxing the weak. (Time expired)
The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Forde, I want to remind the member for Griffith that it is disorderly to be yelling out when you are not in your chair.
Mr VAN MANEN (Forde) (10:59): It is interesting to follow the contribution from the member for Lilley; and it is instructive to note there is no admission, again, of the fact that for six years he presided over accumulated deficits of some $130-odd billion dollars. He makes no recognition of the fact that as a government we are now left to pick up the mess left by that previous government and bring the House back into order. I thank the member for Ryan for bringing this motion to the House and highlighting the investment of the coalition government in my home state of Queensland.
The member for Ryan touched on the fact that the Commonwealth is increasing funding to Queensland by some $5.8 billion over the next four years. Despite the tough budget conditions inherited from the previous Labor government we are increasing funding to hospitals by some 40 per cent and funding to schools by some 47 per cent. I note that schools in Forde, as a result of this funding increase, will receive over the next four years some $4.8 million of additional funding under the government's Great Results Guarantee—funding which schools in my electorate would not have received under the previous Labor government. I would suggest to the member for Rankin, the member for Griffith and the member for Moreton, who are here in the House, and even to the member for Lilley: there would be schools in their electorates which will also receive additional funding which they would not have received if Labor had been re-elected to government. But we do not hear them speak about those matters.
Also, as a result of the repeal of the carbon tax, the Queensland government has some $150 million of additional funds in its budget to allocate for the provision of services to the great state of Queensland. I also commend the government for investing some $13.4 billion to build the infrastructure which is desperately needed in Queensland: $6.7 billion towards fixing the Bruce Highway and almost $1.3 billion towards the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing. I know the Minister for Industry, Mr Macfarlane, has been fighting very hard for that for many years. One billion dollars goes towards the Gateway Motorway North Upgrade. In the electorate of Forde we have received a contribution of $3 million towards the revitalisation of the Beenleigh CBD, which is a joint project with Logan City Council; the Queensland state government is throwing in some funding as well. The whole objective of this project is to turn Beenleigh into a thriving regional hub. This project has been in the making for more than 20 years and it is heartening to see that finally, under this government, we have received the funding necessary for the project to progress. I would also like to thank the Beenleigh Yatala Chamber of Commerce and many other businesses and local community groups for their support for this project. It is part of my bigger vision for the Beenleigh area that the Beenleigh CBD and surrounding region can provide jobs and employment opportunities for those living in the area.
It is promising to see the coalition government's continuing commitment to infrastructure across Forde. Some of the biggest issues we face stem from a failure of infrastructure to keep up with the pace of growth. I recently had the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure in the electorate to discuss issues to do with the M1 from Loganholme to Daisy Hill; we are talking to the state government about further matters in that regard. We will continue to work with the local community to build our infrastructure requirements, but I note we have spent nearly $1 million from proceeds of crime legislation on upgrading our CCTV network around the electorate of Forde as well. There are more projects we are working on in that space.
This is a government that is prepared to invest in our local communities for the benefit of all concerned, and in Queensland particularly. I thank the government for its investment in the future of our great state.
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (11:04): This motion put forward today by the member for Ryan, before she scurried out of this place, completely ignores the true intentions of the Liberal-National government's harsh budget cuts. The Abbott government's $80 billion cuts to schools and hospitals is a clear broken promise from a government that promised no cuts to health and no cuts to education. They said they would be a government of no surprises, but the premiers are still reeling from the Treasurer's budget night ambush. The impact of the government's $50 billion cut to health will increase emergency department waiting times in Queensland; it will increase elective surgery waiting times and reduce the number of hospital beds across the country. These cuts will mean fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer midwives; they will mean fewer psychologists, radiographers and oncologists. The coalition's $50 billion cut to Australian hospitals is equivalent to sacking one in three doctors or one in five nurses, or shutting down one in 13 hospital beds. As the AMA—that great left-wing institution!—has highlighted, public hospitals are already stretched to meet demand and these drastic cuts will cripple the health system, especially as we age as a society.
In my home state of Queensland, electorates are feeling the sting from both federal and state LNP governments putting health under the chopping block. The Queensland state budget revealed that the federal coalition government is costing Queenslanders $16 billion in cuts to hospitals and schools in my state—the same state the member for Ryan and the member for Forde call home, although this motion suggests the member for Ryan has now moved to La La Land.
Queensland budget papers clearly state:
Of particular concern, the 2014-15 Commonwealth Budget indicated that the Australian government will amend funding arrangements for public hospitals (from 1 July 2017) and schools (from 1 January 2018) to generate savings across all states of over $80 billion in the period to 2024-25. Queensland's per capita share of this saving would amount to a reduction of around $16 billion in Australian government funding.
That is Campbell Newman's own budget papers. This immense pressure being put on states to foot the bill is just this government's strategy to increase the GST—as we heard on the weekend—in an economy where Australians are already struggling to meet cost-of-living pressures. Governments, good governments, should be part of the solution when it comes to cost of living, not part of the problem.
Queenslanders are now paying a high price for the Liberal-National Party's unfair budget. This poisonous budget means that Queensland families will not get the health care they need, and Queensland students, who we invest in in terms of creating a new tomorrow, will not get the great education they deserve. For example, every single state school in Moreton, every single state school in Forde, and every single state school in Ryan—all of those electorates—will be on average $3.2 million worse off. This is the equivalent of sacking one in seven teachers, or $1,000 less support for every child every year.
When we look back at the records of the Howard government, they can proudly say they built 3,000 flag poles. The Rudd and Gillard governments built 3,000 libraries. The LNP government cut $3 million from every school, a wonderful legacy which I am sure those opposite are proud of. Principals will be forced to spend their time dealing with funding cuts, when all they want to do is get on with improving their skills. Subject choices, teachers' assistants, sport, music programs and extension and remedial support—all those things that make communities hum and schools sing—will be cut.
If massive cuts to hospitals and schools are not enough, this federal budget will also impact on Queensland's state seniors card holders and more than 600,000 Queensland pensioner concession card holders. These concessions are currently worth a total of $335.6 million to Queenslanders. Of that, the Commonwealth provides $54 million in 2014-15, money that the Prime Minister is ripping away. The designated public transport concession for seniors card holders will be abolished all together, and I am sure the member for Grayndler recognises how that shows the current government has no faith in public transport.
Queensland's budget confirms that the Prime Minister lied when he said there will be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions. Before the election, the Prime Minister promised no cuts to education; that is not the case. There is a strong odour or mendacity emanating from those opposite. The Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman knew this, knew the extent of the cuts, but still he has tried to keep it secret, but his budget papers reveal it all.
Documents recently released show that Queensland schools will be billions of dollars worse off as a result of this government's harsh budget cuts. The information from Queensland's education department reveal the axing of 10 centres for children and families in Indigenous communities around Queensland due to federal government cuts, despite the Prime Minister being the minister responsible for that area.
This is another example of a successful community program being ripped away from those who are most vulnerable in Queensland.
Ms LANDRY (Capricornia) (11:09): I thank my colleagues, the member for Ryan, the member for Herbert and the member for Forde for their input today. Queensland is nearly five times the size of Japan, seven times the size of Great Britain, and two and a half times the size of Texas. As the second-largest state in landmass, with a population of over four million people, the state is very significant to our nation. I am a proud Queenslander, and most Queenslanders are proud Australians.
However, I must question whether every Queenslander really has the best interests of their state at heart. I refer to a recent decision in the Senate. It is interesting that certain Queensland members of the federal Senate voted to hold an inquiry into the current Queensland state LNP government, a government that is trying to fix up the state's economy and get Queensland back on its feet.
The move by certain senators to hold an inquiry is questionable, because Labor itself neglected Queensland for many years. They simply ran it into the ground. I guess we should not be surprised, because while the former state Labor government, under Premier Anna Bligh, was running down Queensland's economy, her oddball friends in the federal Labor Party were running down Australia as a whole. The 'Rudd Gillard experiment' left all Australians paying a $1 billion per month interest bill on a huge national debt. The common factor here is that, whenever it is in power, wherever it is in power, Labor destroys the financial credibility of our economy, both state and nationally.
The Abbott coalition government, however, is supporting Queensland. Over the next four years the total annual Commonwealth funding to Queensland is increasing by around $5.8 billion. Hospitals and schools will enjoy the benefit of this. You already heard that our government is investing $13.4 billion to build the infrastructure of the 21st century for Queensland. And, because Queensland is such a large and important state, we are spending $6.7 billion towards fixing the Bruce Highway. I can report that in my electorate of Capricornia people can actually see where this money is being spent.
Progress continues on stage 2 of the Yeppen Floodplain improvements on the Bruce Highway at the entrance to Rockhampton. All up, between stage 1 and 2, about $320 million is being spent to ensure the highway into Rockhampton remains open in flood times. This is the major transport corridor that links freight from Brisbane to Cairns. Keeping this highway open will keep goods flowing north and keep Queensland's economy rolling. Without this work, funded by the government, highway transport comes to a complete standstill when heavy rains cause flooding to cut off the city. This costs the local and the Queensland economy millions, if not billions, of dollars.
Our federal coalition government is also spending $120 million to fix the Eaton Range section of the notorious Peak Downs Highway between Mackay and Moranbah. This is an important transport corridor into Queensland's vital coalmining areas. Speaking of fixing things up, over the next few years—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Porter ): Member for Grayndler, you have a point of order?
Mr Albanese: Yes, I seek to ask the member if she will accept an intervention.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is under an obligation to say whether she will allow that intervention or not.
Ms LANDRY: No, I will not.
Mr Albanese: She is talking about projects. I thought that would be good. It would give her a chance to talk about it.
The SPEAKER: Member for Grayndler, the member for Capricornia has made her decision. Member for Capricornia, please continue.
Ms LANDRY: Speaking of fixing things up, over the next few years, five shires in Capricornia—Isaac, Rockhampton, Mackay, Livingstone and Whitsunday—will share in $30 million of federal money to fix council streets and roads under our Roads to Recovery Program.
I am also pleased to see that three key dam concepts—Connors near Moranbah, Urannah near Collinsville and the Fitzroy Corridor near Rockhampton—have made it to the green paper on agricultural competitiveness. If they are successful in attracting funding, such projects will further boost the potential of the great state of Queensland. In contrast, under Labor you never saw any attempt at such bold water infrastructure. Thank you.
Ms BUTLER (Griffith) (11:14): The member for Capricornia obviously does not remember the hydroelectric scheme, but I remember it very well, if we talk about what Labor has done! But I rise to speak to this private member's motion on Commonwealth funding for Queensland.
This motion does not reflect the impact that the Abbott government and its rotten budget will have on Queensland and Queenslanders. As my predecessor said before the last election, 'For Queensland, the Newman government's cuts to public services are just the entree; Tony Abbott will be the main course.'
The Abbott government has failed Queensland. The Abbott-Hockey budget cuts $80 billion from health and education. Before the election the now Prime Minister promised there would be no cuts to education. The Liberals and Nationals claimed they were on a 'unity ticket' with Labor, when it came to the reforms known as Gonski. Those reforms arose from the comprehensive review that David Gonski led of Australia's broken school funding arrangements.
We know that the Liberals and Nationals would have said anything to get elected. For example, they said there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no changes to the pension and no cuts to the ABC or the SBS. Each one of those promises has been broken since the election—every single one of them has been broken and, unfortunately, they were obviously far from the gospel truth from the now Prime Minister. Now, Queensland students and their families, including those in my electorate of Griffith, are paying the price.
The southsiders I speak to are well aware that the Liberal-National government is not making good on its pre-election commitments. Despite claiming that unity ticket with Labor when it came to the Gonski reforms, the Prime Minister has refused to fund the essential fifth and sixth years of those reforms. And Treasury has now confirmed that under the Abbott-Hockey first budget Australian schools will be stripped of $30 billion over the next decade. This is the biggest ever cut to our schools. This is equivalent to sacking one in seven teachers, and will leave the average school $3.2 million worse off with every student receiving $1,000 less support per year.
So, despite the rhetoric in the motion put forward by the member for Ryan, the budget papers themselves state:
In this Budget the Government is adopting sensible indexation arrangements for schools from 2018, and hospitals from 2017-18—
and removing funding guarantees for public hospitals:
These measures will achieve cumulative savings of over $80 billion by 2024-25
That is $80 billion in cuts on the government's own budget papers.
Cutting indexation just to CPI—which the budget papers assume to be 2.5 per cent—at the same time as the ABS Education Price Index is 5.1 per cent, means a significant and compounding cut in real terms. This compares to what was intended under the Gonski reforms, where the intended average federal expenditure increase was 9.2 per cent. So, Deputy Speaker, you can see that this is walking away from the reforms in respect of which they supposedly had a unity ticket. Last year the now education minister described the prospect of three per cent indexation for schools as 'frightening', yet this year he is prepared to introduce a system that will go beyond that.
In Queensland the cuts that are being made amount to $6.7 billion. The 58 schools in my electorate on the south side of Brisbane—that is 58 schools in the electorate of Griffith—will lose $236 million. This means that students in Griffith will miss out on literacy and numeracy programs, extension classes, extra teachers subject choices, music, drama and art programs and sport. The Abbott government has also changed the federal school funding rules, taking a no-strings-attached approach. This means letting states and territories off the hook, allowing them to divert money to other projects, to cut school budgets and abandon reforms to improve student results.
I know that those opposite, on the government side, continue to argue that, really, education is about quality and not just about dollars. But that is just a cynical distraction from the government's destructive agenda to cut funding to schools. Every teacher, principal and parent will tell you that resources actually matter at schools and in the classroom. The research backs that up, and so do Liberal premiers. When I visit my local schools and hear about the benefits they are getting from the new libraries and other facilities they got under Kevin Rudd's Building the Education Revolution policy, it is clear that schools thrive with the right resources. No local school I have been to has said to me, 'Gee, I wish we didn't have that new library.' They love the additional resources because they help to deliver quality education for the students.
So the Gonski reforms are not just about money at all. The purpose of the reforms is to improve the way that money is spent. The reforms are aimed at getting resources to those schools and to those students who need them most, while making sure no that school is worse off. We have an achievement gap of up to three years, and we need to fix it.
Debate adjourned.
Ebola Virus
Ms KING (Ballarat) (11:19): I move:
That this House:
(1) expresses grave concern about the outbreak of the Ebola virus in, and its impact on, West Africa, in particular Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and beyond;
(2) recognises that the peacebuilding and development gains of the most affected countries concerned could be reversed in light of the Ebola outbreak, underlining that the outbreak is undermining the stability of the most affected countries concerned and, unless contained, may lead to further instances of civil unrest, social tensions and a deterioration of the political and security climate;
(3) determines that the unprecedented extent of the Ebola outbreak in Africa constitutes a threat to international peace and security;
(4) expresses concern about the particular impact of the Ebola outbreak on women;
(5) takes note of the:
(a) measures taken by United Nations Member States of the region, especially Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, as well as Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, in response to the Ebola outbreak, and recognises that the outbreak may exceed the capacity of the governments concerned to respond; and
(b) letter dated 29 August 2014 to the United Nations Secretary-General from the presidents of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, requesting a comprehensive response to the Ebola outbreak, including a coordinated international response to end the outbreak and to support the societies and economies affected by restrictions on trade and transportation during the outbreak;
(6) emphasises the:
(a) key role of United Nations Member States, including through the Global Health Security Agenda where applicable, to provide adequate public health services to detect, prevent, respond to and mitigate outbreaks of major infectious diseases through sustainable, well-functioning and responsive public health mechanisms; and
(b) control of outbreaks of major infectious diseases requires urgent action and greater national, regional and international collaboration, stressing the crucial and immediate need for a coordinated international response to the Ebola outbreak;
(7) expresses:
(a) deep appreciation to the first-line responders to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, including national and international health and humanitarian relief workers contributed by the Member States of diverse regions and non-governmental organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; and
(b) appreciation of the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service for transporting humanitarian personnel and medical supplies and equipment, especially to remote locations in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, during the outbreak;
(8) takes note of the:
(a) WHO Ebola Response Roadmap of 28 August 2014 that aims to stop transmission of the Ebola virus disease worldwide, while managing the consequences of any further international spread; and
(b) 12 Mission Critical Actions, including infection control, community mobilisation and recovery, to resolve the Ebola outbreak; and
(9) notes the United Nations call that Member States:
(a) facilitate the delivery of assistance, including qualified, specialised and trained personnel to contain the outbreak to the affected countries and, expresses deep appreciation to the Government of Ghana for allowing the resumption of the air shuttle of United Nations Mission in Liberia from Monrovia to Accra, which will transport international health workers and other responders to areas affected by the Ebola outbreak in Liberia;
(b) provide urgent resources and assistance, including deployable medical capabilities such as field hospitals with qualified and sufficient expertise, staff and supplies, laboratory services, logistical, transport and construction support capabilities, airlift and other aviation support and aeromedical services and dedicated clinical services in Ebola treatment units and isolation units, to support the affected countries in intensifying preventive and response activities and strengthening national capacities in response to the Ebola outbreak, and to allot adequate capacity to prevent future outbreaks;
(c) mobilise and provide immediate technical expertise and additional medical capacity, including for rapid diagnosis and training of health workers at the national and international level, to the affected countries, and those providing assistance to the affected countries and to continue to exchange expertise, lessons learned and best practices;
(d) maximise synergies to respond effectively and immediately to the Ebola outbreak, provide essential resources, supplies and coordinated assistance to the affected countries and implementing partners, and encourage all relevant actors to cooperate closely with the Secretary-General on response assistance efforts; and
(e) commend the continued contribution and commitment of international health and humanitarian relief workers to respond urgently to the Ebola outbreak and seek all relevant actors to put in place the necessary repatriation and financial arrangements, including medical evacuation capacities and treatment and transport provisions, to facilitate their immediate and unhindered deployment to the affected countries.
I move this motion today because the window to tackle the Ebola crisis is closing fast and unless Australia joins the international community in attacking it at its source in West Africa, the opportunity to contain this outbreak may be lost forever.
A fortnight ago the United Nations warned we had just 60 days to bring Ebola under control, or face what it called an 'unprecedented situation for which we do not have a plan'. The number of cases now exceeds 10,000 and the number of fatalities 5,000. In just the last few days we have seen Ebola spread into a sixth West African country, Mali, and a doctor confirmed in New York as the second confirmed case of Ebola in the United States.
The way that we protect Australians from Ebola is not by waiting for it to appear in our region but by fighting it in West Africa, as a public letter earlier this month by 60 Australian health professions made clear:
We are all stakeholders in this epidemic and it is in our urgent national interest to contribute to the response with deployment of skilled personnel.
Let me repeat that point: 'our urgent national interest'. If we wait until Ebola reaches our region, many of our neighbours will find their health systems overwhelmed and, as the World Health Organisation has said, the consequences could be huge.
That is why, for well over a month now, Labor has been arguing that Australia should facilitate sending some of our world-leading health professionals to join the international effort to tackle the Ebola outbreak. Our call has been echoed by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the UN Security Council, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the International Crisis Group, the President of Sierra Leone, Oxfam, the Australian Medical Association and the Public Health Association of Australia. And it follows calls from the UK and the US governments. Indeed, six weeks ago the Abbott government co-sponsored a UN Security Council resolution which called on the world:
… to facilitate the delivery of assistance, including qualified, specialized and trained personnel and supplies, in response to the Ebola outbreak …
In fact, the motion that I have moved today uses exactly the words of the UN resolution.
It is unfathomable to me that Australia could recognise the risk, identify the solution, stand with the rest of the world in supporting this and then do so very little. The government has argued that Australia could not join with the international community in sending health personnel and other resources because Africa is too far away. This has always been a red herring. No-one—not Labor, not the AMA, not the aid agencies—has ever suggested that any of our aid workers who fall ill should ever be placed in the circumstances where they would be getting the best medical care by having a 30-hour flight back to Australia. And everyone agrees that, if we do send any Australians into West Africa, we need to ensure that they have access to decent care and treatment should they contract Ebola. What is now clear is that such arrangements can be negotiated when we have a government with the will and commitment to achieving this.
Australia has nothing but the highest regard for our health workers and the officials working to plan Australia's response should Ebola arrive in our region. But the best way for Australia to ensure that this does not happen is to join with our friends and allies in sending expert personnel to contain this outbreak at its source If we do this, we know we can succeed. This is not a hopeless cause. The way we can contain Ebola is well understood and, given adequate resources, it is possible to quickly achieve.
Many of you will have seen the dire warnings from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that, if the Ebola outbreak is not contained, the number of cases could exceed a million by January. But that same report has also forecast that, if the international community quickly tackled the crisis by sending health workers and resources to the region, the Ebola epidemic would be contained by January. I do not think that anyone in this parliament wants to look back in January and think that we could have acted as a country to engage with the international community on what is an unprecedented crisis and that we stood by and did nothing.
Australia is rightly respected for our generous and rapid response to humanitarian crises around the world. It is time we lived up to our reputation and joined our friends and allies in fighting the Ebola crisis in West Africa. It is not only the right thing for Australia to do in the face of such a humanitarian crisis; it is also indisputably in the best interests of Australia that we act. We know we can save lives. We know, that through our efforts internationally and with the international community we can shut the Ebola crisis down in West Africa. It is well past time that the Australian government acted.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Porter ): Is the motion seconded?
Mr Albanese: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (11:24): This is a very important matter and I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the debate. We have all seen in recent weeks the situation with Ebola in West Africa. The images of the virus that we have seen on our TV screens and elsewhere are heart-rending. The spread of the virus is obviously an issue of the greatest concern. This is an issue that should be beyond politics in this place. It is a humanitarian question and one that we should think of very much in that way. Nobody has a monopoly on caring. We are all very concerned about the spread of Ebola, and certainly the government is very concerned and has acted strongly in this area.
The first area where the government has made a very substantial response is through financial and humanitarian assistance. Indeed, it has contributed some $18 million towards the fight against Ebola, $10 million to the UN Ebola Response Multi-Partner Trust Fund. This was a very large donation to that fund and, in fact, it was the largest of any nation. So much so that the UN Special Envoy on Ebola, Dr David Nabarro, noted that it was exactly the kind of quick and effective response that the UN is asking of member states. We have also contributed $3½ million to the World Health Organization's regional response; $2½ million to the Humanitarian Partnership Agreement to address in a practical way the virus in Africa; and $2 million towards supporting front-line services in Sierra Leone, principally through the agency of the UK. So we have made a very substantial response—swift, without bureaucracy, and getting money to the source where it is most required.
We turn then to the specific medical actions that the government is taking, through the Department of Health and others. Of course, we must ensure that we are well prepared here in Australia for any instance of the Ebola virus. The Secretary of the Department of Health, Martin Bowles, in testifying before a Senate committee last week, said:
From a domestic perspective, the country is well prepared to deal with Ebola. I want to make that very, very clear. States and territories have been training their staff and running exercises in the designated hospitals for a while now.
The Chief Medical Officer is talking regularly across the states, and the general level of preparedness in Australia is high. We are also ready to deploy teams into our region. There are some 20 people, based at the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre in Darwin, who are trained to deal with the virus and who are ready to be deployed into our region to provide some of the best medical care in the world, as our people always do, should that be required.
We have the question of West Africa, and it is absolutely incumbent upon the government to ensure the safety of Australian health workers. There is no greater responsibility on the government than that. West Africa is 30 hours from Australia. There are not procedures in place to enable those workers to be safely evacuated with surety, and, understandably, the government is not going to rush into that sort of situation. We cannot forget that we have seen health workers infected. We need to be cautious and ensure their safety whilst working across a suite of areas to help to address the Ebola virus.
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (11:30): It is obvious to any sensible health worker and any person that understands the modern world that Australia should be doing more to respond to this Ebola crisis. It is in our urgent national interest that we do so, as the member for Ballarat said in her opening remarks.
A couple of facts about Ebola up front: firstly, the treatment for Ebola is actually to let the body fight the disease. Like a bad case of the flu, it is a case of resting, recuperating and letting the body's immune system fight the disease. Secondly, contracting the disease is not like the flu where it can be transmitted through the air; it would be a case of bodily fluid transmitting the Ebola from one person to the other. So unless you are around and treating a person and you do not have the appropriate protective clothing, there is almost no chance that you would receive this disease.
The world knew about this outbreak at the end of 2013. We knew it was having an impact on Australian government matters as early as March this year. We had a notification that somebody in Africa could not go to an Ebola area to investigate a visa. The government has had plenty of time to prepare an appropriate response. Sadly, the member for Banks touched on the fact that he was a bit surprised that we were not bipartisan on this. Well, the government's response was basically to send cash and do nothing. It is hard to be bipartisan about doing nothing. We expect Australia to step up. We are a middle to large power in the context of the nations of the world and we have a lot of African citizens in Australia who have been lobbying me about this and its impact on their communities. We do need to do more. The simple things we can do, like sending people to Africa who can educate and manage the response to people that are affected by Ebola early rather than later, can be very effective.
Obviously it is distressing for anyone if they are put in a situation where their immune system is unable to successfully fight the disease and they are going to die. Dying in isolation is not something we would wish upon anybody. But obviously letting someone die in their community where the disease can then be spread because of their condition and the treatment of the fluids is problematic. So we do need to educate people.
Interestingly, we have been asked strenuously by many countries including the US and the UK to assist. The US has sent 3,000 military personnel off. The United Kingdom, France, China and even Cuba have sent off people to combat this disease because they understand that it is better to cut it off early rather than later. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Ebola could reach as many as 1.4 million people by early 2015. We need to work now. We need to send our skilled personnel that can work in logistics and, obviously, health professionals as well. The World Health Organization said it wants 50 Ebola treatment centres so that the disease can be contained.
Sadly, those opposite, the government, have taken the same approach to Ebola as they have to climate change—like direct action but it is neither direct nor involving acting. They are basically saying, 'We do not have to worry about it; it is not going to affect us at all.' The reality is: waiting for it to be on our borders will be way too late. The member for Banks said that nobody has a monopoly on caring. But he needs to understand that caring involves doing. The dollars committed are a good start but we have expertise in managing hospitals and responses to diseases. Training can be given to any normal GP or nurse to have them ready and able to combat disease in Africa rather than waiting to treat it on our borders with Papua New Guinea or Indonesia or somewhere else in Asia when it comes close, especially in these days of international travel.
We saw in Senate estimates that we are not quite ready to fight Ebola on our borders and that is why we should be going to the source of this disease and doing what we can. We have people ready, willing and all but able—with a little bit of training—to combat this disease and I would hope that the Prime Minister would be facilitating that. (Time expired)
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (11:35): Obviously the response to Ebola is a worldwide concern. But is it only me noticing the rank hypocrisy of turning this into a party political issue? There is virtually general agreement about the management of international infectious disease. There is good advice coming from the highest levels of the Chief Medical Officer and associated organisations that advise health, immigration and foreign affairs. To second-guess them politically is, I think, brash enough but to come with a fairly pathetic excuse that we are treating this like climate change is patently ridiculous.
Obviously there are a couple of ways that developed economies can assist and the first one is financial. There is an Ebola multi-partner trust fund where all of that resource is completely directed towards the response in the three countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. That there is not an enormous amount of either physical or cultural connection between Australia and these three nations is best exemplified by the fact that there are only probably about 20 people Australian citizens in those three countries delivering services at the moment, so it is quite a manageable number.
Of greater concern to me and to Australians would be the level of awareness, surveillance and early intervention that is currently in place. I note that at the moment travel to those three countries is under a 'reconsider your need to travel' status from DFAT but, increasingly, I think we would have to agree, we are moving to the point very soon of recommending a 'do not travel' status to these three countries.
It is also self-evident that Australia will play an important resource role in supporting larger and more proximate economies to West Africa. For anybody here who has worked in a developing economy, the last thing you want is every country running around with their own little operation. The last thing we want is someone there spray painting a gold kangaroo on bags of rice and medical equipment and saying, 'That is the Australian tent over there.' No, no, no, in this era of donor coordination, what we need is a multi-partner trust fund and a series of WHO sanctioned activities that are completely coordinated. It is not helped by having the national emblem spray painted all over medical gear and making sure that everyone knows what Australia is doing. I know it is parochial. It is very tempting, but in the end we do no better than to give our most gifted, talented, capable and trained medical and public health professionals to the WHO and to associated entities and organisations, either bilaterally through national agreements or directly to NGOs, and have them work within an existing structure.
I do not need to teach anyone geography. We are a long way away from western Africa. That is not an excuse not to help. But what we do have to do is work in partnership with large, capable organisations that have the evacuation routes in place and understand how things work on the ground. If an Australian team were sent over to these three countries, they would be flat out working out their way from the airport to the CBD. They are not countries Australia is closely connected to. We can send highly skilled individuals. We can embed them in teams and they would work under the conditions of these organisations. No-one would disagree with that. We have donated, at the moment, around $18 million. That has gone to support UK efforts; that is appropriate. Other European countries that have direct, cultural, historical links to those countries need all the help—and they will get all the help—that they request. We have front-line services being delivered through NGOs. That is appropriate as well.
I want to make the observation that we still have an arrangement that, when you land in this country having flown in from overseas, you are ticking boxes saying whether you have been to South America and whether you have been to rural areas, but we are still not identifying pre-emptively people who have been to these at-risk areas. Ebola is not highly infectious, despite what everyone is saying. It has a fairly high mortality rate. It is usually only spread through fairly intimate and direct contract. Knowing that, we do have a chance to intercept early potential cases where symptoms may not appear for between two days and three weeks. In that intervening period the last thing I expect is to be, in a commercial aviation service, sitting in the seat next to someone who is potentially at risk of Ebola. That is not good enough. They should not be getting on aeroplanes unless we know where they have been. They should not be landing in this country unless we know where they have been. It needs to be mandatorily identified before they take international travel. That is not to cause hysteria; that is to make sure that we treat people appropriately on the ground when they arrive.
I concede you can travel to these countries, not contract symptoms and not need to activate the public health system, but being forewarned is forearmed. I predict that the next move will be closer surveillance of people moving into this area, recommending that they do not go unless they are with organised groups—through WHO and other bilaterals or other NGOs—and lastly that they cannot get onto an commercial aviation service leaving another country for our shores without us first knowing their exposure and their travel.
Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (11:40): To the member for Bowman, who in his contribution made some passing criticism of Labor members for bringing this issue into the parliament and criticising the inaction of the government, I merely recite words of the great John Curtin, who in his time as Leader of the Opposition offered bipartisan support to the then government on the issue of national security but warned that this did not negate his obligation for patriotic criticism. In this respect, we all know that the clock is ticking and the government is not doing all that it ought be doing in relation to this international crisis.
The number of Ebola cases exceeded 10,000 this week and the number of dead—a mortality rate of about 50 per cent—has exceeded 4,900. Statistics like this have moved the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, to describe it as 'a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions'. The UN Security Council has deemed that this is indeed 'a threat to international peace and security', and the US Centre for Disease Control has said:
Without additional interventions or changes in community behaviour, CDC estimates that by January 20, 2015, there could be up to 1.4 million infections.
At a mortality rate of about 50 per cent, we are looking at well in excess of 750,000 people dying between now and the end of January next year. The Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has said that the outbreak could be contained within four to six months if the right steps were followed. It is these steps that the member for Ballarat's motion addresses. We think that with Australia playing a part alongside other countries we can be a part of the response that is needed to stem the spread of the EVD.
The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, has said that the international response to Ebola needs to be taken to a wholly different scale than it is right now. That is a message that needs to be directed at our Minister for Health, our Prime Minister, along with all of the other countries who are not doing enough. We know that China is sending medical personnel; the UK, military, logistical and medical personnel; the US, several thousand medical personnel and military personnel; the EU are sending mobile labs; Israel is sending a team of doctors; the African Union, obviously closest to home, is sending over 1,000 health workers; and Cuba is sending over 250 medical personnel. Regrettably, Australia is not on the list and we on this side of the House believe we should be.
It is simply not true, as the minister has attempted to say, that for us to be sending health workers into West Africa to confront the spread of this virus is somehow reckless or antipatriotic. Nothing could be further from the truth. We know that, as we speak, there are already Australian health workers on the ground working for volunteer and international aid agencies. What is needed is greater coordination and a greater role for the government. The government enjoys our bipartisan support for the $18 million of funds which have been contributed to the international effort, but we know that this is absolutely not enough. We would simply say to the minister, who as early as this morning was on ABC radio dreaming up even more and fantastic ways to demonise or criticise the Deputy Leader of the Opposition or the shadow minister for health: instead of expending your mental energy on these sorts of public insults, direct that to the problems that are before us. It is not reckless or hysterical to be saying a great nation like Australia can be doing more and should be doing more. It is rational and it is humanitarian. The Australian volunteers who are already over there doing their bit to fight this terrible disease enjoy our support. They are not reckless or hysterical, nor are we on this side of the House in saying that we can do more. We can coordinate the voluntary efforts and we can do more in respect of our government efforts as well. I support the motion.
Ms O'DWYER (Higgins) (11:45): There is no question that the Australian government shares the international community's concerns about the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. We further recognise and laud the courage and selflessness of our first-line responders from non-government organisations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Red Cross. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a greater personal commitment.
The Australian government takes the outbreak of Ebola and its impact on the people of West Africa extremely seriously. That is why Australia responded so quickly when asked by the UN to make a financial contribution as a matter of urgency. Indeed, our quick response with $10 million immediately made available was lauded by the UN as exemplary. In total, we have already committed $18 million in response to the Ebola crisis. This consists of a figure of $8 million to front-line services and the aforementioned $10 million to the UN Ebola Response Multi-Partner Trust Fund. This is in addition to the $40 million that the Australian government has already contributed to the World Health Organization.
The government, though, is not stopping there. We are examining other ways to contribute, including investigation and actions to equip military aircraft for medical evacuations. However, regrettably, we cannot at this time facilitate the delivery of specialised personnel as we do not have the means to evacuate our citizens. We cannot fly the distances to execute an extraction of Australian personnel, and as yet we have been unable to secure guarantees that our personnel would be extracted and treated by others in the event of becoming infected.
The responsibility of a government is first and foremost to protect its citizens. This means that we need a real and credible evacuation plan in place before our doctors and nurses are sent overseas by our government to help with the crisis. This is the only responsible decision. Those opposite would have us send our own citizens into West Africa into real danger, without the logistical backups that those personnel should responsibly insist upon.
Let us be clear: the flight from West Africa to Australia is so long that it actually would put the Ebola victim at serious risk and it is extremely difficult to secure a stopover when you are carrying an infectious patient. This makes a flight back to Australia very unsafe and simply unfeasible. In addition to this barrier, there are in existence only a very small number of aircraft that are actually equipped to support a patient with Ebola and we do not as yet have access to such extraction capabilities.
We, as a government, are still working hard on negotiating with other countries for them to fly Australian citizens to their respective countries for treatment or to be able to use their treatment services on the ground. We are talking with both Great Britain and the United States. We have also set up a committee with representatives from the Department of Health, Defence and DFAT to examine feasible possibilities for assistance. So far, though, we have been unable to secure agreement. We are, though, ready and capable of acting within our region should the crisis come to our region.
There are 20 people who are trained and ready for deployment from the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre in Darwin—four doctors and 16 nurses ready and able to be deployed. This is critical for our region and critical for our preparedness. We are also, of course, making sure that we have the appropriate arrangements in place when people come into Australia to make sure that they are appropriately quarantined if they have been exposed to this virus. So pragmatically and responsibly, Australia must now act in concert with established organisations such as the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres. There are currently 20 to 30 of our own citizens on the ground with such organisations and we commend their efforts and applaud their courage.
Let me reiterate: Australian health workers cannot be put at risk without a credible treatment and evacuation action plan. Military and health advisers have both said that the best form of assistance Australia can give at this point is financial. So we have done so. We agree Ebola is an international safety and security risk. However, we cannot and we will not, as this motion might encourage us, send Australians into harm's way without an appropriate safety net. We will always take the right choices in the best interests of our nation and our nation's citizens. We will be responsible in those choices. We will not politicise this issue as those opposite have tried to do. This issue is too important to score political points and I urge those opposite to be responsible, given the briefings they have received.
Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (11:50): The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a looming humanitarian disaster. The World Health Organization declared overnight that the number of cases of Ebola has risen to 10,141, with the death toll reaching 4,992. Eight countries have been hit by the virus since its outbreak in December last year and some predict that the number of Ebola cases will reach 1.4 million by 2015.
About three weeks ago, Catherine King, the shadow spokesperson for Labor on health, and I met with representatives of Medecins Sans Frontieres here in Canberra. We met with a couple of nurses who have been working in West Africa, Australians who have been volunteering their time to help out with this looming disaster. They described the Ebola outbreak and what they saw, and the people whom they treated, as a tsunami that comes every day. Hundreds of people turn up to the clinics in the mornings with symptoms of Ebola, only to be turned away from the clinics by health officials. These health officials expressed their disappointment and heartbreak at having to turn people away who come with the symptoms simply because there are not enough specialist medical staff and treatment facilities on the ground to deal with the numbers coming every day. That is why Ebola is spreading. That is why we are facing 1.4 million people being infected by 2015, with enormous ramifications for the rest of the world if it gets outside Africa and, in particular, for the world economy. The world economy would grind to a halt if Ebola got to places like China or South-East Asia where population densities are so high. That is why Australia needs to be doing more.
Labor has supported the Abbott government's $18 million contribution but money alone is not enough. Experts say very clearly that experienced personnel are needed on the ground, too. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on 18 September 2014, which calls on all nations to:
... Facilitate the delivery of assistance, including qualified, specialised and trained personnel and supplies, in response to the Ebola outbreak will.
Australia co-sponsored that resolution. We were the ones who put the resolution to the United Nations Security Council but we have gone on to completely ignore the call for more resources on the ground. You can picture this resolution going through the United Nations Security Council and then the UN official saying, 'We have passed the resolution. Let's sit down and talk about what we can do to meet this resolution, the resolution which was co-sponsored by Australia.' And then you see Australia tippy toeing out of the room, trying to hide from the fact that we have a responsibility to act.
The International Monetary Fund, the President of the United States and the President of Sierra Leone have called on Australia to do more. The President of Sierra Leone said this month in a letter to our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott:
While we are doing everything possible to stop the outbreak, further support is urgently needed from your friendly government to scale up our national response with ... education efforts, as well as infection control measures.
That response from the precedent of Sierra Leone is really a desperate plea for assistance from the Australian government. The Public Health Association of Australia has called for Australia to do more, as has the Australian Medical Association and Medecins Sans Frontieres. Even Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor of The Australian has said:
... I do really think the government has not done enough here.
When Greg Sheridan is on the back of the government, you know something is wrong. Australia needs to be doing more. We have expert AUSMAT medical teams which are trained and specialise in infection control. They can be deployed quickly. In respect of the evacuation plan issue, I find it a convenient excuse on behalf of the government. No-one is suggesting that we would ever put Australians at risk but at the same time I cannot accept that the United Kingdom or the USA would reject a plea from Australia for one of medical our staff to be treated in their facilities.
Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (11:55): As this lamentable motion points out, there is no doubt that the Ebola virus does pose a grave threat to the health and security of the nations in West Africa and the wider world. From the government's perspective, in dealing with this matter we have three main objectives: firstly, to ensure we are prepared to deal with any Ebola threat in Australia; secondly, that we are prepared to deal with any threat in our sphere of influence in the region; and thirdly, to assist in the global effort to combat the virus. We are fortunate that the chances of an Ebola outbreak in Australia are low. Indeed, as Australia's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Baggoley, pointed out, there is no epidemic threat to Australia and that our border procedures are sufficient enough to deal with any possible threat. The chief medical officers from around the country have also recently met with the health minister and discussed the importance of ensuring our hospital system is well prepared to receive any Ebola patients should the need arise.
From an international perspective of course, the most important fact is that we ensure we are ready to deal with any threat in our region. In this respect, the government has confirmed that a team of 20 health workers, as mentioned earlier by my colleagues, are available to be dispatched from Australia as an immediate response to our regional neighbours, should there be an outbreak. In terms of the broader international effort to combat Ebola, the best and most effective way that Australia can contribute to the response this time is by doing our bit to fund international organisations and frontline health services.
To date, we have contributed $18 million, which includes $10 million to the UN Ebola Response Multi-Partner Trust Fund, $3.5 million to the World Health Organisation's consolidated regional response; $2.5 million for frontline health services through NGOs such as Caritas, World Vision, Plan International Australia and Save the Children; and an additional $2 million to support the UK's delivery of front-line medical services in Sierra Leone. This is, of course, in addition to the $40 million already provided to the World Health Organisation over the past 12 months. Let me remind members opposite who glibly get up to the dispatch box and say we are not doing enough that the UN Special Envoy on Ebola, Dr David Nabarro, praised the Australian government's additional contribution of $10 million, stating that, 'It was exactly the kind of quick and effective response the UN is asking of members states.'
World Vision CEO, Tim Costello, has also acknowledged the government for the grant made to his organisation who have been doing such wonderful work on the ground. It is therefore disappointing and quite frankly frustration to see Labor trying to point score on this humanitarian issue. This has been most starkly highlighted by the final and most substantial part of this motion—that is, that Australia should send health workers to West Africa at this time. As has been outlined by the Prime Minister, we are of considering requests to send Australian health workers to West Africa, but we will only accept such a request if we can guarantee the safety of our workers. Unlike the irresponsible approach of the Labor Party we will never order Australian personnel to travel to West Africa, potentially being exposed to Ebola, without an iron clad ability to provide world-class medical, treatment for those who would be sent. It is not good enough to stand at the dispatch box and say, 'I'm pretty sure the UK or the US would treat an Australian health worker,' as the member for Kingsford Smith glibly said. No. The government will send Australian workers to West Africa only if we can absolutely guarantee them and their families that, if they were to contract Ebola, we have either appropriate on-the-ground medical treatment for them and in, the absence of that, an ability to evacuate them to a place where they can get world-class medical treatment.
The Labor Party have absolutely no answers for that, so to get up at the dispatch box and argue for this ridiculous motion, saying we should send Australian health workers into harm's way in West Africa, is an absolute outrage. (Time expired)
Debate adjourned.
BILLS
Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014
Health and Other Services (Compensation) Care Charges (Amendment) Bill 2014
Second Reading
Cognate debate.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the Bill a second reading the House notes that the government has failed to:
(1) provide alternative assistance in meeting the demands of the aged care workforce;
(2) ensure repurposed funds be utilised for workforce pay, conditions and development;
(3) consult with or inform the aged care sector of Budget cuts including the axing of the $653 million Aged Care Payroll Tax Supplement;
(4) consult with or inform the aged care sector of the axing of the Dementia and Severe Behaviours Supplement until after the 2014 Budget; and
(5) oversee the management of aged care funding as evidenced by the over-subscription of the Dementia and Severe Behaviours Supplement and under-subscription of the Dementia and Cognition and Veterans' Supplements."
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (12:01): I am pleased to be able to resume the debate on these bills that are the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 and the Health and Other Services (Compensation) Care Charges (Amendment) Bill 2014. In doing so, I follow the comments of the member for Moreton, who is in the chamber right now. He was speaking when this debate was adjourned on Thursday afternoon. I endorse his comments and obviously I will add to them in my own contribution to this legislation.
This legislation is another example of right-wing ideology coming from the Abbott government and the Abbott government's obsession with unions rather than with good policy. Regrettably, the real losers as a result of this legislation will be the elderly residents of aged-care facilities, and in particular the weak, the frail and the disabled who are the most dependent on the care provided by aged-care workers from within those facilities. But as has already been made very clear by the Abbott government, it has very little concern or empathy for the most vulnerable in our community and, as we have seen from a range of Abbott government budget measures, the elderly are also being targeted by this government.
The facts speak for themselves. We saw in the budget in May changes proposed to the pension indexation, which will affect some 2.4 million pensioners. The government knows full well that the proposed indexation changes that it has in mind will result in less pension payments being made to pensioners. The government has also proposed to increase the pension age to 70, which again means that people will have to work longer before they are entitled to a pension. Indeed, it has proposed to do so without making any provisions whatsoever for matters such as workers compensation. We then see the government coming into the House and proposing to add a $7 medical co-payment for a range of medical services, again knowing full well that one of the groups that will be hit hardest by the proposition will be pensioners because, as people get older, it is just logical that they are likely to go to doctors more often and they will indeed have to fork out the $7 each time they go to a doctor or for one of the complimentary services.
We also saw the government axing the $886 payment per year to some 300,000 Australian seniors by axing the senior supplement. Again, a measure brought in without any warning, without telling pensioners before the election that that was what it was going to do; it just went ahead and did it. And we also see the government wanting to freeze the eligibility thresholds for the pension and pension-related payments for three years from 2017. Again, this will affect older people, as will permanently freezing the energy supplement.
I make those comments because they fit in with the narrative of this government—that is, it has no empathy for those people doing it the toughest and it has no empathy for those people struggling the most. It is prepared to make its cuts on the back of those people who can least afford them. The government will argue that under this bill the funding is not being cut, but rather that it is being 'freed up'; instead of being tied to staff pay and conditions, it argues that operators of aged-care facilities are in the best position to determine how any money provided to them by the government should be spent.
That may sound reasonable, but in reality if the funding is untied very little of additional Commonwealth money provided to aged-care centres will result in better care for residents. It is the personal care provided to residents by the staff who work within those centres that matters most to the aged-care residents and to their families. It is the personal care that they can rely on that means the most because without that care, in fact, it is simply just a room and a bed for them to be within. It is the care that they are seeking, and that care comes from the provision of adequate staffing levels within those centres and that is what Labor tried to address when it tied this funding to the provision of additional staff or to better staff wages and conditions.
I regularly visit aged-care facilities within my electorate. I speak to the staff within them, I speak to the residents within them, I speak to family members who are there at the time, and I also speak to the owners and the managers of those centres. What has become absolutely clear to me is that while some centres operate better than others, the truth of the matter is most of them are struggling to make ends meet. And because they are struggling to make ends meet, they obviously cut costs wherever they can. In fact, so much so that the staffing levels of most centres, I think it would be fair to say, could be improved by having more staff on board. Indeed, most of the centres I have visited heavily rely on volunteers to provide the daily services of those centres. I doubt very much that some of those centres would be able to continue were it not for the support that volunteers provide to them. I commend the volunteers for doing that. I think it is a great thing that they do. I think they do it because they genuinely care and it comes from the heart when they do go in there to volunteer. But the reality is that we simply cannot rely entirely on the volunteers either, because the volunteers are generally there during the day but not overnight.
This is an industry where, again, it has been made abundantly clear as a result of several inquiries and reports over the years that the people that work within this industry are considered to be on relatively low wages, have a very responsible and demanding workload and, not surprisingly, have very high staff turnovers. High staff turnovers adds to worsening care levels as new staff are constantly having to familiarise themselves with the individual personalities and the needs of residents. The residents themselves quite often, after a while, become comfortable with particular staff that are there. If they see new faces they in turn become unsettled and sometimes stressed as a result of that. So it is important, if we can, to try and maintain staff within the sector.
So tying the additional funding to staff wages and conditions was the best way to ensure that the residents were direct beneficiaries of additional Commonwealth funding. Indeed, the workforce supplement was deliberately intended to address the retention, remuneration, education, training and career development of aged-care workers. Of course, tying the funding to the workforce does not suit all aged-care operators, nor does it suit the Abbott government.
We know Australians are living longer, as indeed are people across the world, and we need to plan for the needs of an ageing population. The number of people requiring aged care is expected to increase by 250 per cent over the next 40 years. By 2050, around 3.5 million Australians are expected to be using aged-care services. Logically, if people are living longer there will be additional health care costs, more people will be admitted to aged-care facilities and more people will be affected by dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
My understanding is that around 80 per cent of the services that we will need to provide, and that we are currently providing, still occur in the family home. That does not mean that we can continue to absorb all of those services within the home. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a need for more aged-care places in the future as well. I also accept that right now there are about 2 ½ million carers throughout Australia providing unpaid care. Again, they do that because they care about the family member, neighbour, or whoever it is that they are caring for. But that also comes at an extraordinary financial and health cost to the carers themselves. Burnout, mental strain and chronic disease are prevalent amongst carers themselves, which in turn then adds to the health costs of the nation. In fact, we have services in my own region that deliberately provide respite to carers in acknowledgement of the stress and strain that they themselves are under.
But the simplistic attitude of the Abbott government in response to ensuring that the aged-care sector is sustainable into the future is to cut government expenditure and cut government assistance to the elderly when in fact it should be adopting strategies that minimise or reduce expenditure in years to come by being proactive now. For example, increasing superannuation contributions now instead of freezing them as the Abbott government is doing would reduce the burden of pension payments into the future. Providing incentives to set aside money for their future instead of penalising people with higher deeming rates as the Abbott government is doing would mean there would be more savings made by people to enable them to be self-sufficient in the future as well.
In contrast, what we see is a series of measures by this government that do the exact opposite. First is the abolishment of the $1.1 billion aged-care workforce supplement, which this bill specifically targets. Second is the dumping of the dimensions of behaviour supplement of $16.15 a day. Third is the slashing of the aged-care payroll tax supplement from 1 January 2025, worth $653 million over four years. They did that without any consultation or warning.
We know that, according to the Aged Care Financing Authority, the residential aged-care sector will need to build approximately 74,000 additional aged-care places over the next decade. That requires an investment of some $25 billion over the next decade. How can you secure that kind of investment when the government is making it tougher for aged-care operators and aged-care investors to get a return on their money? You cannot. Again, this is being negative rather than proactive in order to save a few dollars today. It means that whatever dollars we do save today will be paid for many times over in years to come.
I want to quickly talk about the dementia supplement worth $16.15 per day. This was a supplement introduced by Labor in August 2013 in recognition of the additional costs incurred by facilities that have to care for people with dementia or Alzheimer's disease. The payment was terminated on 31 July this year, again without any consultation and no warning to the centre operators or to the patients themselves. I have been approached on this issue on several occasions by families that have been directly affected by the cut of this payment of $16.15 per day—over $100 per week. The net effect of this is that the providers are left with either having to cut the services or increase the cost to the residents, neither of which is acceptable to them. Either way, the resident—the person who needs the care—is left worse off. Regrettably, we have in Australia today some 300,000 Australians living with dementia. My understanding is that about 30 per cent of them are in residential care facilities and it is expected that those figures will treble over the next 40 or so years unless, of course, there is a medical breakthrough. So, rather than walking away from this issue, we should be trying to be proactive in our management of it.
I support the amendment moved by Labor's shadow minister for ageing. I believe it is sensible and fair. The shadow minister attended a forum that I hosted in my electorate several weeks ago at the Para Hills community centre. The venue was full. The people at the forum made it absolutely clear that these are the very issues that they are concerned about and want our side of parliament to stand up for them on. They are the very issues they are so critical of the government on for bringing in in the 2014 budget. I believe the amendment is sensible. Whilst I understand we will be supporting this legislation, I urge the Minister for Health, who is sitting at the table, to take note of the amendment.
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (12:15): I thank those who have contributed to the debate on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 and the Health and Other Services (Compensation) Care Charges (Amendment) Bill 2014. These two bills introduce several minor amendments to aged-care and health related legislation. One measure is consequential amendments to reflect the 2014 budget measure to repurpose the aged-care workforce supplement. A second measure in the bill will support the implementation of stage 2 of the aged-care gateway and online information portal and contact centre. The two bills will also make amendments to allow the recovery of past home care costs where the care recipient receives a compensation payment, as is currently possible in relation to residential care costs. Lastly, there are some minor clarifying and technical amendments to aged-care legislation to remove redundant provisions and ensure the legislation operates as intended.
The government will not be supporting the opposition's second reading amendment. I commend the bills to the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Blair 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.
Third Reading
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (12:17): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Health and Other Services (Compensation) Care Charges (Amendment) Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (12:18): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
BUSINESS
Rearrangement
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (12:19): I move:
That order of the day No. 3, government business, be postponed until the next sitting.
Question agreed to.
BILLS
Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (12:19): I begin by expressing how bewildered I am by this Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. I would never suggest that $7 million is not a lot of money—it certainly is. Anyone listening to this broadcast or watching from the galleries would agree that $7 million is quite a lot of money. In the context of a Commonwealth budget of around $400 billion, it is a modest amount of money but to the research and development corporations being adversely affected by this initiative it certainly is a lot of money.
Our agriculture sector operates in a very competitive environment, particularly those who are focused on export markets. Having said that, our agricultural community has remained strong because we have a number of competitive advantages. Amongst them of course is our geographical location. We are close to the very large and growing markets of Asia. The skills, knowledge and productivity of our farmers certainly contribute to our competitive advantage in our region. So too does our clean, green and safe image. This is potentially our greatest competitive advantage as the growing middle classes of Asia, who have had food scares, are looking for Australian food that is environmentally clean and safe for their consumption.
Another advantage is the strength of our research and development system, which is the envy of the rest of the world. The current model is another product of the Hawke government and one of the greatest legacies of the Hawke government's agriculture minister the Hon. John Kerin, who I am very proud to say is today the patron of Labor's all-important country caucus. The co-funding model for research and development that John Kerin put in place is, as I said, the envy of the rest of the world. Under the model, our research and development corporations receive government funds on a dollar-for-dollar basis up to a cap based on the value of the sector's output. It is a system which empowers the people who really matter and who understand their commodity sector best, and they are, of course, those who come from the land, more often than not, to represent the interests of those who put them there.
There are 15 research and development corporations, and these are made up of nine industry-owned companies that provide R&D services and marketing for the benefit of their industries, and six research and development corporations that provide leadership and investment. The industry-owned companies are: the Australian Egg Corporation Ltd, the Australian Livestock Export Corporation Ltd, the Australian Meat Processor Corporation Ltd, Australian Pork Ltd, Australian Wool Innovation Ltd, Dairy Australia Ltd, Forest and Wood Products Australia Ltd, Horticulture Australia Ltd and Meat and Livestock Australia Ltd. In addition to those there are other industry bodies, including: Cotton Research and Development Corporation, Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, Grains Research and Development Corporation, Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and the Sugar Research and Development Corporation. These organisations are critical to our ongoing success in agriculture and, of course, critical to our international competitiveness.
What this bill does is begin the process of chipping away at that model. Some might say, at $7 million over the forward estimates, it is in a modest way, but that is not the case for those who are trying to administer the funds and do good things in this sector. What this bill does is force those research and development corporations to pay their own subscriptions to a range of international commodity organisations and regional fisheries management corporations. These payments are currently allocated by the Department of Agriculture. To put that slightly more in layman's terms: some of our RDCs are members of international organisations with whom they work on research and development. Fisheries is an obvious example to those listening, because obviously fish stocks do not recognise international borders, and international work on some of these issues can be very important. We also do so not just to benefit ourselves but to benefit other nation-states, particularly developing nations, who obviously benefit from the work we do in partnership with them. It is a very obvious statement to say that the best thing we can do for developing nations which face very significant challenges that we do not need to deal with in this lucky country is to empower them economically, and working with them in these areas of research and development is of course very, very important.
The other reason I am bewildered by this bill that is before the House today is that it represents another clear breach of what was said pre the election by this government. Prior to the election, this government rightly talked about the importance of research and development, and that was a matter in which there was absolute bipartisan support. In this increasingly complex world, a world that is driven by technology and innovation, Australia will have to stay ahead of the game in the area of research, development, innovation and/or, importantly, extension, to make sure innovation gets down to the farm, where it has the effect.
Since the election, things have changed. I acknowledge that the government has fulfilled, in part at least, its commitment in the budget to allocate an additional $100 million over the forward estimates as an additional contribution to the R&D effort of our farm sector, not only farming in the agricultural sense but also in fisheries and forestry. There was a lot of speculation prior to the election about how that money would be spent. I think it suited the government, at the time, to suggest that, rather than be provided money on a dollar-for-dollar basis, research and development corporations could expect to maybe get $1.05 or $1.10 or $1.20 for each dollar they contribute. It seems that is not to be the case but rather the government will be putting that money out on a competitive tender basis, inviting RDCs to compete for those additional funds. That, of course, will mean that some RDCs will enjoy more funding as a result of the additional allocations and other RDCs will not.
There has also been a suggestion that the bids that are most likely to be successful are those which are cross-sectoral—in other words, those for research which benefits more than one commodity sector. To again simplify that for any listener: it might be research into grass, which is, of course, important as a feedstock across a range of commodities. I think that is a pretty good example. I do not necessarily have any difficulty with that. In pure public policy terms, that might be the best way to spend the money. We shall wait and see what the proposition is when it is put forward, but it certainly is not consistent with the impression that the government gave or provided to the various commodity sectors prior to the election. That is just a minor point compared to what is the main point in demonstrating that this is another addition to the pre-election promises. This is not so much about RDC funding. The government said it would enhance the research and development effort but of course, since the election, while it has included in the budget some $100 million in the forward estimates, on the other side of the ledger it has dramatically cut research and development funding in the agricultural sector. Some $80 million has come out of the cooperative research centres; some $146 million has been cut from the CSIRO's work—something that will also cost significant jobs in the area; and some $11 million has been reduced from the annual appropriation for the RIRDC. What the government is effectively doing is giving out money with one hand and taking it back with the other. That is a clear breach of its election promises and, indeed, it is not in the spirit of what they told the sector prior to the election.
I will go back to the idea, in this bill, of forcing the RDCs to pay their own subscriptions to international organisations. It is a bit worse than that because, given the way the government has constructed this bill, the RDCs do not have an option to opt out of the investment organisations; they cannot make the decision that spending money on local research and development is more important than their contribution to international organisations because the government is not allowing them to. What the government is doing is paying the international organisations without any reference to, or consultation with, the RDCs. It is taking the subscription amount out of the allocation it makes to the research and development corporations. If that is not a breach of a pre-election promise, I do not know what is. It could not be any clearer than that: paying the money directly and then taking the money out of the RDCs' annual funding allocation. In other words, they are leaving the RDCs with no choice but to remain part of the international organisations. That is the decision of government, really, and if it is the government's conclusion that it is appropriate for the RDCs to be forced to be part of these organisations, then the government should be paying. It is no more complex than that.
That is why I began my contribution by expressing bewilderment that this bill is coming before the House. It is coming before the House just so the government can do this—so the government can say there was $7 million over the forward estimates and force the RDCs to remain in these organisations, while at the same time forcing them to pay for the membership of the organisations.
This is going to have a very real effect on these RDCs. It comes on top of the government's decision to force them to do something else as well—not all of them, but some of them. The government's other great idea is to force these RDCs to move to rural and regional areas. That all sounds fine on the face of it. We all love the idea of decentralisation—the idea of pushing government departments out into the regions in order to create economic activity and jobs there. But we also need to ask ourselves how often that has been successful. We have all been speaking fondly of Gough Whitlam this week. He made a big push for decentralisation. But, reluctant as I am to say it, that met with limited success. It can be successful, and Gough had some successes; but it is more likely to be successful when it is accompanied by a well-thought-out strategic plan. We do not have any well-thought-out strategic plan with respect to the decentralisation of our research and development corporations; rather, we have a thought bubble. I put it to the House that Minister Joyce just woke up one morning and decided he was going to force these RDCs out to certain parts of the country—not just the RDCs, I should point out, but also the APVMA, an agency critical to chemical regulation in this country. Minister Joyce, of course, intends to move them to Armidale in the minister's electorate. That is very handy indeed. But there is no strategic plan, or support, or transition plan for these research and development corporations. To make it worse, the minister has issued a decree that they shall meet all the costs of these moves themselves from within their own budget. I ask other members of the House: does that sound like another breach of an election promise? That sounds very much to me like another breach of an election promise. That is taking money out of the hands of our research and development corporations. It is a very clear breach of a pre-election commitment.
But it gets worse. Knowing the limited success of these moves in the past, it is inevitable that these organisations will lose people—experienced people, good people and people with expertise; people who are critical to the success of these organisations. That is really serious. And it gets yet worse again, because when you lose people from the public service you also face redundancy payments. Redundancy payments can run into millions of dollars in aggregate. It is clear, as a result of the minister's edict, that cost will be borne by the research and development corporations—another clear breach of an election commitment. There is another question, too, around the $100 million allocated in the budget—which we might never see. The money allocated in the current fiscal year—that is, the first $40 million, maybe less—is unlikely to be spent in this fiscal year. We shall see. But, given the time it will take to put the final construct into place for the delivery of this $100 million—the time it will take to go through a competitive tender process, assess those applications and finally allocate those funds—I think is unlikely to occur before June 30 next year. I will be very happy to be proven wrong. We shall wait and see. But, as we all know in this place, money not spent in any financial year is not likely to be rolled over to the next financial year. It will not be $100 million anymore; it will be somewhat less.
When you net it all out—with what has been taken out of the RIDC, the CRCs and the CSIRO and the money it is going to cost the RDCs to decentralise, for want of a better word; I am reluctant to use that word in this case but I will go with it. Of course the money coming out of the RDCs as a result of this bill—$100 million is looking pretty poor. Some of the costs are unknown but it could be that the net result is one of deficit for our research and development corporations. We shall wait and see. But it certainly will not be the $100 million that they were promised prior to the election.
This brings back the old 'mean and tricky' phrase that we heard so much about some years ago. The research development corporations and all those who rely upon them will not be appreciating it today and in fact I know they are not appreciating today the fact that they have been tricked into believing they were going to do much better under this government.
This is not justabout the RDCs and their staff and those who might be affected by these changes. This is about the future of Australian agriculture—and what a future Australian agriculture has with those emerging middle classes of the Asian region and a significant increase across the globe generally with a population growing to some nine billion people.
But it is an opportunity that will not just come to us. To fully capitalise on this opportunity, we will have to go to it. We will have to be better, stronger and more innovative. We will have to work harder than ever before, if we are to fully capitalise on it. The opportunity is there, and the extent of our success will largely be driven by the private sector—its investment decisions, its decisions in innovation and its strategic planning. But there will be a very important role for government in branding and marketing; in policies which make the most of our limited natural resources; in policies to open market opportunities in those countries I have been talking about; and of course in research and development.
The countries that will do best are not just those with geographical advantages, and some of those other competitive advantages I have been talking about. Those who will do best are those who are serious about being ahead of the game in research and development. That is something I thought we all understood and agreed on in this place. But this bill and the decision to decentralise RDCs—and the decisions to cut funding from CSIRO, from our CRCs and from our rural industries RDC—show that the government is not serious about it. They were not telling the truth prior to the election and they have let the agriculture sector down. I appeal very genuinely rethink this one. They will get absolute bipartisan support. The savings involved in the budget are not worth the cost or the adverse impact this will have on our RDCs in the immediate future. It is certainly not worth the impact it will have further down the track for research, development and extension in this country.
Dr HENDY (Eden-Monaro) (12:42): I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on this bill and support its second reading. This bill implements decisions taken in the budget that confront the realities of the budget task facing the Australian nation. It represents some hard decisions that have had to be taken.
So, while remaining utterly committed to research and development in the rural sector, we recognise that all sectors of the economy have to share in the budget repair task. In my view as an economist, the No. 1 priority for the Australian economy is to get the budget into a sustainable surplus over the medium to long run. Australia cannot go on borrowing $1 billion every single month just to pay the interest on the previous government's borrowings. This is wasted money that could otherwise be spent building roads, schools and hospitals; funding additional research and development; or paying for tax cuts for long-suffering taxpayers.
Australia has just run six straight years of record budget deficits. A further $123 billion in projected deficits and gross debt forecast to hit $667 billion was left for the new government to manage. This year's budget papers show that, even with the government's efforts to repair the budget, there will be four more deficits over the period 2014-15 to 2017-18. That would make 10 deficits in a row and would be unprecedented in our post-war history.
Over the whole 45 years of budget data published in budget paper No. 1, going back to 1970-71, the longest the budget has previously stayed in deficit is seven years in a row, through the extremely severe early-1990s recession. Extraordinarily, the last six budgets saw a faster increase in net debt than during that episode, both in dollar terms and as a percentage of GDP. This debt disaster problem occurred despite the benefit of a once-in-a-century mining boom and commodity prices that reached record high levels.
As the minister stated in his second reading speech:
Australia's rural industries are among the most innovative and productive in the world.
He noted:
The Australian government supports rural industries in a variety of ways.
For example:
To help primary producers increase their output and improve their profit margins, we support rural research and development. Much of this support is channeled through the 15 rural research and development corporations.
Part of the government's role is to be:
… a member of international commodity organisations and regional fisheries management organisations.
The minister further noted:
This bill implements a 2014 budget measure to change the way that the government pays for its membership to these organisations. The bill also reduces the red-tape burden currently imposed on some of the rural research and development corporations.
As the minister noted in his speech:
Australian research and development operates within a global system and must take into account international issues. The change to the legislation reflects this and also acknowledges that the ultimate beneficiaries of the activities of these international organisations are farmers, fishing industries and rural communities.
The bill amends three acts to allow the government to recover the cost of the memberships from the Commonwealth funding provided to relevant rural research and development corporations.
The government is of the view that:
This will provide a funding mechanism for memberships to these organisations that is sustainable in a time of increasing budget pressures.
The amendments will result in a saving to government of about $7 million over the next four years. This saving will be redirected by the government to help repair the budget.
And, as noted previously:
The bill also reduces red tape for some of the research and development corporations.
So, what do these RDCs do? As the Department of Agriculture's website states:
The RDCs invest in R&D and innovation to improve the productivity and delivery of high quality products in order to underpin the competitiveness and profitability of Australia's agricultural, fish and forestry industries.
… … …
The government-industry partnership model that supports the RDCs has been operating successfully for over 20 years and now provides more than $470 million in annual R&D expenditure, including around $247 million from industry and $218 million from government in matching contributions …
Based on legislated or industry funding agreements, the Australian Government agrees to collect industry levies for the purpose of R&D and/or marketing.
It then matches expenditure on R&D generally. The website continues:
The RDCs are a mix of statutory bodies and industry-owned companies (IOCs) … All undertake R&D activities and the IOCs also undertake marketing activities.
Currently, there are six statutory RDCs. They are in the areas of cotton, grains, fisheries, rural industries more generally, sugar and grape and wine research. Then the industry owned companies are the Australian Egg Corporation Limited, the Australian Livestock Export Corporation Limited, the Australian Meat Processor Corporation, Australian Pork Limited, Australian Wool Innovation Limited, Dairy Australia Limited, Forest and Wood Products Australia Limited, Horticulture Australia Limited and Meat and Livestock Australia.
It is worth mentioning that in 2011 the Productivity Commission did a review of rural R&D. It made a number of recommendations, particularly on future funding arrangements, many of which the then government rejected. However, I do want to note that the commission made an overall finding that:
This co-investment model has important strengths, including: helping to ensure that public money is not spent on research of little practical value; and facilitating greater and faster uptake of research outputs.
However, as currently configured, the model has some significant shortcomings. – It does not cater well for broader rural R&D needs.
It further stated:
While the broad model should be retained, significant changes to the way in which the Government contributes its funding are therefore called for. Specifically:
– The current cap on dollar for dollar matching of industry contributions by the Government should be halved over a ten-year period.
This recommendation was not accepted, but the findings of the PC do give some analytical backing to the government's decision here to make the changes in the current bill.
The Department of Agriculture currently pays fees for Australian government membership to international commodity organisations and regional fisheries management organisations. These organisations work to improve the trading environment for agricultural products by funding and coordinating R&D, providing information and statistics, setting international standards and ensuring ongoing access to fisheries. As the bill's explanatory memorandum notes:
Australia's membership of these organisations benefits the industries concerned. The international commodity organisations deliver industry good-outcomes, such as trading standards, research on global issues, and market statistics. The regional fisheries management organisations facilitate the management of migratory stock and high seas stocks that are fished by various nations. They inform international fisheries management and stock assessments.
So, we are rationalising this area of spending. But let us not lose sight of the bigger picture on research and development. I am here referring to the significant microeconomic reform in the form of higher education reform contained in the May budget.
I believe that it is both necessary and vital for the Australian economy. As I have said before, we all know that a first-class higher education system is a necessary condition to maintain a first-world economy. It is the difference between having a wealthy and an also-ran country. Australia is a first-rank economy and one of the most developed in the world. That is not a matter of luck. Many countries have abundant natural resources but have poor and weak economies because they do not possess the intellectual firepower to utilise those natural blessings. As John Howard often said, 'Economic reform is like participating in a running race with an ever-receding finish line.'
The reform task can never end if Australia is to stay in the front rank of nations. Specifically in terms of R&D, the higher education reforms include much to be proud of. We will secure Australia's place at the forefront of research, with $150 million in 2015-16 for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. This will ensure that we secure the benefits of the $2.5 billion investment in the state-of-the-art research infrastructure since the strategy was created by the Howard government in 2004. There will also be $139.5 million to deliver 100 new four-year research positions per year under the Future Fellowships scheme. This will be delivered through the Australian Research Council.
A few weeks ago, the Minister for Education announced 150 fellowships awarded to outstanding researchers. As he noted, these researchers are working on a broad range of research that will deliver benefits to our nation and our region. This includes improving Australian agriculture and food security and preventing future water scarcity. In addition, there is $26 million to accelerate research in dementia, $42 million to support new research in tropical disease and $24 million to support the Antarctic Gateway Partnership. This is a fantastic boost to research and will complement the $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund that the government is also setting up. Further, the Prime Minister recently launched the Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda. It included $188.5 million to fund industry growth centres in five key sectors, one of which is food and agribusiness. This adds to the current $9.2 billion annual Commonwealth investment in research.
Finally, may I conclude my speech by acknowledging the recent win by a New South Wales grazier, Pip Job, of the 2014 Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation Rural Women's Award. I also congratulate runner-up, Jackie Jarvis, of Western Australia. The RIRDC Rural Women's Award is a leading awards program that recognises women in rural communities. As the Minister for Agriculture's media release informs us:
Ms Job has instigated significant changes to Landcare policy and recognises the impact rural life can have on farming families. This has resulted in the 'Women in the Landscape' program which is being rolled out nationally.
So congratulations to this year's winner, Pip. I wish her and her colleagues all the best in their future endeavours. In conclusion, I note that the government remains strongly committed to rural research and development. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr GRAY (Brand) (12:54): I join the previous speaker in congratulating the women who won the rural leadership awards just last month—in particular, Jackie Jarvis, from Western Australia, who was runner-up to a very worthy winner in Pip Job. Jackie's work centred around building good jobs and good support structures for refugees, bringing people into our regional and rural communities to work, to have good lives and to enjoy the great environment and the strong communities of regional and provincial Australia, in this case rural and provincial Western Australia. Jackie's efforts were acknowledged by her peers and acknowledged by RIRDC through that wonderful evening.
My sister-in-law, Shelley Birch, who farms at Karoo in the northern wheat belt in Western Australia, was a past Western Australian winner from the early 2000s, demonstrating the importance of a vibrant rural sector, a broad understanding of what research actually means and an engaging culture of those things that we can do to lift the productivity of our rural sector in a meaningful and measurable way. The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation is a great organisation, and it is a great evening that we all have here once a year to acknowledge the women from our regional, farming and primary industries communities for their simply outstanding effort.
The Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 is not an outstanding effort. This bill is a sneaky attempt to make a saving where no saving should exist. It is an attempt to take, as a saving, the fees paid by RDCs to international organisations as part of their international affiliations. I mentioned my family connections to the Western Australian grain belt. The Western Australian grain belt is an economic pillar not only of Western Australia but also of our nation. We produce, in Western Australia, our nation's export grain crop. That export grain crop frequently runs in the order of 12 million to 18 million tonnes or maybe even more per year. It earns us export income and generates good jobs. The Western Australian grain crop is mostly exported through the Kwinana terminal in my electorate, through CBH. But, importantly, our export grain crop is generated through, largely, family businesses run through the grain belt of Western Australia.
The Western Australian grain belt is a unique proposition. One hundred and twenty years ago, farmers attempting to grow crops in the grain belt of Western Australia found themselves unable to produce sustainable crops in the weak and ancient soils of Western Australia. They found themselves north of Geraldton, at Champion Bay, producing crops that were so weak and so feeble that communities faced malnutrition and starvation. The fix for the Western Australian grain belt was the discovery of the reason for the feeble soil, which was a lack of trace elements. That was done through science and the application of good research to understand the reasons why our soils of Western Australia were not capable of producing bountiful crops. It seemed, from the weather pattern and from the nature of the vegetation, that the grain belt of Western Australia should have been productive land. But the reality for our farmers trying to open up the hinterland around Geraldton was that it was simply impossible to grow a sustainable crop.
The science that understood the role that copper and other trace elements play in renovating those large tracts of land in Western Australia was simply second to none. The work that was done to apply superphosphate to the weak soils of Western Australia was simply second none. And, of course, the ability to apply those trace elements and the ability to apply superphosphate occurred in Western Australia at almost the same time as the application of the internal combustion engine to provide motor force and tractor capacity in Western Australia to allow the development not just of a science based grain belt but also a capital based grain belt. It was investment in substantial tractor capacity motor force that allowed the grain belt to be opened in Western Australia from the 1920s.
My wife's family moved to Doodlakine in the 1930s to open land in those circumstances. As my father-in-law, former Senator Peter Walsh, is fond of saying, the land which they opened at Doodlakine in the 1920s and 1930s has always been productive and returned the cost of that crop. Therein you have the great synergy between science, research and a productive rural sector.
As we speak here today, in the grain belt of Western Australia from Esperance through to Geraldton, crops are being taken off. My family at Coorow began the harvesting process three weeks ago, and the harvest is going pretty well. It is not going so well at Esperance where very bad weather conditions struck a number of property owners just north of Esperance, and the season does not look as if it is going to be good for them. All we can do from this place is offer our best wishes and acknowledge the importance of our rural industries and communities not just to Western Australia but to the nation.
That brings me to the importance of RDCs. RDCs are about establishing communities of knowledge in some areas where international funding is paid to international sister organisations. It is also about good science and being practically capable of implementing measures that we want to have in place, for instance, in managing a fishery. Fish tend not to respect national borders. Fish tend to swim wherever they choose and so therefore having RDCs which link with international organisations tends to be good public policy but also good policy in fisheries management. Good policy in fisheries management is about sustainability: it is very much about productivity and it is absolutely about ensuring a sustainable future.
When we look at the decision of the government to save a paltry $7 million, we would have to conclude that this is not simply unnecessary policy, it is not properly balanced policy. We are still in search of the new $100 million that the government said it would invest in RDCs. We are still in search of what that means, because we are confronted by the surprise that all we have to debate and consider here today are the cuts to RDCs—cuts to those very organisations that work in a collaborative and cooperative way with our regional communities; our scientists who help manage good public policy in agriculture industries; families; people like Pip and Jackie Jarvis—people whose family concern and interest in developing their good businesses and their strong regional communities had always until now been partnered with a deeply bipartisan approach to RDCs.
RDCs have always been a realistic and valuable part of our public policy infrastructure in primary industries for over a quarter of a century. They have grown in their influence from being specifically sectoral to on many occasions international, and are accountable to their membership organisations, transparent to government, supported by communities and celebrated by this parliament.
When we saw a $7 million saving over four years, many of us thought: 'I can't believe that that can be true. I cant' believe that you would attempt to extract a saving from such lean organisations'—organisations that are not simply run on the smell of an oily rag but on the rumour of the smell of on oily rag. The families and the communities that support our RDCs are genuinely frugal. They do not sign up to international organisations to have fun; they do it in the name of good research, good partnership, good science and good outcomes. Because good science is about regional solutions, and that is never more obvious than in the context of fisheries research and management.
We found ourselves genuinely struggling to understand: why this saving? We find ourselves incapable of understanding why—when RDCs bring together industry and researchers to establish research and development strategic directions and fund projects that provide industry with innovation and productivity tools—you would want to wind that back, especially in global marketplaces; especially when the farming family to which I belong is in competition every day of every week with potential grain suppliers out of the old Soviet Union, North America and South America. They need to be kept up to the game in whichever way they possibly can. They need not just the dollar support they receive from the Australian federal government but the emotional support.
I find it distasteful, unfortunate and unnecessary that, in the weeks following that terrific event in Parliament House where we acknowledged the winners of our RDC programs and I was simply overjoyed to see how well Jackie Jarvis had done—and the great project that Pip had brought and which was the national winner—we would not acknowledge that we see an efficient spend of public money in these organisations. We see an effective spend of public money. We see networks that support Australian farming families. We see international networks that support the productivity agenda that is critically important to key primary industries, in particular fisheries and fisheries management. We also find ourselves stepping back inside Australia and not embracing the world in which our agricultural and horticultural projects and produce need to compete. That is important, because the future of farming is the future of our regional communities. In Western Australia, Merredin, Geraldton, Mukinbudin, Esperance and Albany are all communities that live and go from strength to strength on the strength of our agricultural opportunities and fortunes. They need to know that governments will stand by them.
Not one of the people who I have spoken to about this bill was aware that the government had cuts in mind. Not one of them had in mind that the cuts would be to such an infinitesimal area of the operations of RDCs; yet it is such a very important area of the operation of RDCs. I find myself in opposition to this bill not simply because it makes no sense but also because I find myself surprisingly emotionally in opposition to this bill. That is because I know the great value that comes to our farming and our agricultural communities from good dollars that are spent effectively in the interests of our farming and regional communities. That is something that is so important and had never been questioned before through successive budgets in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1997 and 1998—all the way through to today. We had never seen this sort of initiative from a federal government. I ask members of the government to please reassess why you are doing it and change your views. (Time expired)
Mr COULTON (Parkes—The Nationals Chief Whip) (13:09): I rise to speak on the Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. I cannot commence without commenting on the previous speaker and, indeed, the speech before from the shadow minister. While I found the first part of member for Brand's speech quite interesting, as I always do, it did really run off the reservation in the last few minutes. For the first six years that I had this place in parliament, as a member of a rural seat, I was knocking on the door of successive ministers for agriculture in the Labor government. The frustration that I felt from the disengagement of the previous Labor government of the agriculture sector was palatable.
I saw the frustration of my constituents who are involved in agriculture as they watched the previous government disband drought policy and destroy the live cattle trade. They saw that the only way of obtaining funds from the federal Labor government was if it was something through their ideology. That is, if it was anything to do with climate change. That might have got a look in from the Minister for Agriculture. But other than that, they were not interested. Indeed, we speak about the last government possibly being the worst government in Australia's history. Certainly, the last couple of agricultural ministers have been very, very ordinary and invisible in many cases. While the shadow minister now is making a valiant effort to make a lot of noise about agriculture, I fear that he is making up for six years of lost ground and really would not have any support within his party.
Australian farmers are amongst the most competitive and innovative in the world. The competitiveness is drawn from a number of factors, but a key contributor to this competitiveness is the annual continual innovation in the sector brought by research and development. Research and development is important, as it allows primary producers to produce more with less to improve the operational efficiency. This contributes to greater profits and a better return for farm-gate producers. As I stand here today, in the northern part of New South Wales and in the electorate of Parkes, farmers harvesting crops on one of the lowest rainfall years on record. They are growing crops that their fathers or grandfathers would not have been able to grow; that is because of innovation in research and because of the advent of zero till, spraying crop weeds out, conserving moisture, innovation in machinery with disc planters and the like has meant that farmers are harvesting viable crops, whereas in previous years they would not have.
Agricultural research and development has always provided to dividends for Australian farmers in the broader economy. One only has to look back on examples such as William Farrer's rust-proof wheat, which allowed the development and expansion of the Australian wheat industry, or the continual development of quality merino wool, which has allowed for the development of a high-quality, high-premium industry. It has been developments such as these that have put Australian agriculture in such a competitive place. Continual investment is needed in order to remain in this place.
Investment in agricultural research and development is also important due to its value for money. On average, farmers generate a $12 return for every dollar invested over a 10 year period. This means that for any money that is spent on research and development the government and public is guaranteed a return on this investment almost immediately. It is for this reason that the government investment provides resources for this critical sector. The Australian government invests extensively in research and development. This financial year alone, $700 million will be spent on this sector.
There has been a lot of talk today about the $7 million of cuts that have had to be made. Keep that in context. There is $700 million that will be spent in this sector. The reason that those cuts have had to be made is because they have had to be made across the board in every sector. Certainly, no minister wants to have to find savings in their portfolio, but the Minister for Agriculture has done his duty—as have other ministers—to make these savings while having the most minimal effect as possible. I have got to say, the farming sector over the last six or seven years has watched billions of dollars squandered down at their local schools for classrooms or halls that were not needed and has watched pink batts put in houses in an inefficient manner. One of the great frustrations for the people in my electorate has been watching the Labor Party squander taxpayers' funds. The Australian people know that without a balanced budget it is not possible to continue to provide the necessary support to industry.
The rural research and development corporations provide mechanisms for farmers and fishers to invest collectively in services that will contribute positively back to their industry and their operations. Through the collection of statutory levies, which are matched in funding by the federal government, primary producers are encouraged to invest in their own industry. This industry self-investment shows the positive culture of innovation in Australian farming. It is this culture that has contributed to Australian agriculture's international success and it is through continuing government investment in this sector that this culture can be maintained and expanded.
The government has also committed an extra $100 million in funding, starting next year, for these rural research and development corporations. This is delivering on the coalition's 2013 election commitment to improve the level of funding for this important sector. This funding boost will be directed by the rural research and development corporations towards projects that increase the profitability and productivity of primary industries, increase the value of primary products, strengthen the ability of primary producers to adapt to opportunities and threats, strengthen on-farm adoption and improve information flows. These projects are needed to further contribute to farm productivity and profitability. This funding could be used to address, for example, wild animal control or better mechanisms to control wild blackberries and other pests. Such projects are crucial in an increasingly competitive export environment where innovation is needed to diversify Australian agricultural products from those of their foreign competitors. It is through innovation that markets are created, it is through innovation that profits are created and it is through innovation that returns at the farm gate are increased.
This bill also reduces the level of red tape imposed on the research and development sector. It standardises the reporting requirements for the research and development corporations. For instance, the Australian Meat and Live-stock Industry Act is amended to remove the tabling requirement for the funding agreement, and variations to the funding agreement, between the Commonwealth and the Australian Livestock Export Corporation, as well as for the annual report and the compliance report of the Australian Livestock Export Corporation. This reduces the costs associated with compliance. The affected research and development corporations will be able to invest these savings back into research. It will allow the affected rural research and development corporations to shift their organisational focus away from overbearing government compliance and back towards research. In order to meet the future needs and wants of Australian agricultural markets, the time of these research organisations must be efficiently and effectively focused on research. This can be done while preserving the quality of oversight and the accountability of the research and development sector to primary producers and to the public in general.
This bill eliminates the requirement for the rural research and development corporations to hold an annual meeting. There are already a number of other channels through which coordination can be and is performed, so an annual meeting is not needed. The meeting only involves five of the 15 rural research and development corporations and its removal will not affect coordination outcomes. This change will also reduce the organisational time directed towards the meeting, allowing research organisations to refocus their energy on research. It is important to the future effectiveness of these organisations and the future competitiveness of Australian agriculture that as much organisational energy as possible is focused on research and innovation.
There has been a lot of negativity from the opposition about the cuts in the bill. But we now have a government that is focused on agriculture. We now have a government that recognises agriculture as one of the pillars of our economy. The Minister for Agriculture is developing a white paper which will give us, for the first time in years, a clear direction for Australian agriculture. Over 700 people have contributed to the process so far, and that consultation is ongoing. We now have a government that understands that the future of this country, in the long term, is reliant on the viability of the agriculture sector. It will not do our agriculture sector or any other sector any good if we ignore our financial responsibilities—our responsibility, as a government, to get the budget back in order.
The great frustration, not only with the debate on this bill but with many debates in this place over the last 12 months, is the great disconnect on that side of the House. They do not seem to believe there is any need to show any financial responsibility. There seems to be no understanding—I suppose it comes from their lack of experience in the real world of business—that things have to be paid for. This bill goes a small way towards addressing that problem and I support it. Research is vitally important.
I will just touch on the fact that the shadow minister had a go at the government about decentralisation, saying what a bad thing it was to remove public servants from the cities and put them in regional areas. The shadow minister lives at Maitland. That is the outer Barcoo as far as the Labor Party is concerned. The idea that anything of any significance could go on outside the capital cities is foreign to the Labor Party. Decentralisation is a very valid idea and the minister is certainly on the right track. I am horrified at the hypocrisy of the Labor Party trying to rewrite the last six years of Labor mismanagement. This bill has my full support.
Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (13:22): I acknowledge my colleagues who have already spoken in this debate and I give them my total support for decentralisation. I look forward to policies that support Albury-Wodonga in particular. It gives me great pleasure to speak to the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill. I would like to cover off three points. The first is the recommendations made by the National Farmers Federation, the second is the importance of consultation, and the third is my congratulations to the Minister for Agriculture on his green paper. I will discuss some of the topics he has raised in that, in particular the importance of education. In summary, the principal of government setting a major precedent of change for the RDC model without consulting with industry is very concerning, particularly given that the RDC model rests on cooperation and partnership with industry. Why change a major system like this that has operated so well for so long just for $7 million, and why provoke the wrath of an industry by not consulting properly? I hope that when we move through to discussion and debate about the white paper we can take seriously the comments that industry has made.
The National Farmers Federation made a number of recommendations in their submission to the inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Regional and Rural Affairs and Transport. They made two recommendations on the bill that I would like to bring to the attention of the House. One was about the pain of international subscriptions on behalf of some of the RDCs. The NFF recommends that the committee consider whether the funding of membership to international intergovernment commodity organisations requires legislative change. It is their belief that it does not. The NFF also recommends that the committee consider whether the government is making long-term structural changes to the RDC model without adequate consideration of the consequences or adequate industry consultation. They are two very valid points that I hope the government representative on the front bench, the member for Gippsland, will answer when he replies to the debate.
The second recommendation that the NFF makes—I think it has an enormous amount of value—is that even if we agree with these changes and we put them in place, they do not have to be there forever. The NFF recommends that the bill be amended with a sunset clause of five years, when the obligation of funding of international intergovernment commodity organisations shifts back to the Australian government. Again I think there is a lot of merit in that and I ask the parliamentary secretary to comment on it. They are two things that the NFF are saying need to be done and I will be keen to hear support from my colleagues opposite on that.
The next issue I would like to address is consultation with industry, and how important it is to me, as a member representing a rural electorate, that the government have deep and extensive consultation with industry—and not only consults but also takes on board what industry has to say. I congratulate the minister for the agricultural competitiveness green paper and the opportunity to consult with industry over the next couple of months on some of the major themes in the paper. The minister has done a fantastic job—giving it time, giving it resources and putting in place skilled public servants who can pull such a really good paper together. That is exactly the way we should be consulting with industry. It builds trust but, much more importantly, it gets us really good results in the long-term.
There are a couple of topics in this paper that I bring to the attention of the House. One is education and training. We have heard right across the country that we can do all we like at one level with R&D, but if we do not have a solid base of education and training the whole system will shift in ways that we do not want to see. Education and training is fundamentally important to the long-term sustainability of a rural research and development cooperation program. University education is particularly important. As members of this House know, the Minister for Education has plans to change the way education is funded in Australia. While that might work for our city cousins, I have great doubts that it is going to work for our agricultural sector.
Jim Pratley, from Charles Sturt University, has done studies which show that we already have market failure in rural and regional Australia, particularly in regard to training agricultural economists and all the specialist people that we need with a university education. In 2012, he indicated there was a need for 4,000 professionally qualified agricultural research people in Australia, and we were able to produce only 800. So, we absolutely need to change the situation. But we need to change it so we can meet the real need in rural and regional Australia for qualified scientists and other research people, and we have to hold them in rural and regional Australia so they can contribute to the whole process of building a competitive agricultural sector. We need those qualified, skilled, tertiary educated people to do the work that has to be done. I am a great supporter of what I read in this paper about building pathways between schools, TAFEs and universities so that we have a system in which people can move up to do their PhDs and then hopefully live and work in rural Australia when they have finished their PhD. I bring to the attention of the House how important that consultation is and I emphasise the words that our community have been saying and urge that we hold onto these thoughts at the next stage of this paper when it becomes a white paper—we need to put funds, personnel and resources into particularly tertiary education, particularly in rural and regional Australia, and particularly into agriculture. It is probably the most important thing we can do.
Another part of this paper that has great merit concerns the need to establish a new body, or task existing research bodies, to coordinate cross-sector research. One of the important things that need to happen in rural and regional Australia is that we need to talk to each other across RDCs. A worrying part of this legislation before the House is that the RDCs do not have to report to parliament and they do not have to meet on an annual basis.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Order! It being 1.30 pm the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Royal Australian Navy: Submarines
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (13:30): The Abbott government's backpedalling from its pre-election commitment to build the replacement submarines in South Australia continues. Prior to the election, the Minister for Defence, Mr David Johnston, said:
We will deliver those submarines from right here at ASC in South Australia.
The Coalition today is committed to building 12 new submarines here in Adelaide …
Last Thursday the member for Eden-Monaro claimed in this House that the Abbott government had never promised to build the subs in South Australia but that any work relating to the subs would be 'centred on Adelaide'.
Defence Minister Johnston's pre-election commitment to South Australia about the replacement submarines was crystal clear—they would be built in Adelaide. The claim that the work would be centred on Adelaide is political spin by a government that is trying to extricate itself from another pre-election promise and that appears to be paving the way for a deal with Japan.
Not only is this issue critical for South Australia; it also matters to Australians right across the country. Australians will not be fooled by spin. Unlike the auto industry, which the Abbott government turned its back on, with the replacement submarine program the buck stops fairly and squarely with the Abbott government. Where are the South Australian Liberals on this issue? I note the member for Hindmarsh is in the chamber. It seems that they too have gone to water.
Casey Electorate: Margaret Lewis Reserve
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (13:31): On Saturday I had the pleasure of meeting with a large number of Coldstream residents in my electorate of Casey at the Margaret Lewis Reserve, where there was the opening of a gazebo in the centre of the reserve that had been funded by the local council. When Margaret Lewis died back in 1981, she bequeathed 15 hectares of bushland to the people of Coldstream. It is now a reserve maintained by the Friends of Margaret Lewis Reserve, who have been caring for and nurturing that community asset in Coldstream for the best part of 30 years.
In the past they have had small equipment grants from this side of the House and, as I mentioned, a grant from the council, but mostly they have done it themselves. They are a dedicated group of volunteers, led by the irrepressible Morris Maxwell. They have constructed walking paths and ensured that the area is fit for public use. It has become a community hub in Coldstream. I want to pay tribute to Morris Maxwell and to the executive of the Friends of Margaret Lewis Reserve, who have done so much good work over 30 years and who will do more good work in the future for the people of Coldstream.
Malcolm, Mr David
Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (13:33): David Malcolm, who passed away on 20 October, will be remembered in Western Australia as one of its greatest sons—Rhodes scholar, state rugby player, fearless Queen's Counsel, highly respected and long-serving Chief Justice, Companion of the Order of Australia and Western Australian Citizen of the Year. But as observed by my brother-in-law Chris Steytler, who served alongside David Malcom as a Supreme Court judge:
The true measure of the man rests in the attributes that underpinned those achievements—intellect, energy, enthusiasm, compassion and a passionate belief in the rights of every individual. `
David Malcolm's judgments have left an enduring testament to his intellectual ability, while his energy and enthusiasm were evident to all who had the good fortune to serve under him as Chief Justice. His capacity for work was boundless. While maintaining a full sitting workload as well as undertaking the heavy responsibilities of court administration, he somehow found the time to present a vast array of public speeches on a wide variety of topics.
But, above all, David Malcolm never forgot that the law is about the community, and the rights, duties and interests of the individuals who must co-exist within it. He recognised that a healthy community is one in which no-one is above the rule of law, one in which different backgrounds, cultures, religious beliefs and interests are respected, one which strives to be free of prejudice and intolerance and one in which human rights are respected in both word and deed. This recognition is what drove him and made him the outstanding Chief Justice that he undoubtedly was.
David Malcolm will be sadly missed by his wife Kaaren, his daughter Manisha, his many friends and by the entire Western Australian community.
Brisbane Hospital and the Great War
Ms GAMBARO (Brisbane) (13:34): On Monday 20 October, I had the honour of attending the official opening of the Brisbane Hospital and Great War exhibition at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, based in the heart of the electorate of Brisbane. The launch of the Brisbane Hospital and Great War exhibition was attended by the Governor-General of Australia, Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC and Lady Cosgrove, Ms Cluny Seagar, President of the Royal Brisbane Hospitals' Nurses Association, a wide representation from the Royal Brisbane Hospitals' Nurses Association committee members, military representatives, and my colleagues Mr Robert Cavallucci, state member for Brisbane Central, and Councillor Vicki Howard of the Central Ward.
The exhibition project was developed by the Committee of the Royal Brisbane Hospitals' Nurses Association to commemorate the services given and sacrifices made by 86 Brisbane Hospital trained nurses, 30 doctors and many medical orderlies during World War I. The hospital is profiled as it was in 1914, and how it functioned during the Great War with limited staff.
The Royal Brisbane Hospitals' Nurses Association received funding for this project through the Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program for the electorate of Brisbane. I commend all of those who were involved in the program. It was an honour to attend such an important event to commemorate the service of the men and women who cared for those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Chisolm Electorate: FAN Welfare Services
Ms BURKE (Chisholm) (13:36): There are just amazing people in our community who dedicate enormous time and effort to making sure our world is a safer and better place to live. One such person is Helen Killmier a passionate advocate for community and those who find themselves in adverse situations. Helen for the past nine years has been a board member of FAN, Family Access Network, a tremendous local group which has at its core housing as a basic human right and that young people have a right to self-determination.
For many of these years Helen served as the board's chair and at the recent AGM announced her retirement. Helen brought to the board a wealth of experience from the not for profit and local government sector as well as her professional expertise in psychology. Helen's time on the board has been of great benefit to FAN during much uncertainty brought about by changing government priorities and funding uncertainty. Helen has seen FAN's strategic plan developed, implemented and evaluated with flying colours in her time—an achievement any board chair would be proud of.
FAN continues to provide holistic responses to young people in housing crisis and support young people in need. The service has operated in Box Hill for 33 years, regardless of many people saying in the leafy green suburbs there are not such things as need and homelessness. Helen saw above this and has put against the socio-demographic picture to see the real need. Helen's drive, vision, skill, warm personality and humour have provided the anchor as chair to FAN for many years and on behalf of our community I wish to say thank you. She will be missed at FAN, but her legacy in the role will live on.
Hinkler Electorate: Lighthouse Festival
Mr PITT (Hinkler) (13:37): On Friday night I attended the launch the Lighthouse Festival's Art and Photography exhibition and the launch of the Lighthouse Festival at Burnett Heads. Some 8000 people attended the festival, now in its fifth year on the weekend, at the Jack Norvil Oval, which is where the original lighthouse is now situated. It was a wonderful event and well attended obviously.
These things do not happen without a strong organising committee and I would like to make special mention of chairman David Wise who did a wonderful job in organising this year's event. But you could not do these things without the indomitable Sherilee Rann, who coordinated the art show and who is a very well-known local at Burnett Heads. The major sponsor and a large employer locally, the Gladstone Ports Corporation, also came on board.
That Burnett Heads lighthouse was originally located at South head in 1873 and operated for some 99 years before being replaced by a modern structure in 1972. That lighthouse is open on the fourth Sunday of every month, and these things do not happen with out volunteers. Marje Kidd has been doing this role for many years. She gave us a great review of the lighthouse and its history on Friday night, which was attended by myself, of course, and the local state member for Burnett, Stephen Bennett. Local history is what it is all about and I would encourage anyone who might be listening to this broadcast to get themselves to Bundaberg to see the lighthouse and even to attend next year's lighthouse festival. While you are there, see some whales in Harvey Bay and have a look at the turtles at Christmas.
Lalor Electorate: Education
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (13:39): I rise to speak about the launch of the Warringa Park School's Bethany Road campus that happened in my electorate on Friday, 17 October. I was thrilled to join local and state representatives as well as being accompanied by Amanda Rishworth, our shadow assistant minister for education. I was also joined by education department officials, parents and students at what was a very special event.
Warringa Park School is school with special students in my electorate and, due to insightful, visionary leadership, signed a memorandum of agreement with Grange P12 college in 2012 to house a satellite school for Warringa Park on the Grange campus. This was a terrific day celebrating the creative leadership of both schools. I would also pay tribute to both school councils who joined together to create a special site for year 9 and year 10 students close to their homes. The smiles on the students' faces was reflected by the wonderful speeches given by principals, teachers, but ultimately by the students attending that college. It was a terrific day and now this campus joins Manor Lakes College, which is a mainstream school with a special education component. I would like to say that special education in Lalor is being well served by this good leadership.
National Mosque Open Day
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (13:40): On Saturday I attended Lakemba Mosque as part of the National Mosque Open Day initiative, which was proudly supported by the government through the Department of Social Services. National Mosque Open Day was designed to give non-Muslim Australians a chance to learn more about Islam.
Thousands of people came to Lakemba Mosque during the day. Many, probably most, had never been inside a mosque before. The day provided an opportunity to learn more about the doctrinal aspects of the Muslim faith. Informative wall displays explained some of the key tenets of Islam and described the many messengers of the religion. It was also a fun and relaxed day. There was face painting for the kids, great food and drink and fundraising events for local charities.
This important initiative was planned and organised by the Lebanese Muslim Association, based at Lakemba Mosque. The LMA is a strong and articulate advocate on behalf of the Muslim community and a highly professional organisation. I would like to congratulate the LMA on the great success of National Mosque Open Day—in particular, its President, Samier Dandan, Program Director, Sahar Dandan, and Project Manager, Zachary Rea, who all played instrumental roles in the event.
Knowledge is always better than ignorance; asking the question is always better than presuming to know the answer. In bringing Australians together to learn more about the Muslim faith, National Mosque Open Day played an important role in making our community better informed and more understanding. Congratulations to all involved.
Electorate of Indi: Child Care
Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (13:42): Formal child care plays a significant role in our communities by providing the quality of care and education that is crucial for our children's development. In Wangaratta Goodstart Early Learning Centre Manager, Tracey McAliece, and education leader, Bec Smith, provide outstanding care. On October 13, they gave me a tour of their centre and showed me how they are giving children and families the best support possible.
The kids were happy and very engaged in many different activities. Bec explained how it so important for children under five to learn through play. The environment is diverse and caters to all tastes—whether it is a giant sandpit, a dinghy, climbing equipment or water play.
Fifteen staff, including Di, Winona, Marlee and Lisa, provide nurturing care. They also told me that 95 per cent of the people who work in this childcare centre having a Diploma in Children's Services or higher. This gives the 97 families enrolled at the centre great peace of mind about the level of care their children are receiving—not to mention food. Food is really important, and Marion does a magnificent job in the kitchen, making healthy food—tuna pizzas are the favourite, she tells me, and fruit platters are always a hit. Staff member Di summed it up well: 'It's about providing meaningful experiences to support the individual needs of every child.' From what I saw during my visit—
Electorate of Durack: Hindi Festival
Ms PRICE (Durack) (13:44): 'Numastay, Arp sabko diwali key shoebcalm nigh.' What I just said, Deputy Speaker—and not very well, I may say—was: 'Greetings, wishing you all a happy Diwali.' This was my attempt on Saturday night to speak Hindi when I was a guest and sponsor at the Hindi festival held in Geraldton. Diwali Festival is the 'festival of lights' and is an ancient Hindu festival celebration in autumn every year. On Diwali night, Hindus dress up in new clothes or their best outfit. I can vouch for the fact that the Geraldton community took this tradition very seriously as the outfits worn by Hindus and non-Hindus were very fancy indeed and incredibly colourful, especially the children.
This was the first time this event was held in Geraldton. Congratulations to Ernest Gutsa, the President, and Hari Kumar, the Vice-President of the Midwest Multicultural Association, who were responsible for the event. The evening was filled with music and dance, by young and old—even the member for Durack. It was a wonderful community celebration. A fabulous example of how Australia is an inclusive multi-cultural community and I look forward to being involved in many more of these events.
Employment
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (13:45): I am very proud to say that the Australian Labor Party has always been the party of the Australian worker. Equality, dignity and respect are articles of faith in our movement. So I am very proud to report to the House today on a campaign being led by the National Union of Workers against insecure work—the tremendous growth of which is putting these important values at risk. The campaign is called Jobs You Can Count On.
There are more than 2.2 million Australian workers—one in five—who are casually employed. More than a million workers in Australia are independent contractors, often dependent on one client. Up to 300,000 workers are employed through labour hire companies with little or no job security. Far from choosing these conditions—as is often suggested by those on the other side of the House—insecure workers are more likely to be the vulnerable people in our labour force. They are women, young people and those without significant skills. Far from benefitting from the great growth in prosperity in Australia, these Australians are living precarious lives—lives of real risk.
Insecure work means that families cannot plan for their future. They cannot borrow to invest in their own skills and capabilities. They cannot get loans for houses or for cars. Many are too afraid, when things come up at work, to speak out for fear of losing their jobs.
In this House we must be relentless in our push for workers to have jobs that they can count on in this country. I am proud to stand tall with the National Union of workers and their Jobs You Can Count On campaign.
Hindmarsh Electorate: Charities
Mr WILLIAMS (Hindmarsh) (13:46): I rise today to recognise the amazing work of a number of charities in my electorate of Hindmarsh, in particular, Mary's Kitchen, an outreach program supervised by Uniting Care in Glenelg. My first contact with Mary's Kitchen came a couple of months ago during a cold plunge, which was volunteers who got together to dive in the icy waters of Glenelg during winter to raise money for a good cause. St Vincent de Paul and other local organisations were involved including the Rotary Club of Glenelg.
Operating from St. Andrew's Hall, Jetty Road, Mary's Kitchen does a wonderful job providing meals such as soup, bread, baked potatoes, cakes and fellowship for those in need. Many who use this service may not have eaten for days and welcome the food and understanding they receive. Mary's Kitchen is open on Tuesday nights and it was good to call by recently and to talk to those who utilise the services and offer to help out in the future.
I was happy to get my hands dirty recently for Fred's Van in Semaphore during anti-poverty week in early October. Like Mary's Kitchen, Fred's Van provides a food service supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our community who experience a range of issues such as homelessness, social isolation and unemployment, providing approximately 500 meals a week across Adelaide. People are welcomed to access Fred's Van for a hot, fine meal and it was good to help out those volunteers on the night.
Congratulations to all those volunteers from Fred's Van around South Australia, particularly down at Semaphore, and congratulations also to Mary's Kitchen, and the wonderful work they do for people in the community.
Canberra Electorate: Youth
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (13:48): Before I begin I would like to commend the member for Durack for her attempt at Hindi. I actually learned Hindi before I was posted to India. It is a challenging but wonderful language and you did a great job, so congratulations.
Last month I had the pleasure of touring the Lions Youth Haven, which is a 70-bed hostel in Kambah. Members will know about the great work Lions clubs do all around Australia, and I am pleased to tell you about an initiative in my electorate. The Lions Youth Haven has helped more than 500 students over the past four years, through practical, hands-on time on a farm.
Westwood Farm in the Tuggeranong Valley provides a haven for youth at risk in our community. It is a place where young people in situations of crisis can find refuge and support, where they can gain confidence and self-respect and where they can receive vocational training and hands-on experience in horticulture and agriculture. It is about giving youth the skills to work on the land, to understand sustainable agriculture and animal handling.
I applaud the organisation on its 'paddock to the plate' program, where students learn how the meat and veggies on their plate are produced. I am also pleased a new lodge has opened at the farm providing overnight accommodation for school, sporting and other community groups like the students who come to Canberra for the PEO program. The lodge aims to provide a taste of rural life for students visiting Canberra, but it also plays a much bigger role.
I take this opportunity to congratulate the Lions Club on this project, and I thank them for showing me around this fantastic facility.
Hughes Electorate: Diwali
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (13:50): I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all my constituents in the electorate of Hughes, those from Wattle Grove, Chipping Norton and Holsworthy and many of the other suburbs, who celebrate Diwali—one of the most culturally important festivals in our area. Known as the 'festival of lights', Diwali celebrates the victory of good over evil and the victory of knowledge over ignorance—and don't we need more of that?
These are values that we all support and I will be proud to be celebrating huge Diwali celebrations that I have organised on Sunday, 2 November. This will be a free event held at Holsworthy High School at Huon Crescent Holsworthy between 12 pm and 4 pm. The event will feature fun filled celebrations of Diwali. We will have demonstrations of Bollywood dancing throughout the event and crowd participation will be encouraged. I am looking forward to getting on the dance floor, hopefully to learn a few new steps.
The fashions of Bollywood will also be on display in Liverpool, known as 'Sari City', which is in my electorate in the many wonderful sari shops. I am also proud that we will be having an Indian cooking demonstration with samples of the different delectable Indian foods—especially my favourite, butter chicken.
I am grateful to the principal of Holsworthy High School, John Frew, for his support and my staff for organising this event. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Kumar of Kumar Tailors, who fashioned my wonderful tie for today to celebrate Diwali here in parliament.
Newcastle Electorate: Asylum Seekers
Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (13:51): Newcastle is a community that is welcoming and diverse, and as the member for Newcastle, it is something that I am incredibly proud of. On Saturday I had the honour of joining with 1,500 fellow Novocastrians at a Welcome to Australia event to remind everyone that Newcastle is indeed a welcoming place for all people.
Thousands of Australians joined in Walk Together events across the country from Adelaide, Melbourne, Whyalla and Sydney, to Darwin, Perth, Rockhampton and Hobart. We united to remind each other that no matter who you are or how you arrived here, we share the same dreams of safety, peace, opportunity, belonging and a better future for our children.
By welcoming new arrivals and helping them to pursue their dreams, our country, our culture and our economy are deeply enriched. One of the marks of a free and democratic society is having tolerance, understanding and acceptance of one another. It is the job of governments to nurture this sense of fairness and indeed make our nation even greater, and that is something that I am deeply committed to. Like those who walked together on Saturday, I want an Australia that recognises the equality and dignity of all people no matter who you are, where you come from or how you arrived here and that extends our values of fairness and friendship to everyone. Walking together reminds us that Australia is at our very best when we celebrate our diversity, when people of first nations, asylum seekers, refugees, international students, skilled migrants and every other human being are able to experience the joy and security of belonging.
Rai, His Beatitude and Eminence Mar Bechara Boutros
Reid Electorate: Maronite Community
Mr LAUNDY (Reid) (13:52): I rise today to welcome to Australia His Beatitude and Eminence Mar Bechara Boutros Cardinal Rai, the 77th Maronite Patriarch of Antioch. His Beatitude has travelled to Australia to share his message of peace and unity, and I would like to welcome him on behalf of not only the Maronites in the electorate of Reid but all in Reid, as a fellow Catholic, especially.
The Maronites are the largest Christian sect in Lebanon, representing around a fifth of the population. Maronite Christians are also the largest component of the Australian Lebanese community. His Beatitude's reputation for engagement across various sects and faiths is well known around the world, and his teachings of tolerance are timely in Australia.
In particular I note that a multifaith meeting was held earlier this week where His Beatitude and his delegation met with the Grand Mufti of Australia and other Islamic leaders for a multifaith meeting, in which they prayed together for peace in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Palestine, and in all countries in the Middle East.
I am proud to represent an amazing Maronite community in Reid that gathers and congregates at the amazing Saint Joseph's Maronite Catholic Church, under the guidance of the parish council led by Charlie Sara, Anthony Bazouni, Joe Kizana, Robert Saade, Gihad Bechara, Roland Mechaalani, Wade Ayoub, Joe Budwee, Ibrahim Ibrahim, Lottie Moussa, Ben Saade, Joseph Tannous, Peter Mouwad and Sid Nicholas. They are amazing people and I hope the Beatitude's visit is a most worthwhile one.
Griffith Electorate: 2014 Walk Together Brisbane
Ms BUTLER (Griffith) (13:54): Like a lot of people here, I have just heard the terrible news of a Muslim woman being pushed to the ground and having her arm broken in Australia today. These sorts of attacks have been spoken about in this House before. It is very distressing to see the increase in religious vilification and anti-Muslim attacks. That is why it is so important that everyone in this place makes sure that we communicate messages of love, compassion and diversity. That is why I was honoured to attend and to be asked to speak at the Walk Together march held in Brisbane at the weekend.
I would like to acknowledge the other speakers: Maroochy Barambah, who made a beautiful welcome to country; Imam Uzair Akbar, one of our local imams who made a wonderful speech; Amir Adil; Joyce Taylor; the daughter of a friend of mine, Jessica Rudd, who is also an ambassador of the organisation; and the Hon. Glenn Elmes, the state minister for multiculturalism. We all spoke with one voice at the Walk Together march. We all called for support for new arrivals to make sure that the theme of 'Common People, Common Dreams' was upheld—the dreams of security, of peace, of being welcomed, of opportunity, of hope. They are dreams that all people share. We owe it to all of our new arrivals to make them feel like they really are welcome to Australia.
Bass Electorate: Tourism
Mr NIKOLIC (Bass) (13:56): I rise to acknowledge the wisdom of that influential publication, Lonely Planet, which recently rated my home state of Tasmania as the fourth-most-desirable region in the world to visit in 2015. Not only were we rated fourth in the world, but Tasmania was the only destination in Australia or New Zealand to make the list. As we know in this House, the awards just keep coming for Tasmania, which has now gained three Lonely Planet rankings in the past five years and is variously described as 'fresh', 'hip', 'wild', 'dramatic', 'cultured' and 'quirky'. I would encourage those people yet to visit to Tasmania to book their holiday there. Check out www.festivale.com.au and visit my home city of Launceston for Festivale, a gourmet's paradise, from 13 to 15 February 2015.
In close proximity to Launceston they can also visit the iconic Bridestowe Lavender Farm, or they can stop by the Janz, Pipers Brook, Clover Hill, Dalrymple, Delamere, Velo and Josef Chromy vineyards, just to name a few. Play a game of golf at Barnbougle Dunes, the 11th best golf course in the world. Join my bunch for road and mountain bike ride, including at the new Derby and Blue Tiers mountain bike trails, where the next two Australian championships will be held. I encourage those listening to make my home city of Launceston your entry point to Tasmania, a world-leading tourist destination.
Kingsford Smith Electorate: Maroubra Fun Run and Oktoberfest
Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (13:57): On Sunday I was fortunate to join hundreds of runners, walkers, wheelchair athletes and members of our community at the annual Maroubra Fun Run and Oktoberfest. Bigger and better than ever in its 19th year, the event is showing no signs of slowing down as thousands turned out for a cracking day of beautiful weather, entertainment, food and drink. Bavarian dancing, rides and market stalls kept all in attendance well entertained, while the four-kilometre and eight-kilometre run and walk tested the mettle of energetic youngsters and old stayers alike.
The culinary benefits of multiculturalism were well on display with Asian, Turkish, Chilean, German and Mexican cuisine; a German folk band and dances; and a trophy presentation for the race winners. I congratulate Tim Spehr and Greta Truscott for taking out the eight-kilometre run; Sam Byrne and Nancy Newsome in the four-kilometre run; Jason Delisle and Camilla Da Silva in the four-kilometre walk; and Matthew Demetrios and Tanya Smith for winning the four-kilometre wheelchair race.
A big thank you to major sponsors: Souths Juniors, The Sands Hotel Maroubra, Vision Personal Training, Narellan Pools, Randwick City Council, the Southern Courier, Maroubra Chamber of Commerce, and of course Walsh's Village Pharmacy. Particular tribute and thanks to Richard and Phillip Walsh, who put so many hours of dedicated hard work into this event every year. It was our community at its best, promoting healthy lifestyles and fun, outdoor activities.
Ryan Electorate: Men's Sheds
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (13:59): I would like to pay tribute to all the wonderful volunteers who staff and man the men's sheds not only in my electorate of Ryan but around Australia. I went to the open house at the Kenmore men's shed on Saturday and it is wonderful the amount of work they are doing, the number of people they have involved. In fact, they are hosting many other men's sheds in my area because of the success of theirs. I congratulate them not just in Ryan but across Queensland and Australia. The woodwork itself is wonderful and I do thank those who reconstructed my letterbox after it was blown up. I was delighted to be able to buy a rocking horse for my new granddaughter. It was a wonderful day and congratulations to everyone involved.
The SPEAKER: It being two o'clock, in accordance with standing order 43 the time for members' statements has concluded.
MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:00): I inform the House that the Minister for Trade and Investment will be absent from question time today as he is participating in the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations in Sydney. The Minister for Foreign Affairs will answer questions on his behalf.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Ebola
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:00): My question is to the Prime Minister. The President of the Australian Medical Association has described the government's response to the Ebola crisis as a shambles. When will the Prime Minister finally listen to the AMA and acknowledge that the best way to deal with the Ebola crisis is for the nations of the world to combine to stop it in West Africa before it spreads further?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:01): I do thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. As you would expect, the government takes the AMA very seriously. As a former health minister, I have had a lot of experience dealing with the Australian Medical Association. I do not always agree with the Australian Medical Association, but I take them seriously and I think that the AMA invariably has the national interest at heart.
The government are taking very serious steps to address the Ebola crisis. As members who are watching events in Brisbane yesterday would know, we are well prepared to deal with any Ebola case here in Australia. We also have a ready reaction team that can deploy at a moment's notice to our region to deal with any break in countries which are less well prepared than Australia to deal with this matter. That is our priority at home and in our region. Nevertheless, we are continuing to talk to our friends and partners about what more might be done to address the situation in West Africa. I certainly do not rule out Australia doing more.
I think it is worth pointing out to the House that we have already invested some $18 million in measures to combat the spread of Ebola in West Africa. When the UN wanted money for its fund to deal with this, we immediately made a $10 million contribution. My understanding is that that is the only actual cash contribution that has yet been made to this fund. In the wake of Australia's contribution, Mr Nabarro, the UN spokesman, said that this was precisely the kind of swift and effective action that he wanted to see from the wider world. So on this subject, as on all subjects, we will be a good international citizen, as you would expect.
Economy
Mr BROAD (Mallee) (14:03): My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on how the government is building a stronger and more prosperous economy?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:03): I do thank the member for Mallee for his question. I cannot help but note he was a highly successful farmer before entering this parliament. As a successful farmer, he understands that stronger businesses are at the heart of a stronger economy. More than most in this chamber, he understands that you cannot have stronger communities without a strong economy to sustain them and you cannot have a strong economy without strong, successful and profitable private businesses.
Before the election and after the election, this government has been making absolutely crystal clear its fundamental objective to build a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia. It is true that in recent months the focus has been on national security rather than economic security. But in the end, you cannot have one without the other. We cannot have stronger defence forces, stronger security services, let alone better funded social programs and better schools and hospitals; we cannot have any of these things, without a strong economy to sustain them.
We promised that we would get rid of the carbon tax. The carbon tax is gone. We promised we would get rid of the mining tax. The mining tax is gone. We promised that we would build the roads of the 21st century and these roads are starting. We promised to get the budget back under control and step by, often, painful step in another place the budget is coming back under control. We promised that we would cut red tape and, so far, measures announced by this government will provide $2 billion in annual red tape cost reductions for Australian businesses. All of this is starting to deliver results for the businesses, the individuals and families of Australia.
The biggest fall in power prices on record thanks to the abolition of the carbon tax is now going to the consumers of Australia—the biggest fall in power prices on record. We have also provided environmental approvals for projects worth well over $800 billion—that is investment to secure the jobs of the future. We have finalised two out of three major free trade agreements—exports to secure the jobs of the future. As part of our competitiveness agenda, we are going to restore workable employee-share ownership plans—that is entrepreneurship to give us the jobs of the future. More profitable businesses lead to a stronger economy, to give us stronger and more cohesive communities and the happier families that every Australian wants.
Goods and Services Tax
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:06): My question is to the Prime Minister. Talking of promises, before the election, the Prime Minister promised the GST was not going to change—full stop, end of story. Given the Prime Minister has broken so many promises he made before the election, when will he break his promise that the GST is not going to change—full stop, end of story?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:07): I am pleased that the Leader of the Opposition was paying attention when I gave a speech in Tenterfield on Saturday night to mark the 125 anniversary of Sir Henry Parkes famous Tenterfield speech. The speech Sir Henry Parkes gave in Tenterfield back in October 1889 set us up on the road to nationhood— that is what it did. What I hoped to do on Saturday night, 125 years later, was to set us up for a mature debate about the future of our federation. That is what I am inviting members opposite to participate in, a mature debate about the future of our federation. My hope is that just for once it might be possible to have a debate rather than a screaming match. I hope that just for once it might be possible for us in this parliament, one side and the other, the national government and the state and territory governments to have a mature debate rather than a screaming match.
Obviously, if we are going to have a mature debate about our federation, we need to look at spending responsibilities and at revenue capacities. I think as a nation we are capable of rising to this challenge—I really do. I think we are capable of having the kind of sensible, mature debate that will make our people proud of this parliament and will make our people think that yes, this is the kind of country we want to be a citizen of. I am very happy to have that debate. I invite the Leader of the Opposition to participate. I invite all of the states and territories to participate.
As for the GST itself, as the Leader of the Opposition well knows, the GST is a matter for the states but certainly it is something which ought to be looked at as part of the federation reform process and as part of the tax reform process. I think we are capable of being mature about these things and I invite the Leader of the Opposition to be part of this process.
Economy
Ms O'DWYER (Higgins) (14:09): My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline how the government is building a stronger economy that will mean more and better jobs for Australians?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:09): I thank the honourable member for her question, recognising that she has been a terrific advocate for good economic policy over a long period and continues to be a good advocate a good economic reform. As Australia enters its 24th consecutive year of economic growth, we reflect on the fact that today's growth has been earned through economic reform which has come from both sides of the political divide—the deregulation of industry, the introduction of competition policy, competitiveness in the financial services industry, workplace deregulation and a range of other initiatives which have cut across political divide and helped to build prosperity. A fundamental point is that if we want to have economic growth in the future we need to have the sensible debates the Prime Minister just referred to which focus on the fact that we need to deliver reform today to get the benefits in the economy and for our families tomorrow. These days economic growth must be earned. There is no easy pathway. If we are going to earn economic growth, we have to make the decisions that strengthen the balance sheet of the nation and strengthen business, which ultimately is the major employer in the community. The initiatives which we took to the last election and which we have delivered, such as getting rid of the carbon tax, getting rid of the mining tax, building the infrastructure of the 21st century, signing new free trade agreements, getting rid of red tape on business, more than $2.1 billion, signing up to over $800 billion of new projects through environmental approvals which have been accelerated, helping small business to cut through many of their challenges, all of those things we promised we have delivered or are delivering.
The challenge now for Australia is that we get on with the job of delivering the structural reform today that will deliver a stronger budget and a more prosperous economy in the future. That is going to take bipartisan agreement. It is going to take a commitment from the old Labor Party, not the new Labor Party, the Labor Party of the legends like Bob Hawke and Paul Keating who were there to say, 'Let's undertake reform that is in the nation's interests.' We want to see that Labor Party re-emerge, a Labor Party which cares about the future, a Labor Party which puts public policy at the forefront of their concerns rather than the base politics so familiar to this Leader of the Opposition.
Goods and Services Tax
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (14:13): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his previous answer in which he refused to rule out changing the GST. The night before the election the Prime Minister promised 'no change to the GST'. Given the Prime Minister has broken every other promise he made on the night before the election, when does he intend to break this one?
Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question asked by the opposition before I allowed to go through without raising a point of order because I was sure the Prime Minister wanted to answer it, but he has answered exactly the same question. It was not in order the first time. It is entirely hypothetical and therefore should be ruled out of order.
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The two questions deal with different quotes from the Prime Minister. If the Leader of the House has a problem, there are a number of broken promises. He should direct that to the Prime Minister.
The SPEAKER: The last question was facetious and will be ignored by the Prime Minister.
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:13): I want to assure members opposite that we will certainly keep our commitments but on the subject of the GST, as is well known, any change to the GST is a matter for the states. What I want to say to members opposite is that we should be prepared to look at whether we can make our federation work better. Federation reform, if it is to take place, it has to be owned by the states as much as by the Commonwealth; it has to be something which is participated in by both sides of politics. If it is to be worth doing, it has also got to involve clearer lines of accountability and responsibility; it has got to involve more transparency in government. What I would like to see come out of any reform of the Federation, just as I would like see come from any reform of the tax system, is, overall, a clear commitment right across our country to lower, simpler, fairer taxes.
Ms Macklin interjecting—
Mr ABBOTT: That is what we are on about—
Ms Macklin interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Jagajaga is warned!
Mr ABBOTT: lower, simpler, fairer taxes—and that is what we will deliver. It is consistent with the commitments we made before the election.
Migration
Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (14:15): Minister for migration: the Australian economy generates 200,000 new jobs every year while some 300,000 school leavers and others join the workforce. With the government continuing Labor's policy of bringing in from overseas 200,000 migrants, 259,000 student visas and 125,000 section 457s—
Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order: I am loathe to interrupt the member for Kennedy, but he has not directed to whom the question is being asked.
The SPEAKER: He is perfectly entitled to do that at the end of the question if he wishes to.
Mr KATTER: I did. I wish he would listen. I did.
The SPEAKER: The member for Kennedy may begin again and the clocks will be reset.
Mr KATTER: I did say it, Madam Speaker. I will try it again: minister for migration—
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: I think we know it is immigration and border protection. Proceed, Member for Kennedy.
Mr KATTER: the Australian economy generates 200,000 new jobs every year while some 300,000 school leavers and others join the workforce each year. With the government continuing Labor's policy of bringing in from overseas 200,000 migrants, 259,000 student visas and 125,000 section 457s—600,000 visas a year coming in and no records of any going out—could the minister advise how these additional maybe 800,000 people are going to find work in an economy that generates only 200,000 new jobs a year?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (14:17): I thank the member for Kennedy for his question. The rate of our population growth is a key factor, along with our productivity and labour force participation, which drives the engine of our economy. It is very, very important that we have the right level of net overseas migration that contributes towards our population growth.
Our rate of net overseas migration each year is in the order of around 240,000 per year. Now that nets off those coming in and those going out who have been here for a period of 12 months or over 12 months in a 16-month period. The net overseas migration figures are of that order.
It is important, as we construct the composition of that intake into Australia every year, that we have a very keen focus on what the economic participation opportunities are for those who are coming. That is why this government has followed the policy of ensuring that we focus on skilled migration to this country. That is a policy we have continued that was put in place by the previous government, but it was not always that way under Labor. Under the Keating government the percentage of permanent migration for people with skills was less than 30 per cent, and it was the member for Berowra, when he was the minister for immigration, who built that up to almost 70 per cent.
I commend those opposite, particularly the shadow Treasurer, who, when he was immigration minister, had a very bipartisan position when it came to skilled migration. But I cannot say that for the others who occupied the office, who decided to make skilled migration in this country an issue of partisan divide—by slamming against temporary skilled migration workers coming into this country and joining union scare campaigns against those who come to this country and make a contribution from day one—every single day. They come, they pay taxes and they come to make a contribution.
But I take the member for Kennedy's point—that is, we need to have a sustainable rate of population growth that does not overburden the economy and, at the same time, supports the economy's continued growth. That is something this government takes very seriously. We will have an intake that focuses on quality, not quantity. And that quality is those who can come to this country and make a contribution; those who come to have a go and come to this country to be able to make a contribution in a way that enables their families and all of them to participate in this great country and not separate themselves out. That is the basis of our immigration policy, and we will continue to drive it on that basis.
Mr Katter: Madam Speaker, I ask a supplementary question.
The SPEAKER: No, there is no supplementary question. The member will resume his seat.
Mr Katter interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There are no supplementary questions provided for in the standing orders, and the member for Kennedy should know that.
Economic Competitiveness
Mr HOGAN (Page) (14:20): Madam Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline the state of the global economy? Treasurer: what effects do global events have on Australian jobs?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:20): I thank the honourable member for Page for his question. It is a very important question. There are certain headwinds at the moment in the global economy, but none that Australia cannot meet the challenge of.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Grayndler will desist.
Mr HOCKEY: The fact is you can still sail successfully into headwinds and still exceed the pace of—
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The SPEAKER: And if he persists, he is warned!
Mr HOCKEY: other sailing boats into a headwind, but it is there and it needs to be recognised. The IMF, just prior to recent meetings in Washington, downgraded their forecast for the global growth primarily on the back of some continuing uncertainty in Europe.
There are still strong signs of good, continuing growth in a number of jurisdictions. The United States, for example, has successfully dealt with issues relating to tampering—
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr HOCKEY: to tapering and tampering—of their currency. Ultimately, you can see the US economy starting to grow quite well. The Chinese economy's growth, at around 7.3 per cent, is still strong, certainly off a much bigger base than was previously the case when growth was higher. But the fact is China is the second biggest economy in the world, it is our biggest trading partner and growth will continue to be strong in China. Japan is continuing with it significant regulatory change. The fact that Japan at last is undertaking structural change should be a moment of comfort to a lot of legislators around the world. But ultimately, the challenge still remains with Europe. Countries that have undertaken structural reform in Europe such as Spain, Ireland, Germany and even Italy to some degree are the ones that are getting the benefit of that. Countries that have not undertaken structural change such as France have been left behind.
The fundamental challenge now for the global economy is when loose monetary policy has done its work and unfortunately made the rich richer through rising asset values but loose monetary policy has effectively been exhausted as a lever to stimulate economic growth on a global basis. Loose fiscal policy—that is, government spending hand over fist—is now limited because they do not have the money to be able to continue to do that and put it on the credit card forever. It means that the only option for the earning of growth into the future is structural reform. That means having a more competitive world with deregulated Labour markets, with barriers to increase protection put up by various countries and making sure that we undertake the domestic reforms in both our budget and the economy to build a stronger economy and ultimately deliver more jobs. That is the only way you can do it now.
Goods and Services Tax
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his previous answer that the GST is a state matter. I also refer the Prime Minister to his $80 billion of cuts to state hospitals and to state schools. Why is the Prime Minister using these cuts to blackmail the states into backing his plans for increasing the GST?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:24): I am inviting the states and territories. I am inviting members opposite.
Ms King interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Ballarat will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: I am inviting all interested Australians to consider whether there are better ways in the future of running our federation than we have seen in the past. That is what I am doing. I am inviting Australians to enter into a mature debate about an important subject rather than dig trenches and hurl insults at each other, which sadly is what all too often has happened in recent times. As for the claims that the Leader of the Opposition has made, I probably should respond to those claims with the facts. The facts are that, when it comes to public hospitals, our finding goes up eight per cent this year, eight per cent next year—actually I am wrong—
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Isaacs will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: It is nine per cent this year, nine per cent next year, nine per cent the year after that and six per cent in year 4.
Mr Burke interjecting—
The SPEAKER: As will the member for Watson.
Mr ABBOTT: In education in schools it is eight per cent this year, eight per cent next year, eight per cent the year after that and six per cent in the final year. So I am very happy to see the Leader of the Opposition participating in this debate, but it would be nice if he would participate on the basis of facts.
Carbon Pricing
Mr BROADBENT (McMillan) (14:25): My question is to the Minister for the Environment. Will the minister outline what savings have been passed on to Victorian families and businesses, particularly dairy processors, since the government scrapped the world's biggest carbon tax? Are there any alternative plans to threaten these savings?
Mr HUNT (Flinders—Minister for the Environment) (14:25): I do want to thank the member for McMillan, who is not just a great representative for the area but also happens to be somebody who has spent his life connected with the land and farming. Amongst other things, he understands the situation of dairy farmers, of those that work the land and of the fine margins by which they operate.
The first thing to note in answering the question of what the impacts of the carbon tax are, for Victorians it has been a $3.1 billion hit on the economy over the last two years. This year, however, it will be zero dollar hit on the economy. That $3.1 billion, or more than $1½ billion a year, affected the power sector, the gas sector and the manufacturing sector but in particular also hit the dairy sector. The electorate of McMillan is one of Australia's great dairying centres. One of the great firms within that electorate is Murray Goulburn. When you look at Murray Goulburn you see there is the Koroit operation in Wannon; the Cobram operation in Murray; the Maffra operation in Gippsland; the Kiewa operation in Indi; and the Leongatha operation in the electorate of McMillan. How much was Murray Goulburn hit—because remember this is about farmers and the price of milk—according to the Australian Dairy Industry Council? Murray Goulburn incurs an annual carbon tax cost of approximately $14 million. It was, in short, a tax on milk. This is a tax on milk.
This is a tax on milk, farmers and dairy farmers that was introduced by the ALP in breach of their election promise. They like to talk about election promises. They made the granddaddy of all election breaches when they said they would not have carbon tax. And then they introduced a tax on, of all things, milk. We have removed it. Here is what the Australian Dairy Industry Council said after the carbon tax was removed: 'The carbon tax added to the cost of production for dairy farmers and processes, and made us less competitive, less competitive, compared to our international competitors.' Well, it is gone. It is not coming back under us. But the Leader of the Opposition, as we know, in recent weeks has been talking to The Age, has been talking to Sky and has been talking to the others about bringing back the carbon tax. He will not call it a carbon tax, but it raises electricity prices, it raises gas prices and it is a tax on milk. It is a tax on dairy farmers. It is a tax which we will fight for the rest of our days.
Goods and Services Tax
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:29): My question is to the Prime Minister. Today Victorian Premier Denis Napthine told 3AW Radio that he was not interested in increasing the GST and he told the Prime Minister, 'Show us the money.' When will the Prime Minister join Denis Napthine on the campaign trail to spruik his plan to increase the GST?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:29): I am very pleased to remind the Leader of the Opposition that, when it comes to showing Victoria the money, there was $1.5 billion for East West stage 1, $1.5 billion for East West stage 2—
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There will be silence on my left and right.
Mr ABBOTT: about 6,000 jobs.
Ms Henderson interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Corangamite will desist!
Mr ABBOTT: Unlike members opposite, we do support new and better roads in Victoria. I call on the Leader of the Opposition to say where he stands on the East West Link.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Grayndler is warned!
Mr ABBOTT: I call on the Leader of the Opposition to say where he stands on the East West Link because, as things stand at the moment, the coalition support it and Labor oppose it. If you want to see the East West Link built, you have to see a coalition government in Canberra and a coalition government in Spring Street. We have shown Victoria the money. I am looking forward very much to campaigning with Premier Denis Napthine in Victoria as part of the state election campaign.
Higher Education
Mr RAMSEY (Grey) (14:31): My question is to the Minister for Education. Will the minister update the House on the benefits to students of the government's expansion of the Commonwealth scholarships because of its higher education reform agenda?
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (14:31): I am very pleased to be able to tell the member for Grey that, because of the government's higher education reform agenda, there will be an enormous expansion of Commonwealth scholarships all around Australia, truly meaning that in fact thousands of young Australians will get free education for the first time under the government's higher education reform agenda. At the centre of this reform agenda is spreading opportunity to tens of thousands more students—80,000 by 2018 a year will get an opportunity to get a higher education qualification because of these reforms through a number of means. I can report to the House that today University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence announced that Sydney will increase their scholarships from 700 to 9,000 if the government's reform agenda passes—
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There will be silence on my left and right!
Mr PYNE: There will be 9,000 Commonwealth scholarships offered by one of Australia's prestige universities. In fact, one-third of undergraduate students at Sydney university would have a form of tuition and scholarship support under the government's higher education reform agenda. We hear from the Labor Party misty-eyed nostalgia about so-called free education under the Whitlamite agenda, but in fact this government through sound economic management, through a reform agenda in the budget, will deliver for thousands of students around Australia free education through Commonwealth scholarships earnt on the basis of merit and directed towards low-socioeconomic status students.
Tens of thousands of low-SES young people will get the chance to go to university either through the Commonwealth scholarships, through the expansion of the demand-driven system, through pathway programs that low-SES students typically use to get into university and through the expansion of the Commonwealth Grant Scheme to non-university higher education providers. Through a combination of these methods more young low-SES Australians will get the chance to improve their chances of getting a job and a higher income and making a contribution to our society.
That is the reason why the parliament should get behind our higher education reform agenda. I am glad to see the member for Fairfax here today because I know he wants to deliver free education to more young Australians through our Commonwealth scholarships program. Labor should get out of the way and start to listen to people who know something about higher education, like Michael Spence at the University of Sydney.
Economy
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (14:34): My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to the sharp fall in the Australian Industry Group's September performance of services index and note that this fall was blamed on 'ongoing concerns about the weak state of the local economy and the effect of federal budget uncertainties this month'. Treasurer, isn't it the case that your budget not only is unfair but has also been bad for the economy?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:34): No. Why? There was an Ernst & Young six-monthly Australasia capital confidence barometer released today from over 150 companies across Australia and New Zealand that shows corporate confidence, particularly in the area of potential acquisitions, is at a four-year high.
Mr Bowen: Madam Speaker—
Mr HOCKEY: Hang on. No, you want to listen to this.
The SPEAKER: The Treasurer will resume his seat. I call the member for McMahon on a point of order.
Mr Bowen: Madam Speaker, I asked about a completely different survey. If the Treasurer needs a few minutes to find the right note, I am happy to help him by taking a point of order.
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The member will resume his seat. If he attempts to abuse the standing orders like that, he can leave the chamber under standing order 94(a). I call the Treasurer.
Mr HOCKEY: That report from Ernst & Young today said that the number of companies intending to pursue an acquisition in the next 12 months has more than doubled from 32 per cent six months ago to 66 per cent now. Other key findings: 96 per cent of the 150 companies surveyed believe the economy is improving or stable, up from 80 per cent a year ago; 90 per cent are confident in corporate earnings, up from 46 per cent a year ago; 72 per cent are confident in credit availability, compared to 46 per cent a year ago; and 75 per cent are confident in short-term market stability, compared to 20 per cent a year ago.
That might just be the reason why under us this year job creation in Australia has been running at around three times the speed that it did under Labor in the last 12 months of their last year. Three times the speed is not enough: is that what you are saying? It is not enough to have around 15,000 new jobs created every month in Australia under the coalition compared to 5,000 a month last year under Labor. That is not good enough for Labor. It is not good enough for Labor who left a budget mess that we have set about fixing. It is not good enough for Labor who left a regulatory mess that we are now in the business of repealing. It is not good enough for Labor who left a logjam of environmental approvals for major projects, which this Minister for the Environment has cut through to the tune of $800 billion. It is not good enough for Labor who after six years in government were unable to land a free trade agreement with Japan or Korea, and in the first 12 months we did. It is not good enough for Labor who let the infrastructure of Australia degrade. Under us and our budget we are rolling out the biggest infrastructure program in Australian history.
They are the facts. They are the facts that deliver prosperity; they are the facts that deliver jobs. The only friends of the Australian economy are the coalition and the Abbott government.
National Security
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister please advise the House why it is important to take action, including cancelling passports, to counter the threat of foreign fighters?
Ms JULIE BISHOP (Curtin—Minister for Foreign Affairs) (14:38): The threat of foreign fighters is one of the greatest security threats and challenges that Australia is currently facing. Indeed, about 80 nations around the world count foreign fighters among their citizens. The government has taken action: 73 passports have now been cancelled on national security grounds.
Following the attack on the Canadian parliament last week, when an individual concerned is said to have had his passport cancelled on security grounds, some have suggested that the government should allow extremists to leave this country and go overseas to fight with ISIL, or Daesh. Firstly, that would be a breach of our international obligations. There was a unanimous resolution of the UN Security Council, 2178, passed on 24 September, when all member states committed to taking whatever action they could to prevent foreign fighters leaving their shores, including cancelling passports.
Secondly, the Australian government cannot turn a blind eye to these extremists who are seeking to leave the country and train overseas, because, if they then work with ISIL and train with these terrorist organisations, they become more experienced, more skilled, more trained in terrorist tactics and strategies and they make contacts and networks that can be devastating, for, if they then return to Australia as battle-hardened terrorists, they could have a more devastating effect here on our home soil. Also, the risk is that they will bring back knowledge and experience to train others whose minds have been poisoned by this extremist ideology.
It is a fact that the terrorists responsible for the Bali bombings, where 88 Australians were killed, did in fact train with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. I can update the House that our estimates show that 185 known Australians have either supported or are fighting with ISIL, or Daesh, in Iraq and Syria. At least 70 Australians are in Iraq and Syria fighting with the terrorist organisations now. So the government needs flexibility to be able to adapt to these changing circumstances and the changing environment. The foreign fighters legislation will give me the authority to not only cancel passports but suspend them on a lower threshold, and it will be an offence to travel to declared areas in conflict zones without a legitimate purpose. The government is taking all necessary steps to combat terrorism.
Economy
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (14:41): My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to the recent NAB monthly business survey, showing that business conditions have eroded sharply over recent months and are below the long-term average. I also refer to the Westpac consumer sentiment index, which remains 14 per cent below where it was at the election. Treasurer, isn't it the case that Australian businesses and consumers have voted no to the government's unfair budget, which has been bad for the economy?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:41): No. Australia was pretty excited to get rid of a bad Labor government. That is one of the reasons why they were brimming with hope. And we have delivered—and it is hard work, but we are delivering. We were never going to turn it around on a dime, but I tell you what: all the trends are positive. Employment: do you remember, at the beginning of this year, the Leader of the Opposition was on his feet saying that all the jobs are going to go: 'All these car plants are going, all these jobs are going and aren't you guys the great wrecking ball of jobs'? One hundred and twenty-five thousand new jobs created this year!
Mr Shorten interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition will desist!
Mr HOCKEY: Listen, mate. You were the last employment minister and you had a really bad record.
Mr Shorten: You're shocking, mate.
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition will desist! He will either desist or leave.
Mr HOCKEY: Fifteen thousand new jobs a month under this government. The second thing is: job advertisement numbers for September are at an 18-month high.
Mr Champion interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield is warned!
Mr HOCKEY: Job advertisements are now 7.9 per cent higher over the past year, indicating that labour conditions are improving. According to the ANZ consumer confidence data released on 21 October—it is quite a volatile index—the four-week average is sitting above the monthly average since 1990. Let me say it again: consumer confidence, under a four-week average—from ANZ—is sitting above the monthly average since 1990. How about business expectations? Dun & Bradstreet's business expectations survey says:
Business owners are optimistic about seeing a jump in sales during the run-up to Christmas …
What about dwelling starts? Let us go to the ABS dwelling starts. Dwelling starts have lifted to 180,408 new dwellings over the 12-month period to June, which is the highest result in 19 years—the highest dwelling start construction activity in 19 years. Hang on; there's more! The more comes about because we are delivering the outcomes that Australians expected. One of the ways we did that was through getting rid of the carbon tax, which effectively reduced electricity prices by 5.1 per cent in the last quarter. What does that mean? That will flow through the economy. It is the first time—
Mr Perrett interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Moreton is warned.
Mr HOCKEY: there has been a reduction in electricity prices since records were first kept. These are the building blocks for a stronger Australian economy; only the coalition can deliver.
Border Protection
Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (14:45): My question is to the very effective Minister for Immigration and Border Protection.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr HAWKE: Wait for it! Will the minister advise the House of the importance of strong and consistent policies on border protection?
The SPEAKER: The member for Mitchell will resume his seat. I cannot hear the question from the noise, but the member will desist from adding extraneous information to his question to keep the noise level down.
Mr HAWKE: I am very happy to start this question again. Will the minister advise the House of the importance of strong and consistent policies on border protection? What are the consequences of taking alternative approaches on border protection?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (14:45): I thank the member for Mitchell for his question. He is a champion of Western Sydney.
When it comes to border protection and doing it properly you need to do three things. The first thing is you need to know what works. The second thing you need to do is have the resolve and strength to stand by what works, particularly in the face of opposition and criticism. And you need to have the competence to implement what works—safely, effectively and sustainably. That is what this government has done on border protection. It has been 92 days since the single, solitary venture that came to our shores earlier this year. The detention centres are closing. The costs are falling to the tune of $2½ billion in the budget because of our success to date. And the children in detention centres are leaving; they are going out. The number of children in detention centres is declining. As the Prime Minister and the foreign minister well know, no longer is it the case, in our regional engagements, that people-smuggling is the elephant in the room as it was under Labor. We got to the point where 4,000 people were turning up each month illegally on boats, as occurred under the member for Watson's watch.
But in contrast to that, we have what was put in place by those opposite when they were in government. It was a cocktail. It was a recipe—the indecision, division and the fundamental weakness meant those opposite were a people smuggler's picnic during the time they were in government.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There will be silence on my left.
Mr MORRISON: It was a picnic on border protection for the people smugglers. But they have learnt nothing in opposition—absolutely nothing. We heard from the shadow minister yesterday that he has discovered the sunrise and that turn backs actually work. Having worked out that they got it wrong, they still cannot get it right. They cannot bring themselves, as they voted in this House against turn backs just last week, to embrace the policies they now admit work. Today, right across the frontbench and the backbench, the shadow minister for immigration got turned back on turn backs. He was turned back on turn backs because we know those opposite, at the end of the day, do not have the resolve or the ticker to do turn backs, particularly this Leader of the Opposition. We know that if they were ever to occupy these benches again, the people smuggler's picnic would be back because that same indecision, that same division and that same witness would come back.
You can never have any confidence that Labor will do what they say they will do on border protection. The people of Australia know that their hearts are just not in it. If they do not get it by now—that turn backs work and turn backs are essential to stopping the boats—then they never will. We know they never will and the Australian people know they never will.
Drought
Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (14:49): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture. I refer him to the drought related answer he gave on Monday and corrected in the House late on Wednesday. I also refer him to Hansard, in which the final paragraph of his answer carries the qualifying statements: 'if you were also a recipient of the Interim Farm Household Allowance' and 'unless it was a new application'. Does the minister acknowledge he never used these words, and what role did he or his office play in doctoring the Hansard record?
The SPEAKER: I will ask the member to rephrase that question, because at the moment it is a serious allegation and other forms of the House are used for that purpose. He may rephrase his question, otherwise he can use other forms of the House.
Mr FITZGIBBON: Can the minister explain the inconsistencies between what he said in the House and the Hansard record?
Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of The Nationals) (14:49): I thank the honourable member for his question and reiterate the answer that was given. At present 4,957 applications have been made; 4,098 have been granted. Four hundred and fifty-three have been rejected and 411 customers are receiving payment. This is exactly the same as what I said when I came into the chamber and proceeded to give exactly the numbers that were given to us at 3.30 pm that day.
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order: relevance. I respect the severity with which you refer to what was asked in the question. The quotes that were specifically referred to have not been addressed—not one of them has been addressed.
The SPEAKER: There is no argument on the question. This is question time, not argument time. The member will resume his seat.
Ebola
Mr VARVARIS (Barton) (14:51): My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister update the House on measures the government is taking to ensure the safety of all Australians given the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (14:51): I thank the member for Barton for his question. It was good to be with the member for Barton on Saturday at National Mosque Open Day at the Masjid Arrahman Mosque in Kingsgrove. As I know, the member for Banks and the member for Reid were at the Lakemba mosque on Saturday and I commend the LMA on National Mosque Open Day. But in relation to the matter he has raised, the government has strong controls for the entry of persons to Australia, under our immigration program, from West Africa. These measures have been put in place in partnership with the Minister for Health who leads the government's response. These measures include temporarily suspending our immigration program, including our humanitarian program, from EVD affected countries. This means we are not processing any application from these affected countries.
We are ensuring all prior humanitarian entrants have been subject to three separate health checks before their departure, as well as being subjected to on-arrival screening processes and post-arrival monitoring. Other permanent visa holders who have not yet arrived in Australia are being required to submit to a 21-day quarantine period prior to their departure to Australia. We are cancelling and refusing non-permanent or temporary visas for persons from EBV affected countries that have not yet departed for Australia.
In addition, in August, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, through the National Border Targeting Centre, introduced a new profile to assist screening of arrivals into Australia. That has resulted in more than 830 matches who have been referred on for further assessment by other offices. None of those persons, I note, has been required to be referred to a hospital on their arrival.
The government systems and processes are working to protect Australians, and that is our focus in addressing this issue. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service are doing their bit as part of this broader government effort. My message to those who are returning to Australia or travelling to Australia is: request that you alert our border officers if you have been in West Africa up to 21 days prior to your arrival, and provide details of your travel history as requested. This is especially important if you have had a broken journey en route to Australia. I also ask that you please pay careful attention to the information provided to you before arrival, upon arrival and as you leave the airport. I thank our Customs and Border Protection Service officers and those involved in performing their very important duties at our border at this time.
Minister for Agriculture
Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (14:54): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture. Did the minister use the following words in his answer last Monday?
… if you were also a recipient of the Interim Farm Household Allowance … —
and—
… unless it is a new application.
If not, how did these words appear in the official Hansard?
Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of The Nationals) (14:54): I thank the honourable member for his question. Quite obviously, when the question was being answered—amongst the barrage of noise—we went and found the information. And that information actually does not come from my department; it comes from the Department of Human Services. When we had that information, it was precisely as we delivered in the actual answer to your question, and we put that precisely on the record—that is, as before: there were 4,957 applications; 4,098 were granted; 453 were rejected; and 4,011 are receiving payment.
Opposition members interjecting—So you changed the Hansard!
The SPEAKER: The member for Isaacs will desist.
The SPEAKER: The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order?
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, I refer you to page 621 of House of Representatives Practice which states, with respect to Hansard:
… emendations which alter the sense of words used in debate or introduce new matter are not admissible …
In terms of forms of the House—
The SPEAKER: This is not relevant to question time. There are other forms of the House you may use.
Mr Burke: what path do you advise us to pursue, given that there has been a clear breach of practice?
The SPEAKER: The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Leader of the House?
Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker, questions to do with the management of Hansard are quite properly put to you at the end of question time, not used as a debating point during question time. I suggest that, if the Manager of Opposition Business has such a question, he should put it to you at the appropriate time.
The SPEAKER: I would simply say to the Manager of Opposition Business that, if he wishes to make a serious allegation, he knows perfectly well what the forms of the House are. I call the honourable the member for Corangamite.
Infrastructure
Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite) (14:56): My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. Will the Deputy Prime Minister outline the government's action to improve infrastructure in my home state of Victoria? How will improved infrastructure grow jobs and opportunity in my electorate of Corangamite?
Mr TRUSS (Wide Bay—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (14:56): I thank the honourable member for her question. She will have noticed as she travels around her electorate that the government is delivering on its election promise to build the infrastructure of the 21st century. A deal of it is in her electorate—for instance, the Great Ocean Road and the Princes Highway West Project are making a difference to the quality of the transport journeys that can be experienced in that part of Victoria.
We are getting on with the next tranche of transport infrastructure projects in Victoria, and delivering on these projects is very much in accordance with our commitment to build the infrastructure of the 21st century. Works have begun, for instance, also in Victoria, on the Princes Highway East, the Calder Highway and many other projects. In particular, the government has made a commitment to provide $3 billion for the East-West Link in Melbourne, which is an important project for Corangamite and the whole area of Melbourne because of the way it will revolutionise traffic flows through the city of Melbourne.
Quite amazingly, the Victorian Labor Party has promised to scrap this project. Labor wants to axe this transport-changing piece of infrastructure. I thought members opposite would be concerned about the 6,000 jobs that will not be required when this project is axed. Just before, members opposite were talking about how important it is to maintain business confidence. I noticed on 7:30 Victoria the other night, commentary from Mr Brian Kruger, the manager of Toll—
Mr Shorten: He is the CEO of Toll, not the manager.
Mr TRUSS: Right, we will promote him to CEO. Even more importantly—and more reason for you to take some notice of what he has to say—what they were endeavouring to do is build a $200 million new freight forwarding centre at Tullamarine. Now the road network which was going to support this development is being undermined by the threat of a Labor government. He said that in reality this would 'damage business confidence'. Labor is a threat to business confidence in Melbourne, because they intend to axe the critical infrastructure projects that were going to create jobs and make a real difference to the economy of Victoria. The only real way to ensure that this infrastructure will be built is to re-elect Denis Napthine.
MOTIONS
Minister for Agriculture
Attempted Censure
Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (14:59): I seek leave to move a motion of censure against the Minister for Agriculture.
Leave not granted.
Mr BURKE: I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would allow the member for Watson to move the following resolution forthwith:
That this House censures the Minister for Agriculture for:
(1) the misleading the House on Monday 20 October; and
(2) attempting to improperly alter the official Hansard record in order to cover up this misleading of the House.
Madam Speaker, leave should have been granted for this resolution. Of all the issues where leave is ordinarily granted, it is on a censure. And of all the reasons for censure, there is nothing that carries greater gravity than the misleading of this House. Be in no doubt, Madam Speaker, we need to be able to suspend standing orders when we have a minister who, on the Monday, misleads the House and that afternoon—or whenever he did it—tries to cover up the official Hansard record. This never would have come to light and this would never have happened were it not for the fact that the shadow minister for agriculture, the member for Hunter, drew to the attention of the parliament on Wednesday that the Minister for Agriculture still had not turned up to give accurate information to this House.
There is nothing that the parliament deals with that is more serious than ministerial accountability. And there will be times when members of the frontbench make an error. They will come in here and they will swallow their pride—and it is not a lot of fun for them; we have done it and I have had to do it. You walk into the chamber and you explain that you got a detail wrong.
But I do not recall the circumstance when not only have they—
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:01): I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
The House divided [15:06]
(The Speaker—Hon. Bronwyn Bishop)
The SPEAKER (15:09): Is the motion seconded?
Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (15:09): There has been a cover-up, and the real victims are the tens of thousands of suffering—
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:09): I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
The House divided [15:10]
(The Speaker—Hon. Bronwyn Bishop)
The SPEAKER (15:11): I now put the original question.
Mr Albanese: Thanks, Madam Speaker.
The SPEAKER: I call the honourable member.
Mr Albanese: You have got to state the question first.
The SPEAKER: Yes. The question is that the original motion be agreed to.
Mr Albanese: Thanks, Madam Speaker.
The SPEAKER: I was putting the question that the original question be agreed to. You have not got the call.
Mr Albanese: Well, I am seeking the call.
The SPEAKER: Well, you are not getting it. That motion has been—
Mr Albanese: I am entitled to get the call.
The SPEAKER: I have called for it to be called.
Mr Albanese: I am entitled to seek the call and get the call, Madam Speaker.
The SPEAKER: Yes; I am afraid you are. I thought the 25 minutes was up.
An honourable member interjecting—
Mr Albanese: I was on my feet first, Madam Speaker. Recognise me.
The SPEAKER: I did recognise the member for Grayndler first.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler) (15:12): Thanks, Madam Speaker.
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:12): You've had your bit. I move:
That the question be now put.
The SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be put.
The SPEAKER: The question now is that the motion be agreed to.
Mr Abbott: I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
The House divided. [15:14]
(The Speaker—Hon. Bronwyn Bishop)
The House divided. [15:16]
(The Speaker—Hon. Bronwyn Bishop)
QUESTIONS TO THE SPEAKER
Minister for Agriculture
Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (15:19): Madam Speaker, I have a question of you and I wish to raise a matter of privilege under standing order 51. I refer to the issues that were raised during question time with respect to the Minister for Agriculture. I would ask that you review the tape of question time Monday of last week and compare the tape to the official record in the Hansard with a view of being able to report back to the House at a later hour as to whether the matters headed under 'misconduct' on pages 750 and 751 of Practice have been activated or, in particular, those relating to deliberately misleading the House, conspiracy to deceive, falsified documents or disobedience to the rules or orders of the House. I ask under standing order 51(b) (ii) that you reserve the matter for further consideration.
The SPEAKER: I will undertake to review the tape and report back to the House.
DOCUMENTS
Department of the House of Representatives—Report for 2013-14
Presentation
The SPEAKER (15:20): Pursuant to section 65 of the Parliamentary Services Act 1999, I present the annual report of the Department of the House of Representatives 2013-14.
Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.
Presentation
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:20): Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
BILLS
Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (13:52): In continuing my speech there are just two more points I would like to make before I finish up. They are the importance of coordinating cross-sector research and the impact that this legislation will have on the ability of RDCs to work together.
It seems to be a minor point, but it is one that has really come up through the agricultural competitiveness green paper. That is that the community, and particularly the agricultural industry sector, is very keen that there be more cooperation between the RDCs. At page 91, there is the call for establishing a new body, or particularly tasking existing research bodies to coordinate cross-sector research. They talk of a new or existing body that could be tasked with promoting agricultural research; ensuring research was focused on RD&E priorities; encouraging R&D activities across disciplines; and identifying the next big potential transformational research areas to encourage investment, collaboration and uptake. I note that in the legislation mechanisms to bring people together are being done away with. I think this is such a pity because it is a time when we actually need to come together more often and share the intellectual capital we have if we are actually going to make the transformations we need in agriculture.
A few years ago I was on a committee tasked with establishing a national strategic investment plan for rural research and development in Australia. One of the really important things that came out of that national rural investment plan was the need for high-level collaborative brains coming together to look at how we could actually bring our scarce resources and deliver for the country on what we knew needed to be done. I have to say that there was one important part of the election campaign—the allocation of $100 million to agricultural research and development—that did bring the RDCs together, but a whole lot more needs to be done. It is such an opportunity where we can bring people together.
If I could just give you one example of how it happens in a very practical way. As you might know, I am a farmer and I grow sheep. In my learning days, I benefited from the ability of Australian Wool Innovation and MLA—Meat & Livestock Australia—to come together. On the ground they had community based learning activities, otherwise known as extension, for farmers to learn how to work together. In my community that particular program was called BESTWOOL/BESTLAMB and it brought sheep producers, pasture growers and meat producers together. We were able to actively collaborate in our communities about the best way of taking research, implementing it on our farms and then producing the result, which was much higher returns on our investment. This came about because Meat & Livestock Australia and Australian Wool Innovation worked together. Previous to that, they worked with the other very important research group called Land and Water Australia that brought everybody together.
What I am saying in terms of this legislation is that there is an opportunity in the years ahead of us, particularly if we can pick up the recommendations in this report, to bring the RDCs together and to actually look for efficiencies where our research, our development and our extension can deliver much better results for farmers. Because the reality is most of us farmers actually work at that cooperative level. I think the legislation is taking us away from that opportunity to work together.
If I could just bring my comments to a close, what I would like to do in summarising is say that it is great that we have ways and we have people working on how we can save money; $7 million is $7 million, and it is really important to save $7 million when we can see it. But not at the cost of losing the trust of the industry; not at the cost of losing the trust of the National Farmers' Federation. How often is it that the NFF comes into this House and says to my colleagues opposite, 'This is not good legislation; this needs changes'?
So I am really happy to be able to stand in this parliament as a friend of the NFF and speak on their behalf and encourage them to work with my colleagues in the Senate to get the amendments that we need to make this ability to collaborate stronger, to make the ability for us to work internationally stronger, but most importantly to not put things in concrete forever—to put a sunset clause into this legislation so after five years, when, hopefully, the economy is a much better position, we can revert to how things used to be.
Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (15:26): It is a real pleasure to speak on the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. I note the member for Indi's comments, but in working towards my contribution today I spoke to Australian Wool Innovation. They are over the moon about the $100 million—$100 million that needs to be used collaboratively. They welcome the fact that there is money on the table there that the federal government has invested in research and development that will need to be leveraged with the private sector and industry and that will need to be leveraged also with the universities and higher education institutions. The essence of this bill is the provision of an extra $100 million over four years to the rural and research development corporations with the clear intention to boost agricultural productivity growth—indeed, in collaboration that will benefit most of all those people at the farm gate.
The bill implements a 2014 budget commitment by this government to change the way that government pays for its membership to international commodity organisations and the regional fisheries management organisations. We understand that that is a fact of life, when we have inherited a budget mess like we have. It also reduces the red tape burden currently imposed on some of the rural research and development corporations. These organisations in turn improve the trading environment for agricultural products by funding activities of benefit to our rural industries and the community in general, including research and development on issues of global significance, not least food security.
Most importantly, this bill paves the way for $100 million in additional funding over the next four years for Australia's rural research and development corporations that will be leveraged with universities and the private sector. Investment in rural research and development is an important part of the Australian government's policy for a competitive agricultural sector. There is a strong link between research and development and agricultural productivity growth, with the research and development investment delivering productivity returns that far exceed indeed the cost of that investment.
However, in recent years the productivity growth of Australian agriculture has slowed somewhat. This additional funding will deliver practical research to help farmers to be more productive and ultimately more profitable. This is funding for on-the-ground research and cutting-edge technologies that support our agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries. It is vital that our Australian farmers and producers remain competitive in international markets where two-thirds of their product goes. We should never forget that, that we are an exporting nation and that two-thirds of the food and fibre, and more so in the case of fibre, ends up overseas.
We expect research and development corporations to form alliances with institutions like the University of Tasmania, to develop exciting projects to keep our farmers and rural producers at the forefront of agricultural research. That leads me to what I want to focus on today—that is, the National Irrigation RD&E Program for Tasmania. Investment in this space is critical for productivity growth. The Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, TIA, is a collaboration, owned jointly and managed jointly by the University of Tasmania and the Tasmanian state government.
The governance of the irrigation and extension work within TIA is done by an outstanding group of industry representatives, including Marcus McShane from the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association; Allan Barr from the third largest agribusiness in Australia, Roberts Ruralco, and my former boss; Scott Schilg from NRM North, a bike-riding colleague; Richard Gardner, one of my oldest friends who represents the Midlands Water Group; Chris Thompson from Macquarie Franklin who has a wealth of knowledge in regard to the design and implementation of the irrigation schemes that we are already seeing around Tasmania; David Kay from Rabobank, who brings a commercial focus to the governance arrangement; and Caroline Brown from DPIPWE. It is a most formidable and competent governance organisation to support the work of TIA. TIA's director Holger Meinke and Associate Professor Rohan Nelson are responsible for the National Irrigation RD&E Program for Tasmania.
In trying to summarise exactly what maximising productivity out of irrigation investment in Tasmania really means, it is maximising productivity using the least amount of water and the least amount of energy. Essentially, that is what R&D in irrigation is all about. We know that this has a national significance and indeed an international significance, because by 2050 we will have a population of nine million. We have to feed and clothe those people, and that is indeed a challenge. That challenge is not going to be wholly the responsibility of Australia and it is certainly not going to be the responsibility of Tasmania—it simply does not have the capacity.
Already, we have seen in my state $310 million invested by the federal government, the Tasmanian government and private investors in irrigation infrastructure. In addition to that, another $265 million has been made in investments on farm, be that through dams or piping or water application systems—pivot irrigation or, in the case of more intensive horticulture, drip irrigation systems. One hundred and fifty gigalitres of additional irrigation water will be available for irrigators when all the planned schemes are brought into operation. To put that in context, the irrigation capacity within my home state of Tasmania and the irrigable land is comparable to the Ord River and the Gilbert and Flinders schemes, and one of the most significant investments that this nation has seen in irrigation infrastructure since the mighty Murray-Darling rivers development.
The critical difference is that Tasmania's expansion of irrigation builds on existing high-value, temperate agriculture, which is close to the population centres in my state and close to a ready workforce. Multiple small catchments are managed individually to make sure that they are sustainably governed and managed appropriately on an economic basis but also a sustainable and environmental basis. There will be over $500 million invested in agriculture irrigation schemes within my home state once the tranche 2 irrigation schemes are delivered which includes the southern highlands scheme in my electorate, the Scottsdale scheme in the electorate of Bass, the Circular Head scheme in the electorate of Braddon, the Swan Valley scheme and the north Esk scheme also in the electorate of Lyons.
The contribution of R&D is significant. I note the Tasmanian government's ambitious target to increase the value of the output of agriculture at the farm gate in my state between now and 2050 from about $1.2 billion currently annually to more than $10 billion. It is a very ambitious target. But as the West report in 2009 suggested, increases of this magnitude were indeed technically feasible, if we focus on the things where Tasmania particularly has a competitive advantage. That is around high-value horticulture; dairy, where we have a natural competitive advantage in terms of the cost of production, being able to produce milk with less grain than is normally required; viticulture; and intensive livestock operations. If 80 per cent of the $10 billion target is to be achieved by irrigated agriculture, the value generated from irrigation water needs to be increased from $3½ thousand per megalitre to nearly $16,000 per megalitre. They are enormous challenges; therefore, every bit of R&D is required to make sure that we can deliver on that potential and that opportunity.
The basis for some of the projects that we will see and the way we will achieve that significant increase in the value of the agriculture and horticulture sectors at the farm gate involve a few major projects: soils and drainage; agronomy and the different varieties appropriate for my state—grains and the different horticultural crops; precision agriculture, which will be increasingly important; whole-farm system modelling; value chains and food processing; and extension and education.
Probably no better example of the importance of education is my own experience and the work that I did before I came to this place, particularly around price risk management and encouraging the use of forward selling, encouraging the use of futures—contracts for wool growers to control one of the variables that they have within their businesses. They cannot often, as you would well understand, Deputy Speaker, control whether it rains or it does not rain. One of the ways they can have an impact—it is a bit like fixing a fence with a set of wire strainers; there are certain jobs you can do with certain tools—is understanding what is a good price, an average price or a poor price helps farmers make better decisions, and that comes with education. So there are many opportunities and the benefits will be enormous and wide ranging.
Indeed, the dairy industry will expand to meet growing world demand, through increased pasture production and better utilisation of feed grain, particularly around the expansion of the grains industry. A very large proportion of the grain use within the dairy sector is imported into our state and we are looking at ways of using irrigated grain crops to take some of those yields from about four tonnes a hectare, which traditionally is the case in non-irrigated grain varieties, to up to 12 tonnes per hectare, which is a significant increase. That is what we need. The benefits that will flow to the dairy industry as a result of being able to grow more grain in Tasmania will be significant.
Expansion of intensive horticulture and viticulture, cool climate fruits, vegetables and wine and the government's investment in infrastructure—such as $38 million to extend the Hobart airport—will give increase our exports of horticultural products into parts of Asia which at the moment are difficult to access. Tasmania has always had a reputation and a capacity to produce and be involved in very high-value specialist plant crops like, for example, opium poppies, a very important industry in my state where real knowledge has been built up by producers and processors alike. Then there are pyrethrum, essential oils, specialty grains and the production of pasture and vegetable seeds as well.
It is an enormous task. I look forward to seeing the application which no doubt the university and TIA will make through a collaborative approach to, I suspect, the Grains Research and Development Corporation and some of the other and research development bodies. As I said before, R&D, when it comes to irrigation, essentially means maximising our productivity, using the least amount of water, being smart and efficient with it, and using the least amount of energy. This is indeed what irrigation R&D is all about.
It would be remiss of me in the small time I have left not to mention the industry of which I was apart from nearly 25 years—that is, the wool industry. There are some great examples where there has been collaborative investment through AWI. As the member for Indi said, there are some excellent examples. In the case of Tasmania, it used to be the eight by five program. It is now Sheep Connect Tasmania, the leading sheep program, which works with both MLA and also Australian Wool Innovation to do some really great work. Indeed, with some of the projects we are seeing at the moment in Tasmania on the extension network, a staggering 97 per cent of farmers said they would make changes to their business and that these changes would result in more than $5,000 worth of benefits directly to their business. There is indeed value in collaboration. I cannot speak highly enough about what has been invested by the Minister for Agriculture and the federal government through this $100 million. It will be used smartly.
We must make the most of our scarce resources. There is no more important issue than productivity and research and development if Australia is going to be competitive in future in a space where we have always been very strong, but we cannot rest on our laurels. Thank you for the opportunity.
Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (15:41): Today I rise to speak on the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. It is rather timely, given the very remarkable behaviour of the Minister for Agriculture in question time today. It certainly reflects on his lack of commitment and skill when it comes to making sure that we are providing good policies and plans for those in regional and rural Australia. I think they would have concerns about the lack of ability of the relevant minister.
This bill makes amendments to the rural research and development legislation and gives effect to yet another unfair budget measure. What we see is a very definite pattern with this government of broken promises and unfair budget measures. In regional areas like mine, locals know that when it comes to unfair budget measures and broken promises it is the National Party who are to blame and they are very vocal in their criticisms. We can add this bill to the long list of promises broken by the National Party which includes the doctor tax, the petrol tax, cuts to education and cuts to the pensions.
The bill is designed to allow the government to recover the cost of membership fees to international commodity organisations and regional fisheries management organisations from the matching amounts paid to rural research and development corporations. Other measures included in the bill will remove the requirement for the minister to organise an annual coordination meeting for the chairs of the statutory RDCs and removes some parliamentary tabling requirements. As I have said, this is another unfair budget measure which will impact greatly on the research and development work undertaken by the rural research and development corporations.
The government's proposed changes to the current RDC matching funding model are fundamentally changing the focus of the RDC system. The fact is the RDCs should not have to pay the membership fees for the Australian government, which is the reality. If the government believes that there is value for it to be a member of these international organisations then it should pay the membership fees. Matching funding by the government to the RDCs is an investment in the future of our agriculture, fisheries and forestry. It is generally estimated that for each genuine R&D dollar there is a $10 return and our RDCs should be allowed to invest in projects that will benefit their industry and not bear the brunt of the government's lack of strategic planning for our RDCs. As it states of the Department of Agriculture website:
The RDCs invest in R&D and innovation to improve the productivity and delivery of high quality products in order to underpin the competitiveness and profitability of Australia's agricultural, fish and forestry industries. RDC R&D and innovation also supports the sustainability of primary production and the natural resource base.
That is what the website says, and that is what the government should be properly investing in, it is what they should be properly focusing on, but of course that is not the case.
Also, we do hear the government talking about agriculture being one of the five pillars of the economy, yet its actions are completely opposed to that. By cutting funding to research and development, that is what we see. That is what we see from this Minister for Agriculture, who I see is now back in the chamber; that is indeed what he has been responsible for. Look at some of those cuts: an $80 million reduction in cooperative research centre programs; more than $100 million in funding cuts to the CSIRO, which will cost around 500 jobs. What a major impact that will be with around 500 jobs going. As we have said, we on this side of the House oppose this bill and its unfair measures.
As we know, there are up to 15 rural research and development corporations covering our agricultural industries. These 15 research and development corporations are made up of nine industry-owned companies that provide R&D services and marketing for the benefit of their industries, and six research and development corporations that provide leadership and investment. Those industry owned companies are—I will run through that list; it is important to have that list on the record—the Australian Egg Corporation Ltd, Australian Livestock Export Corporation Ltd, Australian Meat Processor Corporation Ltd, Australian Pork Ltd, Australian Wool Innovation Ltd, Dairy Australia Ltd, Forest and Wood Products Australia Ltd, Horticulture Australia Ltd, Meat and Livestock Australia Ltd.
The research and development corporations are: Cotton Research and Development Corporation, Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, Grains Research and Development Corporation, Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and Sugar Research and Development Corporation. The RDCs bring together industry and researchers to investigate and implement strategic directions and to fund projects that provide industry with the innovation and productivity tools to compete in those very, very important global markets. And it is the demand of these global markets that is really effectively driving our agricultural industries and the government should be supporting that, not undermining it.
The RDC model of joint industry and government funding has been absolutely vital in the success of Australia's R&D effort, having helped Australian agriculture double its productivity over the past 25 years—what a great achievement. In fact, this co-funding model is the envy of the world, and that is why we in Labor are here fighting to protect that. We know how good it is. Labor's R&D model is what working with industry is all about: not telling industry what to do, but facilitating and helping it; to be in partnership with industry. That is what is important.
The government-industry partnership model works well. It has successfully functioned for more than 20 years, which is absolutely fantastic. It is about government matching industry contributions; that is the key. But this bill, like so much else this Liberal-National government has introduced into the House since 2013, really has been an unfair attack on those ordinary, hardworking regional and rural Australians who have really been severely impacted by many of the plans of this government. And this bill is just another example of its dismantling of the matching contributions component of this particular scheme.
The fact is Labor understand how important research and development corporations are. We created them in 1989, so we understand how important they are. We established them for the purpose of undertaking scientific research for the benefit of Australian rural industries and with benefits then flowing onto the community. As we have said: the government would put in half the amount—match dollar for dollar—into R&D if industry was prepared to levy itself and make its own contributions to improve the innovation within particular sectors. These industry specific plans for R&D have transformed agriculture in this country. As I have said, we have seen that increase in productivity.
The government is now seeking to achieve a $7 million saving over four years, but this will be at the expense of tens of thousands of genuine R&D investment dollars. Essentially the government is seeking to achieve this saving over that time by changing arrangements for the payments of membership to international commodity organisations. From 2014-15 membership fees for four international commodity organisations—relating specifically to the cotton, wine, sugar and grain industries—and six international fisheries organisations will be made from the government's funding envelope for its matching contributions to the relevant RDCs instead of direct appropriation funding and, in so doing, will reduce actual R&D funding. This means that the government will make payments to the international commodity bodies from the same pool of money it says is for matching industry contributions. This is just not logical and it is certainly not an appropriate way to be looking at funding these very important matters. Much like the other policies of this government, this bill actually constitutes a cut in funding in real terms.
Worse still, this government did not even give the Australian people prior warning about any of these cuts. And we have seen that across so many other measures in so many other areas, whether it is health or education or pensions. They did not tell anyone in regional or rural Australia they intended this to be their plan. In fact, they have been telling untruths by not telling people about their plans—a real deception by omission—which a lot of people are now aware of and are pretty angry about as well. In fact, prior to the last election the then opposition made no reference to any of these particular cuts. What I think is even more insulting is the government, and many of its members, have actually acknowledged that research and development investment returns far outweigh the costs. They are aware of the reality of it, but are still allowing this to occur. With these changes, RDCs have not even been given the option to withdraw their membership to international commodity organisations.
This bill will really be quite devastating for farmers in rural and regional Australia. In abandoning matching funding for regional development and innovation, it will make it much harder for many agricultural industries in my electorate—for example, when it comes to the sugar industry—to do their business. And I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you are very much aware how important the sugar cane industry is to people of the North Coast of New South Wales; I would certainly hope the member for Page, who is here in the chamber, would understand how important it is as a major employer and as a major driver of our local economy. We should be out there supporting industries like our sugar industry, not placing impediments on them instead—particularly not impediments on their future research and development.
Hidden in this legislation is the repeal of subsections 6 and 7 of the Sugar Research and Development Services Act 2013. This act provides for a company to receive, under a contract, Commonwealth funding for research and development for the Australian sugar industry and to be declared as the industry services body for the Australian sugar industry. The subsections allow the minister to make R&D payments, or matching payments, to the Australian sugar industry representative. These will now be repealed, and I think it is absolutely appalling that that in particular is happening.
This government's decision to essentially withdraw funding is going to create a situation where you are leaving those struggling in regional and rural areas—those farmers—to foot the additional costs. I would assume those are subsequently passed on to consumers. It also puts them at a greater disadvantage when it comes to their overseas competitiveness and competing in those global markets. I believe this bill is another example of how the National Party in particular has abandoned rural and regional Australia.
Labor, on the other hand, have a very proud record of standing up for rural and regional Australia over a very long period of time. We created the regional development fund which, of course, is now being totally changed and watered down by those opposite. That delivered so many great projects around Australia, especially in my electorate of Richmond. I will not run through all of those again, but there were millions of dollars in projects that really transformed so much of the North Coast of New South Wales. In fact, Labor in government really took the national leadership to build competitive and sustainable agriculture industries to support farming families that contribute more than 1.6 million jobs. We understand how important it is. That is why we invested so much.
We also developed Australia's first-ever National Food Plan to boost Australia's $30.5 billion food export market by 45 per cent. We had that in place and understood how important it was. We established the Office of Northern Australia to realise the north's potential. We developed real solutions to climate and market condition challenges, including the farm finance package, which provided $420 million in low-interest loans to help viable farmers ease debt pressures.
We also invested a record amount in rural R&D, providing R&D corporations with $1.4 billion in funding over the last six years, increasing from $189 million in 2008-09, to $251 million in 2013-14. We also addressed many of those skill shortages in the agricultural industries. We understood how important it was to be making sure there was adequate funding for training and addressing some of those skill shortages, particularly through many projects and trades training in schools and a whole range of different measures that we took to address those skill shortages right across the agricultural industry. Also, through Caring for our Country and continuing support for Landcare, which was, of course, a legacy of the Hawke government, we have supported farming communities to manage and protect our natural resources, protect and conserve our biodiversity and promote the adoption of sustainable farm practices.
The Labor Party has a very proud record of standing with those in regional and rural Australia across a whole range of different areas. We continue to do that today on this side of the House. We continue to condemn this government across a whole range of areas where they did not tell the Australian people the truth going into the last election whether it was in relation to health, education or now, as we are seeing clearly, with particular aspects of rural and regional Australia as well.
I started off by saying we do have a Minister for Agriculture who does not have the skills and ability to represent these people and deliver adequately for them. They do not have any faith in him, his ability or his government. The fact is he has failed those in rural and regional Australia. He has failed those people, and they are severely disappointed by that. They are hurt by the cuts this government has brought in, particularly these cuts to R&D. It is devastating. We need to be encouraging growth. We need to be investing more. We need to be providing more for those in regional and rural areas, not cutting as we are constantly seeing from this government and this minister, who is incapable of delivering for regional and rural areas. That is why we are opposed to this bill.
PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS
Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of The Nationals) (15:56): Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Mr JOYCE: Yes.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please proceed.
Mr JOYCE: I answered a question on Monday, 20 October 2014 from the member for Hunter in relation to drought assistance. Further to my answer to the House on Monday, 20 October 2014, I provided additional information to the House on Wednesday, 22 October 2014.
On 20 October 2014 I understand a request for minor edits was made to Hansard by my staff without my knowledge. My staff have been counselled. Consistent with standing orders, I have asked that the changes requested by my office be removed from the Hansard before the Hansard is finalised.
BILLS
Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr HOGAN (Page) (15:56): I acknowledge my neighbour, the member for Richmond, the previous speaker on this bill. The member for Richmond is a very pleasant person. We run into each other around the place quite often in the far North Coast of New South Wales. But I must take account to a couple of the things that the member for Richmond has just said about Labor having a proud record in relation to rural industries or agriculture. She said, 'I know many rural industries, if not all rural industries, had an issue in the previous Labor government.' The cattle industry in our area was aghast when the previous Labor government overnight stopped the live cattle export. That destroyed the beef industry in our area. It obviously meant that cattle that were bred for export suddenly were not. Far northern Australia was brought to its knees, and over the proceeding weeks and months, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, because I know you would know, these cattle found their way south and prices were exceptionally depressed. We had cattle everywhere. We have starving cattle in the end because they were not able to be exported and we had a very depressed sector there.
The other one I would remind the member for Richmond of with regard to our rural industries was, with all due respect, the carbon tax. She made reference to the sugar industry as well as others. I can remind the member for Richmond that very few, if any, rural industries in my region, be they sugar, be they dairy, be they beef, be they anyone who used power, was happy with the previous government and their solution to climate change being a carbon tax, which did not change the temperature but—and this is the big issue here—made it very hard for them to compete. And we know that our agricultural industries are very much built around export. I think there is a bit of selective memory there.
However, let's get to the bill in hand. This bill, as we know, will amend the rural research and development legislation, and one of the big aspects of this bill, Mr Deputy Speaker—and I know you would be very appreciative of these changes—is to reduce regulatory burden on the rural research and development corporations. It amends legislation to remove requirements for RDCs to table certain corporate documents. This is to reduce regulatory burden and promote consistency between RDCs. In the interest of good governance, the RDCs will still need to produce these documents and make them publicly available.
This is in line with a big theme of this government. We on this side of the parliament know that we have to remain competitive. If we want to maintain our standard of life and to provide the social services that many people in our country require, we need to get the money from somewhere. To get the money we need the private sector in all sectors not just agriculture to be competitive, and this bill moves in that area as well. I know there is going to be legislation and legislation has already been introduced into parliament. We will have reduced $2 billion, which is not a small figure, of red tape in our first 12 months—double what we said we would do—because we understand and are very clear that this is very important to maintaining our competitiveness in many industries.
Dairy Australia, Forest & Wood Products Australia, the Australian Livestock Export Corporation and Sugar Research Australia will no longer need to table funding agreements or variations to funding agreements. Dairy Australia and the Australian Livestock Export Corporation will no longer need to table the annual report and other compliance reports. Again this all saves in red tape costs.
The Primary Industries Research and Development Act 1989 is amended to remove the requirements for the minister to organise annual coordination meetings for the chairs of the statutory RDCs. This is an unnecessary requirement. Again this bill removes a regulatory cost to them and indeed to government.
It is also important to remember that in 2014-15 the Commonwealth will provide funding of approximately these figures to the different areas: $11.6 million to the Grape and Wine R&D Corporation, $68.9 million to the Grains R&D Corporation, $5.1 million to Sugar Research Australia, $8.5 million to the Cotton R&D Corporation and $17.4 million to the Fisheries R&D Corporation. Again this is not money to be sniffed at.
The government in this bill very much recognises the importance of R&D in the agriculture, fisheries and the forestry sectors. The results of R&D help primary producers to produce more with less, giving them greater profit at the farm gate. Around $700 million per year is spent by the Australian government on rural R&D and extension activities. Within 10 years farmers generate a $12 return for each dollar the government invests in agricultural R&D. Australian farmers have an innovative culture. They know that R&D is essential if Australian industries are to keep pace and compete successfully in the international arena.
The 15 rural research and development corporations provide a mechanism for farmers and fishers to invest collectively in services that will benefit their industry, such as research and development and in some cases marketing. The government encourages investment by establishing and collecting a statutory levy if an industry so requests and by returning the funds to the relevant RDC, less the cost of collection. In addition, the government matches the RDC's eligible R&D spending up to the legislated limits. In the current financial year the government will provide an estimated $250 million to the RDCs. In recognition of the good work they do, the government has committed to an additional $100 million in funding for rural RDCs, starting in the next financial year. This funding boost will enable the RDCs to further contribute to farm productivity and profitability and better deliver cutting-edge technology.
Delivering on the coalition's 2013 election commitment, the first round of funding opened for applications on 15 October 2014. The guidelines include the research priorities for the first round of funding. The application period will close on 15 December 2014. Proposed research projects will need to address one or more of the research priorities that fall into these four areas: one, increase the profitability and productivity of primary industries; two, increase the value of primary products; three, strengthen primary producers' ability to adapt to opportunities and threats; and, four, strengthen on-farm adoption and improve information flows. There are a range of issues in Australian agriculture that can be managed through this process, such as improvements to wild dog control, better techniques to control Parthenium, and blackberry control using pathogens.
I want to make it very clear that this government has always been very in tune with the needs and desires of the agricultural sector. In our first 12 months of government, besides abolishing things like the carbon tax that were very damaging to the agricultural sector and agribusinesses, we have reinstated with full vigour the live export trade with our neighbours to again increase farm gate prices for that part of the agricultural sector. We also have free trade agreements with Korea and Japan. I know that most of the agricultural sector in my region would export around 70 per cent of what they produce, whether it be beef, dairy or macadamia nuts—and I could give you many other examples. Most of these products—well over 50 per cent—are sold offshore, so these markets are very important to us.
We did free trade agreements with Korea and Japan and are now also working on a free trade agreement with China. In fact, the Minister for Agriculture recently took a delegation to China. I was very pleased to organise for three or four industry sector representatives from my area to travel with the minister. They represented diverse agricultural produce. They have all come back and are very appreciative of the work the government are doing—the fact that we are trying to lower the red tape burden, have lowered their cost of production with the abolition of the carbon tax and are trying to actively work with them to give them access to new markets.
If the next generation of farmers in our communities are going to see a future on the farm, the one thing we have to do is improve the farm gate price, because that is the bottom line literally. If they are going to have a financial future and if the younger people are going to have a financial future in carrying on with the family farm or indeed entering the industry, that is what is necessary. So this, along with many other things we have done in the first 12 months, is focused on the agricultural sector. We want the agricultural sector to survive and prosper. I commend this bill to the House.
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (16:07): Labor are opposing the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 and in doing so we will be calling it what it is: a cut to agriculture R&D spending. This bill is taking a knife to R&D investment in agriculture and it is part of a much broader and much more serious set of cuts to research and development in Australia. But the focus today, and what I want to spend my time talking about, is agriculture: rural people, rural employment and the productivity of our rural industries. We know that the government, in speaking to this bill, are going to talk big on rural Australia, because that is what these guys are good at. We heard it from the member for Page, the member for Lyons, the member for Parkes, the member for Eden-Monaro—
Mr Pasin interjecting—
Ms O'NEIL: and, no doubt, soon enough we will hear it from the member for Barker. In fact, the member for Parkes talked about 'being in tune with the needs of country people'. Then, later, when this goes to a vote, he is going to cast a vote that will see a reduction in funding for R&D for agriculture. It is all talk and no action. They say all the right things at election time, but, when it comes time to make a vote, to make a decision, to cast a priority in favour of agriculture and rural people, that is not what these guys are going to do.
Labor is opposed to this bill not just because of the rank hypocrisy of it being put forward by the government but because Labor has always seen and always valued R&D for our agriculture sector. Labor created the research and development corporations model in 1989. Since that time, this model of investment has become the envy of the world; it has been copied right around the world. One of the distinctive features of the model that Labor put forward in 1989 was the principle of co-funding. We created the corporations and then we asked the people in industry who led those corporations what their priorities were. So it was not the old-school model of government knowing best and government knowing everything and telling agriculture what they needed to be spending their money on. We asked farmers and people who were advocating for their interests to tell us what was important, and then we matched them dollar for dollar. It has been an enormously successful program, and that is illustrated by the vast reach of these research development corporations. They have grown year on year, from the Australian Egg Corporation Ltd to Forest and Wood Products Australia Ltd; from Meat and Livestock Australia to Australian Wool Innovation Ltd; and there are many, many more.
What has the result been of that very clever policy design of R&D in agriculture? We know that, over the last 25 years, agriculture productivity has roughly doubled. This is one of the least supported industries by Australian government compared to other industries right around the world; it is one of the most efficient and least supported. We know, when we think about economic reform, that the agriculture and farming community have really done the heavy lifting. We have seen that in their returns in productivity. The research and development funding that has helped drive productivity has been an important part of the puzzle here. It is partly through investment, through research and development, that this has occurred.
Let us put the bill that we are discussing today into context. As quite a separate means of supporting and coordinating the activities of Australia's primary producers, the Australian government takes out membership of a range of international organisations. It does this because it is very much in Australia's interest to be part of international organisations that operate in the same sphere as our local producers. I make the point that, when we look overseas, when we look at our trading partners and when we look at our competitors, they are often countries where government has a much greater role in decisions that affect those different types of agricultural industries. A few examples of organisations of which the Australian government is a member: the International Sugar Organisation, the International Grains Council—and there are around six memberships in the international fishing area. You can imagine that that particular industry requires quite a deal of coordination.
What this bill seeks to do and the reason why it essentially, in effect, is a cut to R&D funding, is it forces the cost of membership for these organisations onto the research and development corporations. It basically says to industry: 'We just don't want to provide this for you anymore. If you want to pay those memberships then you can cut your own R&D funding, and that is how you will pay to be members of these international organisations.' It seems pretty cut and dried to me that that is exactly what is happening here.
It is a very disappointing direction to be moving in, for many reasons, but one that I want to go into a little bit is to do with the broader context of research and development in Australia. Some of the contributions that I have heard from those opposite have talked in lavish terms about an extra $100 million in R&D spending. It is, frankly, laughable, because what the government is doing is giving with one hand and then taking away a lot more with the other. Roughly speaking, when we talk about R&D, we get about $10 back for every $1 that is invested, as long as it is invested wisely. The National Farmers' Federation uses an $11 figure when talking about agricultural R&D. But when we look at other parts of the research and development space in Australia, we can see that there have been massive cuts to the area of rural research such as the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation.
I want to start by talking about the CSIRO, because that is where the really big cut is biting from this last budget. We saw $147 million cut from the CSIRO and 500 jobs gone. These are incredibly savage cuts for an organisation that has served Australia so proudly in conducting basic research and more specific research over a long period of time. This is the organisation that invented polymer bank notes, advanced radio astronomy and wi-fi. Where would be without wi-fi today? That was $147 million. Then we have got the $80 million in cuts to cooperative research centres and the $11 million in reduced annual appropriation funding to the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. You can see why Australians right around the rural parts of the country are growing a little weary of these promises and the excitement with which Nationals and Liberals on the other side of the House talk about them. When we put them into context we can see that it is the Liberals doing what the Liberals do, and that is cutting these important programs that have supported us for a long time. It is particularly worrying that we are seeing this trend towards cutting back on R&D funding because the truth is that, in Australia at the moment, we do not spend enough money on research and development. Looking at our economy as a whole, when we take the last year of spending under this coalition government, we see that as a percentage of total GDP this government has spent less on research and development than in any other year on record. The records go back to 1978-1979, so we are looking quite a way back here. It goes to show the tremendous lack of vision of the people on the other side of the House that right at this time—this incredibly difficult time for our economy, as we are making the transition away from the mining investment boom—it is R&D that goes to the chopping block. It is just absolutely astounding.
I mentioned that our spending over this last year was the lowest on record. We are well below the OECD average. For a country like Australia, where all we have are the minds of the people of this nation and their inventiveness, it is no wonder that so many of our scientists and researchers are trying to make their way overseas—because the support just is not there.
The situation under this government is getting worse and worse. It is pretty much in concert with the overall approach to research and development that we see this savage cut that is part of the legislation before us. We see, again, this consistent theme of promising one thing, $100 million in additional R&D, and doing another—cutting hundreds of millions of dollars through a range of different cuts. We heard before the election that agriculture was going to be one of the big pillars of our economy but what we see instead is a lack of support on the other side leading to that pillar crumbling.
This is what we expect from the Liberals; but when you come into the chamber and talk about these issues—about rural people—what you do expect to see, at the very least, is the Nationals standing up for their communities and fighting for the rights of these people working in rural Australia, trying to make our agricultural sector more productive and continue the good work it is doing. It was a delight to be in the chamber when the member for Indi got up and made her contribution to this debate, because I do not think I have seen a country MP who is not on this Labor side of the House argue with such vigour and such passion for the things that are important to her community. I say to rural people: if you feel you are not getting good service out of your National MPs there are other independents out there, like the member for Indi, and I would urge you to look towards them, because she is giving very good representation to her constituents.
The Nationals, unfortunately, have gone missing on this important point of rural R&D. I say again, with much disappointment, that this is a recurring theme we have seen in this parliament in other areas of policy. We know, for example, things like university deregulation are going to hit rural and regional parts of the country much harder than they will hit our cities. We know that young people living in rural and regional Australia already face much more significant barriers to get to university. We know that once they get a job, if they decide to go back to their community—which I would assume that those on the other side of the House would be urging them to do—they will earn less than they probably would have if they had stayed in the city, where there are many more commercial opportunities. Yet what we see is those on the other side of the House paving a path for our universities to open up degrees that will cost $80,000 or $100,000. I know from the many friends I have in rural Australia—not people that I represent but people that I know—this will put in place insurmountable barriers to study. So where were the Nationals when this was being decided?
Drought funding is another terrific example of what a total failure these members of parliament have been in representing rural and regional Australia. Fourteen million dollars was allocated to drought funding in the previous financial year. Most of it went back into consolidated revenue and we have seen, on numerous occasions now, that the minister cannot even explain coherently how the funding was administered to people who needed that drought relief.
We see it in health. We heard 'no cuts to health' and I am sure rural Liberal and National MPs right around the country were going around their electorates excitedly telling people there would be no changes to health funding. But at the very first opportunity in the National and Liberal party rooms we had a $7 co-payment—a $7 tax on the sickest people in the country. We have had changes that mean people living in rural parts of the country will need to pay somewhere up to $1,000 or $2,000 for certain types of tests. We know that they will get some of that money refunded back; I absolutely acknowledge that. But you and I both know that there are many people in rural and regional Australia who are not going to be able to find a couple of thousand dollars to be able to take a test.
I had the great pleasure of talking to a doctor who serves a community in rural Victoria about this very issue. When I asked about what he thought would happen he just laughed and said, 'Well, of course, Clare, these people are just not going to take the test.' We came into the parliament and asked the minister: 'Have you factored in the additional costs of more people not having their cancer picked up early?' But of course they have not, because evidence and modelling are not of much interest to those ideologues who are making these big decisions, unfortunately, for the nation at the moment.
I will finish by coming back to this point about research. The most important thing we can do for agricultural communities is help them plan and build for the future. As I mentioned before, the NFF tells us that for every dollar we spend on agricultural R&D, we are going to get $11 back. It is a pretty good investment—it is a lot better than the stock market, especially when you look at recent years. But sometimes you come in here and you get the feeling that the Nationals and the Liberals who represent these communities have different vision of what it is to be a farmer in these modern times. It is science. It is innovation. It is productivity improvements, and these farmers are looking for support with those things. That is exactly why we like to advocate for spending on rural and regional R&D and spending on agriculture.
Modern farming needs scientists. It needs researchers. It needs inventiveness and creativity. We see that in farms right around the country and that is why Labor has put forward these models, which have been very innovative, to support research and development in agriculture. That is why we are opposing this savage cut to R&D today.
Mr PASIN (Barker) (16:21): The member for Hotham was right about one thing; I am passionate and will wax lyrical about the contribution that regional electorates like mine make to the national economy. Unfortunately, I am disappointed to indicate to the House I fear that she is wrong about almost everything else. She spoke about rank hypocrisy. This is from the party that gave us a ban on live exports to Indonesia, the party that was so reluctant to enter into free trade agreements that their activity in that space could only be described as glacial. Yet she comes in here, as a member representing a vast area of 75 square kilometres in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and seeks to lecture those of us who represent many hundreds of thousands of square kilometres—as you do, Mr Deputy Speaker, and as I do—about what people want to see in the bush.
I will tell you one thing about farmers—and I am not telling you anything you do not know, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am certainly not telling my family anything they would not tell me—a farmer knows one thing for sure: a farmer knows you cannot live beyond your means. If you spend more this year than you earn in revenues in the highly commoditised market, you are one step closer to the bank or some other entity taking control of the farm over which you have had stewardship. I wonder how much we could allocate to research and development year on year if we were not as a nation spending a billion a month—in interest only—near on $800 million of which is being paid to entities overseas.
We are here to talk about the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. It makes amendments to the rural research and development legislation, which will give effect to the budget measures of 2014-15. It will also make some additional governance amendments. Why are we making these changes? We are making them because we arrived in September 2013 and, when we checked the cupboards, we found they were bare. Against that background, we have had to make some difficult decisions.
Obviously I need to stress to the House the importance of rural research and development to the economy's security and how high a priority it is for this government. I wish to note the work in recent days of the Minister for Agriculture, who announced six new appointments to the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, and the reappointment of Dr Len Stephens from South Australia as Managing Director of the Seafood Cooperative Research Centre, which, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, is crucial to the aquaculture industry in my electorate. This gives me the opportunity to shout out to the crayfishermen of the southern coast.
I also note the release of the green paper into agricultural competitiveness which will in turn lead to the development of the commensurate white paper—the Minister for Agriculture has emphasised the importance of increasing farm gate returns. This process is inherently linked to Australia's economic security, research and development and the continued maintenance of our reputation as a quality producer.
Agriculture was once the bedrock of the Australian community, and now as we head to the 21st century we must build on the lessons and practices of the past, both good and bad, to keep our farm sector competitive and to cement our global brand. The farm sector will drive economic growth in new ways going forward, not simply in the traditional fields of fruit, vegetables and livestock, but in other areas—such as education, water management, intellectual property, financial services, advanced manufacturing, science, human resources, management practices and biotechnology to name just a few.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you will recall that in this, our first budget, we proposed $100 billion of additional funding for research and development, specifically to support continued innovation in agriculture, fisheries and the forestry sector. Our government recognises the strong link between research and development and agricultural productivity growth, and recognises that it is a key driver for industry productivity and farm gate profitability. This research will focus on delivering cutting edge technologies with an emphasis on making research accessible to farmers on property. Research must be practical and support our farmers and producers.
As you have heard—and no doubt will continue to hear throughout this debate—the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimates that, for every dollar a government invests in agriculture research and development, farmers can expect a $12 return within 10 years. In a tight fiscal environment, the fact the government has allocated substantial additional funding demonstrates how important research and development is to the future of rural industries. It demonstrates the link between innovation competitiveness, profitability and sustainability, as well as natural resource management.
The budget measure referred to in this legislation allows government to recover the costs of membership fees to international commodity organisations and regional fisheries management organisations from the matching amounts paid to rural research and development corporations, or what have come to be known as RDCs. The additional measures remove the requirement for the minister to organise an annual coordination meeting for the chairs of the statutory RDCs and removes some parliamentary tabling requirements to reduce regulation. This of course gives me an opportunity to mention that this Wednesday in this place will be the second of our repeal days which focus on repealing unnecessary and unwanted red tape in the interests of the nation's economy.
The RDCs were established in 1989 by the Primary Industries Research and Development Act to undertake scientific research for the benefit of Australian rural industries, with benefits flowing to rural communities and the nation more broadly. There are currently 15 RDCs; five of these are statutory RDCs governed by that act; and 10 are industry owned RDCs which were created from former statutory RDCs. Most RDCs are able to undertake marketing activities in addition to their research and development activities at the request, of course, of relevant industries.
Most of the RDCs are primarily funded by statutory levies on primary production or products. The statutory levies for research and development are matched by Commonwealth funding up to a cap. The funds raised through the statutory levies are appropriated to the RDCs, less the cost of the levy's collection. The government provides matching funding to the RDCs based on their expenditure on eligible research and development activities. The RDCs are required to submit invoices to the Department for Agriculture to claim matching funding; matching funding provided to each RDC is subject to a cap based on the relevant industry's gross value of production.
Funding for the fisheries RDC operates differently in some respects. The fisheries RDC receives funding from state and territory governments as well as from levies. The caps on Commonwealth funding are based on gross value of production but are calculated differently to those of other RDCs. The Department of Agriculture currently pays for Australian government membership to international commodity organisations and regional fisheries management organisations. These organisations work to improve the trading environment for agricultural products by funding and coordinating research and development, providing information and statistics, setting international standards and ensuring ongoing access to fisheries.
Australia's membership of these organisations benefits the industries concerned. The international commodity organisations deliver good industry outcomes, such as trading standards, research on global issues and market statistics. The regional fisheries management organisations facilitate the management of migration restock and high seas stock that are fished by various nations. They inform international fisheries management stock assessments. And what ought to be noted at this juncture is the recently-announced position for those fish under Commonwealth management in this country, that we no longer have any that are subject to overfishing. That is a great fillip for that industry and a great example of this R&D in practical application.
In 2014-15 the budget measure changed the way that the government will fund the membership costs. From 2014-15 the government will cover the costs of the memberships from the matching funding it contributes to relevant RDCs that coordinate research for the industry which benefits most from the membership. The membership costs will be recovered by either deducting an equivalent amount from the matching funding paid to RDCs or by requiring the relevant RDC to pay the Commonwealth an amount equal to the membership fee. The Department of Agriculture will continue to be responsible for Australia's membership of the relevant organisations and for the payment of membership fees.
The bill amends the act with respect to the Sugar Research and Development Services Act 2013, the Australian Grape and Wine Authority Act 2013 to allow the government to recover the costs of membership fees. Currently, the Australian government is a member of four international commodity organisations relating to the sugar, wine, grain and cotton industries and six regional fisheries management organisations. The organisations and RDCs from which membership fees will be recovered will be specified by a new legislative instrument.
The rural R&D legislation currently contains different requirements for the preparation and tabling of certain corporate documents. Some acts require RDCs to produce certain corporate documents and, in some cases, to table them in the parliament. For consistency across industry owned RDCs the government has decided that tabling requirements are an unnecessary administrative burden for the RDCs and for the government and therefore they will be removed.
The following legislation is amended to remove tabling requirements: the Dairy Produce Act 1986—I am sure the dairy producers of Barker will be pleased to hear that; the Forestry Marketing and Research and Development Services Act 2007—and with such a significant forest industry in my electorate, centred around the south-east, again, they will be pleased to hear that, and I should take this opportunity to mention the establishment for the first time in this place of the Parliamentary Friends of Forestry and Forest Products; the Australian Meat and Live-stock Industry Act 1997—again, highly relevant to the electors of Barker, given the amount of meat and livestock that we produce; and the Sugar Research and Development Services Act 2013. The RDCs will still be required to produce the relevant documents and, where required, make them publicly available.
The PIRD Act requires the minister to organise an annual coordination meeting for the chairs of the statutory RDCs. Only five of the 15 RDCs are statutory bodies and the government has decided, as I have said previously, other coordinated mechanisms to be more appropriate.
I indicated at the beginning of my contribution that Australia has relied upon the agricultural and farming sectors to provide for her prosperity. We know that this will continue to be the case for many decades. The changes brought about by this legislation will help to sustain our competitive edge in the agricultural sector into the future. I commend the bill to the House.
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (16:33): This Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 is an interesting one. I say that because it comes at a time when this government is cutting so much money from research and development. It is cutting funding from the CSIRO of $146.8 million, which will cost about 500 jobs; it is cutting $11 million in appropriate funding for the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation; and there is an $80 million reduction to the Cooperative Research Centres Program. This is at the same time as there is a radical overhaul going on of our universities, where we will see funding cuts to our regional universities.
So it strikes me as odd that they would stand up here and say that the government is a champion of regional research and development when, in fact, it is a bit of a smokescreen: 'Here is a small amount of funding, whilst we cut over here to the left and over here to the right and radically restructure universities.'
The member for Indi raised this issue in her contribution to this debate around the effects of funding cuts to our regional universities. It is pretty hard to have the scientists that you need for regional and rural development and research if you do not have university students. I wanted to start my contribution on the effects that this government will have on higher education when it comes to science, industry and the regions.
We are concerned—regional MPs—particularly those on this side of the House, about the government's effects on science and on ag in our part of the world. We have already had the Melbourne university close its agricultural campus, Dookie, and it is now running agriculture from its campus in the inner city of Melbourne. It is pretty hard to be actively involved in the grassroots of your industry if you are in the city at an inner city based campus. Sure, you can jump on a train—if it runs on time—and get out to the ag areas. But one of the real strengths of having a strong, grassroots-driven, research, innovation and development sector is if the science, the study and the expertise are occurring in the very communities where the industry is based. And yet we are seeing the very opposite occur as this government pushes to deregulate the university sector—as they start to talk about deregulating fees, which will only see an increase in fees for the vast majority on campus and as they promote how good the scholarship fund will be for regional students so that they can go to a Melbourne or city based university.
What they are not talking about is the negative impact this reform will have on agricultural studies and on science studies. The member for Indi has already told us that there is a shortfall of at least 4,000 skilled professionals that we require in the regions. This is an issue that comes up over and over again in the roundtables and discussions that I have with the industries in my electorate. I come from quite a big regional producing area, central Victoria. Bendigo city itself has become a hub for our region, whether it is people in agriculture doing their finances and their banking in our area or whether it is the head offices of organisations such as the Victorian Farmers Federation, which now has an office in Bendigo. Bendigo is definitely a hub for the regional agricultural sector. Locally it is one of our biggest employers. There are more people involved in agriculture and food manufacturing now than there are in heavy manufacturing in my electorate. The big employers in my electorate are Hazeldene's, Tip Top Bakeries and KR Castlemaine. We also have a number of people who work in Hy-Line Australia and in B&B Basil.
I mention Hy-Line and B&B Basil because they are two agricultural businesses that could benefit from this particular fund. The story of B&B Basil is one of those great innovative regional success stories. They produce the microherbs or the garnishes that you have on your dinner plate. So successful has their business been that they are now exporting their microherbs overseas. They have talked to me about the need for greater assistance when it comes to Austrade, not so much in the way of R&D but the need for Austrade to support developing markets for their products. They have basically done it on their own, with the help of other local manufacturers. Where R&D has been important in their organisation is to develop the equipment that they need to grow their microherbs. As you can imagine, it is not your average planter that is required to grow microherbs; it is quite a small container that is required. So they have also needed quite a bit of innovation when it comes to the equipment on their property.
Hy-Line is an interesting business. Most may not realise what it actually does or that it is based in Bendigo. It is the largest specialist supplier of day-old chicks for the poultry industry. In fact, 70 per cent of our hens that lay eggs have come from this facility based in Bendigo. For more than 50 years, Hy-Line has provided the Australian poultry industry with the livestock that they need to lay eggs. They talk to me about the importance of biosecurity—which is another debate for another day—and they also talk to me about the need for R&D. More importantly, they talk to me about another area where this government has failed them, and that is having the infrastructure and the technology that they need to be able to continue to manage their business effectively. They talk to me about the need for a decent NBN and the need to be able to monitor the climate conditions of their facilities via a closed-circuit network. But, because they do not have a fast-speed broadband network, with the upload that they require, they struggle to do that.
It is another area where this government is letting regional and agribusinesses down. When I talk to young farmers, they have the apps ready to go for how to monitor their livestock. They are innovating in science, yet they cannot connect properly because this government is dragging its feet when it comes to vital infrastructure. It is another example of how this bill is designed to be a great big smokescreen, to pretend that this government is doing something when it comes to research and development and innovation in agriculture. Yet there are so many other areas where this government is failing.
There are a number of niche businesses in the electorate of Bendigo: wineries, bakeries, coffee roasters, olive oil processors, honey producers and craft beer producers. These are all boutique niche industries that are developing product and getting it ready for market. All of these businesses struggle with their own issues when it comes to export. Their issues include not being able to get past the red tape at the other end when it comes to New York or China, say. They want to see this government investing more in Austrade being able to resolve some of those issues. One particular winery do not want to import wine into New York; they just want to send the wine to a taster, and those tasting notes will be how they then onsell their product into Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. So they do not actually want to sell the product; they just want to get it to the taster so that his tasting notes will then help them market their business. To date, they have struggled to have somebody help them resolve the receiving end in New York. These are some of the challenges that people in my electorate talk to me about that they face in the agricultural industry.
This bill talks about research and development corporations. These were created by Labor in the late eighties to undertake scientific research for the benefit of Australian rural industries that would flow on to the community and the nation more broadly. The government would put half the amount, matching dollar for dollar, into R&D if the industry levy was able to come up with the funds—a co-funding model. Labor will fight to protect the original model we had when it comes to R&D, and the reason is the acknowledgement on this side that government does have a role in creating industry. As other speakers have said, within this particular co-funding arrangement there needs to be, as the NFF have called for, some form of sunset clause so that we can continue to come back to assess whether this is the right model.
Labor's R&D model is working with industry. It is not telling industry what to do but facilitating and encouraging partnership. Labor's model brought together the universities, brought together the skills, brought together the industry and brought together the government, brought together the CSIRO and brought together other organisations to help create product, to help create the innovation.
There is another area that this government is failing when it comes to this particular sector. Constantly the government stands up and says: agriculture is the future industry for jobs, we will be the food bowl of Asia and we will help feed Asia, which, in turn, will create exports and that, in turn, will create jobs. But I ask the government: who will actually work these jobs? Because there is a growing problem in our agricultural sector. A lot of the work that it is being created, a lot of the jobs are going to people who are not just on 457 visas but to people who are international students working in ag businesses on 416 visas or 417 visas, which are holiday working visas. We are not just talking about one or two; we are talking about organised workforces being brought into Australia to do these food production jobs.
In my own electorate, there are what we call boners at Hazeldene's. Hazeldene's is a company that employs about 800 people directly. But what we often do not hear is that they also employ about 200 contractors. These workers are on Thai holiday work visas. They come over here specifically for these jobs. So before these jobs are being advertised locally, there are Thai people brought to Australia specifically for these jobs. They are employed as contractors and are paid per kilo for boning chicken. That is the kind of job that we are creating at the moment in the agricultural sector. We are not creating high skilled jobs. We are not creating jobs where Australians will get first go at them.
The jobs being created in the ag sector are actually jobs going to imported labour that undercuts local labour. There is no way you can be an Australia and be employed in Hazeldene's and paid to bone chickens by the kilo. To be employed as an Australian in Hazeldene's, you are not a contractor; you are on the union based EBA and you are paid by the hour. We are creating this competition in our agricultural workplaces. Again, it is quite easy for these companies like Hazeldene's to say it is because there is no skilled workforce locally.
We have heard, yes, it is true when it comes to the high-tech, high end jobs—because we are struggling—to get universities through the funding cuts to ensure that we have the skilled workforce. But at the lower end, when it comes to the unskilled jobs, there are people willing to work; they are just not be given the opportunity.
As I said, this bill cuts funding to research and development specifically in the rural research and development area. There are $80 million in reductions to the cooperative research centres; $164.8 million in cuts to the CSIRO, which will cost about 5,000 jobs. There are more are more examples about how this government is willing to hide behind the smokescreen of this legislation but not talk about the real challenges that are going on in agriculture. The current funding cuts, the challenges with the workforce and not hiring locals and the challenges when it comes to the NBN and making sure that these businesses have the infrastructure that they need are the issues that this government is not talking about.
Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (16:49): I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak on the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. The bill implements the 2014 budget measure and reduces unnecessary regulation imposed on the rural, research and development corporations and on the Commonwealth combined. The bill directly affects only those relevant RDCs. The budget measure allows the government to deduct the cost of membership fees to the international amounts paid by the Commonwealth to the relevant RDCs. Australia will continue to be a member of the organisations for which it currently holds membership and the Commonwealth will continue to be responsible for membership and for the payment of the membership fees.
The bill only changes the way that the cost of membership fees are paid by the Commonwealth. Additional measures remove the requirement for the Minister for Agriculture to organise an annual coordination meeting for the chairs of the statutory RDCs and remove the requirement for some RDCs to table documents to parliament such as funding an agreement, the annual reports and other compliance reports. The RDCs will still be required to produce those documents where required but they will still have to make them publicly available. The essence of the bill is to cut down red tape and to pump more money into R&D for our rural people.
As in my and all other rural electorates, the farmers of our nation do deserve backup and it is our government that is prepared to give them that backup. They play important roles in the whole real economy. There is an old saying: if the rural guys are not doing any good, you can rest assured that the rural towns are not doing any good either. Our farmers are some of the most productive in the world. They have a very good image and the products they produce are clean and green. That is recognised by the Asian markets and it is a credit to what our farmers do. But they do need support, they do need to be profitable and they do need to be competitive. It is a changing world that we live in and there are changes in our agricultural world. I can see that with our government initiative here, pooled with private investment and farming investment, we can go forward at the right pace that will take us into the years ahead.
The retailers and distributors of some of our farm products do seem to skim some of the lion's share of the profit. For instance, if you buy a kilogram of rump steak in a butcher's shop on the Gold Coast, you might pay something between $20 and $25 a kilogram. I know, and you know, that the beef producer may get $1.25 or $2.25 at the most; it depends whether you are talking live or dead weight.
Government supports research and development. It is essential that the industry, the farmers and the universities work together on this. That is why the government maintains its membership of the international commodity and regional fisheries management organisations. We still have to keep our leg in the industry and have skin in the game as a partnership with our fishermen, forestry workers and agricultural people in general. Whether it is in relation to grain, sugar, cotton or macadamia nuts, we all need to be up-to-date with the modern technology. I believe this $100 million that we are pumping into the industry will go a long way in keeping us on top of the market.
The International Cotton Advisory Committee sponsors research into cotton production methods and directly benefits farmers in the Central Highlands and Dawson and Callide valleys in my electorate. This will not stop. This will continue, and we can only expect better crops in the future.
Some of the biggest drawbacks in rural and regional areas are the lack of NBN services, as the previous member mentioned, and the lack of phone services. Marketing one's product in rural and regional areas is getting harder and harder. I recall the 2PH farms in Emerald telling me that they use daylight hours to pick their product and prepare their product for market and they use the night-time hours to market their products all over the world. You need a very good NBN system to do that, to keep up-to-date with the rest of the world and to keep communicating and promoting your products. It will be a godsend when the NBN gets to our rural and regional areas; for them, 2018 will not come quick enough. That is the date when our minister has said that we will have good service to most of Australia—and we are talking in the high 90 per cents. That should be encouraging, but 2018 is a fair way away. It is good to see the minister is concentrating on the rural areas first—the sooner the better—to get people up-to-date with their communications.
Through our membership of these organisations we will ensure that our local fishing industry is fairly represented when decisions are made regarding management of their own fishing grounds. In Australia—and especially in Queensland, which I can speak about—the wild catch per square kilometre is nine kilograms. Why do we want to lock up more of the Coral Sea reef? I see it as foolish. There is no fish in Queensland waters that is endangered, but we keep on putting hurdles in front of our fishermen. The fact is that we import something like 80 per cent of our fish products and I think that is a shame. It is the same with our pig products—we import something like 80 per cent of our pig products.
A farmer said to me: 'Ken, you are talking about dams. I really applaud you for that. I think it is a great move. But don't forget there's a lot of farmers out there who could build their own dams, on their own properties, with their own money—and put them in the right place, so that they could benefit themselves on their own agricultural farms—but we are just burdened with regulations and red tape. Hopefully one day you can get rid of that so we can then go ahead and build our own dams without one cent of government money.'
There are some farmers out there who have done very well. Some have got into organic farming. These guys who have done that—and I know there is a cost to them to do it—benefit by about $400 to $500 a beast when they send the organic cows to market. These are the type of innovative people we have out there, and I think we should be using their skills as best we can. Hopefully, pumping this $100 million into the industry and cutting back on red tape will only benefit the real people who we need to develop our nation further and further into the future.
We have a population of nine billion planned for about 2050. These people will all have to be fed. I would like to see farm margins increased so we can get to a point where farmers and agricultural people can afford to employ people again. At the moment there is no outside help, no outside labour, because they cannot afford to pay the wages. The commodity prices are not good enough for these farmers to develop and improve their businesses. There is a lot of work to be done on the properties. They just need labour that they can afford. I do not believe in child labour or slave labour, but farmers need the right commodity prices without mark-ups in the retail industry. The price you pay for a kilogram of rump steak compared with what the farmer gets: there is the margin that you could use to afford to pay wages. That is not happening. That is something I hope to promote as long as I am in parliament. With that, I commend the bill to the House.
Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (17:00): I rise to speak many times in this place, but I must send the last speaker an application form for our party because he is obviously in the wrong party, given all the things he has just said. He will get into terrible trouble when the bosses hear about what he said today. For his information, the closure of the fishing industry occurred under the Liberal Party not the Labor Party. On the budget cutbacks—I am a great admirer of frugality and I like to think that my years in the state cabinet in Queensland were marked by very strong, frugal eyes. There was no profligacy in spending. It was very cost-effective where we put the money. So I applaud the government for striving to cutback government expenditure, but it can become quite ridiculous when we go chasing $7 million over three years. We are wasting the time of the parliament on $7 million over three years on a budget of $450,000 million. Just how petty has this become?
I think it needs to be said and resaid and resaid. I am holding here a wonderful article from Professor Denniss on Bob Menzies and budgets. According to the current government, Swan's deficit of 3.3 per cent of GDP in his final year in office was a 'disaster', a 'budget crisis'. That is how the current government described Mr Swan's deficit. It turns out that Mr Menzies in his last year had a budget deficit much higher than that recorded by the ALP. So by the current government's yardstick, Mr Menzies was a shocker, worse than the Labor Party.
When we talk about budgets, the world record for deficits was held by the government that I was part of, the old Country Party Bjelke-Petersen government. I would say we must have had the biggest budget deficit in human history because on an income of about $3,000 million, we borrowed $3½ thousand million over two years just to build a railway line, a port and a power station. The point of this very brilliant article by Professor Denniss is if you spend $5,000 million—and this is not what he says but what I say—like the Queensland government is doing, building another tunnel in Brisbane, then what you do is burden the people of Brisbane with, according to their Treasury, one-seventh for maintenance and upkeep. So of $5,000 million, you would burden the people of Brisbane with a $700 million weight upon their back—not my figures, Queensland Treasury figures. It says when you build an asset, you must allow one-seventh for amortisation, maintenance et cetera. I think that is not a bad figure, actually.
What happens when we do this—to quote my son, the state member for Mount Isa—what do we get for $5,000 million? A few thousand people get home a few minutes earlier to watch the television. That is what we get for the $5,000 million. If on the other hand that money was spent, as we spent it in the old Country/National Party government, on a railway line into the Galilee Basin and the coalfields then, I estimate, within five years you would generate $1,000 million a year in, if not profit, most certainly operating surplus. That is what we did in Queensland. We ran these massive deficits, but the money was not spent on self-indulgence. The money was not spent on a more agreeable lifestyle and cutting the time to get to and from work. The money was spent on creating real wealth continuously.
Let me go back to the tunnel example because it is very relevant to this Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. This bill says we should get the people to put the money into research; the government is not going to put the money into this area any more. Rather than the state government in Queensland committing $5,000 million of resources to build another tunnel, it could spend $3½ thousand million building a railway line into the Galilee Basin, where half of this nation's coal assets lie, and create 20,000 jobs for the next 100 years at least. You tell me what is the best use of that money, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is not a matter of budget deficits or budget surpluses; it is a matter of what you spend the money on. The Queensland government is spending $5,000 million on another tunnel. It would appear to me that per capita Brisbane already has twice as many tunnels as anywhere other city in the world. If that money was spent on a railway line, we would create 20,000 jobs in a state where jobs are vanishing at the speed of the sun going down in the afternoon—universal collapse of the economy Queensland.
Let me turn to bill specifically. Geraldine Maguire is president of the Malanda Chamber of Commerce, a once great milk producing area which was slaughtered by government deregulation by the LNP and ALP. Geraldine is being very positive. They are putting forward an Australian agricultural precinct concept where there will be a great emphasis on innovation—they will create an innovation hub. She is drawing upon the strengths we have in this area because in the lower tablelands per capita we have more PhDs than anywhere else in Australia. Unfortunate and sadly the reason for that is governments have progressively, in the time that I have been in parliament, cut back on all scientific research. I think there were 20-odd people working in the CSIRO arboreal research centre in Atherton. I doubt whether there would be six working there now. Keera research station was the biggest research station in northern Australia and employed about 32 people under Mick Nasser. There is no Keera research station now. When I became member for Kennedy we had about 126 scientists working full time, mostly in the area of agriculture and agricultural processing. I doubt whether we would have 30 now. I think the figure is about 26. All of that accumulated handed-down knowledge is gone.
I will give you one example of what this means. There are over six million hectares of heavy infestation of the mid-western Gulf Country by prickly acacia tree. Written across the map—it is 25 years old now—it says, 'The best natural grasslands in Australia.' Sadly, they are not grasslands at all; they have this terrible weed, pest, whatever you want to call it, the acacia nilotica tree. All of the accumulated research over 20 years is in the pest and weed research station in Charters Towers, which has virtually been cut in half by the current Queensland government. All of that accumulated knowledge and wisdom has simply vanished. So instead of moving forward we are moving backwards.
One of the saddest things in Australia is that CSIRO say you have to be more related to the marketplace—the free market philosophy and ideology. I do not know that we would have any science much on earth if past governments throughout the world for the last 2,000 years went on that policy. Galileo was on the payroll of the Medici family. Unless money is coming in from powerful people and government and they have banking resources available to them, then science simply cannot move forward.
Let me go back to the CSIRO example. Our little party believes that we need an extra $2,000 million a year put into science and some of that needs to be earmarked for CSIRO. It is one of the great institutions on earth. CSIRO came up with the mix amitosis virus which wiped out the rabbit plague in Australia. I could quote 100 other examples of brilliant internationally renowned work done by CSIRO but the sad thing now is that the Murray-Darling commission wanted these people to come up with a report that would say, 'Oh, terrible, terrible, what's going on in the Murray-Darling. We've got to do something about it.' So CSIRO came up with figures that were 300 per cent different than the Murray-Darling Basin. I do not know; the Murray-Darling Basin may have been wrong and CSIRO right, but there was a 300 per cent difference.
In ethanol they were paid effectively by the greenhouse gas emissions office of the federal government to do a number on ethanol and they remain responsible for the only report on earth that I know of which says that carbon dioxide increases if you use ethanol instead of petrol. Every country on earth now has ethanol except for African countries and Australia. China, India, half of Indonesia, Thailand, all have moved to biofuels, ethanol. All the north Americas, Canada, Mexico, the United States, all of the South American countries with the exception of Venezuela of course—an oil producing country—and all of Europe have signed up to 15 per cent. Everyone one of them has done it on the basis of a report saying that it dramatically reduces CO2 and other volatile and dangerous emissions. Basically, ethanol is introduced to stop people from dying from motor vehicles but all harmful emissions are reduced dramatically by ethanol, which is pure alcohol and gives a magnificent burn, which overcomes most of the problems with gas emissions. But to see CSIRO, this great and renowned institution, prostituted to the extent where it will produce an article which says the exact opposite of the truth is unfortunate. Their argument was that they were given parameters by the greenhouse gas emissions office and they had to work within those parameters. Well actually they had to come up with a report saying that they had increases CO2 emissions. The point I am trying to make here is that we do need research. Sometimes it is wasted. Academics get a little bit carried away and go into peculiar areas but they have to be given some latitude and they must be given independence.
On the same issue, one of the major bodies involved is the Sugar Research and Development Corporation. It has been rejigged in such a way that the millers have effective control now instead of the farmers. You say, 'What does that mean?' It means that they are going to breed new varieties. We have to breed ever-newer varieties of sugar cane and a variety that will suit the mill will be one that goes for a longer period yielding sugar content, whereas the cane farmer would like a greater sugar content in a shorter period when he would like to see the milling take place, but it is very much to their detriment that this is taking place. (Time expired)
Mr PITT (Hinkler) (17:15): I rise to speak on the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. Agriculture is vital to my electorate and the Wide Bay region more broadly, so let me read, for the benefit of the House, some of the data contained in the 2014 ABARES report for Wide Bay. About 15 per cent of all people employed in the Queensland agriculture, forestry and fishing sector are based in Wide Bay; the sector employs about 8,500 people locally, representing about eight per cent of the region's total workforce. In addition, about 2,700 people are employed locally in food product manufacturing. In 2011-12 the gross value of agricultural production in Wide Bay was $949 million, or nine per cent of total agricultural production in Queensland. Of that $949 million, fruit contributed 22 per cent, or $207 million, and vegetables contributed 17 per cent, or $166 million. Sugar cane accounted for 14 per cent, or $128 million. The region is home to about 4,620 farms, or 16 per cent of all farm businesses in Queensland. I am a former cane farmer. My father and brothers continue to operate a substantial cane harvesting business. Agriculture and family farming are a part of me, and always will be.
The Australian government supports rural industries in a variety of ways, including grants programs. Since coming to government, the coalition has signed free trade agreements with Japan and South Korea—two of our largest trading partners. My region has endured two major floods in three years and is now in the midst of a drought. Would you believe it? Two floods and now a drought! With exorbitant electricity prices and ongoing price pressure from the supermarket duopoly, growers are locked in an uphill battle. That is why I am pleased to be part of a government that consults and not one that makes ad hoc decisions, like Labor's overnight suspension of live export trade. We are committed to restoring some stability to the sector, to improve productivity and farm gate returns.
Earlier this week Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce, released the government's green paper as another step forward to developing an agriculture competitiveness white paper. The green paper draws on feedback from real people, people on the ground, people who have shared their experience and opinion on a wide variety of agricultural issues. The taskforce held hearings in Bundaberg earlier this year, and I would encourage Hinkler constituents to comment again on the green paper, to share their ideas for opportunities and solutions. The green paper represents a range of possible policy options that now need further consideration and prioritisation.
Support is also currently being provided to the sector through 15 rural research and development corporations. During the 2013 election campaign the then coalition opposition committed to provide an additional $100 million to these rural research and development corporations when in government. This is aimed at improving Australia's capacity to deliver cutting edge technology, continuing applied research focussed on collaborative innovation and increasing the appeal of Australian commodities to potential markets. The boost is on top of the $250 million already provided each year as matching funding and more than $450 million in levies collected from industry. To keep our rural industries engaged on the world stage, the government is a member of international commodity and regional fisheries management organisations. This bill changes the way the government pays its membership of these organisations. Membership fees will now come directly from the budgets of our 15 rural research and development corporations. This will save the government about $7 million over the next four years.
Agricultural research and development operates in a global system and, as such, must take international issues into account. The same can be said for trade. If we expect to be able to sell our produce overseas, we must also be willing to accept their exports when it is safe to do so. Australia is a member of the World Trade Organisation and, as such, import risk analysis must be based on science and free of political interference. The Department of Agriculture recently announced it will lift a ban to allow imports of fresh ginger from Fiji to Australia. Fiji has exported fresh ginger to New Zealand and to the United States for years, but Australian growers were understandably concerned about the threat posed by pests and diseases—things like burrowing nematode and yam scale.
There are 49 ginger growers in Australia who produce around 8,000 tonnes a year, worth about $35 million. Having met with Australian Ginger Growers Association chairman, Anthony Rehbein, on numerous occasions, I publicly urged the federal Department of Agriculture to adhere to the strictest possible import standards when inspecting fresh ginger from Fiji. The department assured growers and the public that it had very stringent measures in place to ensure biosecurity risks are reduced to the lowest level possible. The department said it could review import conditions in light of new scientific information.
The association intercepted five boxes of ginger at Sydney Markets in one of the first consignments from Fiji and asked the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to inspect them. DAFF said the ginger was generally very clean but of poor condition. They found scale, traces of soil and foreign vegetable matter such as nut grass. There were also sunken lesions present, which could be indicative of burrowing nematode or fungal invasion. There were also a considerable number of rhizomes affected by root-knot nematode. There is now a dispute between ginger growers, the association, state and federal biosecurity officers, scientists and departmental bureaucrats as to whether similar pests already exist in Australia; how deep each of these bug varieties burrow; which variety is more invasive; and whether methyl bromide fumigation can disinfect ginger rhizome of both external and internal feeding parasites.
But the point that growers and the association are now making—and it seems to me to be a valid one—is that on page 2 of the import risk assessment it states:
… consignments must be free of live insects, disease symptoms, trash, contaminant seeds, soil and other debris on arrival in Australia.
Should it matter whether some of the parasites already exist in Australia? Should the testing carried out by DAFF and the research gathered by the association be considered new scientific information? The risk is this: we may find ourselves in the future in the same situation as the Northern Territory, which, from recent reports, now has an outbreak of cucumber green mottle mosaic virus. This will absolutely decimate the melon industry in the Northern Territory. This virus in other countries produces 50 per cent losses in the field—50 per cent!
This is an industry in the Northern Territory that is worth $50 million to their economy and it is something that is transmitted by sea. I note the contribution of the member for Capricornia about the pineapple industry, which is worth $80 million a year to Australia. There are 80 growers and they have year-on-year growth, but they have real issues with the potential for a disease which makes pineapples in the field explode. Can you imagine walking through a field of exploding pineapples?
As I said earlier, the import risk assessments must be free of political interference. It is incumbent upon the federal Department of Agriculture and Australia's biosecurity offices to ensure our crops and farmers are protected, because I sure as hell hope we do not see a repeat of what is happening in the Top End. Agriculture is vital to our national economy, our regional economy, and of course the people in my community in my electorate. Their livelihoods depend on the vigilance of these offices. It is absolutely vital that it be protected.
I encourage Australians to support their local farmers by buying Australian produce as the first choice and, of course, especially ginger.
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (17:23): We have heard a lot in this chamber today about changing the meaning of things when it comes to agriculture. Yes, we have changed the meaning. We have elevated agriculture to one of the main pillars of the Australian economy. We have made it something which is supported by sound policy, valued for what it does for people and nurtured so it receives the investment to make it not just survive but thrive into the future. The Minister for Agriculture and member for New England has changed the meaning of agriculture from a forlorn, forgotten portfolio under Labor, to being a meaningful, vibrant and, hopefully, highly profitable sector under the Liberal-National government. That is the meaning the agriculture minister has changed.
For Labor to come in here and try to score cheap political points this afternoon with anything, absolutely anything to do with agriculture after its six years—six years—of woeful neglect for this vital portfolio area shows contempt, sheer contempt, for those who work the land.
We have given agriculture real meaning and real purpose. We did not put it on the skids as Labor did by stopping live exports; by abandoning irrigators; and by imposing a carbon tax which had such a disastrous effect on farms and farmers and which Labor, if ever re-elected, will introduce quicker than you can utter the words 'there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead' or quicker than the shadow agricultural minister, the member for Hunter, could say 'Barnaby Joyce'.
The opposition agricultural spokesman is fixated by the minister. He really is. He talks about him more than he talks about anything else.
The Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 will reduce the regulatory burden and reporting requirements for research and development corporations, enabling them to be more productive—more productive—and focus directly on agricultural innovation, ensuring Australian agriculture remains a global leader.
The government through this year's budget put forward responsible measures necessary to repair Labor's budget mess and ensure the Commonwealth lives within its means. We are getting on with the important work across the board, addressing budgetary challenges which we face today and preparing for the future. Unlike Labor, this government has an extensive agenda for regional Australia and our focus is on supporting Australian agriculture to remain profitable, productive and competitive, and on building for the future. As has been previously mentioned, this is a modest budget measure which will provide savings of about $7 million over four years.
The coalition has a plan to build a strong, prosperous economy and a safe, secure Australia. Only the Abbott-Truss coalition government has an economic action strategy which will grow the economy and fix Labor's debt and deficit disaster. Labor's legacy to Australia is 200,000 more unemployed, many of those in rural and regional areas. Gross debt is projected to rise to $667 billion if we sit here and do nothing about it and $123 billion in cumulative deficits.
Agriculture is at the heart of the Riverina in my electorate. It is one of the most productive and diverse agricultural regions in the country, giving rise to our claim as one of the significant food bowls of Australia. We grow just about everything in the Riverina. There are large-scale producers of wheat, canola, citrus, apples, beef, dairy, oil seeds, wool, barley, vegetables, sheep, lamb, wine grapes, cotton, hay, poultry and cherries. You name it, we grow it. These are the many fine products which generate income and stimulate our local economies. Food production is serious business in the Murrumbidgee and Coleambally irrigation areas. The MIA contributes more $2½ billion annually to the Australian economy and, for argument's sake, Riverina rice producers grow 52 per cent of the total value of the New South Wales rice harvest, which has a farm gate value of around $300 million a year according to the June 2013 ABARES report.
In grains research, I was pleased to see the announcement of the Minister for Agriculture and the New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries, Katrina Hodgkinson, just last month which provides $10.8 million—serious money—for grains research and development in New South Wales. This will transpose to the creation of 18 new research offices—there is that word 'research', so important in all of this—in key cropping locations across the state, including in Wagga Wagga and Yanco in my electorate. Given agriculture's importance to the region, there is much research and development which is undertaken in our region to ensure our product remains efficient and competitive in changing local, national and international markets.
In my electorate, Charles Sturt University is a leader in agriculture research and development. The EH Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation, which is named after a long serving member for Wagga Wagga, Eddie Graham—you might be interested, Deputy Speaker Mitchell; he was actually from your side of politics and a good man, too, who was also the New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries for a long time—excels in agriculture research and innovation. Currently, its multidisciplinary and integrated research covers climate change and the need to make sure that we use minimum water and get maximum production; water availability; adapting to increasing input costs; biosecurity threats; capacity crisis and succession planning; and risk management and adaption to change. The Graham centre undertakes extensive undergraduate and postgraduate research, with several students currently undertaking PhD research at the state of the art facilities.
In this year's budget, the Minister for Agriculture confirmed the government is honouring its commitment to provide $100 million in new funding for rural research and development, specifically to support continued innovation in agriculture, and that is extremely good. That is extremely needed.
This government understands that, while we need to target our spending wisely and not waste a cent, we also need to continue to invest in the productivity and profitability of Australian agriculture. There is a strong link between research and development and agricultural productivity growth as a key driver of industry and farm gate profitability. We hear all the time how farmers need to increase their farm gate profitability.
The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resources Economics and Sciences estimates that, for each dollar the government invests in agricultural research and development, farmers generate $12 within 10 years. So they turn a dollar to $12 within a decade—that is tremendous; that is putting food and fibre on the plates and the backs of Australians and others.
By allocating substantial additional funding to agricultural research and development, we, the coalition, are demonstrating the important role rural and regional industries will play into the future in a tight fiscal and budgetary environment. We understand on this side that there are challenges ahead. We understand that climate variability is going to play an important part in the future for farmers but we also understand their worth and that we need to help them as much as is humanly possible by this parliament.
We continue to see evidence that this government holds our agricultural sector in high regard by delivering on our 2013 election commitment by developing a white paper on Australia's agricultural competitiveness—I know I am using a prop, but it is important that people see this great little booklet, because it is going to, hopefully, help transform our agricultural industries.
Through the initial green paper process, almost 700 submissions were received, demonstrating that Australians recognise the potential development and opportunities in agriculture and primary production. I went to the forum held in Griffith in the MIA and I listened to the passion of the people who made verbal submissions—and many of them written submissions—to that particular inquiry. Through this process, further ideas about deregulation and reducing regulatory burden on farmers is also being considered to ensure we increase our competiveness, increase our farm gate profitability and ensure we lift the shackles from small business and primary producers.
Australian agriculture has a great future and huge potential, if we can continue to build on our current foundations and ensure that we get the policy setting right for the future. Through investment in research and development, the dams taskforce and the agricultural competitiveness white paper, we are ensuring that we are taking the opportunities before us. We recognise that agricultural and primary production has a critical role to play in ensuring we grow productivity and get our economy back on track.
The member for Watson continues to demonise and disparage farmers. He should know better; he was after all the 28th Minister for Agriculture, the 10th from Labor, of this great farming nation. Last Monday, after question time, the member asked the Speaker a series of questions, during which he spoke of disruptive conduct in the public galleries of the House of Representatives.
He talked of anticlimate change groups and farmers. Maybe it is just an inconvenient truth for the member, but he ignored mentioning the noisy mob who cheered on 12 October 2011 when the carbon tax was brought into law —remember that awkward embrace between Julia Gillard and the man whose prime ministership she took, Kevin Rudd. And whilst they did not make it into the gallery—they all but did—who could forget the Canberra riot of 19 August 1996 when out-of-control trade unionists, the ones who bankroll Labor, kicked down the doors of Parliament House, ransacked the gift shop, damaged property and attacked police officers? Around 90 people were injured that day, and it was lucky someone wasn't killed. Why didn't the member for Watson pick on those thugs instead of criticising farmers, which he does at every opportunity?
The member for Watson was Minister for Agriculture from 2007 to 2010, during which time—on 23 June 2008—the single wheat desk was dismantled. Riverina farmers are still cursing him for that. He was the water minister, amongst other things, when the greenies threatened to impose a permanent man-made drought on irrigators. Thank goodness the Abbott Government, since coming to office, has capped water buyback.
What has the member for Watson got against farmers? Farmers—the ones who sustain this nation; let's never forget: irrigation feeds the nation. Farmers—who work damn hard, a lot harder than the member for Watson, me and everyone else elected to this place, let me tell you, in order to eke out a tough life in trying conditions. Farmers—who deserve to be praised over and over, again and again for the job they do growing food for Australians and other hungry nations besides. Farmers—who do not get a say as to what someone will pay for their produce, because they are price takers not price makers. Farmers—who, if and when they do have a problem with Canberra, voice their protest in a meaningful yet peaceful way, not with some violent smash and grab. Farmers—those true environmentalists, carers of the land, custodians of our proud heritage, and protectors of our productive rivers for the future.
Farmers—the ones not understood by those opposite such as the member for Grayndler who just last month, 24 September to be precise, wrote in The Guardian:
But don't hold your breath waiting for urban policy leadership from the current Commonwealth government. Tony Abbott has no interest in policies affecting productivity in cities, even though they produce 80% of our nation's gross domestic product—
80 per cent of our GDP.
I would question that figure. It might be 80 per cent, if you take all the mining wealth, the agricultural wealth, value add to it, export it out of the metropolitan ports and then claim that it is some sort of urban product, urban generated wealth creator. I would argue that it should be the other way round: it is the regions such as those in the member for Lyne's electorate, the member for Hasluck's electorate and the Riverina, which are producing the food and fibre which is boosting our GDP; helping our balance of payments; helping drive our exports; and helping generate wealth for this nation.
Farmers are the backbone of Australia and it is high time that those opposite just sometimes recognised that. As the son of a farmer, I can proudly declare they always were the backbone of the nation and always will be. They are the group overlooked by those opposite and to whom the member for Watson, I believe, owes an apology.
I commend this bill. I commend the work that the coalition government is doing on R&D. Only today the coalition-led committee produced their report on food labelling, which is something that our side talked about in opposition. Now in government we are getting on and doing something about it. It is absolutely critical that we have correct food labels so that people can make a discerning choice when they go to the supermarkets and be sure that the product they are buying is accurate and, if they want to buy Australian made, actually made in Australia.
The R&D being done by our side of politics, by the government, is getting on with the job of helping to boost farmers and helping to boost that great group of individuals: men and women, those who left school at an early age and those who have really high tertiary qualifications. They come in all spectrums. But they are the ones who we should be admiring. They are the ones who we should be applauding at every single opportunity. They are the ones that this parliament owes a debt of gratitude to. They are the ones who do not deserve to be—as they continually are—criticised, rebuffed and rejected by those opposite.
We are getting on with the job of making sure that the farmers of this nation know that they cared for, know that we have concern for them and know that we—as Liberals and Nationals—understand that the job that they do for the nation is helping to grow the food and the fibre that is going to help continue make this nation even greater than it already is.
Dr GILLESPIE (Lyne) (17:38): The Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 is a very important piece of legislation for a very important sector of our economy. The extent of research and the impact of the rural development corporations is profound. There are five statutory bodies run by the government and 10 industry led bodies, whether it be the Cotton Research and Development Corporation, the Grains Research and Development Corporation, the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, the Grape and Wine Authority or the industry-led bodies, such as Sugar Research, Forest and Wood Products Australia, Dairy Australia, Australian Wool Innovation, Meat and Livestock Australia and the Australian Egg Corporation. All of these bodies are doing an essential task for the good functioning and the growth and development of Australia's primary industries.
As the member for Riverina just alluded to, a lot of people focus on gross domestic product being centred around the metropolitan centres; but I remind this House that it is wealth creation that builds the capital that is then circulating in the GDP. A lot of our gross national product is all onshore. Some of the essentials of wealth creation are missed when you look at GDP figures. It is more of a reflection of turnover. An economy is great if you have got a bigger GDP. But somewhere along the line the nation has to produce wealth. It starts with our primary industries, whether it is agriculture in this instance or in the mining industry, where it starts with bit of dirt and mine it for a mineral. It is the same with agriculture. It is making wealth and support for the nation out of the land.
I have the utmost respect for people in the rural industries because basically we have the best and the most efficient farmers, graziers and croppers in the world. The amount of production that we put out this country is enough to feed 60 or 80 million people. That is way in excess of what we need in this country and it is in one of the harshest climates in the world. There have been two studies showing the benefit of investing in research and development in the rural space. The first one was in 2008 and the second one was in 2010. They confirmed that for every one dollar put into research, you get a five-year return of $2.36. The 10-year return is $5.56 for every one dollar you put in. For the 25-year return—depending on which study, although they were both very similar—one was $11 for every one dollar invested and the other came out as $10.52 for every dollar invested. It is a fairly robust analysis.
That is why there is such good value in us investing in research, particularly in this space where we have a competitive advantage over the rest the world. Doing the research and the development in the agricultural space will help us maintain that; because for every commodity in the world that we sell, there is someone elsewhere in the world trying to sell it. All our commodities are subject to world commodity prices so we if can be more efficient and get 10 per cent more protein out of an animal or get crop yields are 10 or 15 per cent, that is a bottom-line improvement for our farmers and graziers. It means the farm-gate price that they are likely to get is so much better if we have got good product.
This extensive network of rural research capacity was set up in 1989. They are funded by statutory levies, which are matched by Commonwealth funds up to a capped amount for appropriate research activities. The cap is based on the relevant industries' gross value of production. The Fisheries Research and Development Corporation receives contributions from the Northern Territory and the states. No doubt, you all appreciate that some of the fishing goes on within the states' sphere of influence, way out to our national fishing borders. This act will modify some of the workings of this complex set of research and development processes. It will affect the Primary Industries Research and Development Act, the Sugar Research and Development Services Act and Australian Grape and Wine Authority Act—just to name a few—so that the government which pays the fees for all the international bodies and similar peak bodies and advisory bodies around the world are paid for by the Commonwealth government. This legislation will allow the government to recoup those fees from the relevant development corporations.
That seems harsh, but all these changes in finances are predicated on us because we are committed to getting the budget back under control. We inherited such fiscal mess that we have had to make these hard decisions. The fees that are payable are considerable and every portfolio has to do its part. There are changes across all levels of government, whether it is social security, health or rural research and development. Some of these fees—in the Fisheries RDC, for instance—are almost a million dollars a year. Sugar research is $160,000; the Grape and Wine Authority is $110,000; the Grains RDC, $150,000; cotton, $95,000.
Because we are an island nation and our fisheries surround us, we have to keep track of what is going on with other fishery bodies—for information about fish stocks and so on. Most of the fish we catch migrate around the great oceans of the world. If our responsible authorities are not in tune with the Pacific Island nations and what they are doing with their fisheries—and with what is going on in the Indian Ocean and in the Great Southern Ocean—our fisheries will suffer. We have to be hooked into them. Whilst we are doing a good job of minimising our harvest rate so that we have sustainable fish stocks, if our neighbour nations and states do not apply similar restraint, our fisheries will eventually suffer. That is why it is so important that there are so many fisheries organisations.
Unfortunately, we in the government have to fund all this research and we have been put in the red by the previous government. That is why we are taking responsible, measured steps to help, at least with this portfolio, bring things back into the black. Not only are we funding these statutory bodies, as I have outlined, those amounts are matched dollar for dollar by the industries—or, rather, the government matches the money the industry bodies raise. All up, along with our research-for-profit initiative, which includes another hundred million dollars, there is $250 million a year being spent on rural research and development. Twelve days ago the minister announced the R&D-for-profit program, which is putting $100 million out there for all 15 of these research and development corporations. Whether they are industry owned and run or statutory organisations, they will be competing for these funds. It is a competitive process. The people with the best hypothesis or business case will be the beneficiaries of it. Again, all this research over time leads to better product and better returns for the growers and producers—and better take-home pay for the individual.
What we need is a secure, long-term funding set-up. This is a minor change, making the rural research and development organisations pay for their memberships in their associated international bodies. In addition, we are trying to reduce some of the cost burdens and the regulations that these organisations face. Regulations always have a financial impact, no matter what industry you are in. We have modified the requirements for these statutory bodies to table reports every year—saving them that cost. They still have to keep their papers in order, but there is a financial cost to preparing these reports. Some of them cost up to hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce, publish and table. In a way, we are saving them, on a recurrent basis, quite a lot of money—in a cumulative sense.
Another thing mandated by the existing legislation—which this legislation will amend—is the requirement for coordination meetings. What do we want? Do we want to have meetings for meetings' sake or do we want these R&D corporations to go out there and do research and development? I would much rather have the RDCs spending all their energies organising research and marketing for their industries than having endless meetings—coming here to Canberra and getting on the merry-go-round of meetings. I am sure there are better ways to coordinate research than to have yet another meeting in Canberra. These are well-staffed and well-credentialled bodies and I am sure they know how to coordinate their research.
My electorate produces up to a quarter of the state's milk. Whether you are a dairy farmer on the Comboyne Plateau, down in the Manning Valley or in the Lorne Valley, you would be reassured to know that Dairy Australia, in this instance, is doing research and developing marketing that will help you on your farm. A quarter of the state's milk from one reasonably small geographic area—that is incredibly productive. But it is incredibly productive because 10, 20 and 30 years ago there was extensive research that helped generate the productivity our farmers now demonstrate. There is a herd of 750 on one farm up on the Comboyne Plateau. That is a huge undertaking. There are 350 on another farm up there. There are similar herds down in the Manning Valley—all highly productive undertakings with cutting-edge technology.
If you were to walk onto one of those farms, it would be easy, with a superficial look, to say, 'That's easy—you just get them out there and milk them.' But vast amounts of research have gone into generating the productivity increases that have been achieved over the last two or three generations. There have been improvements in genetics, cross-breeding, fodder development, fertilisation regimes and irrigation—all of these together having an overall cumulative impact on productivity, whether in the abattoir at Wingham, the processing plant at Wauchope or on one of the many beef properties in my electorate. The research that has led to the genetic improvements has taken place over generations. It has been undertaken by the CSIRO, by Meat and Livestock Australia and by other bodies before them—decades of research into making our production of meat and livestock more efficient. In the Wingham area for instance, the abattoir is the single biggest employer. It is those efficiency improvements that give them good product to export to Korea, to Japan and to Hong Kong. That is why they are able to employ that many people. My colleague the member for Cowper relies on the same industry—he has a branch of that processing plant up in his electorate.
The ramifications of supporting R&D in the rural research space are extensive. It increases profitability, and not just for those businesses—Wauchope township relies on a lot of the small scale and larger scale producers coming into town and shopping at the co-op. There are several agricultural suppliers there. In the Manning, the biggest industry outside the health industry is the dairy industry. It is the shining light of productivity. They have had to be so efficient because they have had to deal with low commodity prices in the daily fresh milk market which, as we all know, has been subject to some very difficult trading conditions.
Ms MARINO (Forrest—Government Whip) (17:53): I think I am the only member of this place who is a dairy farmer and so I bring a particularly direct focus to this debate on the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill. I was disappointed to hear some of the comments from those opposite earlier in this debate, particularly given that for six years I sat in this place and, as a farmer, felt like I was a poor relation in the debate on policies and issues. Unfortunately, the comments we hear now demonstrate great hypocrisy. In bringing my contribution to the table today, as a farmer and as a levy payer, I want to talk about some of the reasons behind this—because, unfortunately, what we see is selective memory by those opposite.
All of us on this side would dearly love to have those conditions that Labor inherited when they came into government. As we all know, we left $20 billion in surpluses and $50 billion in savings—what an opportunity for the government of the day. Is that what we inherited? Clearly, the answer is no. I remind people, because sometimes we forget—we get so used to hearing the numbers—why it is that we need tough decisions. We had $191 billion in deficits left by Labor. If we did not make any changes, there would be a further $667 billion in gross debt, another $123 billion in further cumulative deficits ahead, and $1 billion in interest every single month. That equates to $30 million a day. That is $1.4 million an hour. Each speaker here has spoken for about 15 minutes, and in that time, thanks to Labor, we are borrowing another $340,000 to service the interest on the debt. That $12 billion a year in interest that is currently flowing out the doors could be going to any one of a number of very much needed programs and portfolio areas, not least the agricultural sector. Some of those opposite have suggested that $12 billion is not an issue—but $12 billion is more than the aged care budget. It is more than we spend on universities. If we do not make any changes and continue just to spend, as Labor would do, it would end up at being $2.8 billion a month in interest. In my view, that is obscene. As the IMF said, our spending under Labor was on the highest trajectory in the OECD. That is what we came into government facing—not $20 billion in surpluses and $50 billion in savings. Tough decisions are necessary.
The other issue that I wanted to talk about is the absolute lack of respect that I saw on the opposite side for our primary production sector. We saw that manifest itself in practical terms, as if this industry was an expendable one. That is exactly what, unfortunately, I have heard in the debate today—it is lip-service and is still seen, clearly, as an expendable industry. The Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill will make amendments to the Primary Industries Research and Development Act, which controls the research and development. It gives effect to some of the 2014-15 budget measures, and I have explained why they are necessary. It will allow the government to recover the cost of membership fees of international commodity organisations and regional fisheries management organisations from the matching amounts paid to rural research and develop and corporations. The bill also makes a number of additional amendments to the governance of R&D corporations.
I want to talk about some of what is happening in my electorate and why R&D is so important. In my part of the world we have the dairy industry, the beef industry, horticulture, viticulture, vegetables—everything down to olive oils, and even the forestry sector and the fisheries sector. We have a very good irrigation scheme run as a cooperative by farmers—one that those at the time at a state government level thought was bound to fail. There is a wonderful saying—where water flows, food grows. It certainly does, and that cooperative of farmers has done an amazing job. It is a multi-award-winning organisation. In my part of the world there is much said about the efficiency of farmers. I am of the very strong belief that, in the environment that has existed since 2000, in the south-west of Western Australia if you were not among the most efficient farmers in not only in Australia but the world you simply would not have been in business.
They are the efficiencies required in Australia to compete with countries when we export, when there are tariffs, when there are subsidies, when there are non-tariff barriers and all of the above. Our farmers have to compete in that environment—and compete they do. They produce some of the best food and fibre anywhere in the world. In my sector, the dairy industry, Western Australia produces some of the highest quality milk not only in Australia but in the world. As we have heard previously, our farmers operate in one of the harshest climates that you will find anywhere in the world. Australia is, I think next to Antarctica, the driest continent in the world. This is the environment in which our farmers operate, and they are very, very efficient at it.
The bill also makes some additional amendments to the governance of R&D. It removes the requirement for the minister to organise an annual coordination meeting for the chairs and it also removes some parliamentary tabling requirements. These are just further efficiencies. There are currently 15 R&D corporations, five statutory Rural Research and Development Corporations governed by the Primary Industries Research and Development Act. Ten of these are industry owned rural research and development corporations created from former statutory rural research and development corporations and, at the request of the relevant industry, most of them are able to undertake marketing activities in addition to their R&D. Also, most of them are primarily funded by statutory levies on primary production or products. These are the producers—us; the people just like me in the south-west of Western Australia. We are funding ourselves and directly investing in research and development and, by extension, investing in not just our own future and the future of the communities that rely on us but also Australia's future.
I note that the productivity growth—and, again, this is an area where we have seen and continue to see a lack of respect—in the farm sector has outpaced the rest of the economy. I wonder how many people not just in this place but in the rest of Australia actually grasp that fact, actually understand just how well our people on the land right are doing their job. Productivity growth in the farm sector has outpaced the rest of the economy. Right now, in my part of the world, it is hay season. There are a whole lot of farmers out there on tractors, mowing, tethering, raking and baling hay. They just get on with their job—like a lot of small businesses in this country. They work in their business, they have got their heart and soul in their business and they do what they do very, very well.
As I said, we had the Brunswick Show this last weekend—one of the biggest regional shows in Australia—and we saw a wonderful display of beef cattle, dairy produce, trade displays and machinery dealers. We cannot underestimate how important these shows are not only in bringing everybody together but also for the small businesses that keep our rural and regional communities operating and vibrant. These are the people who actually contribute to fundraising events in local communities, to football clubs and to other local community service organisations. Often it is the farmer's gear that is used for the local fire brigade or to help out to level a particular piece of ground. It is often the farmers who are called on for their common sense and expertise. Frequently, it is their tractor or truck or some other of their gear that is needed to be used. It is farmers and primary producers who provide this.
In Western Australian, Western Dairy uses some of the R&D funds for practical on-farm work. This is the sort of R&D that makes a difference on the ground. This is what we want to see and this is what our farmers need. To stay ahead in the environment in which they find themselves, they need research, innovation and practical outcomes. This is basically the edge that Australia has got, along with our biosecurity. We really need to protect our biosecurity and our clean and green image. With R&D—by constantly innovating and by constantly being efficient—we can stay ahead of the rest of the world in this sector. You do not outpace the rest of the economy, as the farming sector has done, without very effective R&D. In recent times some of that has eased slightly, but this is an industry that is constantly looking to innovate.
The other side of it is that most farmers in Australia are part of Landcare groups or Natural Resource Management groups. This is not just because they want to be efficient environmentally; they also want to manage their properties well. They know that there will be another group of farmers who will need to produce food and fibre on it, and so they are looking to manage their properties in a way that allows that capacity to stay with the land. This is another thing that is often overlooked in the debate about what farmers bring to the table. It is not just the economic multipliers but also the environmental management that they are very, very good at. As a member of the environment committee, I remember another member of parliament saying to me, 'I'm surprised to see you here.' I said, 'Why is that?' She said, 'Well, you're a farmer.' I said, 'Yes.' And she said, 'Well, you're an environmental vandal.' I said, 'Well, that's really an interesting comment. Are you aware that the majority of farmers are part of Landcare and Natural Resource Management groups?'
We live on rain water on my property. I do not know how many other people do that. If we are talking about managing resources and making the most of recycling and others measures, then we do that. We live on rain water. We grow a lot of our own vegetables and fruit. Of course, we have our own milk and, at times, eat our own beef. So when we talk about who is having an impact and how—and that is besides how well we manage or pastures or how well we manage our irrigation—there is a lot of misinformation out there about the contribution that farmers make across a range of areas of our economy. R&D is important to such management. We on this side have committed an extra $100 million to R&D, on top of the $250 million already committed, which will start next year. This is a critical to our primary producing sector being able to not only stay competitive but also continue to innovate and change
The number of farmers, who are constantly looking for information the best way they can, want to receive it on their farm while they are doing the job—while they are in the tractor. They want to get on with their job; they want the information they need; and they want to be the best at what they do. That is why I support the measures contained in this bill. Equally, we need some understanding of the reasons the government keeps having to make tough decisions, and those tough decisions are brought about by the lack of financial management by the previous Labor government. It is unfortunately a habit that we see repeated frequently in this place.
Mr JOHN COBB (Calare) (18:07): It gives me pleasure to rise to speak on the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. R&D has been huge for agriculture over the years and it is something we are committed to. We stand by that commitment with an extra $100 million, despite the state of the budget and what we inherited. It shows how important we all believe rural R&D is.
It is not so long ago that the previous government not only did not want to increase R&D, but actually wanted to cut it by some 50 per cent of government contribution. I always recall the words of the recently deceased Prime Minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher: 'Socialism's quite a good thing until you run out of other people's money to spend.' When the previous government did realise they spent a little too much and were having to borrow so much, one of their first targets was agricultural R&D. Their way of doing that was to hold a Productivity Commission inquiry into the R&D that was run by the various corporations and contributed to on a dollar-for-dollar basis by Australian agriculture. The Productivity Commission, being an arm of Treasury and an arm of government in that particular case, was happy to suggest that they were spending too much. It was only because we warned them of what was going on that agriculture and the various industry bodies got up and embarrassed the government from cutting their matching funding of 50 per cent. I was rather proud of our industry and ourselves in that instance in achieving that. The current Manager of Opposition Business was the minister at the time; he and his successors backed off on that one, but they certainly had no intention of supporting or increasing the R&D budget, even though their own Productivity Commission acknowledged just how good agricultural R&D was and the benefit the taxpayer got from it.
Australian farmers are very innovative and very adaptable. I have always thought of agriculture as being in groups. There is corporate agriculture, which I am a fan of and I will come back to say why. There is what I call family corporate, which is a family big enough to have economies of scale, with a family farm where the family is totally focused on running that farm. Then there are those who have off-farm income and who go along quite happily because they are getting enough money off-farm and so they do not need to get every dollar out of that farm. The ones under most pressure are the ordinary family farmers who are not big enough to achieve economies of scale—both partners are full-time farmers.
I add the word 'innovation' to R&D. All four levels of R&D are extraordinarily important. Unfortunately since about 2000 the gains that R&D have historically made for Australian agriculture have levelled out, particularly in the decade since then. Having said that, R&D is not just about increased productivity; it has to be about profitability. There is absolutely no point in producing more if you are not making any more. I have always said: 'Everything we have to do for agriculture revolves around profitability. Agriculture is not a charity; it is here to ensure that Australia has the best quality food in the world, and by and large that is true, but if you can't make a quid you're not in the game.' The No. 1 job of R&D is to increase profitability. It goes without saying that that will also include productivity and quality production. As the member for Forrest said, our image around the world of how we produce and what we produce is probably the biggest selling point of trade for us that exists.
I also want to say that there is another side to this that R&D can help with too—and that is the health aspect of food. R&D needs to look very hard at things like grains without gluten. The health thing is very big these days, but I am not talking organic here. I am afraid that, if the whole world went organic, the whole world's population would shrink considerably. If people want to work in the niche market of organics, good luck to them. I am talking about the health aspects that R&D can look at to increase the profile of agriculture but, more than this, to increase the profitability and the reliability of Australian agriculture.
There is one thing that is so important here with R&D. The extra money demands cooperation amongst the various bodies. I mean cooperation in not just how this money is spent between an R&D corporation and manufacturers or processors, as indeed it must—and that is why I mentioned the word 'innovation' as well—between them and industry bodies, as indeed it must, or between them and other private R&D bodies, as indeed it must; I mean cooperation between the different R&D corporations themselves. I think that is incredibly important.
The Productivity Commission report that the member for Watson, as the minister, called for stated that our bodies do not cooperate enough. For example, the various plant R&D corporations and the various animal R&D corporations should be working much more closely whether they want to or not. It is a fact that the industry bodies and the growers are all for total cooperation between the various bodies. In fact, they can see nothing but gain with it, and common-sense says that there is nothing but gain with it. It is not always true to say that those corporations—
Mr Fitzgibbon: We want to have a division before—
Mr JOHN COBB: Come on, I have still got six minutes. Stop panicking. The various corporations must learn to cooperate better. I believe it is the government's job to make sure that they do.
I have been involved with this for a long time. I think it is quite obvious—and I am no scientist and never intended nor wanted to be—that common-sense says that the genetics that are inherit within plants and animals means that if you do not cooperate you are going to miss out. I understand why some scientists want their name up there. If you do the work, you deserve to have it that way.
While the shadow minister is talking down there, I will say that I am sure that if he had been the minister he would not have wanted to knock $100 million out of the government's contribution of matching funds, but his predecessor certainly did want to do that. I am not going to go on any longer except to say that this $100 million means an awful lot. It better be used wisely and cooperatively. Historically broadacre has done enormous things. As I said, it has levelled out a lot in increasing productivity and the like. Horticulture today can probably make greater advances quicker with genetic work than broadacre can because it is so much more controllable and it lends itself naturally to laboratory work. Whether it is horticulture or broadacre, we need this R&D and we need the cooperation. The government must make sure it happens.
Mr HARTSUYKER (Cowper—Deputy Leader of the House and Assistant Minister for Employment) (18:18): I welcome this opportunity to speak on the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. As with many National Party members, I have a strong agricultural constituency that contributes to the productive capacity of Australia and the national wealth of Australia. In my electorate the blueberry industry is making a great contribution to wealth and employment. We have seen this industry go from strength to strength. This industry is employing many Australians and many visitors from overseas, who come to this country on a working holiday and find the blueberry industry an excellent source of employment. They are not only contributing to the productive capacity of the country but providing tourism dollars that will be spent in our local economy.
We have seen some great efforts in relation to blueberry production in my electorate. We have seen many hundreds of people employed in production. We have seen the great local cooperative by the name of Oz Berries going from strength to strength. It has achieved blueberry production growth in the order of 20 per cent per year. Not that long ago—I recall it was in the Howard era—Oz Berries secured a grant to assist them with constructing a packing facility. I am pleased to be able to inform the House that before that facility was completed it was already too small to meet the needs of the cooperative. So strong was the growth in production in blueberries that their packing facility had to be extended by the time it was officially opened. The facility has been progressively extended.
What started off as a private company has been transformed into a cooperative. That cooperative now provides a range of facilities to its members. It provides centralised buying as well as getting goods to market and a whole range of other services. Oz Berries is a credit to our local area. It does great work. It employs many locals and is producing great wealth for our region.
We also have a very large blueberry facility run by the CostaGroup at Corindi. Again they are employing many Australians. They produce high-quality fruit that has an Australia wide and worldwide reputation. They produce not only blueberries; in our local area there has been a move into the production of raspberries, which is also very welcome. It is also a high-value crop. We are seeing very labour-intensive agriculture on those properties enhancing our local wealth.
The Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 amends rural research and development legislation to give effect to a 2014 budget measure and to reduce red tape. The bill implements a 2014 budget measure to change the way that the government pays for its membership of international commodity organisations, including those for wine, grains, sugar and cotton. These organisations provide significant benefits to our producers. The amendments to payment arrangements will also encompass Australia's membership of six regional fisheries management organisations that manage migratory fish species. Our membership ensures regional arrangements are in line with domestic arrangements and secures access for Australian industry.
The bill amends the Primary Industries Research and Development Act 1989, the Australian Grape and Wine Authority Act 2013 and the Sugar Research and Development Services Act 2013 to allow the government to recover the cost of the memberships from the Commonwealth funding provided to relevant rural research and development corporations. The amendments will result in a saving to government of around $7 million over the next four years. Red tape will be reduced for a number of research and development corporations. This is in line with the government's commitment to reduce red tape. As a government, we think it is vitally important to reduce red tape so that businesses can act and operate more efficiently. The bill removes the requirement to table certain documents in the parliament. This provides consistency across the corporations, with funding contracts and variations no longer needing to be tabled. In the interest of good governance, the corporations will still produce these reports and make them available to the public or to members as required. Also repealed is the need for an annual coordination meeting for the chairs of statutory research and development corporations. Only five of the 15 corporations remain as statutory bodies. As there are other means to coordinate activities, the bill removes the need for a legislated coordination meeting. These are sensible changes in relation to red tape.
The government is obviously cognisant of the importance of reduced red tape in making business more efficient and more effective. A more efficient business sector can create more jobs. A more efficient business sector can create greater wealth for all Australians. I know that all sectors of Australian business, not only in the field of agriculture, welcome our commitment to the reduction of red tape. We have had oppositions in the past promising time after time to reduce red tape, but when they move from opposition into government they fail to make good on that commitment to reduce red tape. This government has a real commitment to red-tape reduction. This government is reducing red tape in a range of sectors right around the country, and this legislation is just part of that process. They are small changes, admittedly, that are making a difference to business by reducing that burden of red tape and reducing the costs of operating. That is a very important thing: if we can reduce business costs, we will have a more profitable and efficient business sector. The government's red-tape reduction agenda is very much a part of that. As I get around the country and talk to people in business, they are very pleased to see the government's solid commitment to red-tape reduction. They welcome the fact that there is finally progress being made by a government in stripping away those levels of red tape. Red tape creates inefficiency. Red tape creates increased operating costs for businesses, and this government is absolutely committed to reducing that red tape.
Australia's rural industries are innovative and productive, and the government is committed to ensuring their profitability and competitiveness now and into the future. This legislation is part of that commitment, as is our commitment to reducing red tape. We believe that we should be lifting the burden from business. We believe that we should be removing red tape as quickly as possible. We have seen hundreds of millions of dollars saved by business as a result of the government's commitment to red-tape reduction to date. We are having discussions in this session of parliament about the changes to red-tape requirements that are easing the burden on business. It is vitally important that we reduce red tape so that we allow businesses to function more efficiently and more effectively.
In my portfolio area of employment, we have made significant inroads in the reduction of red tape. We have lifted the burden of red tape off employment service providers, allowing them to do what they do best, and that is getting people into a job. When we came to government we inherited an employment services system that was mired in red tape and being prevented from doing what it should be doing. Employment service providers were spending their time filling out forms and complying with government requirements—
Mr Tudge: Up to 50 per cent of their time.
Mr HARTSUYKER: Up to 50 per cent of their time. The member for Aston is correct. Some providers were telling me that they were spending up to 50 per cent of their time filling out forms, absolutely mired in red tape. So as we move toward the employment services contract, starting on 1 July 2015, we will have a significant increase in red-tape reductions over and above those red-tape reductions that we have achieved to date. It is a big commitment to red-tape reduction, and we are keeping our promise to the businesses of Australia that we would reduce red tape. That is reflected in reduced operating costs for businesses and increased profitability for businesses and it is also reflected in more jobs. That is what this government is all about. We are all about creating jobs, whether it be in agriculture or whether it be in the services sector, we are about creating jobs.
I will draw my contribution in relation to the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment bill to a conclusion. This bill, and the changes it makes, fit in well with the government's commitment to reduce red tape and our commitment to agriculture. We are committed to a strong and vibrant agricultural sector, and I commend the bill to the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): The question is that the bill be now read a second time. There being more than one voice calling for a division, in accordance with standing order 133 the division is deferred until after 8 pm.
Debate adjourned.
Second Reading
Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga) (18:30): First of all, I am making these remarks on behalf of the opposition. Our shadow health minister is unable to be here tonight but I commend her for the outstanding work she is doing in making sure we continue to have a strong universal health insurance system in this country. I move:
That all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: 'whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading the House notes that the bill is one of many changes the government is proposing that will increase the cost of healthcare.'
The changes contained in this bill need to be considered in the context of the substantial overall changes to our health system. What this bill proposes is relatively simple, but these changes are not occurring in isolation. They are changes that bear some scrutiny because they are from a government that has no vision of how to improve Australia's health system but is intent on creating a two-tiered, user-pays health system.
In opposition, the now Minister for Health was hardly to be seen. He was certainly not seen making any meaningful contribution on health policy. Having now come to government with no plan whatsoever of how to improve Australia's health system, the minister's indolence has been exposed. This government does not have a plan for Australia's health system; instead it sees it as a cost to be eradicated. If this government does get its way, it will see almost no role for the Commonwealth in health care.
The Commission of Audit developed the blueprint for this ultraconservative agenda in its recommendation to exclude high-income earners from accessing Medicare, leaving it only as a residual system for the poorest of Australians rather than the universal insurance scheme it is respected as today. These are concerns that are not solely held by Labor. Indeed, the former Vice President of the Australian Medical Association, Professor Geoff Dobb, described the changes this government wants to make to Medicare as setting health care in Australia back more than 50 years. The current President of the Australian Medical Association, Associate Professor Brian Owler, has been similarly critical of this government's attempts to wreck the health system. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on 18 June this year, Associate Professor Owler said:
The health measures in the federal budget are almost universally opposed by the people who provide health services in Australia … The message is clear: the measures add up to bad health policy.
He goes on to say:
The health of Australians is too important for healthcare to be an ideological toy.
It does take a uniquely inept health minister to manage to unite the entire health sector against the government; but the poor policies, lack of consultation and ideological agenda this government has brought to health policy has resulted in exactly that. Dr Stephen Duckett, a respected health economist and former health department secretary, who is now the Health Program Director with the Grattan Institute, said in May this year:
Pre-budget softening up does not obscure the harsh reality of the 2014-15 budget decisions. Bulk billing is gone, health reform agreed by all states and territories is demolished, funding to the states is slashed and promises are broken.
The effects are known: budget savings will be made—over $1b a year—off the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable. People who miss out on the safety net will now miss out on care as well.
Likewise Mike Daube, a professor of public health at Curtin University, said:
This is a distressing Budget for anyone concerned for the community's health. Among the massive health system cuts and increased personal health costs, the once modest funding for prevention has become almost invisible.
The loss of the National Partnership Agreement for public health will mean cuts to important programs around the country dealing with obesity, cancer prevention, diabetes and other conditions that result in massive costs to the health system.
Increased health care costs for individuals will discourage people from seeking medical help—resulting in more preventable and expensive health problems.
Adam Stankevicius, the Chief Executive Officer of the Consumer Health Forum, the group that represents consumers in the health system including some of the poorest and most vulnerable in the community, did not mince his words:
This is a retrograde health budget that will shock Australians who thought this government was the best friend Medicare ever had.
It is important to appreciate the context within which this budget measure is being considered. We are not looking at a one-off increase in out-of-pocket costs but a coordinated campaign to undermine Medicare and relegate it to a safety net for only the poorest in the community. The campaign by this government is well underway: a $7 tax on GP visits that will hit the most vulnerable in the community; a tax on pathology tests; a tax on diagnostic imaging; a $1.3 billion increase to the cost of medicines; and unfair changes to the safety net that will see the safety net increasing by 10 per cent, plus the consumer price index, every single year for general patients and for two scripts per year for concessional patients. The effect of these changes will not only be that pensioners will have to pay an extra 80c for every script; by 2017-18 they will have to fill 68 scripts before they even reach the safety net.
There is also a proposal to bully the states into putting a tax on emergency department visits that will only penalise very sick Australians, who avoid hospital because they cannot afford it, potentially leading to catastrophic consequence. And of course there is the decision to cut more than $50 billion from Australia's public hospitals, a decision that will see the Commonwealth providing the lowest level of hospital funding in Australia's history and an inability for states to actually meet the required level of funding for hospitals.
South Australian premier Jay Weatherill has said that the cuts are the equivalent of ripping $655 million from South Australian public hospitals, which is the equivalent of closing the Flinders Medical Centre—the second-largest tertiary hospital in his state—or the equivalent of getting rid of more than 600 hospital beds, sacking 3,000 nurses and doubling the elective surgery waiting time. We know from evidence given by the South Australian department of health before the Senate Select Committee on Health that the impact of the GP tax on emergency departments will be an additional 290 emergency department attendances, costing the state an additional $80 million.
A New South Wales health document showed a similar impact, with the department there having modelled an additional $500,000 emergency procedures a year because of this retrograde step. On the specifics of the bill before us today, the Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 amends the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to pause the income thresholds that determine the tiers for the Medicare levy surcharge and the rebate on private health insurance at 2014-15 rates for three years. What this will mean is that individuals and families with incomes marginally below each threshold will reach the higher threshold sooner.
The bill is to raise more than $599 million in the financial years to 2017-18, but these savings will not contribute to a greater investment in the health system. This does completely undermine the government's argument that spending on Medicare is unsustainable; the basis of its intention to break its election promise that there would be no cuts to health and no new taxes, while they introduce a GP tax. Instead of being reinvested back into improving Medicare, the $599 million to be saved as a result of this bill will contribute to the still-to-be-established Medical Research Future Fund.
Labor of course is the strongest supporter of health and medical research in this parliament. We demonstrated this support in government through a record commitment of more than $3.5 billion in health and medical research funding, including more than $700 million to build and upgrade health and medical research facilities across the country. But the Medical Research Future Fund is emblematic of the dysfunction of this government. We know that the Department of Health became aware of the fund only a matter of weeks before its announcement. The National Health and Medical Research Council had no idea the fund was to be established until budget night, and accordingly had no say on its development. Likewise, the CSIRO and Australia's Chief Scientist knew nothing about the fund until budget night.
This truly is the government's 'hollowmen' moment. Something dreamt up in the weeks before the budget to distract from the horrid landscape created by a budget that includes the $3.5 billion GP tax, a $1.3 billion increase to the cost of medicines and unfair changes to the safety net, more than $400 million in cuts to dental programs, and cuts of $57 billion to Australia's public hospitals that started on 1 July this year.
It shows how uniquely arrogant and incompetent this government is that it cannot, after only a little more than a year, recognise the damage it is doing; and frankly it ought to be ashamed. If one is to look at what this government promised before the last election, and what it is doing now, all that needs to be done it put a 'not' in every promise that was made.
They said, 'No cuts to health'. That promise was broken even before the budget when the government made a decision to cut $264 million from the Priority Health Initiatives, including: $100 million for the redevelopment of Westmead Hospital; $12 million from the Millennium Institute at Westmead; $10 million from the Children's Medical Research Institute; $10 million from Nepean Hospital; $22 million from St George Hospital; $6 million for MRI in Mt Druitt; $10 million for the Queensland cancer package; $3.5 million for Biala Health Service; $15 million for Flinders neonatal unit; $10 million for the WA cancer team; $15.1 million for cancer care coordinators; and $50 million for the stroke package. All of this is gone as a result of this government's cuts.
And, despite promising 'no new taxes', we know the government remains intent on forcing a $3.5 billion tax on every Australian. But this is much more than just a tax on GP visits. We learned in question time last week that the Prime Minister did not even know what the impact of the abolition of bulk-billing incentive payments would be on medical imaging. A day later, the Prime Minister was finally briefed by his absent minister that the government estimated a one per cent reduction in the number of medical imaging services because of the GP tax. What that means in practice is that there will be more than 600,000 fewer medical imaging services in the first year—X-rays, MRIs, CAT scans—all of this, because of the dramatic change that this government is trying to implement.
The Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association, that previously on occasion bulk-billed patients, is now saying that people will face up-front costs of up to $1,263 for a liver cancer diagnosis, $1,326 for a thyroid cancer diagnosis, $2,207 to diagnose liver metastasis and $712 to diagnose breast cancer. These costs are obviously so prohibitively expensive that it should come as no surprise that the government is estimating such a large reduction in the number of medical imaging services: up to 600,000—or even more than 600,000—fewer medical imaging services because of this new tax. On this side of the parliament, we have very grave concerns that because of this very poorly-conceived policy many Australians will avoid services like MRIs, X-rays and PET scans simply because they cannot afford them. The consequences of doing so could be deadly.
The changes proposed by this government stand in stark contrast to the way in which Labor, in government, was able to make responsible changes and to find savings without gutting Medicare. Most significantly, of course, was the decision to means test the private health insurance rebate—something that the now Minister for Health was and remains extremely critical of. But, unlike the Minister for Health—who wants to introduce a GP tax; who has cut $57 billion from public hospitals; and who is seeking to privatise Medicare, creating a two-tiered American-style health system—the changes that Labor made to the private health insurance rebate, including means testing that rebate, will improve the budget bottom line by more than $20 billion in the decade to 2023-24.
In his contribution, the then shadow minister for health, the now minister, said:
Betrayal is becoming a constant of this government and certainly of this Prime Minister …
The minister then gave a righteous contribution that referred to promises that were 'clearly not worth the paper they were written on'. It is worth reflecting again on the context of these changes that we are now looking at and which have been put forward by this government, reflecting on the fact that the promises were certainly not worth the paper they were written on.
In his contribution to the debate on the bill to means test the private health insurance rebate in 2012, the member for Dickson, the now minister said:
In our country we have a universal health system. That means that, regardless of whether you earn one dollar or a million dollars a year, if you have a heart attack, are involved in a motor vehicle accident, have a crook hip, need oncology treatment or whatever, you can turn up at a public hospital and demand treatment free of charge. That has been an underlying principle supported by both sides of this parliament for a very long period of time—and long may that be the case. A universal system says to people that, in a country like ours in the 21st century, the best available services will be provided.
Well, what hollow words from this minister, who has launched the biggest attack on Medicare since it was first established!
I refer, of course, to the 'Coalition's policy to support Australia's health system' and in particular to the commitment on page 6, which is, in fact, the very first page of the coalition's plan after a long preamble and the usual vitriolic political rhetoric. But it is a very important promise and it says:
A Coalition government will support the transition to the Commonwealth providing 50 per cent growth funding of the efficient price of hospital services as proposed.
But the government will not honour this commitment. In fact it is ripping $57 billion out of public hospitals over the next 10 years. The level of hospital funding proposed by this government, contrary to the promises made before the election, is the lowest level of funding since the Commonwealth started funding public hospitals after the Second World War.
When the private health insurance rebate was means tested, the member for Dickson said:
It is interesting to look at some independent analysis of the changes—the Deloitte analysis, for argument's sake. They predict that, in the first year, 175,000 people would withdraw from private hospital cover and a further 583,000 people would downgrade their private cover. Over five years, they predict that 1.6 million Australians would drop cover and 4.3 million would downgrade their cover.
In fact, that is not what occurred. The number of Australians with private health insurance continues to increase. In fact, it is at the highest level ever, and continued to increase in spite of this change. So Labor was able to make changes that improved the budget bottom line by more than $20 billion without gutting Medicare and without hundreds of thousands of people cancelling their policies as the now minister warned.
When the then shadow minister for health made this assertion, 46.2 per cent of Australians had hospital cover; now, 47.2 per cent of Australians have private hospital cover. And when the then shadow minister for health made this statement back in 2012, 53.7 per cent of Australians had general treatment cover, whereas at September this year 55.2 per cent of the population had general treatment cover. It proves it is possible to make changes to ensure the sustainability of our health system without turbocharging Australia's acceleration towards a two-tier, American-style health system.
The $599.3 million to be saved as a result of this bill will not, as I said, contribute to Medicare or to the sustainability of Australia's health system but will contribute to the still-to-be-established Medical Research Future Fund. As I have mentioned already, Labor continues to be the strongest supporter of health and medical research. We demonstrated this again and again during our time in government and we will continue to do so. Our record in supporting health and medical research is clear, which is why we will continue to demonstrate it so that Australia continues to be a world leader in health and medical research. We want to make sure we do this, but we will not support funding research at the cost of taxing the sickest and most vulnerable Australians today.
Labor will not be opposing this bill but, as I have outlined, we do have very serious concerns about the context in which these changes are being made. They are occurring in an environment where we see the most concerted attack on universal health care in Australia since Medicare was introduced, driven by an ideological agenda to render Medicare a safety net only for the very poorest Australians and not the universal scheme it is today. Labor will stand up against this ideological attack by this government. As the party that introduced Medibank and Medicare, we will defend it, and the next Labor government will strengthen it.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): Is the amendment seconded?
Mr Champion: I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
Mr TAYLOR (Hume) (18:53): I am delighted to hear that those opposite will be supporting the bill that is before us, the Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. At the same time, it was very clear from the speech that we just heard that they still do not understand what sustainability of a healthcare system looks like, so I will come back to that during the course of my speech.
Of course, the objective of this bill is to ensure that our Medicare system, our health system, is sustainable. We want to preserve universal access to health care and we do not want to undermine it, but that means making ends meet. It means ensuring that we have ways of managing the burgeoning costs of our healthcare system, which we know are rising at an extraordinarily rapid rate. It also means having a strong commitment to health and medical research, and that of course is central to the bill before the House.
The Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 implements a measure which was announced in the 2014-15 budget. It will pause the indexation tiers for both the Australian government rebate on private health insurance and the Medicare levy surcharge. The link between the rebate and the Medicare levy surcharge will be preserved, and this is critically important, because they operate together to ensure that people whose rebates are reduced because of Labor's means-testing have a strong incentive to retain their private health insurance rebate. That link is absolutely central and it is a link that this bill is intended to ensure is in place. It will be done by inserting a clause in the act to pause the indexation arrangements for three years. The indexation arrangements will remain at the 2014-15 rates in the following three years of 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18.
It is important to note that only four per cent of the 6.2 million private health insurance policies held at December 2013 will be actually affected by this measure. As we will see in a moment, they are those of the highest income earners. These changes will not affect individuals with an income that remains below $90,000 or couples and families with an income that remains below $180,000. It is deliberately intended that those who can afford to pay this do.
As we heard from the previous speaker, all savings from this measure will be invested in the Medical Research Future Fund. There seems to be a schizophrenia about this from those on the other side of the House. On the one hand they claim to be extremely supportive of health and medical research, but we hear again and again their criticism of our putting in place one of the biggest funds in health and medical research—potentially the biggest—in the world. The 2014-15 budget committed to establishing this $20 billion fund, and once fully established it is expected to deliver an additional $1 billion into medical research each year, effectively doubling our current yearly investment. So this is a massive commitment to health and medical research, something which Australia is good at and something which we know is critically important to sustaining our budget.
The fund will be the largest of its kind, at least, in the world and will build on Australia's world-class research capabilities. We see those in our universities and research institutes time and time again. The extraordinary role that so many of our researchers have played in addressing serious Australian and global health problems is a real tribute to the quality of those people and the work that they do. All of this is in stark contrast to Labor, who claim to be supportive of health and medical research but who tried to rip $400 million from the pockets of medical researchers in 2011—something that I think Labor would prefer to forget.
I said that we needed to understand a measure like this within the context of the budget. It is very important to remember that the fastest-growing and the largest items in the budget are health costs. To put this in perspective, the MBS costs in the budget are growing at about nine per cent nominal a year—almost 10 per cent a year. For the private health insurance rebate, it is a similar number. These numbers come from the Parliamentary Budget Office. We know that the costs of public hospitals are growing at about seven per cent a year and the PBS a little under six per cent per year. At the same time, we know that growth of the actual revenues coming into the government is much slower, at perhaps five per cent or, in a very good year, even six per cent. The fact of the matter is that, with fast-growing costs and with revenues to the government below that, there is a problem. Those opposite do not like to call it a crisis. We can call it what we like; we have a very serious problem here that we need to address or else our health system will not be sustainable. There are two ways you can attack this. One is you can reduce spending and the other is you can increase taxation. Given that we hear time and time again that those opposite do not want to reduce spending, we can only assume that their solution, if they were to get into government—and I am hoping that we will hear this before the next election—can only be raising taxes. I look forward to hearing from them about how they are actually going to do that.
Paid parental leave does not go anywhere near what is required to deliver on the huge number of promises that they are making to the Australian people around money they are intending to spend. Much of that spending, cleverly, is always beyond the forward estimates. We will need to hold them to account as they start fessing up to the Australian people about what their spending really is going to be if they ever get into government—God help us.
But we know that right at the centre of these costs we face in the health system is chronic disease. We know that it is absolutely critical that we address chronic disease and that it is exactly what the health and medical research funding that we are supporting in this legislation is intended to do. I want to give you an example of a chronic disease problem that is very serious, perhaps the most serious, and that is diabetes. We know that the mortality and morbidity rates associated with diabetes mean that the cost of the disease, both for the individual and for the health system, is considerable, and that is a cost that research must be focused on attacking. We know that right at the centre of this is comorbidity.
We see heart disease at about three per cent of the population but amongst those with diabetes, it is closer to 16 per cent. Across the population, stroke occurs in about two per cent but amongst those with diabetes there is a 10 per cent chance that you will suffer from stroke. Across the population, we see depression incidents at about three per cent but if you have diabetes it is seven per cent and so on. Vision loss across the population is one per cent but if you have diabetes it is six per cent. We know these comorbidities are hugely important and studies have shown that the average direct healthcare cost for a person with diabetes is approximately $6,100 a year and substantially higher for those with complications. That means that the direct healthcare cost is about $6 billion to the Australian taxpayer and to the health system.
Between 2000 and 2009, health costs associated with diabetes grew at about 10 per cent in nominal terms per year compared to substantially less for all other diseases over that period. Hospitalisations account for about 35 per cent of those direct healthcare costs for people with diabetes and 26 per cent of avoidable hospitalisation are due to diabetes. These costs are enormous and they are the costs we must address. We know from experience over decades that the costs associated with chronic disease are best addressed through fundamental research and applied research, which is exactly what we are intending to do with this health research fund.
In my electorate of Hume, health is one of the top issues. It is extremely important because Hume does have an older population and because Hume has a rural population. The chronic diseases of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and so on are serious problems in the rural parts and more broadly across my electorate. Indeed, it is worth saying at this point that my predecessor Alby Shultz is one of those constituents in my electorate who is suffering from cancer right now in Cootamundra hospital. I am sure all others in this chamber and all other members in this House would join me in wishing him well at what is very difficult time for him and his family.
We are blessed in my electorate with fantastic health professionals at every level. But we face a number of challenges. As we came into government, we knew that we had insufficient GPs in many of these areas. If you look across the major cities, we average one GP for 1,100 patients. But if you move to outer regional areas, it is one to 1,400 and if you move right up to the remote regions it is one GP to 2,000. If you look at the towns of Boorowa and Grenfell in my electorate, before we got into office the numbers were worse than one in 2,000. Fortunately, we have been working hard to address that issue. When we got into office, even in the outer suburban areas of Wollondilly, we saw numbers of 1 to 1,500 or of one to 2,000. We are working hard to address that as we speak. There are also great challenges with access to specialist services and great challenges with the quality of the infrastructure, particularly the Goulburn hospital and just outside my electorate in the Bowral hospital.
The full suite of the government's reforms are intended to address these issues, to attack a fast-growing cost base and to deliver better health outcomes. One of those is the Medicare co-payment. Research from my time as an economic student in the 1980s, ably supported by research from the member for Fraser, shows us that a co-payment is an effective way to reduce health costs. The New Zealanders know that, many European countries know that and we see that time and time again. In fact, a very famous paper—I read it in the 1980s—published in the American Economic Review—probably the leading journal for economists—demonstrated that the fastest way to reduce health costs whilst maintaining health outcomes was to establish a co-payment. We know that by putting a price on the service, both GPs and their patients will look to use the doctor's time as effectively as they possibly can.
I have also talked about the important reform in the medical research fund. As I said, the focus of that fund will be dealing with those very significant chronic disease problems that we see right across our population and I see particularly in my electorate. Around the country we see all levels of government experimenting with pilots in alternative approaches to service delivery, approaches that better integrate primary and secondary care and reduce avoidable hospital costs, approaches that change the current chronic disease care funding model to incorporate flexible funding models targeting resources with which they can realise the greatest benefit. It is very important that we as a government continue to support those pilots which are already yielding very exciting results. These pilots recognise that there are a number of opportunities to improve outcomes and the quality of care for people with diabetes and other chronic diseases in Australia, and we will continue to support them.
Of course, there are other critical reforms, particularly in regional Australia. We are supporting health infrastructure for training for doctors, and in my electorate we will continue to lobby hard for some of that infrastructure. We are also focusing on providing effective incentives for practitioners in regional areas.
The reform proposed in this bill is a crucial reform. It is a reform that should be viewed within the context of a broad range of healthcare, health system initiatives designed to ensure that our health system remains sustainable for many decades to come—decades which the Labor Party typically ignores in its thinking about the future and in its ignorance about how to actually reduce healthcare costs for decades to come. This is the sort of reform that will address that underlying issue of burgeoning health costs, whilst delivering improving health outcomes at the same time.
Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (19:08): It is great to be up here in support of this bill, the Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No.1) 2014, and obviously to second the amendment. Of course, this bill utilises some $599 million worth of savings and that is why it is receiving our support. It is qualified support, of course, but it is receiving our support. This follows on from some $3 billion in savings that the previous government achieved by means testing the private health insurance rebate. That was a sensible thing to do and it contained the highest-growing area of costs in our health budget. That was a sensible saving, one that was bitterly opposed by those opposite—constantly and bitterly opposed—but one that, in this bill, they seem to be embracing. They seem to be embracing, finally, a sensible saving which is ploughed back into the health budget, ploughed back into the sorts of services that Australians expect.
Of course, it has had absolutely no effect on private health insurance numbers, notwithstanding what those opposite said—the doomsayers and the people who were out there scaring everybody and telling everybody that it was going to be the end of the health system as we know it. Quite to the contrary, what we found was that savings were sensibly reinvested into health. In my electorate we saw a number of important cancer centres opened at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, the Gawler Hospital and the Clare hospital. People up in Clare, up in the country—and people further north in the seat of Grey—do not have to drive hours and hours and hours to get to the centre of Adelaide to receive chemotherapy services. It is a very, very important thing. I met people at the opening of those centres who proved to me just what a big difference it has had in their lives.
Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—
Mr CHAMPION: It is a sensible approach. I heard about what the member for Hume said, and I am sure the member for Herbert will get up, full of bravado, and talk about all of the government's programs: the GP tax and their cuts to hospitals. I just wish they had talked about them prior to the election.
Of course, in their Our plan—Real solutions for all Australiansin section 16, 'Delivering Better Health Services', this is what the member for Herbert stood on last election, and it does not mention any of these things. It does not mention any of their broken promises—$50 billion plus in cuts to hospitals. You had better believe that will show up in Townsville. The GP tax: there was no mention of that in Real solutions at all. Of course, that is because those opposite do not want to own up to before an election, do not have the courage or the decency, to actually tell the Australian people their real plan, which is to destroy Medicare. That is always what they have been about.
If we go way back to 14 February 1986 John Howard said that if the Hawke government:
… had not been elected to office the Commonwealth Budget would not contain the absurd and bloated expenditures on Medicare that honourable members opposite have added.
That is what John Howard said about Medicare. He was plain with people. On 21 August 1986 he said if elected he would:
… put choice back into Medicare by a number of steps. Firstly, we will allow individual Australians to opt out of Medicare; that is, not pay the levy provided they take out private insurance. Secondly, bulk billing will be abolished except for such people as pensioners who really need it.
That is what John Howard said. Say what you like about the former member for Bennelong, at least he had the courage and the decency to let people know what his true intentions were. When he finally did change his mind on Medicare, well, at least he had the gumption and the good sense to stick to his word. The member for Herbert and the Leader of the Opposition wanted to lie to people before the election—absolutely mislead people at the last election in order to get their votes. And then after the election we get this budget, cutting $50 billion out of health and the $7 GP tax.
Of course, we do not have to go all the way back to John Howard. We can go back to Fightback! This is the document that led me to join the Labor Party. It politicised me no end. It is often forgotten by those opposite. They remember the GST—that is hard-wired into their brain—but they do not often remember that one of the reasons that John Hewson and the Liberal Party were defeated in 1993 was their all-out assault on Medicare. Remember page 7 of that document:
Bulk-billing will be retained for over four million pensioners, health care providers and the disabled, but will no longer be available to other Australians.
That is what they said in Fightback!This is the other point:
A government monopoly on medical insurance will be abolished and there will be a provision for gap insurance in medical bills.
On and on it goes. Later on in the document it explains their plans in some detail about how they intended to destroy Medicare. That was their intention. Their long-term aim is to commercialise health, to privatise health and to shift costs on to working families. That is not just going to be felt in Labor seats; it is going to be felt particularly in seats in the bush. They will feel it most of all. What we will have in this country is a system of health haves and health have-nots, and that will be determined by your income and by where you live.
If those opposite were paying attention to this, if I was a backbencher on the government side and I was from the bush, I would be terrified about the impact of this. I would be hoping that it would be blocked in the Senate. I would not be putting my name to it if I was a government backbencher from the bush. We had the member for Hume in here proudly telling us about how charging people $7 to see the doctor is somehow going to help the plague of diabetes in this country. It is just extraordinary. There are $80 billion in cuts to health and education, and over $50 billion in cuts to hospitals. That will affect people in the outer suburbs. That will affect people in regional centres. That will affect people in the bush—you better believe it will. And there is the GP tax—$7 every time you wander in and out of the waiting room at your local GP, $7 every time you get a blood test.
We now know the true effect that this will have on diagnostic scans. The Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association has told us exactly the effect of this. People will have to start paying up-front costs: for an ultrasound, $106 to $189, and the real cost that people will face after the Medicare rebate will be somewhere between $16 and $99; for CT scans, the up-front costs will be from $280 to $383 and the out-of-pocket costs $35 to $136; for X-rays, $45 to $92 up-front and the out-of-pocket costs $10 to $56; for an MRI, the up-front costs will be from $403 to $500 and the out-of-pocket costs $65 to $163.
Mr Ewen Jones: Is this from the standard talking points?
Mr CHAMPION: The member for Herbert is telling me that these are some things out of the talking points. They are not out of the talking points; they are out of the budget submission from the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association. Are you saying they are giving me talking points? I am telling you what is in their submission. I am warning the member for Herbert. I am telling him the effects of his policy and of the bill he has not seen. We have heard about the $7 co-payment, but have we seen the bill? Do we know how it will operate? Can any of those opposite provide me with some assurance about how it will operate? No, because the health minister is somewhere in this building, somehow sharpening up his plans for this disastrous policy of his.
In case you are wondering how that might affect someone with rheumatoid arthritis who needs some scans, the up-front costs will be somewhere between $289 and $549 and the out-of-pocket costs $55 to $316. That would terrify the member for Herbert's constituents and they would be right to be concerned about it. My constituents would be concerned about it too. In the case of breast cancer, the out-of-pocket costs between $46 and $348 and the up-front $410 to $712. These are extraordinary figures, not out of some Labor Party talking points but out of the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association's submission to a Senate committee on the budget.
We know what is going to happen: 600,000 scans will be missed. What effect will that have on public health and preventative health? What kind of disastrous consequences will that have for individuals, for families and for communities? One million missed GP visits across the country will be missed and 500,000 the year after, with people presenting instead to emergency departments. Those are the consequences of the policies of those opposite—and it was not mentioned in Real solutions, you can be sure of that. On top of that, they are increasing the cost of medicines by $1.3 billion. They are cutting $368 million out of preventative health. How is that going to help the impact of diabetes and other diseases in our country? How will that work?
They are deferring $398 million in public dental care, which will blow-out the waiting lists and leave those affected in pain, and compound their problems and their other health problems. We have had the debate on the dental bill and we know what Professor Newell Johnson said—'It is going to make it worse for people who rely on the public system.' Dr Karin Alexander said, 'The waiting lists are going to grow and you are going to have people sitting there in pain once again.' That is where the government are going on dental gentle. We know we have a system in dental care of haves and have-nots, thanks to the states and the fact that dental is not in Medicare, and that should concern every Australian.
I do not care whether you are a Liberal voter or a Labor voter, whether you live in the city or the country, any time in public health you have a system of haves and have-nots based on your income and the geography of this country and your access to services that is not Australia. That is not decent. That is not the type of country I thought we were.
On top of that, they are privatising Australian Hearing. That is what those opposite are intending to do—privatising an organisation that was created in 1947 by the Chifley government and expanded during the Holt years. It has been around for 67 years to help veterans and the sufferers of rubella with their hearing problems.
Mr Frydenberg: It still will.
Mr CHAMPION: We have the sorts of guarantees from the parliamentary secretary opposite and we know what they are worth. We know what your word is worth after the last election.
They have dismantled Health Workforce Australia. So no more planning for our health workforce, no more planning for doctor shortages or nurse shortages or allied health insurance—all services that are so important out in the regions and out in the bush.
We know that they have just abolished Medicare Locals at huge public expense, shifting boundaries, messing about with organisations which were just getting on with the job. I went out to Seppeltsfield for the Indigenous Marathon Project. Robert de Castella was there. We were all running. It was a very good program. Medicare Local was there, doing what they should be doing, talking about preventive health, and what are those opposite doing? They are closing it down. They are shifting the boundaries in another bureaucratic reorganisation. They have the gall to stand up in this parliament and tell us all that they are abolishing red tape—that is what we heard in the previous debate— well not for the doctors, not for pathology, not for diagnostic services and not in health. There is more red tape and more out-of-pocket costs than ever before.
They are setting up entire billing systems which have not had to exist before. That is the record of those opposite in health. It should be terrifying the backbench on the opposite side. They should be terrified every time the health minister gets up and says, 'We're the best friend Medicare ever had.' If you think anybody believes that after the litany of broken promises, broken commitments made with a sense of completely bad faith, manipulative and wrong, you will not get away with it. At the next election there will be an army of Labor candidates campaigning against you, stopping you destroying Medicare. There will be more than a few doctors, more than a few nurses and more than a few people from the country who want to stop this assault on Medicare, this assault on the public health system and this assault on the Australian way.
Mr EWEN JONES (Herbert) (19:24): If I could quickly address the member for Wakefield, he should be very careful who he calls a liar in this place. He spent a fair bit of time talking about dental and I would like to ask whether the axing of the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme was taken to an election. No, it was not. Was getting rid of means testing of the private health insurance rebate taken to an election in 2007? You were in government. You did not take it in 2007. I always like to think that when the facts change I change my mind—I do not know what you do. When Bob Hawke won in 1983 he basically junked his entire election platform because the circumstances around the budget had changed completely. So he changed his mind.
On a personal note, I would like to wish Alby Schultz a speedy recovery. If the old saying that only the good die young holds any truth, Alby is good for another 30 or 40 years. So if he keeps his chin up and makes sure he does what Gloria says, he will not get into any trouble.
I also note that the shadow minister prefers to go on television as opposed to turning up to the second reading debate. I think that shows where her priorities lie.
We went to the election with a four-pillar promise: that we would axe the bad taxes which we have done, that we would stop the boats and there has been only one successful boat arrival this year, that we would build the roads and the infrastructure of the 21st century and over $800 billion of environmental approvals have been given and over $150 billion of infrastructure has started, and we said we would fix the budget mess.
Behind social security, health is the biggest spend in the budget. The federal government will spend $68 billion this year alone as its contribution to health in this country and that figure will rise to $79 billion by 2017-18. Each state and territory government has significant expenditure on health as well. To that end, we spend over $150 billion a year on the health of our nation. We are a First World nation and we expect and demand high-quality, cutting-edge medical treatment. The issue is, though, while technology and robotics make things in general circulation cheaper and more available, quite often when it comes to health it makes it very expensive. What we have to do, as a government and as a people, is pay for it. Private health insurance forms a very large part of that process.
This bill pauses the income thresholds which determine the tiers for the Medicare levy surcharge. It also amends the Australian government rebate on private health insurance at 2014-15 levels for three years. This will be done by pausing the indexation arrangements under the Private Health Insurance Act 2007. I voted against Labor's means testing of the private health insurance rebate; in fact, I railed against it because it should be about choice. Labor went to the 2007 election stating emphatically that there would be no change to private health insurance rebates, but they changed their mind and tried repeatedly until the Greens and the crossbenchers provided support to get it through. We said we would reverse it as soon as the budget position enabled it. I am personally disappointed that we are not at that place at the moment where we can drive private health insurance memberships and choice in treatment further. But, faced with the budgetary position we inherited from the previous government, we are not able to make those sorts of decisions.
No matter what part of the budget you choose, we are under pressure financially. I am personally sick and tired of the argument about emergency. We face growing debt and, even if you disagree with our projected gross debt figure of $667 billion, we face a situation where the previous government handed down budget deficits totalling $195 billion. So whether you choose to engage in any level of argument over the numbers or projections, the base line number of $195 billion cannot be argued.
Additionally, both sides agree that running surplus budgets is a good and desirable thing to do. Everyone around Australia will understand that if you have no debt you can spend all your money. Everyone around Australia will understand that if you have a lot of debt, your spending capacity is reduced. So, when you are faced with a debt and you are a company, you have to consider options. You can either to pull your head in and try to save as much as possible or you can spend and stimulate to try to generate the sales required to make money to pull you out of debt.
The second option is what this parliament decided to do when faced by the global financial crisis in 2008-09. Incidentally, that is also what the Howard government did when faced with the Asian financial crisis of 2001 and it worked
We went into deficit during the Asian financial crisis by $6 billion for that year, but we came out of it strongly.
The thing is you can only spend so much before it becomes counterproductive. Our political opponents will always say that Australia's gross debt to GDP ratio is comparatively low when compared to world standards. That is 100 per cent correct. But debt is more than just a comparison; you have to be able to service it and then pay it down. That is where the problem starts and ends. What we have in this country is a small population and, therefore, we have low holdings of cash. Places like Japan have massive debt to GDP rates but they also have massive national savings. The more debt we carry the more we are exposed to accidents overseas. What do we do if we get hit by another GFC? How will we pull out of that one when we have rising debt now? That is what you have to look at and that is what you have to look for—the next issue, the next problem or the next opportunity.
I have never had a problem with debt, but debt must have a purpose; it must produce a return. That is why, after backing the first round of the stimulus, the coalition walked away from the second round of stimulus. The Rudd government then continued to borrow and spend to create that stimulus. Unfortunately, some of the stimulus was still being rolled out long after the emergency had subsided. Remember, the Asian financial crisis stimulus by the Howard government resulted in a budget deficit of $6 billion and lasted one year. All this time the then government—the Howard government—was still projecting downward trends on our overall gross debt situation.
Which brings me to this bill: it will result in savings to the budget of nearly $600 million over the forward estimates. That is a massive amount of money. But if you contextualise it with the overall spend by the federal government alone of some $280 billion over the same period, you will see that we are only playing at the edges of our debt problems. This bill represents a saving of 2.14 per cent over the forward estimates. That is all. So why do it at all? Because the budget has to be fixed and that is the business we are in. This government is in the fixing business and we all must play a part. My Grandma Jones would always say, 'Look after your pennies, laddie, and the pounds will take care of themselves.' The problem with fixing something though is that, invariably, it costs money. That money comes out of your pocket. It does not come out of your gross income; it comes out of your net income, it comes out of your cash. It does not grow on some magic tree in the backyard, as my kids seem to believe; it comes out of your pocket no matter the case.
It is like when you are moving into a new house. You have just purchased it and you love it, but as soon as you move in problems appear: the downstairs toilet leaks, a couple of windows will not open and the interior needs a repaint. You can continue to live with them or you can fix them. Me? I fix them. Sure I know it will cost money, but if I do it now the cost will be lower over time. Again, the thing to remember here is that I have purchased this house and owe a tonne of money on it. The debt is already there and has to be serviced. The extra bits have to be done and they have to be financed. That financing comes out of my pocket, my net income. It hurts and it hurts now. I will have to adjust my lifestyle accordingly because I cannot simply go and get another credit card to pay for it. They will probably lend it to you, they will probably give you the money, but sooner or later you have to pay it back. Does that make me a bad financial manager? I do not think so. What it does is make me a realist. The ultimate goal of any person who takes out a mortgage is to not have to pay it anymore. That should be the goal of our parliament and our gross debt standing: to be able to get it down to that stage where we are debt free because if we are debt free, we have options. What we handed over to Labor in 2007 was not without its problems, and I admit that. It was not without its structural problems, and we have to address those as well. But what we handed over was a clean set of books, and if we do not address that now we are in for all sorts of strife.
This $599 million will go into an offset account. You will hear the others say it is not even going into debt reduction; the $20 billion medical research future fund is an offset account. It will not only assist with providing money for research but it will also work as an offset account against our overall debt position. It is just the same as having your mortgage, your living account and that sort of stuff. It is your net position that you have to watch for; it is the overall debt position. The money goes into that $20 billion sovereign health fund that will work towards providing cures and research into medical research around this country, which will help us into the future with things like diabetes type 1, things like arthritis, things like heart disease and things like all of those cancers that we have to deal with on a daily basis. We can be that smart country—we are that smart country—and we want to be able to provide that sort of thing.
But the way we are with the budget at the moment it is like one side of this parliament, our side of the parliament, is saying, 'We've got to remember "A stitch in time saves nine,"' whereas the other side of the parliament seems to be saying, 'Let her rip!' We just have to try to understand where we are coming from here. I understand where we come from; I understand there are different philosophical positions. I am happy with that, and I can live with people's philosophical positions. I heard the member for Blair in here last week telling me that people on that side also ran businesses, and he ran his business for 20 years and invariably it was very successful. But I bet he did not risk it by continuing to borrow and I bet he ran his business at a profit, because that is what you have to do. If you do not have money in the bank you cannot do anything. That is what we have to do—that is, address the basic issue here of financial management. At the end of the day, health, education—no matter what it is, it comes down to economics; it comes down to who is going to pay for it and how. That is what it comes down to.
So while I admit this is a massive amount of money that this saving will be for the person in the street to get their head around—$599 billion—when you consider it over the forward estimates of $280 billion worth of spend, we are not talking about a massive percentage of saving here. What we are talking about is putting the money somewhere where it will be safe, somewhere where it cannot be taken into the future and somewhere where it will be used for medical research and for the benefit of all Australians.
I will not be supporting the amendment, but I do support Minister Dutton. I support what he is trying to do here and I support the Treasurer, Joe Hockey. I do support what they are trying to do with our budget situation. So while I will not be supporting the amendment, I will be supporting the bill.
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (19:37): This bill amends the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to pause the income thresholds that determine the tiers for the Medicare levy surcharge and the rebate on private health insurance at 2014-15 rates for three years.
Nothing is more important to most people than high quality health care. In the spirit of that, Labor will support the savings measure in this amendment, but it is worth pointing out a few things in this debate and getting them on the record in this place. I want to canvass a few ideas about the history of the Private Health Insurance Act, like many that have spoken before me, and what this bill, when matched with this government's budget, says about this government's understanding of health care, its attitude to health care, its priorities when it comes to health care and some issues around where the savings will be spent.
There is some irony in the histories that we have heard from the member for Wakefield. The Medicare levy surcharge, of course, the private health insurance rebate and the Lifetime Health Cover measures were introduced by the Howard government in the mid 1990s. It was purported that they were introduced to stem the decline in private health insurance membership. I well remember that legislation being brought into the House, because I have vivid memories of the scare campaign that was run through the television screens around Australia. I remember watching those advertisements in my lounge room. The punitive nature of the advertising campaign was scaring me at the time—I was a single mother with three small children and was working part-time as a teacher to balance the budget and pay off a mortgage. My children were not spoilt, because they could not afford to be spoilt. I remember having nightmares—nightmares—about whether or not I could afford private health insurance. It was a moment I well remember.
These measures were put in place to encourage the take-up of private health insurance, with the argument that it would reduce pressure on the public health system. When the previous Labor government made changes to the threshold to this act and introduced means testing, we saw another scare campaign. This time the then opposition opposed the measure on the grounds that people would drop private health care cover. This, of course, did not eventuate. Indeed, the current level of private cover is the highest we have seen.
Contrary to that scare campaign, health-insurance is healthy and growing. That is one of the ironies in why we stand here to support this bill and we will not go into the scare campaign on it. Another irony is that this government is now doing exactly what it said would lead to people pulling out of private health insurance. Let's face it: this is a small save when compared to other cuts to health in the budget.
But the sweetest irony in the area of health is a little more complex. We hear the minister saying how important the sustainability of health care is to him and to the country. He does this while he introduces the GP tax, claiming it to be modest, yet in many households around the country it will not be modest. The introduction of that tax will also raise out-of-pocket expenses and front-up expenses on diagnostics, increase in the cost of medicines, change to the PBS safety net, cut various preventative health programs and—I think this is the most ironic, of course, because we are talking about savings measures to make health care less expensive for the government—cut preventative health measures, particularly when we have the challenges like obesity and diabetes. Cuts to dental programs have been canvassed—certainly by the member for Wakefield. We have the closing of the Medicare locals. They will all be closed, then reopened and rebadged to the cost of, according to reports, $200 million.
The worst, though, is the dismantling of bulk-billing incentives and $50 billion cuts to hospitals. And what is the justification used for these cuts? It was a budget emergency. Health spending was out of control. So we had a lot of fearmongering around health spending being out of control and health overtaking everything else in the budget, but of course that has been summarily dismissed of late with the Australian institute of health and welfare last month reporting that growth in health spending was actually at its lowest level in decades. In fact, the Australian Medical Association president associate Prof Brian Owler—and I note today in question time that the Prime Minister said he had a lot of expect respect for the AMA—said: 'The figures in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's report really make a mockery of the government's claim that health care spending is out of control.' Prof Owler went on. He said, 'These figures actually show that health care spending is certainly not out of control, and there is absolutely no need for them to introduce a GP co-payment.' So the premise for the savings across the health budget are being challenged. The facts are that health spending by the federal government fell in 2012-13 2.4 per cent in real terms. State health spending fell by 1.5 per cent. All of this is backed up against the fact that private spending on health for Mr and Mrs Average went up by 6.9 per cent with an increase in private health insurance.
Ross Gittins last week wrote something interesting as well. He said:
Actually, the real fall in federal spending seems to be largely the product of savings measures taken by the previous government, particularly its tightening of rules for the private health insurance rebate - which the Coalition fought so hard to stop happening.
So the last government, the Labor government, made real savings, opposed by those opposite—in fact demonised by those opposite—with stories of the sky falling in and people dropping out of private health insurance. We find that now not be the case and that the savings were made by the previous government.
So Labor will support these savings measures as we introduced the means test to bring a savings measure into the health budget. But there is a danger here—perhaps an unforeseen one: perhaps with this government's apparent loathing for modelling we have not seen any of the risk in this assessed, because perhaps the measure introduced by Labor that the then opposition thought would bring down the sky and instead saw the highest rates of private health insurance ever might have a negative impact this time.
As I alluded to earlier, I well remember the scare campaign to get Australians to take out private health insurance. I well remember it because I was not in a position to take up that option. I well remember the sleepless nights I had and the fear I lived with because I could not make that choice. I am concerned that, when combined with the other cuts to families in this budget, other families may now find themselves in that space. Perhaps when it is combined with the 6.9 per cent rise in premiums that the minister has approved since coming to office it will in fact have that effect. We will see in time.
Labor support sensible health savings and support savings going back into the system for further improvements, like preventative health measures—something it seems this government has little regard for—but we do question the savings being directed to the Medical Research Future Fund. We do this on a few grounds, but mostly because of the lack of detail around this fund. There has been no information about its establishment. The federal and state health departments have not been involved. The Chief Scientist has not been consulted. There was no dialogue with the health and medical research sector before it was introduced on budget night. So we have some concerns about making savings supposedly for a budget emergency but then, rather than using them to cover some of the cuts that are carried through in the budget, putting them into a research fund that has very little detail around it. It all reaffirms for me that those opposite know the price of everything but very little about the value.
Labor has a record of heavily investing in health and medical research—a total of $3.5 billion since 2008. This funding supported 8,500 researchers working to improve Australia's health at over 80 institutions, including hospitals, medical research institutes and universities. Through its Health and Hospitals Fund Labor also invested $700 million to build and upgrade medical research facilities across the nation. Labor also knows the value of embedding health and medical research into all aspects of the health system—not separate, not sitting outside, but built in—because health services conducting research deliver better health outcomes for patients.
The cuts this government are making in health are all based on ideology. They seem keen to dismantle Medicare and create—and they do not like to hear this but this is what it will in fact be—a two-tier American-style health system where one tier can pay and have access to the benefits of medical research. Their access to health provision is determined by their wallet. Labor believes there should be universal access to high-quality health care. Medicare was established to do that. It is a legacy of the vision of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. When we do the history lessons again we will see it was dismantled by Prime Minister Fraser and then reintroduced by Prime Minister Hawke.
Labor will continue to stand up for Medicare and for universal health care. Although I support this savings measure, I do have some concerns about what the combined impacts of those things might be. I think it is worth me standing here as the member for Lalor and raising those issues because there will be many families in my electorate who will be having to make clear decisions about whether they will be able to continue to afford private health cover, given some of the other measures contained in the budget, if and when they get through. So Labor will support the savings measure but would prefer to see the savings redirected to the health sector to minimise the impact of the other cuts across the health sector that were contained in the budget.
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (19:49): This is a really important debate on the Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. I know all of Australia is listening to this debate on the future of private health insurance. I think the member for Lalor, the previous speaker, was quite right to say that coverage continues to increase to over 55 per cent of the Australian population. As you travel around the OECD you see that that does reflect that we are a nation that equally gives Australians the opportunity to contemplate public or private provision of social services both in health and education. We have a delicately balanced system in both school education and health as a result. That is something to be very proud of.
I am also proud of the coalition's continuous support for the important role that private health insurance plays in this country. We do not need to apologise for that. We are one of the few nations in the world that still have the appetite for a debate over whether private health service provision is a bad thing or not. Most other economies have moved on now and appreciate the role that that plays, but here we have a rancid partisan debate—a continual and utter fixation on destroying private health insurance from the Labor Party. It is something that has held back health reform over the last two decades significantly.
When you have the Labor Party that can see no further than what can be provided for free and protecting the dream of Gough Whitlam's Medicare into perpetuity—nothing beyond that—then it is almost impossible to have a constructive debate about where the health system is heading. Well, this is where it is heading. It was Michael Wooldridge who had the foresight in the late 1990s to rescue plummeting private health cover levels by introducing the three-legged policies of Lifetime Health Cover, community rating and a private health insurance rebate. Academics have looked at these three and tried to evaluate which was the most powerful incentive for people to take up and maintain private health cover. I think most agree that it is the Lifetime Health Cover model unique to Australia which applies to those individual citizens who do not take up by the age of 30 private health insurance but were financially able to do so. When they choose to take out cover at a later time, two per cent is added to their premium for every year of life after 30, capping out at a 70 per cent premium approximately for those who take up private health cover for the first time at the age of around 65. That additional LHC is paid for a 10-year period, after which the premia revert to the normal levels. That Lifetime Health Cover model has had an extraordinarily powerful uplift effect on private health cover in this country. It is something that a former health minister, Michael Wooldridge, can take the credit for, as can the then coalition government. So it goes without saying that, when it comes to reforming the health system to ensure that both the private and public health systems can thrive, it is coalition governments that pursue that objective. At the moment, however, there is a Labor opposition constantly nickel-and-diming the private system and doing their best to undermine it.
I appreciate that Labor are absolutely captured by the notion that every piece of interference they can run against the private health system is in some way a dollar that goes back into the public hospital system. If only it were that simple! If only making it tough for families to keep their private health insurance in some way made our public hospitals better, that might be a debate we could contemplate. But it is sheer rubbish. It is not the case at all. In fact people who take out private health insurance fund their way through an enormous amount of health services in this country. More than half of all the hips and eyes—all the high-expense, rapid throughput surgery—done in this country are done completely on the private purse, with nothing more than a Medicare rebate for the procedure. Many of those Australians pay significant out-of-pocket costs to be part of that system. This is Health Insurance 101—but Labor continues to have a problem in understanding the role of private health insurance.
When Labor were looking for savings, where else would they go but after the hardworking Australians paying private health insurance? They thought there was easy money to be gained there of course. The first thing they did—after promising before being elected that they would not touch anything, which we know was a great distortion of the truth—was to suddenly come up with tiers. Suddenly, if you earned more than $90,000 as an individual, you were wealthy and deserved a lower private health insurance rebate. Keep in mind what a rebate on your insurance policy is. A rebate is saying, 'Thank you for taking out your own health insurance', because—wait for it—when there is a 30 per cent health insurance rebate, for every dollar that goes into the system, the federal government pays back 30c to say thank you. Were that system not in place, that 70c would never have been invested in the health system.
Most people forget this, but it is private health insurance that is building, all around this country, the private hospitals of tomorrow that will care for me and my cohort when we need them. Let us be honest: when there is a sudden demographic requirement for additional hospital places and hospital beds, there is no point trying to build them then. By the time you need them, it is too late. They have to be there beforehand. It is the private health insurance premia paid all around this country by nearly 11 million Australians that will ensure the hospitals are there. I can say that because I have worked in public hospitals, private hospitals, public general practice and private general practice. The great Australian system, which delivers some of the best health outcomes in the world and gives us the second-longest quality-adjusted life expectancy in the world, is achieved relatively modestly. Part of that is because of private health doing its part to take people off public hospital waiting lists.
In debating tonight's amendment, recognise that Labor made it virtually impossible for us not to have to contemplate not only a continuation of these tiers but, in our case, a freezing of indexation for those tiers. For a very small number of Australians, that means that they will potentially—because these tiers will not go up as incomes increase—be tipped into higher tiers and therefore receive slightly smaller private health insurance rebates. Other Australians will also come up against these tiers and find themselves contributing a larger Medicare levy surcharge—increasing, for instance, from one per cent if you are earning around $105,000 to 1.25 per cent the minute you tick over that. That rate then applies up to $140,000, at which level it ticks up again. Those three tiers remain, but they will not be indexed up for inflation. As people's incomes increase over time, they will move into higher tiers. The incentive to take out private health insurance, however, will be just as strong, because you will face a higher Medicare levy surcharge if you do not. From this you can see that some Australians will be paying more, but the sum total of those extra contributions will be directed into the Medical Research Future Fund. That will be a very important contribution.
When Labor is in power, they pretty much completely ignore and blacklist the private health insurance system—unless they can see the chance to rip some money out of it. It is fascinating that, after six years of Labor, we still have 34 health insurers. But it is an enormously complex terrain. Treasury modelling was constantly trying to identify whether fiddling with the system—first of all by creating these tiers and means-testing the private health insurance rebate and, secondly, by saying that the lifetime health cover component of your premium would not be eligible for the rebate—would cause people to drop their cover.
There were a range of predictions—from Treasury saying there would be almost no effect through to the private health insurers, who had great reservations about the impact of Labor's changes. In the end, I think the score was one all. The fall in private health insurance has not been anywhere near what was predicted by the private sector. But where Treasury got it wrong was in failing to predict the number of people who would downgrade—those Australians who would say, 'I have to get just enough private health insurance to avoid the Medicare levy surcharge, but I am going to get as many exclusions and downgrade as much as I can, simply to avoid the tax.' How utterly rational! Possibly up to two million Australians did that. It is difficult to pick through the numbers and work out how many were genuine downgrades and how many were simply phoning up iSelect and being told there was a cheaper policy somewhere else and taking it. In the end, though, two million out of 13 million Australians took out more trimmed-down private health insurance cover.
How could that possibly matter? If you live in a regional town, if you live somewhere outside of the capital cities where there are no private hospitals, suddenly it does matter. When people drop their ancillaries and no longer have cover for optometry or cover for allied health, suddenly a whole lot of work disappears for our regional allied health providers—who are there backing up the local, often solo, GPs. Allied health providers form a modest but very powerful, in fact elite, health provision network in some of the most remote parts of the world. This is Australia's secret: we can deliver some of the highest quality health care to remote populations and to small population centres
That is what gets undermined by Labor's approach, because in those towns the propensity to take up private health cover begins to be undermined. Why take out the cover if there is no clinician to see in town? Sure, you have a general practitioner; and most Australians in those areas, regardless of their income, are paying full tote to see their general practitioner—in many cases bulk-billing rates are very low and there are large out-of-pocket expenses—only to suddenly find, through Labor's reforms, that the allied health providers are leaving town and the only hope is driving to a nearby public hospital and being in a very long queue for care. That is the alternative—but, in the end, that is Labor's picture, isn't it? Labor's vision for health is simply to undermine private health insurance at every opportunity and do their best to drive every Australian down the road to the local public hospital.
That is not the Australia I want to see in the future. I have a vision that Australians will always have a choice. I know that at least 10 per cent of people with private health cover are low-income earners. These are people who are earning, often, a minimum wage and are weighing up whether they take out private health insurance or choose to send their children to a low-fee, independent school. I celebrate that we live in a country where we have that choice because there are plenty of nations where there is not. The first thing you do, if you want to undermine that, is start taking away the incentives that work.
Why does this sound familiar? Why does this ring true? Doesn't this have a flavour of the immigration debate when, under Kevin Rudd, they slowly and steadily unpicked and unravelled, with no idea what it was going to do to people movement? That is exactly what happened in private health. There were promises before the election not to touch the rebate and the reality afterwards was they hooked straight into it, creating tiers and undermining insurance. For those of you out there who thought you were getting a 30 per cent private health insurance rebate, let us look at the numbers now. If you are between the ages of 65 and 69 and you are earning over $105,000, that rebate is now under 15 per cent. If you are under 65 years of age and you are lucky enough to be earning over $105,000, that rebate has now fallen to 9.68 per cent. True, people have not pulled out in numbers as large as some predicted; but I have made the really clear point that it is the downgrading that matters. It is the downgrading that kills off regional and remote. And we have exclusions that are even more concerning, because Australians looking for the cheapest way to avoid the Medicare levy surcharge will start looking for the cardiac exclusion or the arthritis exclusion—they will start looking for any clinical exclusion to get the policy slightly cheaper but still get the full-tote, 30 per cent rebate, or as much of it as they are able to get. The result is that those costs are simply transferred back to the public hospital system. In the end, that will come home to roost. That is obviously another one of those Labor impacts.
Lastly, when Labor attacked private health insurance with these tiered approaches, we saw a complete gaming of the system with Australians rushing out to prepay their health insurance prior to July 2012. Wasn't that ridiculous? 'Let me pay one more year in advance so I can secure as much of the private health rebate as possible.' That was a another mistake by the then Labor government.
In conclusion, let us be honest: if you like private health, then for goodness sake, you want to keep Labor Party fingers off it. If there are areas where you can improve private health insurance, it is not going to happen under that mob over there. Right now we know there can be improvements. There are 34 insurers and they are working to build membership. They cannot promote their services to individual cohorts within their membership. I lament that the first time that many private health insurers know they have a member with diabetes is when they get the bill to take off the toe. They need to know much earlier than when there are catastrophic items being charged for under Medicare and seeking a rebate, so that private health insurers can be part of health prevention. They are still not able to do that.
Lastly, there really is a role for looking again at the reinsurance model which says that, where high-cost patients are borne by the private health insurance system, they are effectively shared among a pool of reinsurance—to ensure there is a community rating in place so that no insurer will be reluctant to take on high-need patients. But in the end we also need to make sure that, if insurers are going to do their best to reduce those costs in those complex chronic-disease patients, they get the full reward of their work. If they can halve the cost to the hospital system of some of these patients, why should that not simply be shared around the reinsurance model? Those are two very pertinent points made by the private health insurance industry.
In closing, the coalition was the architect of private health insurance. We built it back from near death in the mid-nineties, after 12 years of Labor. It is the coalition that continues to fight for its right to exist. We are the party that can see the role of private health insurance in overall health and hospital reform. I urge everyone out there who has seen their premium nickel-and-dimed over the last six years: we must do everything we can to keep private health levels as high as possible.
Debate adjourned.
Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ) (20:05): In accordance with standing order 133(b), I shall now proceed to put the question on the motion moved by the Minister for Agriculture on which a division was called for and deferred in accordance with standing orders. No further debate is allowed. Question put.
The House divided. [20:09]
(The Deputy Speaker—Mr Mitchell)
Third Reading
Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Leader of The Nationals) (20:17): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 1) 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 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 that the bill is one of many changes the government is proposing that will increase the cost of healthcare."
Mr SNOWDON (Lingiari) (20:18): Before I begin, we should let the chamber know that the member for Gippsland's daughter is starting her Higher School Certificate this week. We need to wish her well, because I know her father is a handicap!
Mr Chester: Ahem!
Dr Leigh: Does that go on Hansard?
Mr SNOWDON: We wish her well, as we said earlier today. Good luck to her and to all her mates.
Mr Chester: Well said!
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ): If we could get back to the bill, that would be great!
Mr SNOWDON: This Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 aims to suspend the indexation of taxable income threshold for the private health insurance rebate and the Medicare levy surcharge for three years. And, as the Bills Digest reminds us, the pausing of the indexation will mean that there are those without private health insurance cover whose incomes are likely to move into the income tier at which they become liable to pay the MLS—subject to the old bracket creep. Others may see the rate of their levy liability increase and, ultimately, the government revenue from the MLS will rise.
As the Bills Digest tells us:
Overall, the effect of pausing indexation is likely to shift the cost of private health insurance away from the Government and onto the consumer. This is proposed at a time when reports show that consumer contributions to the cost of health care continue to grow while government expenditure in real terms is falling. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in 2012-13 government funding of health expenditure fell by 0.9 per cent in real terms for the first time this decade, largely as a result of a 2.4 per cent decline in the Australian Government's funding of health care. Meanwhile, out-of-pocket spending by individuals grew by 6.7 per cent over the decade (compared to government expenditure growth of 4.4 per cent) and the proportion individuals contributed to overall health expenditure also grew to a high of 17.8 per cent.
So, what this bill will mean, in short, is more people paying a health insurance rebate and more of those already in a fund effectively paying more as their income rises.
Those who choose not to be part of a private health fund will find themselves effectively paying more under the Medicare levy surcharge as their income rises. Again, just a very sneaky way of shifting costs from the government to the private insurers and, in particular, to people who would have otherwise thought they were safe from any increase in their liability had the indexation arrangements been pursued. So the suspension of the indexation arrangements will have a material and direct impact on many Australian households, and that is something which we all need to be concerned about. It does not surprise us in the context of this government because, as we know, to everyone in this place, even to the government benches, they have made a virtue out of breaking successive promises around commitments they made prior to the election—and here is just another example.
We know that the government believes that the rebate will contribute a total estimated savings of $599.3 million as a result of the pause in indexation. Of course, this saving is not going to go into providing more and better primary health care; it is not going to provide better chronic disease management. It is going to go to the health research fund. We in Labor obviously support health research. We have done so historically and we will continue to do so into the future. But what this government has done during the course of its time in government is to introduce policies that will change the way in which health care is delivered in this country and will move us away from the whole idea of a universal health scheme. At the same time, it will increase the cost to families so that they will bear the burden of the government's decisions. This is just another example of what the government has been doing. It is worthwhile saying to the members opposite that, even though they may not themselves accept liability in terms of a personal responsibility for the decisions which have been taken by the government and principally by the Minister for Health as the portfolio minister, they do have a collective responsibility for all of those decisions because they have supported them. We have now had the election promises broken: no cuts to health, no new taxes and the introduction of a GP tax. As I said, the $599 million will not go to immediately improving health outcomes for people or, in particular, addressing those people most in need in our community. Instead, it will go to this fund: the Medical Research Future Fund.
When the current minister was in opposition he made a number of statements about his support for universal health care. He made a virtue of those statements. Indeed, in his contrition to the debate on the bill to means test the private health insurance rebate in 2012, the then shadow minister for health, now Minister for Health, said:
In our country we have a universal health system. That means that, regardless of whether you earn one dollar or a million dollars a year, if you have a heart attack, are involved in a motor vehicle accident, have a crook hip, need oncology treatment or whatever, you can turn up at a public hospital and demand treatment free of charge. That has been an underlying principle supported by both sides of this parliament for a very long period of time—and long may that be the case. A universal system says to people that, in a country like ours in the 21st century, the best available services will be provided.
How is it that we find ourselves in the position that we are in today? How is it that we find ourselves in a position where the government not only is claiming $599 million worth of savings but also has cut in excess of $57 billion out of public hospitals and at the same time wants to introduce a GP tax which will have a direct and material impact on the universality of health care?
It is hard for me to fathom how anyone in the government could go to their communities with these changes and say that they still believe in universal health care. How can you argue that, as a result of the changes that you are proposing in the health system, people who are currently being bulk-billed will be required to pay a surcharge? And we are told that it is the doctors who will make the decision as to whether or not the surcharge will be paid. Of course, what we are doing is transferring the responsibility of the healthcare system to the patients and to the doctors so that the patients will pay more and the doctors will lose money in every consultation. We now know that as a result of the changes which are being proposed, there will be more than 600,000 fewer medical imaging services in the first year. The reason there will be fewer services is obvious: it is because, according to the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association, previously bulk-billed patients now face costs of up to $1,263 for a liver cancer diagnosis, $1,326 for a thyroid cancer diagnosis, $2,207 to diagnose liver metastasis and $712 to diagnose breast cancer.
What will that mean? That will inevitably mean that people who should be seeking care and who should be seeking a diagnosis for an ailment will not. Ultimately, it will inevitably lead to people dying earlier than they otherwise should have, people suffering for extended periods for not having their particular ailment properly addressed, people not having the proper drugs or people not having the proper treatment. This seems to not matter a jot to the government or to the members opposite.
I say to members opposite that you have a responsibility in this place. As the governing parties, you have a responsibility to abide by the promises you made prior to the last election, which clearly you do not feel disposed to do. But, most importantly, you have a responsibility to ensure that each and every Australian gets a fair shake. I could not agree more with the statement made by the now Minister for Health in his previous contribution to the debate in this place about the importance of the universality of health care. But what we are seeing now is this government contradicting that commitment, walking away from it very directly, and making certain that, as a result, many Australians will suffer in a range of ways. Not only will they suffer because they do not access treatment but, if they are able to access the treatment in the first instance, they will be required to pay the costs. And that will have an enormous burden on many households.
The people who will be most disadvantaged will not be the people who live in the Prime Minister's electorate. I dare say they will not be the people living in the member for Boothby's electorate. But I know where they will be. There will be some in the member for Gippsland's electorate. There will be a lot of them in the member for Gippsland's electorate. There will be a hell of a lot in my electorate and the member for Rankin will have many in his electorate. These are the people of Australia who can least afford not to access medical care yet what we see is a deliberate attempt of this government to move people out of the health system or away from getting treatment as a result of their ideological commitment to their hideous approach to addressing what they call a budget crisis—which of course there is not.
So it seems to me that members opposite need to counsel the Prime Minister. They certainly need to counsel the Minister for Health because I know, when they go to the election in a couple of years' time, people will mark them down and properly mark them down for their dishonesty, for the way in which they have dealt with the Australian community and, most importantly, for attacking the health system in the way in which they are proposing to do. It is not fair; it is not reasonable.
I talked about communities who would miss out. I need to refer to my own communities in the Northern Territory. The most impoverished Australians live in very remote communities. I mentioned the member for Gippsland but, in regional and remote Australia, the people with the poorest health outcomes in this country will be affected more by the changes being proposed by the government than any other Australians. It is not fair, it is not reasonable and it should not happen.
Dr SOUTHCOTT (Boothby) (20:32): A few years ago, former health minister Neal Blewett gave the John Chalmers oration at Flinders university. In an excellent oration, he made the point that the issue with private health insurance is one of the key divides in Australian politics. The point he made was that you do not get this in other similar countries like Canada where they do not have a system of private health insurance or in the UK where private health insurance is much smaller. So we have had a lot of debates about private health insurance in this chamber.
The Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No.1) 2014 deals with the private health insurance rebate, the Medicare level surcharge and also the Medical Research Future Fund. We know the approach that the previous government took when they dealt with private health insurance. Kevin Rudd went to an election saying that he would make no changes to the private health insurance rebate. But we know that when the former Treasurer saw how much was being spent on the private health insurance rebate, he came along loaded for bear. It was one of his big targets. Despite what they said before the election, in every budget they made attacks on private health insurance.
This is a modest savings measure of the order of $599 million over the forward estimates. It pauses the indexation for both the rebate and the Medicare levy surcharge. What it does is slightly shift the contribution between what the government pays and what individuals pay. Having said that, we need to look at the private health insurance market in Australia. What we generally see is that coverage levels are healthy. The coverage levels under the previous Hawke-Keating Labor government fell to 30 per cent and even below. We then had a problem whereby private health insurance was increasingly going up, young fit healthy people were dropping out, we were seeing premiums rise and it was becoming an unsustainable system. We stopped that with private health insurance rebate. This was a Howard government initiative. It was not just the rebate but also the Medicare levy surcharge and lifetime community rating which led to a system whereby we see overall 45 per cent of the population now holding private health insurance.
It is estimated that this measure will only affect four per cent of the 6.2 million private health insurance policies. It will not affect individuals whose income remains below $90,000 or couples and families with an income that remains below $180,000. Very importantly, all of the savings from this will be invested in the Medical Research Future Fund.
There is in Parliament House tonight a dinner for the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes. There is a long line, a huge cast of opposition members who are there to pledge their support for medical research. But what we do need to do in this House is find savings so we can actually establish the Medical Research Future Fund. We know how the previous government dealt with funds like this. We had a Higher Education Endowment Fund but that was gone in the first budget—a capital fund spent as income. We started the capital for the Health and Hospitals Fund—again, that was spent.
We are confident that using the principles established with the Future Fund that we can establish a $20-billion Medical Research Future Fund. This is something that the medical research institutes are looking forward to. Once established, this capital fund will have an income stream available which can deliver an additional $1 billion into medical research every year, effectively doubling what we spend now.
This fund will be the largest research fund of its kind in the world and it builds on our world-class medical research capabilities. Let us never forget that when the Labor Party were previously in government they had a plan, in 2011, to rip $400 million from medical research. We saw continuously that the previous government continually broke their promises on private health insurance. They repeatedly promised that they would not change the private health insurance rebate, but they did. The means tested the private health insurance rebate in 2009 and 2011. They removed the 30 per cent rebate on Lifetime Health Cover in 2012, and they made changes to the indexation arrangements for the private health insurance rebates last year.
When I look at my own electorate of Boothby, what I see is that the percentage of voters in the electorate who hold private health insurance is over three-quarters. Over three out of every four voters hold private health insurance. These are the latest figures provided by Private Healthcare Australia as of 1 January 2014. The percentage is not as high for hospital treatment insurance—about two-thirds, or 66 per cent of voters hold private health insurance. But for general treatment insurance—which is for the allied health and ambulance, that sort of thing—there are 75 per cent of voters who hold that private health insurance.
What Neal Blewett said in the John Chalmers Oration remains true. Private health insurance has been a key divide in Australian politics. When Labor are in government they continually attack those people who hold private health insurance, those 10 million plus Australians who see the benefits in having a choice of doctor and a choice of hospital and who are playing a part in taking pressure off the public system.
This government is very proud of its commitment to medical research. The Prime Minister, when he was health minister, made a significant $15 million contribution to starting the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer, the Flinders cancer centre. The current health minister, in opposition and in government, has been a strong supporter of medical research. I have said before that the previous government tried to rip $400 million from medical research in the 2011 budget. What we see in this budget is that federal government spending on health and medical research through the NHMRC is expected to reach a high of $859 million.
This bill will start the first amount of money going into the Medical Research Future Fund, and it will start from January next year. It will be managed by the future fund board, and what it will do is provide significant investment for the important medical research that is going on in Brisbane, in Parkville, in Western Sydney and in places like SAHMRI and Flinders in South Australia. Medical research has a key role in making our health system sustainable in the future. We have seen in recent announcements the government is committed to investing in innovation, infrastructure and programs which have long-term economic benefit.
The initial funding to the Medical Research Future Fund comes from the savings that we have announced in this budget and also $900 million which was left over from the Health and Hospitals Fund. We have got a strong track record in medical research. Under the previous Howard government we had the Wills review and then, through then health minister Michael Wooldridge, we saw an initial doubling of the amount of money we spent on medical research. We saw over time the spending on medical research through the NHMRC going from $131 million in 1995-96 to $715 million in 2010-11.
When we look at what some of the key stakeholders say about this policy, the McKeon review said:
There is a strong case for HMR investment given the high social and economic returns.
Again, from the McKeon review:
Investment in HMR is affordable and should be a priority for Australian Governments, given the size and nature of returns available.
That really does summarise the issues that are involved in this bill. It is a small savings measure but it will involve the first contribution, after the money that was left over from the Health and Hospitals Fund, into the Medical Research Future Fund, which all of the medical research community in Australia are looking forward to.
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (20:42): I speak in relation to the Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. It gives me the opportunity, as other members have, to talk about health generally and also in relation to the budget and private health insurance specifically. This particular bill before the chamber seeks to pause indexation on income thresholds in the Private Health Insurance Act at 2014-15 rates for a period of three years. These income thresholds determine the tiers for the Medicare levy surcharge and the Australian government rebate on private health insurance. Pausing indexation will see some people, whose incomes were marginally below those income thresholds, move ever so slightly up and find themselves likely to be in a higher income tier as their income increases and find themselves caught accordingly. Some who do not have private health insurance may find themselves liable to pay the Medicare levy surcharge.
According to the budget papers this will save the government $599.3 million over the forward estimates. Unless anyone listening thinks, 'Oh, that's a good idea—we will put that towards Medicare or the universality of the health system and make sure that low- and middle-income earners get access to that sort of help immediately to make sure we tackle our chronic disease rates, obesity, stroke and other serious problems confronting the health and welfare of Australians,' it is not going to be the case. In fact, it is not going there. Like an episode of The Hollowmen, it is going towards the medical research fund. Not that medical research is not a good thing, and Labor had an enviable record when in government—and I will talk about what we did in relation to medical research. But this is a disgraceful attitude taken by this government to not reinvest these savings into the health system.
We support and have always supported sensible, fair and equitable health savings. It is important that we have done so. I have only been in this parliament three terms, but I can recall that some of the most ferocious arguments we have had in this place have been in relation to health issues, particularly private health insurance. I remember our decision in 2012 to means-test the private health insurance rebate in this country, a decision which achieved a sensible saving of about $3 billion. It was flatly rejected by the coalition, who would not have a bar of it. I notice in government they are not too keen to reverse that decision. They have put it on the backburner or somewhere in the fridge. But in opposition, they carried and they carried on. They shrieked class warfare. I remember the then health spokesperson, the member for Dickson, going on and on about it. In March 2012, he accused us of class warfare by attempting to means-test the private health insurance rebate. The member for Bowman, a fellow Queenslander, actually described it in the Hansard on 14 February 2012 as 'a direct attack on Australia' and that the Labor Party 'perennially hates people who have private health insurance'. You could not get more shrill than that.
The Liberal Party are never afraid to overegg the scaremongering. They produced a fact sheet, which I thought was quite amusing, during the campaign which was authorised by the Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane. It predicted nothing less than the collapse of the health insurance industry should the rebate be means-tested. Their fact sheet warned that in the first year of means-testing 175,000 people would drop their insurance and a further 583,000 would downgrade. And they claimed that over five years 1.6 million would drop their coverage and a further 4.3 million would downgrade their coverage. This particular fact sheet rambled on and on, and proposed that Labor was basically declaring war on the health of the country.
If only the Liberal and National candidates could have seen in May this year what the budget was going to do in relation to health issues, I am sure they would not have peddled that fact sheet around the place too often. We have seen the $7 GP co-payment—and we have seen more than that, by the way. We have seen the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association point out that we not only have a GP tax; we have a pathology tax, a diagnostic imaging tax, an MRI tax. It is going to cost people an enormous amount, not just the $7 the minister and the Prime Minister keep talking about. According to the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association, patients will pay $90 up-front for every X-ray, $380 for every CAT scan, up to $160 for every mammogram, $190 for every ultrasound and so on and so forth.
Unless we think that those opposite are really committed to the health and welfare of the country, they have actually made it harder for people to get tested and treated, on this is on top of the cruel cuts in so many areas. Of course, they are trying to make the states and territories pay more and more for the health of Australians, in particular the residents of states and territories, by cost-shifting and by cutting $50 billion from public hospital funding in the years ahead. That is what the budget papers show. I know that they do not want you talking about it, but it is actually in the budget. I wish more and more of those people in the government look at their own budget papers then they would not bemoan the fact that we keep raising the statistics because they are actually in the budget papers.
When we were in government, the then opposition health spokesperson described means-testing of the private health insurance rebate as 'a betrayal of 12 million Australians who could contribute to their own health care'. You do not hear too much about when they are going to bring this back, but they did say before the election on 15 September 2012 that they would bring back non-means-testing arrangements as soon as they could. They gave themselves a fair bit of wriggle room in that promise. They are going to restore the private health insurance rebate, they think, at a cost of billions of dollars to the budget. No-one really believes what they have to say. We see that Medibank Private said in TheSydney Morning Herald on 25 January 2014 that they cannot see that it is going to happen, certainly not in this term or the next terms, that reversal of that decision. Mark Fitzgibbon, the chief executive of NIB, said he 'absolutely' expects the Abbott government to not repeal that reform. These were scare campaigns by the coalition in relation to private health insurance. It was bunkum. It was scaremongering. It was a political scare campaign that they really did not believe in and I do not really believe either.
The insurance industry, as far as I am aware, is not banging down the minister's door to repeal means-testing. The truth is that since Labor introduced means-testing, the number of Australians with some form of health insurance is now higher than ever. Research by the Macquarie Bank shows that Labor's introduction of means-testing of the private health insurance rebate increased the cost of insurance by an average of 43 per cent for the richest 20 per cent of policyholders in the country. We made a sensible, targeted health saving there that saved taxpayers billions of dollars which is in contrast to the attitude taken by the government. They claim that Labor have never supported sensible savings; however, we certainly did when we were in government in relation to that.
Before the election, the coalition said, 'no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST'—that seems to have gone by the wayside—and 'no cuts to the ABC or SBS'. Those words are shaky if not broken—those commitments made by the Prime Minister just before the election. There are cuts of $50 billion from the public health system. In my electorate, the majority of public health services are provided by the West Moreton Health and Hospital Service. The Abbott government's budget cuts would leave my community health service $6.75 billion worse off by 2017-18 than if Labor had been in power. The health service will have to do more with less and that is despite the fact that the demographic predictions in the West Moreton region show that there will be an increase in population of 90 per cent by 2031, despite the serious and systematic health problems identified by West Moreton-Oxley Medicare Local in its most recent comprehensive needs assessment for the region and despite the chaos caused by the Abbott government's abolishment of the Medicare Locals will bring another broken promise. The government does not have the courage to say that these are cuts when in fact they are. Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls does not believe that spin. He knows that Queensland hospitals will be hard hit by the Abbott government's cuts. On 15 May 2014, he told Sky News, referring to Queensland:
You would have to wait longer to get treatment at a hospital because we wouldn't be able to have as many doctors or nurses on hand to treat people, so it might mean longer waiting times for treatment when you turn up and present at a public hospital.
I do not always agree with the Queensland Treasurer but on this occasion I do. So according to the Queensland LNP Treasurer, the Abbott government cuts will mean fewer doctors and nurses in Queensland hospitals and longer waiting times. Sometimes in politics even the LNP get it right. These cuts are on top of the $7 GP tax, the pathology, MRI and diagnostic imaging tax. We have seen a $1.3 billion cut that will push up the costs of many PBS medicines by up to 13 per cent and make unfair changes to the PBS safety net. This is on top of ripping up the National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health, ripping money away from the states and other providers in an effort to combat obesity, smoking and alcohol abuse. Then there was the $229 million cut from the dental Flexible Grants Program, deferring $391 million including $200 million this financial year alone. These cuts go on and on.
In their most recent report, the Institute of Health and Welfare released a report into health expenditure over the 2012-13 year and the reported health expenditure when Labor was in power was only 1.5 per cent higher than in the previous year. Government funding of health expenditure fell by almost one per cent, the first drop in a decade. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare is showing quite clearly that the health system is not facing an unsustainability crisis in terms of wasting public expenditure. In light of that report, the President of the Australian Medical Association, Professor Brian Owler, had a blunt opinion of the current government's confected claims of crisis when he said:
The report's findings really make a mockery of the government's claim that the health spending is out of control. These figures actually show that health spending is certainly not out of control and there is absolutely no need for the government to introduce a GP co-payment.
When faced with facts the government rejects them and it did not take long for the health minister to tell the National Press Club that he did not agree with them. He claimed that:
By any objective analysis of the health system, we are tracking on an unsustainable path.
The facts have gone away from their spin and Brian Owler blew the minister out of the water when he said:
We've been fed a false narrative that spending is out of control. Healthcare spending is very much under control.
In this bill the government are seeking to save a truckload of money but are not putting it where it needs to be because they are not listening to the professionals or to the experts. They do not listen to anyone who is an expert in science or climate science or even the AMA, who are saying what we should do and where health is going in this country. At the heart of the health cuts and the legislation before the chamber is ideology because at the root of these health cuts is an attack on the universality of Medicare and an attack on the health system. It is an attempt to introduce a two-tiered system in this country where, if you are sick, the cash in your wallet is far more than your Medicare card, but what else would you expect from the Liberals? They have never really supported Medicare. They used to call it a rort all the time, like superannuation. They went to election after election after Medicare was introduced attempting to unravel universal health care. They are like their Republican colleagues in the United States.
The saving in this bill, $599.3 million, is pausing indexation in relation to income thresholds. The government should be doing the right thing. It should be using it to improve here and now the situation for vulnerable, sick and ill Australians, but of course they are putting it into research. We are not opposed to research. We put in $3.5 billion in health and medical research when were in government, more than $700 million to build and upgrade health and medical research facilities around the country. In 2012 alone we put $850 million in funding into the National Health and Medical Research Council and allocated 1,300 grants. We are in favour of research; we are just not supportive of the government's tone and measures in relation to health.
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (20:58): Time is short so in the two minutes I have let us get to the heart of what is happening in health policy. Point one is that Labor trashed the budget. They messed it up completely. There were $50 billion when they came in and there were $200 million more of net debt when they left. It is rising all the time and we are paying $35 million in interest every day. That is unsustainable and we will not continue to let that occur. Secondly, a sensible government has to do is take steps to address that very significant debt situation. That is what we are doing across the board through a range of sensible initiatives to rein in the rampant debt that we face.
Importantly, when we act in a sensible and deliberative fashion in budgetary matters, we are able to invest significantly in health care. In financial year 2013-14, the Commonwealth spent $64 billion on various areas of health policy. Under the budget in 2017-18, so four years later, that total expenditure will be almost $79 billion rising—not going down—from $64 billion-$79 billion, which is an annual growth rate of about five per cent. So it is going up by an average growth rate of about five per cent; it is not going down. It is going up by a sensible and prudent amount in the context of a sensible and prudent budget strategy. Those are the facts of health policy. The amendment we are disgusting tonight and no doubt in the future is a part of various important initiatives that we are taking to address health policy.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) (21:00): Order! I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
Petition: Middle East
Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (21:00): What I am to say today will likely not be popular in this place or indeed in the wider community. However, there comes a time when the injustices have so mounted up that plain speaking becomes a duty. This year is the UN International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. However, despite overwhelming support within the international community for a Palestinian state and for an end to the Israeli occupation and settlement building, as well as the blockade of Gaza, there has not been any positive change for Palestinians on the ground. Rather, recent events have left more than 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead and thousands more injured, while more than a million Palestinians—who are a proud, educated and enterprising people—are dependent on food aid and there is a massive damage bill to be picked up again by the international community. Meanwhile settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem continues apace, each build putting a further nail in the coffin of the two-state solution.
We know that violence is not the solution. We affirm that the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel are an illegal response to Israel's actions. But it does beg the question: what then is the alternative to the vicious cycle of bloodshed we have witnessed in recent months? What is a legal and justified response to actions by Israel that the international community agrees are illegal? In my view, non-violent means of protest are and must be seen as legitimate. It is notable that both Israel and the US approve of boycotts and sanctions against other states such as Iran and Brunei, so why is it objectionable to boycott a state that is, among other things, committing repeated, grave violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention as Israel does with its illegal settlements?
I now present a petition delivered to me by University of Wollongong academic and former Israel soldier, Dr Marcelo Svirsky, following his completion of a 10-day walk over 300 kilometres from Sydney to Canberra to draw the attention of the House to the plight of the Palestinian people and requesting the government to honour its obligations under international law.
The petition read as follows—
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of citizens and residents of Australia draws to the attention of the House the critical predicament of the Palestinian People in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza under Israeli occupation since 1967 and of the Palestinian citizens of Israel suffering racial discrimination since 1948.
Notwithstanding UN resolutions condemning Israel's policies as illegal, Israel continues violating international law and human rights, expanding its colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, imposing a siege on Gaza, and persisting in apartheid and oppressive actions, policies and legislation towards the Palestinian people under its control.
As a response to the failure of all forms of diplomacy to change Israel's policies, in 2005 the Palestinian Civil Society called upon the world to impose on Israel initiatives of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) until Israel meets its obligation to end all forms of occupation; dismantles the illegal 'Separation Wall' in the West Bank; ceases the siege on Gaza; implements full equality for its Palestinian citizens; and honours the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.
WE THEREFORE ASK THE HOUSE to instruct the Australian Government to fully and consistently honour its obligations under international law by excluding relations, through boycott, divestment and sanctions, with states, institutions and companies - Australian, Israeli or other - that are involved in the perpetuation of apartheid and discriminatory Israeli policies including the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
from 701 citizens
Petition received.
Ms PARKE: The petition asks the government to exclude relations through boycott, divestment and sanctions with states, institutions and companies that are involved in the perpetuation of discriminatory Israeli policies, including the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
The BDS campaign has received an enormous amount of negative press in Australia, much of which is undeserved. I am not seeking to validate all of the actions that have occurred in the name of BDS, because it can mean different things to different people. However, I do wish to dispel some of the misunderstandings around the official BDS campaign, including that its supporters are anti-Semitic and intent on the destruction of Israel. That is not the case; it is not anti-Semitic to protest injustice. And as noted by Peter Slezak writing in New Matilda:
… BDS is directed against many non-Jewish, non-Israeli companies such as Veolia, G4S and Caterpillar, which are profiting from the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
The US organisation Jewish Voice for Peace has observed that 'BDS is a viable democratic and non-violent response to the horrific policies of the state of Israel against Palestinians'.
Richard Falk, Professor of International Law at Princeton and a former UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories, has said that the 'BDS movement provides a hopeful way of writing the future history of Palestine in the legal and moral language of rights, rather than the bloody deeds of warfare'. Nobel Peace Prize and Sydney Peace Prize recipient Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said:
If we had not struggled so hard in the anti apartheid movement, Nelson Mandela would have died in jail. The Boycott Divestment Sanctions Movement is as important as the anti apartheid struggle. I urge you all to support it.
In July this year 17 European Union countries warned their citizens against engagement in business deals or investing in the illegal Israeli settlements or with bodies connected to them in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The European warnings described the settlements as 'illegal under international law', warning that 'individuals or companies who engage in any economic deals with them could face legal and financial risks and harm their image'.
As said by Philip Gordon, the White House coordinator for the Middle East, in early July:
How will [Israel] have peace if it is unwilling to delineate a border, end the occupations and allow for Palestinian sovereignty, security, and dignity?
… it cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely. Doing so is not only wrong but a recipe for resentment and recurring instability.
As I have said on other occasions, the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinians is a source of distress and frustration for millions of people around the world, especially people from Muslim and Arab countries, and it is a powerful recruitment tool for extremist groups. If we are genuinely concerned about national and global security as well as international justice, we, along with other nations, including the US, should be insisting that Israel do its part to lay the groundwork for peace by, among other things, ending its illegal occupation, settlement construction and the Gaza blockade. Until this happens, BDS is a perfectly acceptable form of protest and I congratulate Dr Marcelo Svirsky for his courageous walk and his brave stand.
East West Link
Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (21:05): I rise this evening to highlight the importance to my electorate of the recent signing of contracts between the Linking Melbourne Authority and the East West Connect consortium to build and maintain stage 1 of the East West Link. As many in this place will know, stage 1 of the East West Link involves a 6.6-kilometre freeway standard road, predominantly via two twin tunnels, connecting the Eastern Freeway at Hoddle Street with CityLink. I am very pleased to have been able to secure $1.5 billion in funding from the Commonwealth government for this city-changing, congestion-busting project. In addition, the Commonwealth will contribute an additional $1.5 billion as part of stage 2 of the project in the future.
These two key investments from the Commonwealth government form part of our economic action strategy, as announced in the budget, and build on our commitment during the election to build the roads of the 21st century. The East West Link understandably enjoys much enthusiasm in the Deakin electorate, as well as the eastern suburbs more broadly, as it will end the crippling congestion on the Eastern Freeway, in particular at Hoddle Street and Alexandra Parade, where the Eastern Freeway comes to an abrupt stop and is then funnelled on to already congested local roads.
Let us remember the people protesting against the East West Link are the same people who protested against the Eastern Freeway. And as I say to my residents in Deakin: could you imagine living in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne without the Eastern Freeway? Of course not. This link will also provide a direct connection to the airport from the Eastern Freeway. These outcomes are designed to ease traffic congestion, improve productivity and ultimately will mean Deakin families can spend more time together, rather than sitting in pointless traffic.
Most importantly, I welcome the news that this project will see more than 6,000 local jobs created during the construction phase of the project, providing a much needed boost for the Victorian economy. This is the project that will give the Victorian economy a shot in the arm. However, there is a threat to these important opportunities for Victoria and that is the election of a state Labor government next month.
Daniel Andrews, or Dan Andrews, or Andrew Daniels—whatever he goes by these days—for reasons only known to him has stated that he will tear up the contracts with East West Connect, risking our state's reputation and exposing Victorian taxpayers to many millions of dollars of contractual penalties. The Labor Party does have form on this project though. Before the last election, the federal Labor Party and former member for Deakin abandoned the people of Deakin, including those in Ringwood, Vermont, Nunawading, Mitcham, Heathmont and Croydon—and, of course, all other parts of Melbourne's east—by opting to put thousands of jobs at risk and condemning commuters to congestion and gridlock for decades to come simply to secure support with their inner-city Green constituency. Now we see state Labor following in those lamentable footsteps.
In Deakin, the community have welcomed the comments from the President of the Ringwood Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Peter Milford, who has publicly said, 'Now is the ideal time to build the East West Link.' But the economic recklessness of Labor in their decision is really in stark contrast to previous positions they have had in respect of the East West Link project. It is important to remind the Labor Party that it was a review first commissioned by the former state Labor government in 2008 that spawned the recommendation of the East West Link. That was through the Eddington review. The Labor Party are now walking away from a review that they commissioned in government that recommended the East West Link as being the most important infrastructure project for Victorians and, I can say, the most important infrastructure project for those people living in the Deakin electorate and in the east of Melbourne more broadly.
But these developments—the signing of the contracts by the Napthine government and the threat to tear them up by the Andrews opposition—shows once and for all that, when it comes to providing infrastructure and business confidence for Victorians, only a coalition government, be it state or federal, can be trusted to deliver the East West Link for residents and all Victorians.
Taxation
Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (21:10): Government is about priorities, and this government it is a study in contrasts. While they are cracking down on jobless young Aussies, they are letting some big companies do their own audits. While they are cutting foreign aid that provides vaccines to some of the world's poorest kids, they are giving a $1.1 billion tax break to some of the world's richest multinationals. While they are raising superannuation taxes on millions of low-paid Australians who earn less than $37,000 a year, they found money in the budget for a new measure to increase the non-concessional superannuation cap—a measure that only benefits those that put more than $150,000 a year into superannuation.
The Abbott government is cutting compliance in the Tax Office, which will leave us with less revenue because, according to evidence given to a committee in this place, 'Every dollar spent on compliance raises up to six dollars in additional revenue.' The Abbott government says they do not have money for programs like Youth Connections, building multicultural communities, Indigenous legal services and a wage indexed pension, yet they can find over $1 billion to fund debt shifting in offshore banking units for multinationals.
Recently in parliament, a number of my colleagues came together for the launch of a new report—Who pays for our common wealth? Tax practices of the ASX 200—part funded by United Voice. I would like to thank Terri Butler, the member for Griffith; Sharon Claydon, the member for Newcastle; Andrew Giles, the member for Scullin; Tony Zappia, the member for Makin; Lisa Chesters, the minister Bendigo; and Senators Bullock, O'Neill, Singh and Lines for joining us for the launch of this important report. Mark Zirnsak, the key author, David O'Byrne from United Voice and Anthony Carlson from United Voice spoke about their perspective on this vital issue of multinational profit shifting. It is an issue which is now being further investigated by Senator Dastyari, whose economics committee is conducting an inquiry into corporate tax avoidance and has kicked off by asking 40 ASX listed companies to explain the taxes they pay.
Firms have expressed some concern about the public information available on the tax that is paid. I can understand this concern. We should, as the old saying goes, have our own opinions but not our own facts. But, for that debate to be grounded in facts, it is vital that the coalition commits to tax transparency and commits to the measures that Labor put in place to see firms with a taxable income of over $100 million dollars report their taxable income, total income and tax paid. But we had the Assistant Treasurer, Senator Sinodinos, as he then was, in January suggesting that the government might not proceed with those transparency measures, which would be deeply concerning for those of us on this side of the House and I think ought to be of concern to every Australian who wants an evidence based discussion over multinational profit shifting.
The government talks a good talk about multinational profit shifting, but all its measures have decreased the revenue available to government. They have handed $1.1 billion back to big global firms and they pushed out the starting date for Australia's implementation of the common reporting standard for financial account information. Given that tax commissioner Chris Jordan has estimated that bilateral information exchanges have added $480 million to tax collections in the past year alone, putting off the measure means letting millions more tax dollars go offshore. As the government puts new proposals on the table, they should be judged not by the talk but by the additional revenue. If the government has no new revenue to bank from their announcements that they make then that means no new revenue and zero new action.
This is a fundamental issue of fairness. It is an issue that concerns not just unions and Labor members but small businesses, mums and dads who know that, when multinationals do not pay their share, local corner store hairdressers and suburban plumbers have to pay more, who recognise that Glen the carpenter cannot pursue the same strategies that Glencore the miner can pursue and who recognise that we need a fair tax system that acts in the interests of all Australians.
Mallee Electorate: Agriculture
Mr BROAD (Mallee) (21:15): It is my duty to update the parliament about the challenging seasonal conditions that are affecting parts of my electorate. My electorate of Mallee is 74,000 square kilometres and is one-third of the state of Victoria. In an average year we contribute $5.3 billion to the Australian economy. It would be fair to say that the people who work in my electorate are certainly not leaners—they are real lifters. They are hard working and they farm in some of the harshest environments. Those communities have built people of character in those difficult environments.
We have had our good years and our bad years, but this year unfortunately the season that had so much potential did not materialise to realise all that potential. I have a level of responsibility to update the Australian parliament. The seasonal conditions around Charlton, Whycheproof, Birchip, Donald, Quambatook, Nullawil, Watchem and Culgoa are very tough indeed. When farmers are not going to be able to realise a good harvest the impacts are not felt by the farmers alone; they are also felt by the rural communities—by the local seed grader, the agronomist, the shopkeepers, the local manufacturers, the farm employees and the truck drivers. I have a strong belief that when the land is hurting the people involved in land management hurt as well. It is almost spiritual.
People have raised with me that they are having difficulties filling in forms for farm household support payments. The forms are too long. Often the forms are online and time out before people have a chance to fill them in. We need to make that more streamlined. We also need to look at making sure that those involved in the agribusiness sector and service industries to agriculture are also eligible. This by no means is a handout to an industry that is not competitive and an industry that has no future. In fact, it is actually recognition that these communities contribute so much and that we need to stand by them if and when they have difficult times.
I think we need better investment in weather forecasting. Our farmers take up great technology and when we have good forecasting they use that information. We need a weather radar in the Wimmera. We have one in Mildura and one in Mt Gambier, but have we have a complete void. Real-time weather is not available. We need that technology.
A few moments ago I posted on Facebook that I was going to be talking about rural communities in the federal parliament. I wondered what response I would get. In less than two hours I have had 56 responses on my Facebook page. They keep saying, 'Can you please speak up about rural disadvantage: about not being able to make a mobile phone call and about the additional costs of sending our students to university?' They cannot get on a tram to go to university where they live or where I live. They have only one option and that is to travel and to live away from home. We need to be aware of that. We also need to reconfigure and encourage our young country kids to get higher education and get skills and to come back to our regional towns and use their skills and diversify our regional economies.
I am a strong believer that regional Australia is a great place to live. When you look at the whole wealth of Australia, when regional Australia is strong the whole country is strong. I take my responsibility of serving a rural electorate very seriously. I believe our best years are before us. Unfortunately, this season has not turned out to be the best one for us this year. I am updating the Australian parliament on the 2014 growing season and the challenges farmers and rural communities are facing at this time. It has been a disappointing season, but I am an optimist. I think it needs to be reported that the parliament will stand by these rural communities through the very difficult season that is before us and the financial challenges they will have over the coming months.
Abbott Government
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (21:19): I rise tonight to make a statement about Australia's young people, particularly the many thousands of young people I represent as the member for Hotham. I believe that the challenges facing Australia's young people are more significant than they have been for many generations. As members of this parliament we enjoyed basic citizenship rights as young people—good education, reasonable housing, job opportunities, affordable health care and support while we were studying and through the tough times that probably all of us in this House experienced. But in today's Australia many young people say the basic tenets of citizenship feel very remote and quite unattainable.
Youth unemployment is at terrifying levels—more than 20 per cent in many parts of the country. One in three Australians who are unemployed at the moment are aged between 15 and 24. We know that disengagement, especially for lower income young people, is at scary levels—40 per cent of young people in low-SES communities are not in full-time employment. Many young people who do work want more hours but are not able to get them or are stuck in insecure casual work and are living the precarious existence that comes with that. Rent in our major cities is out of control and buying a house is a pipedream for many of these young people.
This parliament must confront the very difficult fact that we may be looking at the first generation of Australians who will be poorer than their parents. What has the government done for these young Australians? Instead of providing additional support, they have made young people the focus of their cruel first budget. There are changes to force young people to wait six months to get Newstart—without income for six months—and changes that raise the qualifying age for Newstart from 22 to 25, so unemployed young people will have to live on the lesser amount of youth allowance, which for the House's information leaves after rent somewhere around $10 a day for all other expenses. Youth Connections has been cut. The government is paving a path for universities to charge $100,000 for degrees in science and nursing. And on climate change the government is kicking the can down the road—removing a price on carbon so that the next generation coming up behind us will be the ones who have to take tough action. We know that climate action will cost more the longer we leave it, but we are leaving these young Australians to foot the bill.
I wanted to understand—straight from the young people in my electorate—what they felt about life in Australia today. So I surveyed them recently and I wanted to report my findings to the House. These young Australians are very angry and they have a right to be. Eighty-three per cent said that they disagreed with the Abbott government forcing under-30s to wait six months to get Newstart. One young person said simply, 'With no income, how do you suppose we survive?' Young people believed they would need to stay at home for longer and that that would put pressure on their families. As one young person said, 'My parents already struggle enough to keep up with payments. Giving them more burden will just create more stress and debt.' Sixty-seven per cent said they disagreed with raising the age for Newstart and students were overwhelmingly concerned about being a burden on their families as a result of the proposed changes to university funding. Many said that, as a result of the changes, they would not study.
As well as undertaking the youth survey, I recently had the pleasure of meeting 20 bright young women to talk about their policy ideas for Australia. It is to our great shame that the major concern of these delightful, well-educated and motivated young women was their very deeply held fear that they might never be able to get into secure work. I have never come across as much anxiety in a group of young people as I felt in that roomful of the brightest young people our nation has to offer. Are they full of optimism and a sense of possibility? No, they are worried about never getting out of insecure work, never paying off their university fees and never being able to afford a house.
As some of our young people have said, work conditions are lousy and to expect people to live in that type of insecurity with no backstop only shows the immense gap between the people making the laws and those affected by them. Another comment—perhaps not quite as eloquently put, but very much in the voice of a young person—was:
What type of drugs do you think Tony Abbott and his cabinet took before coming out with Budget 2014?'
I will finish with some sage advice from a young person in my electorate:
There seems to be a tendency for those in parliament to do things which benefit them, without thinking about the implications of their actions for the younger generation. Whenever possible, please consider how future generations will deal with decisions that are made now.
This government is treating our young people as if they are a burden to the country, as if they are undeserving, as if they have done something wrong.
This is an unprecedented attack on the young people of our country. They are not a burden; they are our greatest asset. I urge other members to take notice of what this future generation of young Australians are saying. They are deeply concerned for their future and the direction the government is taking this country. (Time expired)
Forrest Electorate: Vue Group
Ms MARINO (Forrest—Government Whip) (21:25): The Vue Group is a creative studio based in Bunbury, which is in my electorate of Forrest in the south-west of Western Australia. Vue Group has recently become a finalist in the 2014 Western Australian Industry and Export Awards in the categories of small business export, creative industries export and regional exporter. It is set to become WA's biggest film company, looking to access the demand for animation and CGI films in China.
Recently the company announced a deal with Chinese animation giant Shanghai Hippo to produce up to four films a year—in Bunbury, in my electorate. It is expected that this will grow, as there are ongoing discussions within the Australia-China joint venture, including about the establishment of a specialist animation training facility for hundreds of students, both domestic and international. The first films from the partnership, Perfect Friends and Kung Fu Star, will be released in Australia early next year. Vue contributed VFX animation to the feature and produced the English language version. The companies have five more animation and live action films in development. Two of these will be Shanghai Hippo's most expensive productions ever created. I hope that we will see Bunbury premieres for these films. The development of this high-tech industry in Bunbury will employ more than 200 people locally for their biggest projects and will bring many millions of dollars to the local economy.
Vue Group has embraced both the changes brought to filmmaking through digital innovation and the strength of co-productions with quality partners who recognize Vue's innovation, their experience and the depth of Vue Group's creative teams. Whilst their key projects focus on animation and live action drama, they have other projects, including cinema design, multiplatform broadcast, public exhibition, transmedia and visual effects. I would like to congratulate managing director Alan Lindsay on the success of Vue Group, and Shanghai Hippo company founder Kerr Xu for his support of this new local initiative. Mr Xu is to be congratulated for his vision and drive, and I look forward to seeing what he can achieve with Vue Group in Bunbury. I am fully supportive of this joint venture and I urge others to join in supporting it wherever they can. I know the City of Bunbury will do so and that the WA state government will do exactly the same.
I encourage people to have a look at Vue's website to see what they can do. They are an amazing group. They created a virtual dolphinarium—'an immersive experience'—on a seven-metre diameter, 360-degree screen for the Dolphin Research Centre in Bunbury. This sort of activity in the south-west means that our area is set to become the creative and cultural hub of the state of Western Australia, combining with key events like Cinefest Oz in promoting the creative talent of the region. There is a south-west strategy for growth in the creative industries. There has been growth of 3.6 per cent per annum in this sector—film, TV, radio, publishing, architecture, design, the visual arts, music and the performing arts. I know that Vue Group and Shanghai Hippo are due to sign off on their new joint venture in coming weeks.
Again, I congratulate Alan Lindsay and his team at Vue Group. I wish them every success in the Western Australian Industry and Export Awards and for their future in animation and digital production. This is an example of a small business, a family company, that has invested and taken a risk. Clearly they are very good at what they do. To see a company like this operating in a small community—okay, Bunbury is a city—and to see this type of production and capacity in a regional area just shows you what the local people are capable of. I congratulate them, their employees and the whole team at Vue Group. I wish them every success in their future endeavours.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! It being 9.30 pm, the debate is interrupted.
House adjourned at 21:30
NOTICES
The following notices were given:
Mr McCormack: to move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Project AIR7000 Phase 2B Maritime Patrol Aircraft Replacement Project.
Mr McCormack: to move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Project AIR9000 Phase 7 Helicopter Aircrew Training System (HATS) Facilities Project.
Mr Pyne: to move:
That:
(1) the House invite the Right Honourable David Cameron MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to attend and address the House on Friday, 14 November 2014, at 11.10am;
(2) unless otherwise ordered, at the sitting of the House on Friday, 14 November 2014:
(a) the proceedings shall be welcoming remarks by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and an address by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, after which the sitting of the House automatically shall be adjourned; and
(b) the provisions of standing order 257(c) shall apply to the area of Members' seats as well as the galleries;
(3) a message be sent to the Senate inviting Senators to attend the House as guests for the welcoming remarks by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and address by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; and
(4) any variation to this arrangement be made only by an action by the Speaker.
Mr Pyne: to move:
That:
(1) the House invite His Excellency Mr Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China, to attend and address the House on Monday, 17 November 2014, at 3.35pm;
(2) unless otherwise ordered, at the sitting of the House on Monday, 17 November 2014:
(a) the proceedings shall be welcoming remarks by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and an address by the President of the People's Republic of China, after which the sitting of the House automatically shall be adjourned; and
(b) the provisions of standing order 257(c) shall apply to the area of Members' seats as well as the galleries;
(3) a message be sent to the Senate inviting Senators to attend the House as guests for the welcoming remarks by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and address by the President of the People's Republic of China; and
(4) any variation to this arrangement be made only by an action by the Speaker.
Mr Pyne: to move:
That:
(1) the House invite the Honourable Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of the Republic of India, to attend and address the House on Tuesday, 18 November 2014, at 10.15am;
(2) unless otherwise ordered, at the sitting of the House on Tuesday, 18 November 2014:
(a) the proceedings shall be welcoming remarks by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and an address by the Prime Minister of the Republic of India, after which the sitting of the House automatically shall be adjourned; and
(b) the provisions of standing order 257(c) shall apply to the area of Members' seats as well as the galleries;
(3) a message be sent to the Senate inviting Senators to attend the House as guests for the welcoming remarks by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and address by the Prime Minister of the Republic of India; and
(4) any variation to this arrangement be made only by an action by the Speaker.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. B Whiteley ) took the chair at 10:30.
CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
Bendigo Electorate: Bendigo Foodshare
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (10:30): This week I rise to recognise Bendigo Foodshare. Bendigo Foodshare is essentially our wholesaler for food relief in our region. It takes donations from a number of producers in the region as well as having food arrive on a daily basis from Foodbank Victoria. It provides at least 30 schools and 20 agencies with donated food for food relief. Unfortunately, they are becoming busier and busier. Recently was Anti-Poverty Week, and I took the time to go out and meet with Bendigo Foodshare to hear the stories from the volunteers and to meet with some of the agencies who rely on Bendigo Foodshare.
Anti-Poverty Week recognises that people within all of our communities need our help, and if we come together we can help make their lives a little bit better. It is the role of everybody to help play a role in reducing poverty. Bendigo Foodshare is an example of this in my electorate. Bendigo Foodshare is a community not-for-profit organisation with a local board and staffed by volunteers. They have only one, part-time paid staff member who ensures the organisation keeps going. The rest is up to the volunteers. They have created links with approximately 30 retailers and food producers in the region, including KR Castlemaine, who produce bacon, and Hazeldene's and PepperGreen Farm. These are some of the many producers who donate excess product to the organisation—individual organisations and businesses coming together to understand that poverty does exist locally and that we all need to play our part in ensuring that we meet this challenge.
Recently Bendigo Foodshare launched an appeal and on their first day raised $36,000. They, like many not-for-profit organisations, require funding to ensure that they continue to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in our community. Bendigo is rallying to ensure that Foodshare does continue to operate; however, they need to raise $100,000 by June next year or wind back operations. Many of the volunteers are concerned about what that would mean for our local agencies. Unfortunately, right now demand for their services continues to increase. But I am sure the board chair, Cathy Steele, and the board members will continue to do a fantastic job and meet this challenge.
Victorian Certificate of Education
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) (10:33): Today I rise to wish Gippsland VCE students all the best as they approach their exams. More than 43,000 students across Victoria, including my own Daughter, Morgan, will sit their English exams this Wednesday. This will be followed by a busy three weeks of further exams across the remaining subjects. While exam time is important for the students, they should not feel defined by their VCE results. Students who go on to get the ATAR score they desire I congratulate in advance for their hard work and commitment. For those who miss out on their preferred ATAR score there are many different pathways available to help them secure their dreams.
I do not regard university study as the be all and end all by any stretch and I have many students in my electorate who go on to fulfil very successful careers in trades or other industries, but I am worried by the persistently low participation rate among regional students compared to metropolitan students when it comes to tertiary studies. There are significant economic barriers for regional students, particularly those who are forced to move many hours away from home to access the course that meets their needs and with the unfinished business of student income support, or youth allowance as it is commonly called. It is unfinished business because Labor botched its reforms while in government. The Labor Party tinkered around the edges of student income support when what was required was a wholesale change to the system.
As students prepare nervously for their exams and then wait for their results, spare a thought also for their mums and their dads. Many are trying to work out right now how they will possibly manage to juggle their family finances to meet the living-away-from-home costs that they will incur. These are costs that metropolitan students do not incur. On average it costs a regional family $15,000 to $20,000 more per year to help their sons and daughters meet these costs.
The Nationals have been joined in recent years by other regional MPs from both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party in expressing concerns about the current system. I urge all members who are interested in this issue to continue to push for reform in this place. We need to do more to address the inequity in terms of regional students. The Nationals' own policy documents that were released in the lead-up to the last election—and I stress that the Nationals policy direction is prepared in consultation with our grassroots members—call on the government to address the real cost of living away from home for education. We proposed at that time a new and targeted rural and regional program to assist regional students who cannot stay at home with their parents while they pursue extra study.
I will be continuing to work hard to gather support for this position amongst members, particularly those members from regional communities. If successful in our efforts, the Nationals would like to see implemented our tertiary access allowance, which would apply to students for whom public transport is not reasonably available within 90 minutes of their place of study. They would then be entitled to a new allowance which would replace the current relocation allowance and in most instances the independent youth allowance. We believe that as a matter of fairness and equity it should not be regarded as a welfare measure. The tertiary access allowance in this regard would not be means tested, if the Nationals policy direction, as supported by our grassroots members, were implemented. We should also remove the $150,000 parental income test for regional students applying for the independent youth allowance.
Northern Territory: Education
Mr SNOWDON (Lingiari) (10:36): I congratulate the previous member for his contribution. I concur with much of what he said—I do not agree with all of it. I want to wish Morgan and all her mates all the best as they sit the horrific process of final year-12 exams this week.
I also want to talk about education, in particular the process by which the Northern Territory government is proposing to give schools greater autonomy in managing their own budgets through global budgeting and through setting up a system of independent government schools. I say this because I am most concerned about the impact this will have on the school community and most particularly on people who live in communities which are disadvantaged and where inequalities are already in evidence.
There is no compelling evidence that the devolution model being proposed will lead to better school performance. Students in New South Wales, which has Australia's most centralised staffing system, achieved an average at about the level of students in Victoria, with the most devolved system. The evaluation of Western Australia's independent public schools pointed to a feel-good factor amongst schools but no evidence of improved performance overall. It is a similar story overseas.
There is a concern about widening the achievement gap. One of the impacts of greater autonomy is that it tends to further exacerbate inequalities within the education system as more advantaged schools find it easier to attract both more resources in monetary terms and more capable teachers and students.
There is also the issue of fiscal squeezing. In the Northern Territory the CLP has already carried out major funding cuts at a macro level, pulling out over four years $250 million from the education system. Greater school autonomy takes this to a micro phase by forcing schools to be more efficient in the use of their resources, not necessarily better in their use of the resources.
I am most concerned about this in the context of Aboriginal communities and in particular small schools. I visited a small school recently—a single-teacher school. There are 30 students in the school—there is one teacher—with an age range from four to 12. There is no education going on in that school, clearly. Yet now the school is being told that potentially it will have to manage its own global budget. The principal is already the cleaner, the driver and the schoolteacher. Now this person and people in small schools like it—single-teacher and two- and three-teacher schools—will be involved in this insidious process.
We are not getting better education outcomes. We know what the Northern Territory government have been doing in these schools. In particular, they are taking away resources. When they take away resources they increase the potential for disadvantage and for poor educational outcomes. This is in complete contrast to what the federal Abbott government are saying they want to achieve out of education and what the CLP itself is saying it wants to achieve out of education. It will do neither.
Durack Electorate: Yara Pilbara
Ms PRICE (Durack) (10:39): The electorate of Durack is characterised by enormous resource development projects, agriculture and farming, and untapped tourism potential. Unashamedly, I am working hard to promote Durack within the parliament for its significant contribution to the Australian economy and for its even greater potential. We need the support of the nation and the parliament if Durack is to continue to make a disproportionately large contribution to national growth and to GDP.
Recently, with the Minister for Trade and Investment, Andrew Robb, and the CEO of the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA, Reg Howard-Smith, I embarked upon a journey to see up close some of the developments in the Pilbara. Risk, perseverance, enormous investment, ingenuity and a long-term view characterise project development in the Pilbara. It is easy, though, to get lost amongst the resource giants.
One company that is flying under the radar is a global ammonia production facility. Yara Pilbara, the operator, is located on the Burrup Peninsula, near Karratha, in the north-west. It adds value, as it is a downstream processor of gas with an annual capability of around 850,000 metric tonnes of liquid ammonia. This is shipped out of the nearby port of Dampier to markets in Asia. Thanks to construction manager David Hegarty for making us welcome on our recent visit.
With a plan to move further downstream, Yara has formed a joint venture with Orica and Apache Energy to develop an ammonium nitrate plant which will support the nearby mining industry. The existing ammonia facility will provide the feedstock for production. When mixed with fuel oil, it can be used as an explosive by the miners. With nearly 90 per cent of the construction completed, the complex is the world's first to use a modular design-and-construction approach. It is a world-scale facility with a planned capacity of 330,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate and a construction budget of around $800 million. The first production for the new plant is scheduled for around the second half of 2015. During the construction phase, it has created 500 jobs. Once completed, there will be full-time employment for around 65 people to operate the plant. The company has a $50,000 million housing project underway in Karratha. All the operational staff, with their families, will live locally. That means no FIFO, which of course I welcome.
Who sits behind this wonderful new development, with its headquarters in Norway? Yara Pilbara is a division of Yara International, the largest global producer of ammonium nitrate and complex fertiliser. Yara International has operations and offices in 50 countries. Investment of almost $1 billion in this new facility hardly cracks a mention, but I am very pleased to bring it to the attention of the House today.
Bell, Mr Jean-Paul
Muxlow, Ms Saraya
Redmond, Mr Lorcan
Newcastle Electorate: Sport
Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (10:42): I rise today to recognise a number of constituents and sporting clubs from my electorate of Newcastle. They have excelled on the local, state and national stages. Last week I alerted the House to one of Newcastle's nominees for the 2015 New South Wales Australian of the Year awards, Associate Professor Dr Kelvin Kong. Today I would like to acknowledge one more.
Renowned actor, comedian and humour therapist John-Paul Bell has been named as a finalist for the 2015 New South Wales Senior Australian of the Year award. John-Paul has been described as one of Australia's great 'humour-manitarians' and has touched the hearts of the sick and frail for more than 45 years. In 1996, he created the Humour Foundation and the Clown Doctor Program to introduce humour therapy to children's hospitals in Australia. He has also published a book entitled Laughter is the Best Medicine and is well known for taking his physical comedy to war-torn countries like Afghanistan and East Timor. Jean-Paul's great passions are health and education. In 2011, he co-founded with Dr Maggie Haertsch the Arts Health Institute, a Newcastle based national not-for-profit organisation which helps elderly people, particularly those with dementia, to laugh. Jean-Paul would be a very worthy recipient of the state and national Australia Day awards.
I would also like to recognise two outstanding students from St Philip's Christian College, at Waratah. Fourteen-year-old Saraya Muxlow was recently awarded a runner-up prize in the junior secondary section of Australia's oldest and best-known poetry competition for schoolchildren, the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards. Saraya received recognition for her poem Underage Marriages, which highlighted the plight of child brides. It is an astonishing poem, and it is very worthy of this prestigious award.
St Philip's is also home to Australia's most impressive young athlete, Lorcan Redmond. Despite focusing his training on triathlons—successfully, I might add, as a junior national champion—Lorcan recently broke two longstanding long-distance-running records at the New South Wales All Schools Athletics Championships. He broke the 14-year-old-boys 1,500-metre record that had stood for 30 years and obliterated the 3,000-metre record that had stood for 23 years by nearly seven seconds.
Finally I would like to recognise the award winners from the Northern New South Wales Football Federation. I had the pleasure of attending their awards night earlier this month and would like to recognise all volunteers, players and officials who received awards on the night. In particular I would like to highlight the winner of the Rookie Referee of the Year Award, Megan Holgate. I would like to also congratulate for their successful seasons the following local football clubs: Hamilton Olympic, New Lambton Eagles, Broadmeadow Magic, Mayfield United Senior, Adamstown Rosebud, Merewether United and Lambton Jaffas. I pay tribute to these outstanding Novocastrians and wish them all the very best in their future endeavours.
Child Labour
Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) (10:45): I recently met with an impressive delegation of students from Camberwell Girls Grammar School and Monash University. They were members of VGen, the youth branch of World Vision. Passionate about issues of social justice, these students raised with me the #FreeTo campaign and in particular the tragic issue of child labour.
The International Labour Organization has estimated that, of the 265 million children who were in employment in 2012, 168 million were working in conditions that can be characterised as child labour. In every corner of the world from Asia to the Middle East, Eastern Europe to the Caribbean and Latin America to sub-Saharan Africa the cruel practice of child labour can be found. Factories, mines and cocoa farms are all places where young children are sent against their will to work long hours at little or no pay and at great cost to their physical and mental wellbeing.
Having just had our first child, our beautiful baby girl, Gemma, I could not think of anything worse than to subject the innocence of youth to the depravity and abuse of child labour. We are representatives in this parliament, and on both sides of the House we have an obligation to do all that we can, working with our international partners, to prevent such human suffering. In the words of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
Millions of children are victims of violence and exploitation … That is why children should always have the first claim on our attention and resources ... We know what to do, and … how to do it. The means are at hand, it is up to us to seize the opportunity and build a world that is fit for children.
He is so right, and that is why Australia is at the forefront of international efforts.
Just the other week at a meeting of the G20 labour and employment ministers, forced and child labour was discussed and strong words were included in the ministerial declaration. Earlier this year Australia joined with other nations in adopting a new International Labour Organization protocol to help eliminate forced labour in all its pernicious forms.
With 44 per cent of child labourers between five and 11 years of age, the world cannot sit still. I am thankful that VGen continue to be a strong advocate for change, and I look forward to working with them and the young and impressive delegation of Camberwell Girls Grammar School students and Monash University students to see what we can do to help rid the world of this scourge of child labour.
Bully Zero Australia Foundation
Mr MITCHELL (McEwen—Second Deputy Speaker) (10:48): I am speaking today about a very important organisation, the Bully Zero Australia Foundation, and the great work it does across this nation. The foundation's mission is to provide genuine and enduring care for bullying victims and their families. The foundation raises awareness of bullying and its devastating consequences in schools, workplaces and the wider community. The Bully Zero Australia Foundation started to take shape after Mr Oscar Yildiz was strongly moved upon hearing about the death of a young man, Allem Halkic, a 17-year-old, back in 2009. Allem was the victim of cyberbullying.
At the official launch in March 2013 by Prime Minister Julia Gillard of the Bully Zero Australia Foundation, I heard the grief in the voices of Allem's mum and dad, Ali and Dina Halkic, who were suffering through the loss of their child. Of course, the loss of a child is a loss no parents ever want to face. Ali said: 'If only I understood the impact of social media. I thought my son was safe in his bedroom. I was wrong, and I paid the ultimate price and lost Allem to cyberbullying.' Ali and Dina's pain reminded us to be more vigilant about what our kids are doing.
Since that time, the foundation has been extremely active in raising awareness and delivering resources, working towards a zero-tolerance culture of bullying in Australia. Bullying is becoming an increasingly dangerous aspect in our communities, especially with social media becoming a mainstay in our lives. The power of one cannot be underestimated, and it should be the difference between how the victims perceive the situation and the reality of manageable behaviour. Be an upstander not a bystander. The largest group in a bullying situation is the bystander, but most people look on and do nothing. If you see it, hear it, then stop it!
I have worked with the Bully Zero Australia Foundation since its inception, and recently attended the foundation's Make Bullying Disappear charity ball. I congratulate Julia Schembri, the board and the organisation for such a sensational night. To Oscar: I love your passion and dedication, your never-ending drive and energy to make Bully Zero Australia Foundation the success it is today. The event was hugely successful with some 1,200 attendees, including politicians, business and community leaders. All shared a vision to end bullying, raising some $273,000.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to the foundation for giving me the honour of becoming an ambassador for this important and remarkable organisation. I join Bully Zero ambassadors including Courtney Thorpe, Stephen Kernahan, Laetisha Scanlan and of course Isobelle Brosnahan, the youngest Bully ambassador. I make the commitment to consistently work hard for Bully Zero Foundation Australia, ensuring their mission to reduce bullying to zero is achieved in the near future. Preventing bullying is everyone's responsibility and business. We all have a responsibility to act to put a stop to this behaviour.
Renewable Energy
Mr TAYLOR (Hume) (10:51): The most sustainable outcome for the large-scale renewable energy target, or LRET, is an achievable target of a true 20 per cent—a 20 per cent without spin and manipulation and which recognises all renewables. The LRET was intended to drive a range of large-scale generation technologies including geothermal, hydro and even wave energy. In reality, it has become a source of massive subsidies for the wind industry. More than 50 per cent of the revenues of wind farms comes from these subsidies In contrast, rooftop solar is reliant on rising network costs, particularly in rural areas. With the narrowing of sources of supply to reach the target, and a reduction in demand for electricity, the current target of 41,000 megawatt hours by 2020 now threatens the future of the scheme. Policy overreach is always a killer.
In 2013, there were about 3,200 megawatts of wind capacity in Australia This equates to around 1,600—mostly smaller—wind turbines. Achieving the current target requires a growth rate of more than 600 new turbines each year, or a near tripling of total turbines by 2020. This is not realistic. First, new wind developments require extensive consultation with local communities in a climate of increasing opposition. Much of this opposition is a response to larger turbines, over 150 metres high, and bigger wind farms of 100 turbines or more, and their impact on land values, amenity and even health.
Second, financing new investments has become extremely difficult under the current scheme. Investment in wind is dependent on long-term contracts with electricity retailers. The retailers do have an alternative, which is to avoid long-term contracts and buy renewable electricity as they need it. This means no new investment and an epic policy failure as the price of certificates and, of course, the subsidies skyrocket. This is great for companies that already have wind farms like Infigen, which saw its share price collapse well before this debate started, and is run by the chairman of the Clean Energy Council, Miles George. But this would be a terrible outcome for households and businesses.
Between now and 2020, if we do reach penalty rates then the total costs of subsidies passed through to electricity consumers will equal almost $4 billion per year, without corresponding investment in renewables. Everybody loses. Even without penalty prices, Deloitte tells us that the current target is costing households and businesses billions—killing jobs and reducing real incomes for all Australians. That is why the government is proposing exemptions for the most exposed industries, like aluminium.
Meanwhile, the LRET is an expensive way to reduce carbon emissions. There are ample cheap options across the globe, including switching from coal to gas, avoiding deforestation or driving energy efficiencies in households and businesses. Beware the gluttony of rent seekers. Vested interests always have a loud voice.
Welcome to Australia: Walk Together
Mr GILES (Scullin) (10:55): Our national anthem, by its title, places striving for fairness at the centre of our national endeavour. It goes on, of course:
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share …
All of us hear this anthem pretty regularly, but some listen more closely than others, and they respond. In this regard, I rise to acknowledge the work of Welcome to Australia in light of Saturday's wonderful Walk Together. I was humbled to be asked to be an ambassador for Welcome to Australia and I am proud to support this great organisation.
I became an ambassador because I think it is important to reclaim Australia as a welcoming and inclusive country. It is especially important now to celebrate our strength in diversity and to show our compassionate side, our best side. That is why, on Saturday, I joined thousands of Melburnians to walk together, including many familiar faces from the Scullin electorate and my daughter Alice, walking from the State Library to the Treasury Gardens. All of us who were there chose to walk together to make clear our support for hope over fear. As Brad Chilcott from Welcome to Australia said at the Sydney march: 'We're here today looking for leaders who will intentionally equip us for welcome, for inclusion, for compassion, for decency. It's time to celebrate the diversity that makes our nation great. It's time we measured leadership in the capacity to add dignity, humanity and unity to our community and character. It's time to recognise that no matter who you are, where you come from or how you arrived here, you are a person who deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. It's time to work together to build an Australia characterised by welcome, equality, compassion, fairness and unity. It's time for hope—the hope that thousands of people committed to a better Australia can bring.'
There are reasons to be hopeful. I think in particular of the spontaneous and visceral community response, especially in the suburbs of Melbourne's north that I am privileged to represent, to the Abbott government's proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act—changes proposed to license bigotry. The lesson in the success of this community campaign is that hope from the community can rise above fear and those cynics who seek to exploit this fear. We will need to play our part in ensuring that hope defines the Australia we live in.
In this regard, I pay tribute to the role of the community leaders who supported Walk Together, including parliamentary colleagues, great friends and fellow ambassadors like Ged Kearney, Van Badham, Deepak Vinayak and Guri Singh, as well as Tom Ballard, the MC. I also acknowledge the powerful contributions from all who spoke, and especially all the volunteers who did so much to generate such a great community sentiment and to express it. Thank you for all of your efforts. So I speak today to bring the feelings of Melbourne's streets on Saturday before this parliament. With leadership here and action in the community, we will see a country confident enough to put hope over fear, brave enough to share, and always striving for fairness.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service: Tumbarumba
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (10:58): Two new Riverina fire stations, a number of much-needed tankers and several deserving awards were handed over on Saturday. This took place as local temperatures hovered in the early 30s, signalling a sizzling summer ahead. Hot days, especially this early in the season, dry out the countryside and make it a potential tinderbox. Our brave men and women of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service put themselves in harm's way whenever fire strikes.
One such volunteer is Tumbarumba's Bob Burgun, who was deservedly recognised when Chief Superintendent Ken Hall, representing Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, handed him a long service medal and clasp acknowledging 42 years of faithful service. Bob is a mate of mine. In fact, he is a mate of many. His lifelong dedication to his community is legendary. At age 76 he continues to commit many hours helping out, running the town's thoroughbred racing club, serving on the bush fire brigade, being a passionate advocate for farmers.
At Saturday's presentation, when he was one of eight volunteers honoured, Bob spoke of the remarkable progress which has been made in the equipment used to fight fires. Keys were handed over for two new brigade tankers, one for Tumbarumba and the other for Glen Mannus on Saturday. Funded by the New South Wales government, these vehicles are $350,000 each and carry 3½ thousand litres of water—just what is needed when disaster strikes. They are, as Bob pointed out, a far cry from the old pug-nosed Blitz trucks with a 500-gallon tank tied down by wire once they were made ready for use.
In his amusing anecdotes, topped only by his wife Judith, who told Saturday's gathering she said she was glad he spent so many hours volunteering for the fire brigade because it got him out of the house, Bob mentioned the commitment also of stalwarts Tom McClelland and Rex O'Brien. Tom, who has departed this earth, was a good firefighter and Rex, known as 'Bomber', had an intimate knowledge of the high country, having run cattle through the leases in this rugged part of the Australian landscape for many years. Bob was driven to play his part by the service of his father Robert, who for many years prior to his death in 1963 had led Tumbarumba's bushfire brigade. As a schoolboy, Bob helped out his father in the hellish January 1952 blaze which swept through from Mangoplah, south of Wagga Wagga, all the way to Eden on the South Coast, in which Tumbarumba was lucky not to be razed.
Bob told a few yarns about his 28 years as captain, from 1972 to 2000, and laughed about nine ex-Army Studebakers which Tumbarumba shire inherited in the early 1980s and then fitted out and painted up before they realised that his brigade 'got the bloody dud of the lot', as he said. 'It was always broken down—you couldn't guarantee getting back from a fire safely,' he quipped. 'We then got a hand-me-down Leyland from a Sydney brigade but it would've been faster to walk to the fire. Then we acquired an International and we thought we were made but nothing we ever had was a patch on what we have now.'
The stations were opened at Darlow, as well as Batlow, on Saturday. Well done to the New South Wales government for funding these and good luck to the Rural Fire Service for the summer ahead.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Porter ): In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has expired.
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Small Business
Mrs McNAMARA (Dobell) (11:01): I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that the Government is providing practical assistance to small business;
(2) recognises:
(a) the allocation of $8 million in the 2014-15 budget to establish the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman;
(b) that the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman will act as an advocate for small business, cut previous compliance burdens and reduce red-tape;
(c) that the Government has a sustainable strategy in place to cut $1 billion in red tape every year for small business workplaces; and
(d) that on Wednesday 19 March 2014, the Government introduced legislation and tabled documentation to repeal more than 10,000 pieces and over 50,000 pages of legislation and regulations, saving over $700 million in compliance costs across the economy; and
(3) commends the Government for providing real, practical assistance to small business, encouraging productivity in the Australian economy.
This government is providing practical help to assist small business. The coalition has always been a friend and supporter of small business. Our initiatives, including the allocation of $8 million in the 2014-15 federal budget to establish the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, is a positive step to assisting business. The Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman seeks to act as an advocate for small business to cut previous compliance burdens and reduce red tape. We have a positive, sustainable strategy in place to cut $1 billion in red tape every year for our small business workplaces.
I for one commend this government for providing real practical assistance to small business, encouraging productivity in the Australian economy. Australia now has a government that is making life for all small business operators easier, not harder. I firmly believe that small business is the engine room of our economy. It is business that creates job. Small business owners, who put their livelihood on the line to create jobs, deserve support from government. I resolutely believe in creating a stronger economy with more jobs and a stronger small business sector, especially for my electorate of Dobell.
This motion confirms the parliament's support for the measures introduced by this government, which strengthen and enhance prospects for small business owners Australia-wide. This government has provided solid evidence of supporting Australian small businesses, fortified by the allocation of $8 million to establish the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman in this year's budget. The ombudsman delivers on our commitment to create a single entry point for small businesses to obtain information about services and programs available to them.
Through the ombudsman's advocacy, we will see compliance burdens reduced and red tape cut. Many small businesses can get on with the job of attending to their customers, creating local employment opportunities and building a sustainable profession. As part of its key responsibilities, the ombudsman will also be a concierge for dispute resolution and a Commonwealth-wide advocate for small businesses and family enterprises, a contributor to the development of laws and regulations favourable to the needs and requirements of small businesses and a single point through which assistance and information regarding small business can be accessed.
We also have established the Fair Work Ombudsman small business helpline which, as of September, has received over 129,000 calls. With this helpline providing support to small business owners to assist in improving their knowledge and operation of relevant legislation, this essential service provides our small businesses the confidence to grow, invest and create jobs.
Everything this government is doing and has planned for small business is about making every day easier. No-one would argue that business regulation is essential for ensuring the rights of employers, employees and the general public are protected. But business regulation that is inefficient or unnecessary, unfortunately, imposes undue costs on business. When we held this parliament's first ever red-tape repeal day, over 10,000 pieces, and 50,000 pages, of legislation were scrapped and $700 million in compliance costs were reduced. It is worth highlighting that the broader economic benefit will be much greater than this. Such action was deemed necessary because the former Labor government, within six years, introduced more than 21,000 additional regulations. Labor's actions stifled investment and job creation, and burdened small-business operators with excessive compliance costs and requirements.
Without doubt, the most scandalous act of economic vandalism was the introduction of the carbon tax. Thankfully the carbon tax is now gone. The carbon tax was a handbrake on the Australian economy, with Australia's small-businesses bearing the brunt of the impact. We have done what we said we would do. We are providing real assistance to small business. This government remains steadfast in our commitment to reducing red tape in order to drive a stronger economy where small business can thrive.
Small business is the backbone of the Dobell economy. Collectively it is our largest employer. For the 8,939 businesses in Dobell and over 68,000 businesses Australia-wide we will deliver a strong and prosperous economy where business operators have confidence to grow, invest and create jobs. Small businesses in Dobell rely on me, as their federal representative, to ensure that I am doing all that I can to demonstrate my support to their continued and viable presence. By doing so, regions such as the Central Coast will prosper under a stronger economy where everyone can get ahead. This motion acknowledges the practical help provided by the government to small-business workplaces to enhance the productivity of the Australian economy. I commend this motion to the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): Is the motion seconded?
Mr NIKOLIC: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
Mr RIPOLL (Oxley) (11:06): In 2013, it was Labor that established the role of, and appointed the first, Australian Small Business Commissioner as a voice for Australian small business. Mr Mark Brennan commenced as the inaugural Australian Small Business Commissioner, bringing to the role a strong track record of achievement in small business, including serving for seven years as the inaugural Victorian Small Business Commissioner.
It was under Labor's small-business policies that for the first time there was a direct voice to the Australian government through the appointment of the Australian Small Business Commissioner. The commissioner's role was as an advocate within the Australian government to represent the interests of Australian small businesses and to work in consultation with key stakeholders, including industry organisations and small business operators, state small-business commissioners and other government agencies, to hear the concerns of small-business people.
Labor supports in principle the government's intention to transition Labor's role of Small Business Commissioner to ombudsman; however, we will consider carefully any draft legislation when we see it. Small business needs an independent advocate or voice to act on its behalf, and we would hope that the government will ensure the independence continues under any proposal brought to this parliament.
I think it is timely to remind the Minister for Small Business that his discussion paper was released back in April and submissions closed in May. The minister issued a press release in August saying, 'Small businesses will shortly be invited to comment on the draft legislation.' It is now the end of October and we are still waiting to see the draft legislation. It is no secret that this minister has made many promises to small business since becoming minister. Let us see how long it takes for him to keep those promises. Meanwhile, small business is still waiting.
The first act of the Liberal Minister for Small Business and the Liberal government was to cut billions in tax measures introduced by Labor that delivered real, tangible, practical benefits to small business. For example, the tax loss carry back, which was designed to offset the disproportionate burdens faced by small business, was cut by this minister. It is generally accepted by governments around the world that some features of tax systems are biased against small business. Labor recognised this and we did something about it. That is why we introduced preferential taxation for small business, which would allow it to carry back losses incurred in earlier years of their operation at a time when cash flow is critical to their business.
The instant asset write-off was another tax assistance measure for small business that was expanded under Labor but was cut by the Liberals—cut by the Liberal Minister for Small Business. I say to the minister, who claims to be the best friend of small business, that there is some difference between what he says and what he does. Taking away help is not helping small business, and small business knows this because it is part of its day-to-day operation. The repeal day is another example of hype and bluster from this government and the small-business minister. If this government was serious about getting rid of red tape then why did it propose that job seekers, for example, were going to have to apply for 40 job applications per month, only to later abandon the bad policy when told by Labor and the business sector that it saddled businesses with more red tape? This Liberal government just does not understand small business. It is all talk, all ideology, but no substance. I did not hear the Minister for Small Business stand up for small business or tell the Prime Minister that this was a bad idea. But, luckily, someone did listen.
The facts are that Labor removed more than 16,000 regulations when we were in government. But the difference between Labor and the Liberals is we did not make a song and dance about it, because it is part of your job—it is part of everyday work—and it should not be a stunt, which is what we are now getting from the Liberals. They want to make a big deal about it but it is just a stunt. The Liberals have made a huge deal of this. It is akin to saying: 'Let's have a "turn up to work day". Aren't we great?—we've turned up to work today.' No, that is your job. Do it; do not keep going on about it.
The Liberals' repeal day is a joke and a bad policy. Some of the regulations that were removed under the repeal day as part of the government's work included removing consumer protections in FoFA laws and giving a fresh licence for contractors to cut the wages of cleaners. That is not good. It is not good for small business. It is not good for workers either. You cannot, in the guise of a repeal day to do anything and everything, at the same time remove good regulations that help small business or help workers. Surely removing regulations that are good cannot be good for the economy as well.
This is a government that is driven by ideology over substance and that takes away practical support for small business. If the government were serious about helping small business it would reverse some of the bad decisions it has already made and would reintroduce some of Labor's very good policies. (Time expired)
Mr NIKOLIC (Bass) (11:11): It gives me much pleasure to second this important motion by the member for Dobell. This is particularly so because her electorate, in the Central Coast region of New South Wales, and mine, in north-east Tasmania, are both strong microcosms of wider small business activity throughout Australia. In both of our seats and across the nation, the reality is that small business and the employment that flows from it hold, in large part, the key to the economic fortunes and futures of those we represent. As the member for Dobell said, it is, quite simply, the engine room of the Australian economy. This reality is made even stronger and perhaps more poignant by the practical linking of family and small business through the establishment of the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. The ombudsman will be a national advocate for small business and will assist in the development of small-business-friendly laws and regulations.
It is clear that for too long small business has been relatively unacknowledged. It is the solid, tireless worker of the Australian economy, the quiet achiever always there but with a relatively low public profile. As such, it has been too easy for some in this parliament to take it for granted and to regulate it in ways which hurt or stifle its growth and smooth functioning, as through some of those 21,000 additional regulations that appeared during the Rudd and Gillard governments from 2008 to 2013. These regulations affect not only small business but most other Australians, either directly as small business employers or employees or indirectly as consumers or taxpayers. That is why we are so strongly committed to reducing the red-tape burden facing small business.
As the Tasmanian representative on the coalition's deregulation committee, I was very pleased to hear the member for Kooyong last week announce that we will remove nearly 1,000 pieces and over 7,200 pages of legislation and regulation as part of our spring repeal day. That follows the more than 10,000 pieces and 50,000 pages of legislation and regulation we removed from the statute books during our autumn repeal day last March. In just over a year, the coalition government has announced more than $2.1 billion in red- and green-tape savings for the business and not-for-profit sectors. This more than doubles our commitment to remove $1 billion in red and green tape from our economy each and every year. In doing so, we are saving small business owners both time and money.
We are reducing their tax compliance burden with administrative changes to GST and pay-as-you-go reporting. As the Minister for Small Business pointed out last Wednesday, this means that businesses with no GST payable will no longer be required to lodge a business activity statement, which would otherwise only record pay-as-you-go instalments. That saves more than $67 million each year in compliance costs. We want to free up that burden which has long afflicted small business and also to support the creation of a healthy and confident economy and general business sentiment. This is vitally important. In unison, both are conducive to encouraging and fostering the small business spark of sensible and prudent risk-taking, a spark that is all too easily extinguished by ham-fisted government intervention.
Finally, what we are discussing now has a wider and even darker strategic context. After 2008 Australia was indeed fortunate to escape the very worst of the GFC. At the time the current Labor government, perhaps understandably, floundered in their initial response to it but were later much quicker to opportunistically and shamelessly seize credit for saving Australia and to parade themselves as some sort of economic exemplar on the world stage.
More objective pundits were gracious enough to acknowledge that the true foundations of this survival stemmed not from increasing financial handouts to all and sundry but from the creation of a sound economy, the eradication of national debt and the building of a national surplus, which was then available to meet and ameliorate the challenge to Australia and for all Australians. It was a case of conservative foundation building by the Howard government towards a national and enduring strategic financial objective: a truly prosperous Australia. We, the coalition, remain absolutely committed to this goal, which includes this motion and supporting legislation as important milestones on this journey. It therefore gives me much pleasure to support and to second the member for Dobell's motion and to note in closing that its impacts will in no way be confined simply to small business but rather will flow naturally and constructively to the benefit of all Australians.
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (11:16): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this motion because there is no underestimating that micro and small businesses are the engine room of our economy, and they deserve support and recognition from government and from parliament. We need to ensure that we develop the policy environment for them to thrive in. Micro and small businesses employ more than five million Australians, and they contribute almost 50 per cent of private sector employment. Labor is committed to engaging with small businesses and small business groups, and micro businesses and microbusiness groups, right across the country and taking feedback on potential new small business policy ideas.
Members will be aware of my passion for small and micro business, because before entering parliament I ran my own small business for 10 years. Since entering parliament I have established the Parliamentary Friends for Small Business and microbusiness with the member for Herbert—and I just want to do a plug for tomorrow night's Shop Small event. I have also established the Labor for small business group here in Canberra. Also since entering parliament I have spent a great deal of time talking to the small business operators in my electorate of Canberra and advocating for their needs and interests.
Since being elected, I have conducted what I call business walk-arounds, where I go out to the community—usually industrial enclaves in my community in Hume, in Fyshwick, in Phillip, in Woden, in Weston Creek—and I talk to the small and micro businesses about the issues that they are concerned about. Quite often they can be ACT government issues. They can be federal issues. One of the many challenges that small businesses have here is the notion of harmonisation, because Queanbeyan is not very far from the border here. Usually businesses do cross-border activity, so the issue of harmonisation is usually front and centre for a number of businesses in my community.
But the most frequently occurring concern I hear is the concern about Public Service jobs cuts and how the uncertainty this government's budget has placed on Canberra is leading to an economic downturn. According to the Canberra Business Council chief executive, Chris Faulks:
The big issue for the Canberra economy is the ongoing fragility of business and consumer confidence, which impacts on consumer spending and business investment.
While I welcome the allocation of $8 million in the budget to establish the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, which is essentially a transition of a concept we introduced, I would like to see the government take the concerns of micro and small businesses in my electorate seriously. Those opposite say they stand for micro and small businesses, but how does taking the axe to Public Service jobs help small businesses in Canberra? Many Canberra businesses are struggling, and that is a direct result of the government's cuts to the Public Service.
The budget outlined the biggest staff cuts to the public sector since the 1990s. Let me remind you of what happened to Canberra in 1996. The Howard government slashed 15,000 jobs here in Canberra. That meant 15,000 people no longer spending on Canberra's micro and small businesses, buying their products and using their services. Non-business bankruptcies jumped sharply in 1995-96 by 38 per cent and again in 1996-97 by 17 per cent, while business bankruptcies jumped in 1996-97 by 38 per cent.
I was affected too because I lost my job, so I know firsthand the devastation of mass job losses. I recall in 1996 going round to local shopping centres, and they resembled ghost towns. The newsagent had closed. The hairdresser had closed. The video store had closed. The milk bar had closed. They closed because incomes and wage earners simply disappeared. They left town. We had a mass exodus from Canberra as a result of the 15,000 job cuts here in Canberra in 1996.
Labor is serious about small business. It was us that introduced the instant asset write-off threshold. We also introduced the loss carry-back scheme. I know from speaking to micro and small businesses in my community that that was greatly appreciated. It was Labor that commissioned the first national Small Business Commissioner in this country because we knew that micro and small business needed a direct national voice to government.
I know that Canberra businesses are suffering as a result of the mass job cuts here. I know that they are very concerned about what is to come in the future, particularly with MYEFO. I ask those opposite to think about Canberra small businesses when they are introducing these cuts. (Time expired)
Ms MARINO (Forrest—Government Whip) (11:21): I commend the member for Dobell for this private member's motion. She is entirely correct that small business is the engine room of the Australian economy and the heart and soul of employment. It is very easy to say that, but as a small business owner and operator I know it very, very personally. It was on the day that I married my husband that we bought our first dairy and beef property and business. Debt and hard work were synonymous with what we had to do as small business people. I see this right around Australia wherever I go—the amount of commitment that small business people make to be able to engage. They often follow a passion. They follow a dream sometimes, or they are just really commercially focused. There are over two million actively trading businesses in Australia, and almost 96 per cent are small businesses.
I was interested in the comments of the member opposite about decisions made by government. I remember back when the mining tax was announced and, three to four months later, the very first iteration. I remember, when I was out and about in my electorate, the range of businesses from services to suppliers to the mining sector, even right down to the retail sector, who were all directly impacted. Two of those businesses disappeared within six months of that announcement—right down to a fencing contractor, who said the mid-cap miners had put their hands back in their pockets. He said, 'I've got eight people employed, and I've only got two weeks work left.' So the decisions made at this level have a real impact on small business right across Australia and are felt very, very directly.
Of course, we know that small businesses with fewer than 20 employees account for 46 per cent of all Australia's workers in the private sector. Small business is a major employer, offering opportunity to young people in part-time or full-time work. It is often the mums and dads in small business who do this and give young people a go. That means that small business employs 38.5 per cent of all Australian workers. It is why small business is so important to us as a government, and it should be important to everybody in this House—not to just say it. If you live it, if you invest and if you commit, you know that small business is really tough. It involves all of your time, all of your energy, all of your passion—and that does not even guarantee that you are going to stay in business. The commercial focus is required, but often decisions are made that can affect you quite directly.
We have an economic strategy to remove the burdens from business, to make not only those small businesses but the whole nation, because of that, more competitive and to drive more jobs and higher living standards for all Australians, as the member for Dobell has said, especially those in small businesses. The protections that they will actually achieve will be the same as for consumers when it comes to unfair contracts imposed by big businesses: $1.4 million to extend unfair contract relief from consumers to small businesses. Currently only consumers are protected from unfair terms in standard-form contracts. But small businesses have told us that they have also been subject to unfair terms in standard-form contracts, often presented as take it or leave it. Small businesses often have insufficient ability to negotiate changes to contracts.
We also need to increase certainty, confidence and productivity, and that is what is underpinning the $8 million to establish the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. This is part of our election commitment to establish a one-stop shop for small business. It is really important. If you are in small business, you are so busy working in your business that it is quite often difficult to work your way through all of the issues—all of the compliance—because it is tough to work on your business while you are full-on in your business. It is the small business people who are up at night doing the accounts and keeping up with all of the latest trends and issues—but also keeping up with their compliance. I think this is a very strong issue that we are offering small businesses: the reduction in the red tape burden.
As we heard, 21,000 new or changed regulations were having an impact. The number of businesses who literally said: 'Look. I am drowning under the weight of this. It is taking me away from my customers and from what I am actually here to do as a small business.' I think this is going to make a major difference to small business. We are committed to removing that burden. I commend the member for Dobell for this particular private member's motion.
Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (11:26): Good on you, member for Dobell! Good on you for bringing this resolution! Not only do I commend this resolution, because it gives effect to what Labor did, but I am going to make a recommendation for the very first order of business for this small business ombudsman: to investigate the deceptive and misleading conduct of the Abbott government.
You say all the time you are in favour of small business, but reality never matches the words. It is like watching an Oprah show. The coalition are ringing their handkerchiefs telling us how much they love small business. They are the best people. We are their best friends. They do fantastic things for the economy, and we are going to be there to help them. And what is the first thing they do when they get into office? They stop a whole range of measures—billions taken away from small business: instant asset tax write-off; accelerated deduction for motor vehicles, which gave small businesses a boost in their cash flow; and also the further cash flow measure we brought in that allows for carry back of tax losses. All these things are affected by those opposite—the ones who are telling us in their words how much they are a friend of small business, but in their deeds are hurting every small business in the country.
And how many did they rip off? In taking the axe to assistance for small business from the abolition of the asset write-off, that is $3 billion. Billions wiped off. But that is not the worst. That is not the worst of what they did. The worst is that they made it retrospective. They made it retrospective. If these people ever confronted us doing that when we were in government, we would have an uproar. They have done something that retrospectively takes and disables the ability of small business to claim those measures. They have not only ripped it out of the future, they have ripped it out now, when businesses have counted on that benefit. Gone—by them. Why does your small business ombudsman not investigate that deceptive and misleading conduct? There are a whole stack of things you are doing now that you never said you were going to do before the election. You never had the guts to tell these people—the people to whom you say, 'We are your best friend'—that you are going to rip these billions off them retrospectively.
I have 9,000 small businesses in my electorate and I am proud to represent them. They are all having a crack. A lot of them hardly employ people at all. There they are working the long hours and we are here telling them what they will have the ability to write off—for example, a small cafe's refrigerator display that busts, as I have seen and I have heard from businesses in my area. Instead of them having to rely on their premiums or taking a hit on their cash flow, we were able to help them. We provided them with that assistance; you took it away from them. All you give us are your Oprah moments, the moments when you put hands on hearts and tell us you are such great friends of small business—but you are not there backing them up at all.
Then you talk about the mining tax. We had the member for Forrest in here before talking about all the small businesses affected. Tell me: what happens, when you literally chase General Motors out of the country? The auto components industry, made up of all these small businesses, is gone, wiped out—50,000 employees, all these small businesses. I have never, ever heard a Liberal or National party member come in here and talk about what impact that decision had on small businesses—all gone, all affected by your decisions. In the other instance, for example, in the tech sector, you went around the country saying for ages that you would fix the employee share ownership program. We started the process of pushing the review to Treasury. You then went around the country claiming that you would fix it. You have been in office for more than a year, making all these suggestions about how you would fix it, and you have finally got to it now?
What about crowdfunding? Again, we started the process—
Mr Williams: You stuffed it up years ago.
Mr HUSIC: We stuffed up crowdfunding? We stuffed up something that just came in? That is pretty impressive! Thanks for that, Member for Hindmarsh! You go back to sleep, and I will go back to telling the facts that people deserve in this debate. In the regulatory framework for crowdfunding, people want to get access to capital to help their start-ups. Again, in the report handed up in May, the Minister for Small Business said he is a big fan of it—and what do we see? Nothing. Nothing but delay. Nothing but words. Whenever it comes to deeds, there is a failure to actually follow through. This is the legacy of those opposite. They tell us hand-on-heart that they are in favour of small business, but they never, ever deliver.
Mr WILLIAMS (Hindmarsh) (11:31): We do have a couple of things in common, Member for Chifley, including the good Arnott's workers in the Arnott's factories. But, in terms of the Trade Practices Act, I think he got a bit carried away on 'misleading and deceptive conduct'. I would rather hear him talk about the utility bill increases for his 9,000 small businesses, the red tape and all those things that really matter. He tended to gloss over that, if he even mentioned it.
We are doing what small businesses want; we are reducing taxes for small businesses. Company tax is going down, the compliance burden is being reduced and, importantly, the carbon tax is gone. If there was one thing that small businesses always mentioned when we talked to them in the electorate, it was the higher utility bills, the higher electricity prices. We are helping them on that important front.
But our agenda for small business is far broader than that. As we have heard from the member for Dobell and other speakers on the coalition side, it focuses on the effectiveness of government engagement with small business, including the ombudsman, but also on encouraging start-ups. Again, this is where the member for Chifley was a bit misleading, making out that Labor were all for start-ups and entrepreneurialism when they were the ones that actually changed the employee share ownership scheme. We are the ones that are putting it back on the agenda. We are encouraging entrepreneurial behaviour because we need more entrepreneurs and more successful businessmen creating growth, creating jobs and creating wealth for our economy so that we can fund the necessary services like health, education and other social services going forward.
For the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, as we have heard, there is $8 million over four years, which is a significant commitment to this advocate for small businesses and family enterprises—those family businesses that are so important to our society and to our economy. My wife runs an allied health practice with a number of others, and we know from speaking to other hardworking families that run their own businesses that they put their households on the line week in, week out to help their own family business and to help other employees associated with the companies. This ombudsman will contribute to laws and regulations that are friendly to small businesses and will help them—a concierge, if you like, for dispute resolution.
We have also talked about a number of other things, like small business access to contracts. So often, small businesses say it is hard to get access to government contracts. We are making it easier. That is why we are providing almost $3 million for small businesses to do business with government. They want access. They want the opportunity. They want a better playing field.
Whether it be export market development grants worth $15 million over four years, we need more exporters. We need people to look internationally, to go beyond our borders, to go into Asia, where there is the growing middle class, and also other areas around the world to do more with exporting the fine goods and services we produce in Australia.
Tourism is another good or service where there are a growing number of Chinese in particular who are coming out and looking for the great products that Australia has to offer. There is $43 million over four years for the tourism infrastructure grants program because these are some of the growth areas: tourism, food and wine. There are many great wines from my own state of South Australia as well as from others. There are not too many in Queensland, but you have great tourism there. I know the member for Ryan is a passionate advocate for tourism and, importantly, has a very significant background in tourism.
It was actually pleasing to hear the member for Canberra speak about her background in small business, because we do not often hear that from the opposition's side, whereas on our side small business runs through our blood and a better business environment is part of our DNA.
We have talked about red tape and compliance a bit and will hear more about that in the House this week. We know we have a lot of work to do, but we are making significant inroads. There are now over $2.1 billion in red tape reduction—a great achievement, some real runs on the board in this significant area to make it easier for small businesses to reduce their compliance costs, reduce the time they are filling out form and get on with doing what they do best: serving their customers those fine goods and services.
We have a range of endorsements from third parties, whether it be Gail Kelly of Westpac, the Brotherhood of St Laurence or Universities Australia. They all appreciate that this red tape reduction is so important for their members and a better functioning economy.
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (11:37): I was very keen to participate in the debate today because I was hoping that it might actually shed some light on this much-announced policy of the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. The reason I hoped to be enlightened was that, looking into this matter and reading up on it as I have done, it looked very suspiciously like the Australian Small Business Commissioner with a new name. I am somewhat disappointed to find through the debate today that there is actually not much more to it than that. There is some minor broadening of responsibilities beyond what the commissioner had. These will be positive moves, I have no doubt about that, but it is not exactly the coalition setting the world on fire. Fundamentally, what we are doing today is spending an hour of the House's time commending the coalition on changing the name from commissioner to ombudsman. If there is any symbol of the approach the coalition takes to small business, it is the idea of slogans without much substance. It is all talk and no real action.
The debate today does give me some opportunity to talk about an alternative approach, and that is the one that Labor took while we were in government. I think it is fair to say that when we talk about slogans or substance we fall very much on the side of substance and are not so concerned with all the rhetoric in the debate from the other side of the House. We are concerned about making real changes that will really impact on people who run small businesses in Australia.
I note at this point that we have had on all sides effusive statements of how important small businesses are to Australia, and there is no way that we can really overstate that. There are two million small businesses around the country. More than five million Australians are employed in these organisations. When we look at how much our economy has changed in the last generation or so in Australia, this enormous growth in the number of small businesses is such a good example It is one of the pillars of the changed economy. I say that because, when we look at two million small businesses in Australia, what I see is evidence of inventiveness, of creativity, of ordinary Australians who have a great idea and say, 'We're going to take a risk on this.' That is exactly what we want the economy in Australia to look like. That is exactly what will take us forward into this next century.
An honourable member: Hear, Hear!
I am getting endorsements from the other side of the House and I am pleased about that, but I have to say that, so often, when the government talks about business what they are really talking about are the oligopolies that dominate so much of big business in Australia. It is actually Labor people who genuinely stand beside these ordinary working people who are taking capital into their ownership, having a great idea, banking on themselves, and going out there and starting small businesses. As evidence of this, you need look no further than the series of really significant reforms that was undertaken by the previous government.
Labor in government were able to give real priority to small business. We know that, for the first time since 2001, the small business minister was a cabinet minister. When we talked to people who work in small businesses, especially those peak bodies that are really close to the operations of government, we could see how much difference that made—having a small business minister at the table, helping to make decisions. We created the position of Small Business Commissioner, the name change of which takes up the attention of the House today. We included the council of Australian businesses in COAG discussions. We appointed a deputy chair to the ACCC who has significant and extensive experience in small business. Those things were about giving small business a seat at the table and a voice in the central discussions of government.
There were also critical changes to the tax system which were such an important boost to small business, especially during the period of the global financial crisis. I think the member for Chifley talked about $3 billion in assistance that instant asset write-offs gave to small businesses, just by allowing businesses to write off assets that were worth up to $6½ thousand. We introduced a loss carry-back so that, if in one year a small business made a loss, they were able to counter that with a profit from the year before and get a tax refund from that. These were really significant financial reforms.
The third thing were the practical measures introduced under Labor. For the first time, all government agencies were required to settle bills with small businesses within 90 days—a practical thing that only people who have that experience and that sort of commitment to small business would think of.
Small businesses in Australia are and incredibly important part of our economy, but reform must be real and it must be genuine. I commend the previous government for the work that it did, and we will continue to fight for small businesses around the country.
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (11:42): I rise to speak in support of this motion and I commend the member for Dobell for bringing to the House's attention the importance of small business. I also join with my colleagues the member for Hindmarsh, the member for Forrest and the member for Bass; many of us have a background in small business, so the coalition genuinely understand the contribution that small businesses make to our economy. They are the driver of our economy. They are the engine room, as even the opposition acknowledged. These people are risk takers, innovators and, most significantly, employers of 43 per cent of the Australian workforce. We should try our best to reward their dedicated work by lowering their compliance load and giving them more time to spend creating wealth for themselves, their employees and, ultimately, Australia.
Already, with just two repeal days, the coalition have saved Australian business $2.1 billion, more than double our original target in dollar savings. The spring and autumn repeal days have seen 11,000 pieces of obsolete legislation struck from the books. The time saved just by having to no longer read those outdated rules and regulations—and indeed many are incredibly irrelevant—is extraordinary. Many of the businesses I speak to complain to me that they do not even know what they do not know, there are so many regulations tying them up in red tape.
As well as these repeal days, our government is looking at other ways to relieve the burden of compliance for small business relating to existing laws. For example, businesses that have no GST payable will no longer be required to lodge a business activity statement. This will save $67 million a year in compliance. Just to get a handle on that, there are 32,000 small businesses that do not pay GST. So there is immediately a positive impact on 32,000 businesses, because they do not have to lodge a BAS. Tax will still be recorded under the pay-as-you-go system but, as this already has to be done, there is no sense in doing it twice for no good reason. If you sign up to the myGov site, you can enter your information once; and, when you have to fill in duplicate forms, the information is automatically fed into it. It saves hours and hours for those mum-and-dad business operators who go home tired at the end of the day and then have to turn around and fill in more forms for government.
Our government has made amendments to the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation to make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to capitalise on overseas opportunities. Giving our small and medium businesses access to overseas markets is vital for Australia to compete on a regional and global scale. As franchising offers an opportunity to people to enter into business with certain risk minimisation, this government is recognising the importance of this sector by reforming the outdated Franchising Code of Conduct. We are streamlining the code and making the obligations of both franchisor and franchisee easier to understand and more business-friendly. A new Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman is being established to assist in the development of small business-friendly laws and regulations.
Why is the government doing these things? It is because the coalition values and understands business. We understand the person working the longest hours is a small business owner. We understand the person who gets paid last in business is a small business owner. We understand that the person who puts their house on the line to support their business is the owner of that business. Unlike those opposite, who see business as the enemy that must be fought at all costs, the coalition sees business as a beacon of hope.
Business can lift people out of poverty. It creates a sense of achievement and accomplishment. It gives you a sense of pride in doing a job that is worth doing, and you carry others with you, whether it is your family or your employees. Small business lifts this nation to places it might not otherwise achieve. That is why I support the measures to cut red tape for small businesses. Indeed, as a small business operator for 20 years, I know just how that compliance and regulation strangled the time I had to put into the business. Small businesses are the builders of our nation and as such we, as a responsible government, must provide them with a solid foundation on which to build.
This government understands the needs of small businesses in a way those opposite will never do. Business is not a burden on Australia, as those opposite would have you believe, but the reason our country does not have the economic woes of so many others. The coalition government will continue to support small business in the best ways it can, by lessening compliance to free up time and money. I support the motion by the member for Dobell. I also look forward to state and local governments following the leadership of the federal government in lessening the burden for small business and reducing red tape.
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (11:47): There is a pattern of uncertainty for our small businesses that has been created by this government. Today's motion perpetuates more of the great myths of this government, particularly when one of the last comments in the motion states that they are the government delivering real and practical assistance. I go out and talk to local businesses in my area. I am the daughter of small business owners. I grew up spending a number of weekends and Christmas holidays working for small businesses.
The challenge for small businesses has not really changed that much. Where this government is hurting small businesses in my electorate is around issues like the NBN and being able to connect properly to not only the local market but also the global market. This is one of the practical problems in my electorate. What have we seen since this government got elected? They tore up the NBN plan for my electorate. It is completely halted. There is no plan right now to roll out fast speed broadband to the Bendigo electorate. That means for small businesses in Maldon, Heathcote and Kyneton—everywhere that is on the map—they have been taken off and they have no idea when they are going to connect. These communities are also struggling under the current infrastructure because of the lack of ADSL ports available. It is a practical problem which this government has no solution for.
Another problem that small businesses have in my electorate is around Australia Post. Again, we have seen this government scale back support for Australia Post. There is a big finance area in my electorate and a number of solicitors. They are saying it is taking a week for vital paperwork and forms to get from Bendigo to Melbourne because of cutbacks in Australia Post. Again, that is another practical problem that this government is not addressing.
We talk about government procurement. Bendigo is home to the Bushmaster. The Bushmaster is built at Thales in Bendigo. At the moment, over 120 small businesses are part of the supply chain. We are not sure whether Bendigo Thales will get the opportunity to build the Hawkei. It is another defence manufacturing contract. We do not know whether this government will do the right thing not only by those workers but also by the small businesses that could benefit from this work by ensuring that they get that contract.
There is no point coming in here and talking about how great you are in opening up and allowing small businesses to compete for contracts if there are no contracts for them to compete for. Time and time again, this government is making decisions based upon price and sending defence contracts overseas. This is another failure of this government to do something practical to help small businesses.
Another example of one of these contracts just recently made that is going to hurt small businesses in my electorate is ADA, Australian Defence Apparel. Part of the most recent contract that they won was all manufactured overseas. So it is great that ADA gets to be the importer—not the producer, not the builder and not the manufacturer but the importer!
When it comes to the RET, this government's indecision and its want and push to water down the RET are hurting small businesses in my electorate—not just the small manufacturers that we have but the installers. People are saying that, until this government comes clean and actually declares its intention around the RET, business will continue to stall.
Another area that other speakers have mentioned where this government has backed away from real and practical assistance to business is repealing the $5 billion worth of tax assistance allowing cash flow for small businesses. Cash flow is critical to small business. I remember that from when I used to work in my parents' small business. It is all about cash flow. Providing assistance which supports cash flow is the reform that this government has repealed. It has repealed the instant tax write-off, which helped cash flow. It has repealed the carry-back tax loss write-off. These are practical measures that this government has repealed. This government keeps talking about being the best friend of small business, but we have failed to see any real reform to suggest that. Instead, we have just seen further attacks in other areas that help small business.
Debate adjourned.
Defibrillators
Mr LAURIE FERGUSON (Werriwa) (11:52): I move:
That this House notes:
(1) that October has been designated Shoctober by the Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation;
(2) that Australian estimates of those dying from sudden cardiac arrest range from 23,000 to 33,000;
(3) that prompt defibrillation increases the probability of survival from cardiac arrest;
(4) that delayed use of defibrillators increases the probability that the victim will die;
(5) that defibrillator deployment guidelines have been developed by the Automated External Defibrillator Deployment Registry after significant consultation;
(6) the commendable staff training and defibrillator placement by Sydney Trains;
(7) that wider availability of defibrillators is desirable; and
(8) that there have been calls that all Commonwealth funded constructions valued over $3 million should have defibrillators and conform to the new Defibrillation Guidelines 1410 (v 1.3).
I want to congratulate Reno Aprile, the director of Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation; Dr Sue Craig for her articles in the Journal of Health, Safety and Environment; Australian rugby great Nick Farr-Jones; Sydney commentator Alan Jones; and Group Captain Graeme Peel, who has constructed guidelines around this issue. I guess the intervention of Jones and Nick Farr-Jones is to do with the fact that Australian rugby union coach Bob Dwyer is a survivor.
This is of great relevance when it is estimated that 23,000 to 33,000 Australians die each year from cardiac arrest. In toto, that is more than breast cancer, shootings and road crashes. When this organisation tried to put Shoctober on the map, it did so in the context of a very crowded concern with health issues. I know that when I first arrived here in this parliament there were no interest groups to do with any diseases or health problems. Now I think our weeks are crowded, with every second MP having a health group that they are devoted to.
It is important that we try to get this issue on the agenda. It is worth noting that, when defibrillators are utilised quite swiftly, they can have a very large impact. If they are utilised within four minutes, there is a 60 per cent survival rate. However, unfortunately, if it is 10 minutes your chance is about zero. This is of course accompanied by the decline in ambulance response times, which has worsened the problem.
There are, however, some groups that are leading on this front. The Sydney rail network is one of them. Fourteen people have survived because it has acted very strongly for a significant period of time in making sure that defibrillators are provided on many Sydney railway stations and, more particularly, that people are actually trained to utilise them and that they are actually in functioning order. It has been estimated that one-fifth of defibrillators around the place are not in functioning order. This leads to the need for monitoring to make sure that when they are used they are actually in working order.
In the long term, we probably have to look at trying to make defibrillators mandatory in significant government buildings. President Clinton in the United States accomplished that in 2000. One of the long-term aims of the Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation is that it be mandatory that government building constructions valued at over $3 million have a defibrillator on site. They are campaigning for the aforementioned guidelines to be adhered to in all government buildings and facilities.
The event this year attracted significant numbers of students from St Aloysius College on Sydney Harbour and a significant interest from the Ambulance Service of New South Wales and other emergency services. This indicates that people who are at the forefront of these issues feel that there is some value in raising awareness of them.
It has been estimated that when there is third-party monitoring of AED systems there is a failure rate of virtually zero. Human-monitored systems are frequently poorly maintained, with only half of workplaces monitoring theirs weekly. For a workplace with, say, 50 people the annual cost of an electronically monitored defibrillator is $100 or 27c per person per day. I do not think this is too big an ask of the Australian people and Australian governments, state and federal, to try to minimise deaths in the range of 20,000 to 30,000 per year. It is something we probably never really think about, but that is a huge number. I commend this motion to the House, and I thank the member for Reid for seconding it.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Randall ): Is there a seconder for the motion?
Mr LAUNDY (Reid) (11:57): I second the motion moved by the member for Werriwa on Defibrillator Awareness Month, 'Shoctober'. This is a very important topic and I commend the member for Werriwa for showing the initiative to raise it in this place. I am very proud to have co-signed the motion with him so that it can be discussed. Shoctober is a great initiative by the Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation and is recognised as Defibrillator Awareness Month. 'Improving knowledge and saving lives' is the quote they use, and it is a great quote.
I would like to start by congratulating the foundation and everyone involved in Shoctober. Not only does the organisation do great work this month; it does it all year round. But this month is particularly important because it raises awareness of sudden cardiac arrest. When the member for Werriwa came to me and asked whether I would co-sponsor this motion it forced me to go and have a look at this issue. Thank God, I do not have a personal experience with this. But what we found—and you heard the member for Werriwa say it—is that it kills between 23,000 and 33,000 Australians a year, each and every year, and can strike people of any age. Fortunately, a sudden cardiac arrest is treatable through defibrillation if done in time. However, the chance of survival decreases 10 per cent with every minute that passes without this treatment. This is why the message of Shoctober is so important. Through encouraging workplaces and public areas to have defibrillators easily accessible, we can work to increase the survival rates for people who suffer a sudden cardiac arrest.
It was estimated by the late Dr Jeff Wassertheil that readily available and functioning defibrillators could potentially save up to 25 per cent of those lives lost. That is a substantial difference. The evidence of the benefits of increased defibrillator availability is readily available. In most workplaces, less than five per cent of victims survive a cardiac arrest incident. In contrast, organisations such as Sydney Trains, which has introduced automatic external defibrillators at major stations and trained staff in their use, has achieved survival rates between 30 and 50 per cent. Less than five per cent survive if you do not have it; 30 to 50 per cent survive if you have it and are trained in it. That is a massive difference. In fact, independent research published this month has found that 14 lives were saved over three years, thanks to the initiative shown by Sydney Trains. This shows you the importance of having readily accessible defibrillators in an emergency, and the importance of having staff who are correctly trained in their use.
The Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation has made recommendations to government on how to progress in this space, and we as legislators should continue to listen and collaborate on ways to minimise the fatalities we continue to see in this area. This is a health risk that affects so many Australians every year, not just the 23,000 to 33,000 that die but also their families—and, as I mentioned, there but for the grace of God go many of us. Whether it is a husband, wife, mother, father, daughter or grand-daughter, whoever it may be, we need to do more in this space so that the chances of survival of those 23,000 to 33,000 are maximised at all costs.
I note that the new Australian defibrillator deployment guidelines were released earlier this month by the Automated External Defibrillator Deployment Registry—that is one hell of a mouthful. The guidelines provide technical specifications for defibrillators, where and how they are to be installed, instructions for monitoring and maintenance as well as stipulation of training standards. A point that was highlighted by the AEDDR—it saves me from saying it again—when releasing these new guidelines was the importance of proper monitoring and maintenance of defibrillators once installed. All too often, when an urgent need arises for these devices, they are found faulty or unusable for a variety of reasons. US research has shown that one in five unmonitored defibrillators are defective, and the statistics I gave you earlier tell you how tragic that can be: it reduces the survival rate to five per cent, down from the 30 to 50 per cent when they are monitored right. While compliance with these guidelines is voluntary, I would encourage workplace managers to review their policies in light of these guidelines, and I look forward to continuing the discussion within the government and with those in opposition.
Once again, I would like to congratulate all involved in Defibrillator Awareness Month, or Shoctober, and the Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation on both this initiative and their advocacy work, and my good friend the member for Werriwa on raising it. It is a pleasure to speak on it. I just hope that all the people we know never have the need for one. Thank you.
Mr MITCHELL (McEwen—Second Deputy Speaker) (12:02): I rise to support this motion by the member for Werriwa and the member for Reid. Shoctober, Defibrillator Awareness Month, is an important issue and it is one that is close to the hearts of my community, particularly Mr Andrew White, who is from Gisborne in McEwen. Andrew is a highly experienced Victorian paramedic and founded the Defib Your Club, For Life! following the deaths of several young athletes at sporting events around Victoria, particularly that of Stephen Buckman, a 19-year-old footballer who collapsed and died of sudden cardiac arrest while at training at Rupertswood football club in May 2010. This initiative is simple: to establish a pathway that leads to educating communities on the subject of sudden cardiac arrest and demonstrate how one can easily and safely use an automatic external defibrillator in an effort to save a life.
Since the program's inception two years ago, DYCFL! has installed almost 2,000 defibrillators in community organisations, sporting clubs and local businesses. With this growth, DYCFL! will be able to further concentrate on its advocacy work within the community and with local, state and federal governments to eventually create the relevant legislative changes to make AEDs legally required in locations such as sporting clubs, organisations, workplaces, councils and the like.
In Victoria, Daniel Andrews—an ex-health minister himself—knows the value of having access to defibrillators locally and how during cardiac arrest the chance of survival decreases by 10 per cent for every minute without defibrillation. That is why our community strongly supported Daniel's announcement that an Andrews Labor government will provide 1,000 defibrillators to Victorian sporting clubs and facilities to improve survival rates for people who enter cardiac arrest. Labor's plan will make sure that a defibrillator is near so that action can be taken sooner. The question now on everybody's lips is will another former health minister, and now leader, see the value in having defibrillators available to communities right across the nation to help save lives? Calling 000 for an ambulance and early use of defibrillators, combined with CPR, are the key steps to survival. Defibrillators have been responsible for saving thousands of lives across the country, and more can be done.
Sudden cardiac arrest is more common than you would think. In fact, each year 5,000 Victorians go into sudden cardiac arrest while not in hospital—that is 14 people every day—and around 20 per cent of these happen in public places. Defibrillators can work on people of all ages. They can provide voice prompts and simple instructions for operators on how they should be used and advice on when to perform CPR. The placement of defibrillators in accessible public places is supported by the Heart Foundation, St John's Ambulance Australia, the Australian Resuscitation Council and Sports Medicine Australia. Local branches of the Men's Shed Association—a program that enables men to participate in their community and learn about men's health and wellbeing—have been applying every year for government funding to refurbish their sheds and include defibrillators.
Having access to defibrillators is becoming more important across our community. As a founding member of Australia's first community emergency response team, I learnt quickly the need for early defibrillation. CERTs consist of ambulance volunteers who function as first responders within communities where the nearest ambulance branches are at a distance. Whenever CERTs are dispatched to a job an ambulance is also dispatched. They provide emergency care until an ambulance arrives. We spent many weeks being trained in life support, and held our weekly training and maintenance with the support of Ambulance Victoria paramedics. Our defibrillation batteries were checked every 12 hours and replaced to ensure that they were in good working condition. The CERT team program also trained local community members to be better prepared to respond to emergency situations.
The chain-of-survival process can help save the lives of people suffering from cardiac arrest. These steps include recognising cardiac arrest early, early access to emergency care, early CPR and defibrillation and early advance care, such as paramedics and hospitals. The chain of survival starts with our community. With the increase of automated external defibrillators available in our community, we have to ensure that people know how easy they are to use. That is why it is important, as part as Shoctober, that we get together and support introducing defibrillators into more businesses and community groups so that we will be able to save more lives. Shoctober, an Andrews Labor government and Defib Your Club, for Life! will mean that people having sudden cardiac arrest will have a greater chance of survival in our communities.
A government member: A Daniels Labor government!
Mr MITCHELL: It is actually important. You should listen for once, boy. I urge the government to support this Shoctober motion and ensure that where a defibrillator is available, people can be assured that it is in good working condition.
Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (12:07): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. It gives me great—
Honourable members interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Ewen Jones ): Order! Let the member for Lyons start, please.
Mr HUTCHINSON: It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on this motion. I commend the member for Werriwa, and also the member for Reid for seconding the motion. I come to speak on this motion from personal experience. I was 42 years old when I had a myocardial infarction. For those who are not aware, effectively it was plaque blocking one of the arteries in my heart. That was eight years ago. In some respects it was probably the best thing that had ever happened to me. It was a wake up call. I could tick off so many of the risk factors. I have smoked for much of my life. I had a family history. I was doing too much of this and not enough of that. But it was eight years ago and now I feel as good as I have ever felt.
I would like to go through my experience, because it was quite a personal experience. I woke up on a Saturday morning. It was a medal stroke day at my golf club, where I used to play golf. They always say, beware the injured golfer! As it happens—the back tees and everything else—off a handicap of 10; I had net 72. I did not win the medal stroke that day, but I played there. All day I felt nauseous. I felt nauseous. Later that evening I went to my sister's place for dinner at Exeter down on the West Tamar. It was a family gathering. I had to excuse myself from the dinner table because what had been a nauseous ache all day became quite an acute pain across the top of my stomach. I went outside. I stood next to the compost bin for about 20 minutes thinking I was going to be ill.
I came back inside and my wife, who is a pharmacist, and my sister, who is a nurse at the emergency department of the Royal Hobart Hospital, who happened to be there that night, said I looked grey. They both said, 'I think you're having a heart attack.' I sat down. Whilst the ambulance was coming—and all credit to the ambulance for coming very quickly—I got the classic tingle in my left arm and so forth. The ambulance driver, to his credit, arrived, but he thought that I had some form of diarrhoea. It was only on my sister and my wife's insistence that I walked to the ambulance and he took my blood pressure, which then was 220 over 140, and that is when he realised that there might be something going on.
I was taken in to the Launceston General Hospital very efficiently. It was a Saturday. Whilst I was misdiagnosed on arrival, I was stabilised and I was put in intensive care. I was quite lucid and so forth. On Monday morning, Dr Brian Herman, cardiologist, put in two stents, which is a very simple operation. You remain awake. They come up through the artery in your groin. I had two stents placed in the central artery in my heart. It was quite interesting because the two other arteries were quite clean—they were about 15 per cent blocked, which is about normal for somebody my age—but my central artery was completely blocked.
I want to thank all the staff at the Launceston General Hospital. I want to thank my cardiologist, Brian Herman. He does outstanding work. I want to thank my general practitioner, Frank Brunacci, who lives in my electorate at Longford. I want to thank also Dr Sindhu, who I have seen in more recent times.
I also want to reflect that I was out of hospital on the Thursday. That was a Saturday, and I had had my stents put in on the Monday. I was out of hospital on the Thursday. I went back to work on the following Monday, and it was the worst thing I could have done. I took myself home on Monday night and I did not go back for a month, and that was probably the best thing I ever did. I felt fine, but it was quite a shock to my system. It was probably three months later that I started to feel like myself again.
I just say that this is really important. Defibrillator Awareness Month and the Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation: more power to them. Twenty-three thousand to 33,000 people die each year from sudden cardiac arrest. Beware that the symptoms are not always classic. Beware that the symptoms for women are often quite different to those of men. In my case, I felt nothing other than a little unwell. It manifested itself into something that I, in hindsight now, am very grateful happened to me, because we do a little bit more of that and a little bit less of this. I commend the member for Werriwa for this motion today.
Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (12:12): I would like to commence my contribution to this debate by congratulating the member for Werriwa for bringing this to the parliament. I know how passionate he is about this issue. I would also like to congratulate for their contribution to this debate the previous speakers, the member for McEwen, the member for Reid and the member for Lyons, who shared with us here in the parliament his personal experience. From listening to him, you realise just how common heart attacks can be.
October has been designated as Shoctober by the Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation. I think it is important to look at the issue of heart attack, how prevalent it is and what the risk factors are and at actions that Australians can take to lower their risk factors. Obviously, the most common risk factors are smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, poor diet, lack of physical activity and being overweight. Age can also be a contributing factor, but age is not always a contributing factor, as we have heard here in the House this morning. In addition, ethnic background can be a factor. It is unfortunate that our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are much more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease than other Australians.
I think it is really important that people understand that heart attacks can happen to anyone at any time and that by having a combination of these risk factors you increase the likelihood that you will have a heart attack. The heart attack is known as a silent killer. There are no obvious symptoms until it strikes. You may not even know that you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Sometimes a heart attack will be the first sign that anything is wrong, as we have heard this morning. This is why it is important to know what chance a person has of having a heart attack. I would encourage all Australians to be aware of their heart health, particularly women. As the member for Lyons mentioned, the symptoms and signs of heart attack in women are very different to those in men. It is really something that can sneak up on people.
29 September was World Heart Day. At that time, it was highlighted just how many people in Australia die from heart attacks. There are 16,000 premature deaths that occur every year because of the fact that people are inactive, and inactivity in itself leads to cardiovascular disease. When we look at heart health, over 1.1 million Australians aged 30 to 65 have a high chance of heart attack or stroke, over 3.5 million Australians aged 45 and over have high cholesterol, 2.3 million Australians over 45 have high blood pressure and two in three Australians have more than one risk factor of having a heart attack or stroke.
This particular issue is really important. We have a friends of heart and stroke group in the parliament. The member for Werriwa has already approached me about raising this issue with that group. It is imperative that defibrillators be available and ready because of the sudden nature of heart attack. A defibrillator being available could mean the difference between life and death. I commend Sydney Trains and encourage more organisations to have defibrillators readily available and for the Commonwealth government to fund that. (Time expired)
Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (12:18): I am really pleased to be able to stand here today in support of the motion and to congratulate everybody involved with Shoctober, in particular the Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation for their work with Defibrillator Awareness Month. One of the reasons I have chosen to speak on this topic today is that I am living proof of somebody who is only here today because of an automatic external defibrillator. As some other members have spoken about earlier, cardiac arrest can hit in the most unusual circumstances—in my case, as a 26-year-old playing basketball, feeling quite fit and healthy and, quite frankly, invincible. After suffering a cardiac arrest on the basketball court and not breathing for seven minutes, I am only standing here today because a paramedic was deployed very quickly and was able to restart my heart. That paramedic's name is Andrew Burns. This is the first time in parliament I have been able to thank him. Without him and his expertise, I would not be standing here today.
The more important and bigger issue is how we can ensure AEDs are in every community organisation and every workplace to give the best chance possible to those people who will inevitably suffer cardiac arrest at times that are completely unexpected. That is why I want to lend my support to the Cardiac Arrest Survival Foundation and all the work that they have done with Shoctober. I also think there is a big role to play for government here and I am certainly advocating from the government's side. I would like to think we can do it in a bipartisan fashion, to see if we can encourage more government funding to get automated external defibrillators in as many community organisations as possible.
As somebody who is a survivor and who is only alive because of an AED I get lots of stories that come to my office from people who are the great examples. They are like me and have gone on to live very happy and successful lives. Unfortunately, I also get the tragic stories as well. What is very common, and what I hear a lot, is of the 18, 19, 20, 21 year old playing sport of some description, just like I was, thinking they were healthy and invincible and the tragedy befalls their families when they die on a football field, or a cricket field, or out running or in some form of exercise. Just how tragic it is for those families breaks my heart. That is why it is incumbent on all political parties to work out ways, in a bipartisan way, so that we can get even more funding and even more support for every organisation to have an AED on the wall. Every time I walk into a clubhouse—and pardon the pun—it warms my heart when I see the AED sitting on the wall, because I do appreciate that without that sitting there so many young people, in particular, would be in danger.
There is a strong commitment from me and all of my colleagues to ensure that we make some heavy strides in this direction over the next two years. I commend state governments who are seeking to do the same thing. In my home state of Victoria both the government and the opposition certainly do have programs to fund AEDs for various community groups. I think there is a role there for the federal government to leverage that, to make it even bigger and to ensure that, in particular, every workplace has one—importantly, not only that every workplace has an AED but that they have somebody at all times who is trained to use it. It is something that is so simple and it is the difference, literally, between life and death for so many people.
As far as I am concerned it is a very small cost to government for benefits that are so important for our society and which ultimately have economic benefits down the track, because—as I am proof positive—you can go on to live a very active, busy and productive life. I commend the motion and I thank speakers for doing so in a bipartisan fashion.
Debate adjourned.
Australian Defence Force Cadets
Mr EWEN JONES (Herbert) (12:23): I move:
That this House recognises:
(1) the importance of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) cadets organisations in building the responsible citizens of tomorrow;
(2) that cadets:
(a) learn important life and work skills, team work, leadership, confidence and responsibility through participation in the Navy, Army and Air Force cadets organisations; and
(b) assist local communities through volunteer engagement, community services and fund raising, which is fostered and encouraged through the ADF cadets organisations; and
(3) the important role that ADF cadets play in contributing to our Defence Force of the future and building a stronger Australia.
Texas State High School on the south-west highland downs never had cadets. By the time I went to boarding school, I was out of that mould where we could have had cadets. But one of the very many good things about becoming a local member is the ability to go round to schools, and to go round to cadet corps and to see the type of people that are involved there—interacting with cadets, their tutors and their senior people in those organisations.
Townsville is blessed in being a great garrison city, among other things. We have a very strong and vibrant cadet force. You find that the things they have in common are great kids and great adults helping them out. The people who give their time—some of whom are paid, just a little bit—are paid back more than that in the attitude they get from their kids, the respect for the uniform and all that sort of stuff that goes with being a cadet.
The thing I like about the cadets is that it sets them on the road. I do not think there is anything untoward about saying that the cadets would probably be the nation's best youth leadership program. It bases its format on trust and respect, not only for yourself but for others, the uniform and the equipment. It also bases itself on discipline, getting opportunities and making the most of them. In an era where we have high youth unemployment and disengagement with society, the cadets fill that spot for so many kids. We are lucky in Townsville. As I said, the RAAF cadets that base themselves at Air Base Townsville at Garbutt have fantastic facilities. The Townville RAAF base does a great job of making sure that these kids have everything they need. Heatley state high school has a great band of cadets in Townville and is well disposed inside that high school.
Our Navy cadets, however, have a few issues, as well as our Army cadets at Lavarack Barracks. I would like to place on record my thanks to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence, the member for Gippsland, for the way he has given me an open hearing and has been very abiding of his time and ideas around how we get a good result for my Navy cadets and Army cadets at Lavarack in Townsville. The Navy cadets are going to lose their premises, not because they have not been good tenants or anything like that but because the company is expanding and it will need the building back. Additionally, in the facilities that they had, there was some of those ridiculous things where, instead of bringing the petition to a certain level, they took it to the ceiling; it is now a fire risk and they cannot have sleepovers or camps. The Townsville Navy cadets base is probably the best space, but it goes basically from Bundaberg all the way through to the Torres Strait. The ability not to be able to have camps there is a real bane of their existence.
The Army cadets at Lavarack, who work in demountables, have an issue about getting on and off the base. Of course, it is an Army base; it is not lit for pedestrian traffic after hours. Quite often you will have kids going through, two cadets, and parents trying to find their way through there. It is not the most hospitable place to try and get all the way into the bowels of Lavarack Barracks. With the landing helicopter dock ship, we will be doing a lot of work in Townsville. The ADF will have a lot of organisation to do around Townsville port. There will have to be building facilities there with staging posts and so on. What if we could get a facility and add value to the defence investment in that space at that area in south Townville, which is easy and central for everyone to get to? You could co-locate your Navy cadets and all their equipment with your Lavarack based Army cadets and all their equipment. They could have a parade in which to march and all the facilities, as well as camping facilities for cadets overnight.
I finish by saying thank you, again, to all those people who get involved with cadets and all the adults who work so hard in trying to make sure that cadets have a great experience. They do not necessarily go through and join the ADF. Army cadets do not necessarily join the infantry. But it gives them the life skills of being able to work together as a team and understand the chain of command and the role they play in the organisation. It is a truly great organisation. It something which we as a parliament should foster and encourage much more. Again, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence, Darren Chester, for all his work in this space.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): I thank the member for Herbert. Is there a seconder for this motion?
Mr Coleman: I second the motion.
Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (12:28): It is nice to have a bit of bipartisanism, and I certainly congratulate the member for Herbert on bringing this motion to the chamber for our discussion. In particular, I have some memories of being an air cadet back in my youth at the air cadets based in Willaston, just near Gawler in my electorate. I went down there when I was in high school in Kapunda, my home town. I think it was on Wednesday nights that we used to meet. I have very fond memories of doing that. I think we did a couple of Anzac Day parades and helped out there as well. It was a very good experience. It certainly gave you a window into the life of what it might be like to pursue a career in the ADF, although, sadly, I did not do that; I went off in a different direction.
Mr Jones's motion to the House, in paragraph (b), talks about the assistance to local communities. I am certainly aware of that in a more recent example of the cadets, because I was recently at the 150th Clare Show. I was obviously there for the official lunch with President David Bond. The Clare Show managed to get the Governor-General, his Excellency Sir Peter Cosgrove, and Lady Cosgrove to open the 150th show. It was a great occasion. Obviously there is a lot of history in that show, and to have the Governor-General there was just terrific.
As the Governor-General moved around show, he was certainly very generous of his time with everybody. But one of the things that stuck in my mind of that particular day was when he talked to the local army cadets. You could see that they took a lot away from it as well. They were there both to participate in the opening of the show and also to have a stand—and I have no doubt they were doing a bit of recruitment while they were there. Obviously it is just great for everybody to see local cadets and the Governor-General at their local show. So I have seen firsthand the good work they do.
I am fortunate enough to have quite a good presence of cadets in my electorate. As I said before, I was part of 608 Squadron at Willaston. There is also the No. 613 Squadron and the No. 6 Wing headquarters at Edinburgh, the 411 Army cadet unit at Clare and the 49 ACU at Smithfield and, in terms of Navy cadets, we have the AMC training ship Stuart. I do have good cadet presence and I am certainly aware of the work that they do not just at shows and Anzac Days but also at all the local citizenship ceremonies. They do tend to assist in those events as well.
As the member for Herbert said, you do not always normally go on to serve in the defence forces, but cadetship does give young people a window into what life might be like if you pursue what is a very difficult vocation—and it is a vocation. Serving in our defence forces is not just a day job; it really does take up all of you, all of your professional life, and often it has an impact on your family as well. It is a very challenging career to pursue. Being involved in the cadets gives you a window into that and allows you to get some idea of whether or not you would like to pursue that as a vocation.
But, even if you do not go into the ADF, your time in cadets does serve you well. It gives you an opportunity to participate in the community. It gives you a chance to attend an Anzac Day ceremony in uniform. It teaches you a lot about marching and drill. All of those things are useful later on in life. I guess I can attest to that. I would certainly like to extend to the member for Herbert and the member for Banks some congratulations for bringing this motion to the House. It allows us to thank all of those involved—not just the young people who are cadets themselves and the parents who have to take them down to do the parades and the weekly drills, but also all those involved in the actual operation behind the cadets and the structures that keep that going. It is tremendously important for us to thank all of those individuals, all of those families and all of the cadets themselves. I commend the motion to the House.
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (12:33): I am very pleased to speak in favour of this motion moved by the member for Herbert. This is a really important motion because it goes to the importance of cadets in our community. Cadets of course provide a really important stepping stone for a lot of young kids in our community to learn about the elements of a military life and to participate very constructively in our community. Although I have never served in the military, I have immense respect for those who have. Their efforts underwrite our security and enable us to enjoy the lives that we do.
The Australian Defence Force Cadets, as a stepping stone for some, is a very important institution. I can go right to the top, to our Governor‑General Sir Peter Cosgrove, for a testimonial about cadets. He served in the Waverley College Cadet Unit. He said:
Even as very young men, we understood that the privilege of wearing the uniform, being part of the tribe, was accompanied by a burden—more of an obligation to accept an ethos of decency, respect, cohesion and effort.
That was from his experience in the cadets. The only Australian to be appointed as a field marshal, Sir Thomas Blamey, was an Army cadet, as was Sir John Monash of the Scotch College Cadet Unit. Of course, he went on to command our forces in World War I and do many other things around our nation.
The cadets provide a really good way for young kids to find out more about the ADF and to participate in our community. There are exchanges available for cadets. We have arrangements in place with Canada, Germany, South Korea and the United States, where our cadets travel over there and similar organisations from those countries come to Australia. That exchange and informal learning about the culture—social and military—of other countries is a really important thing.
There are also cadet bands, which we see at so many of our different community events. I see them frequently in my electorate of Banks. Cadets also learn great skills through things like the Chief of Army Cadet Team Challenge, where groups of cadets from different regions participate against each other in a series of drill challenges, sporting challenges and other activities—all with that focus on learning more about oneself, which is such an important part of growing up, and learning how to be part of a team and how to make a contribution.
Cadets do a whole lot more too, including community services and fundraising activities. They assist across so many different elements of our community. It is a big commitment for young people to get involved in cadets—meeting about once a week after school and on weekends—learning those survival skills, bushcraft and so on and really becoming a more rounded person.
Not everyone who joins cadets goes on to the ADF—in fact, a minority do. But, regardless of whether or not people go on to serve in the military, they undoubtedly obtain fantastic experiences from it and contribute strongly to our society. We have over 25,000 cadets right across the country in 440 units and squadrons. This is one of the largest organisations for young people to get involved in anywhere in our nation and represents about 12 per cent of total enlistments in the Defence Force. So it is a really substantial group.
I am really delighted to be able to speak in favour of this important motion. I salute and honour our military. I congratulate our cadets on everything they do in our community. I thank the member for moving this motion.
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (12:39): Mr Deputy Speaker Jones, I too would like to join with my colleagues to commend and congratulate you on this motion. I am an enormous fan of the Australian Defence Force Cadets. From my work as Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence and also from, prior to this life, having my own business and spending four years consulting with the Australian Defence Force Cadets, I know from close experience—not only from working with the staff who work with these young people and also from meeting these young people—that it is an extraordinary institution and these individuals are extraordinary individuals. So I do congratulate and commend you for moving this motion.
As I said, I am an enormous fan of this program. It is wonderful to hear the figures. When I was involved in it, I think there were about 20,000 young Australians involved in cadets and now we are up to 25,000. The fact that it is growing is just wonderful. Particularly in these challenging times where the youth are becoming disaffected and, in many ways, disengaged, the fact that we have a youth development organisation that is actually booming, that is growing, is just wonderful.
As has been mentioned by my colleagues, the great thing about cadets is that they learn so much. They learn leadership skills, team building skills and survival skills. They learn resilience, discipline and self-respect. They learn how to build their self-esteem. They learn public speaking skills and they learn teamwork skills. They get to train at barracks and eat at messes. They get to climb all over defence equipment, learn about communications, first aid and orienteering. And, depending on the service that they join—be it navy, army or air force—they can learn how to fly, glide, sail or learn bushcraft. So it does give them an enormous breadth of experience and it is just a sensational organisation.
Spending four years with cadets, I got to see a lot of cadet units right throughout the country. One that really stands in my mind was going up to the opening of TS Carpentaria in Thursday Island, where the cadets had embraced the local culture and the local way of doing things. One of the major activities that those kids were involved in was going out and fishing, as the community are great fishers. That was a core part of the cadet program there, in addition to the more generic cadet elements.
I also got to go to an Indigenous cadet unit in Nhulunbuy. That was also terrific. When I was in cadets they were introducing a program for Indigenous cadets. One was on Palm Island, and they were looking at broadening them throughout Australia—getting the young Indigenous communities focused on building self-esteem, building self-confidence and getting those resilience and leadership skills. It is a vitally important program, particularly in those remote and regional communities.
I also got to go to a parade of the newly built facility for the Army cadets down at Cowra. Again, that was a core part of the youth development culture and activity in that regional centre. It was an incredibly popular activity. But the thing that really stood out for me, apart from TS Carpentaria, was being involved in the cadet survey and the cadet staff survey. As a result of that, I got to visit a number of cadet units right throughout the country and spoke to the staff as well as the cadets. I remember going to Nowra on a Saturday afternoon and meeting a number of the cadets there. The effect that the cadets had had on those young people was absolutely overwhelming. Not only were a number of those young people who attended cadets kids who were underachieving before they went to cadets but they also acknowledged that fact and the fact that cadets had turned around their life. For a number of the kids I met, the meal that they had from the mess was the only hot meal that they had throughout their week. So they had come from some pretty tough environments. I remember one little guy who said to me that before cadets he was getting Ds and Es and then after going to cadets for a year and learning how to build up his self-esteem and confidence he was now getting Bs and As. It had just transformed this kid's life.
Member for Herbert, I cannot commend you enough for introducing this motion. Cadets is an extraordinary organisation and I do commend you. Finally, I want to acknowledge the cadets who were involved in my Anzac Centenary Board. I had two cadets from TS Canberra here. Leading Seaman Zoe Rule and Cadet Petty Officer Alexander Thurgar did a wonderful job in helping me make those decisions.
Mr BUCHHOLZ (Wright—Government Whip) (12:44): I join in acknowledging the member for Herbert for bringing this most relevant topic to our House. My engagement with cadets is somewhat less indulgent and quite bizarre. When you think of cadets you think of the organisation that you would have had a link to—whether it be the Navy cadets, the Air Force cadets or the Army—and mine was the Army.
I was playing football for a Christian Brothers side and during winter the coach thought it would be a great idea if the whole side joined the cadets. His position was that there would be less damage done in training to hamstrings because, during cadet season, which overlapped football season, you were able to wear your greens, your camos, to school and so you were warm all day. Anything in Rockhampton under 22 degrees deserves a cardigan, and so we were in our full greens all day.
One of the by-products of being involved in cadets and aspiring to the dizzy ranks of corporal was the discipline that was instilled in you as a leader. Those extraordinary qualities and fundamental underlying principles on how to deliver a speech, command men and earn respect were all taught by and underpinned the ethos of the cadet movement Most importantly, the cadet movement taught you about respect. It taught you to respect rank. It taught you to respect the office of senior personnel. You may not necessarily have agreed with what they said or enjoyed the outcome of what they said, but nevertheless you were taught from a very young age to respect the office.
In the cadet movement in my electorate we are so blessed. The school cadets movement has shifted away from a very strong group of organisers through the reservists or paid school staff to now being a completely volunteer organisation. I want to acknowledge some of the outstanding people in my electorate who contribute to developing the lives of these young people in my electorate who will go on, I am sure, to be future leaders of their communities, their state and, hopefully, most impressively, their country.
I want to congratulate the Logan City Community Cadets, led by commanding officer Trevor Shulze, the entire Parents Support Group, led by Mrs Raelene Griffin and her vice-president Mrs Lynne Bell, and the individual company officers, Andrew Griffin and Brett McCreadie, for the stellar job they are doing in changing these kids' lives. We should never dull it down. That is exactly what they do. They are taking these children and instilling in them direction, ethos and purpose and spending an enormous amount of time with them.
Also, over in the western part of my electorate we have the Lockyer Valley Army cadets, known as the 139 Australian Army Cadet Unit, operating out of Gatton. This particular cadet unit is 21 years old and is a regular fixture at the local Anzac and Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Finally, I would like to recognise the work of Wing Commander Gordon French. Gordon is an exceptional gentleman whose posture, delivery and mode of communication can be described as nothing other than militant in its precision. Coming, as he does, from the Air Force, there is a poise and panache about the guy. Gordon has been an invaluable asset to my office in the selection of the Anzac Day Centenary grants. However, he is also heavily involved in the air cadet school of aviation. the school of aviation is an important step for air cadets who wish to join the RAAF and delivers a strong base of knowledge which best prepares the cadets for flying duty in the future. Gordon has been instrumental in raising capital. The air cadets at Amberley have an enormous asset base of aircraft. The catchment area from there comes as far as Rockhampton. I support this motion and commend the member for Herbert to bring it to the House.
Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (12:49): I am puffing a little because I have just run from the other chamber in time to be here for this very important debate and very important motion, moved, as I understand it, by the member for Herbert. I am sure that makes it a very important contribution. I had an opportunity to listen to some of the contributions of others, and I agree with every word spoken. As a former Minister for Defence, I have had a special opportunity to focus on the work of the Australian Defence Force Cadets, whether it be the Navy Cadets, the Army Cadets or indeed the Air Force Cadets.
All of us, I suspect, have some memory of some awareness of the cadets when we were younger. I was a student at Marist Brothers in Maitland, now called St Peter's, which had a strong cadet unit. I was not a member of the unit because my bus ride home to Cessnock was about 40 minutes in duration, and staying a little longer at night to be part of the cadets was not my first choice in those days. I can say that I lament that decision not to participate because, as a former defence minister in particular and as a regular observer of the work of the cadets at things like Remembrance Day and Anzac Day ceremonies, I now fully appreciate the contribution that they make.
The cadets are first and foremost a youth development organisation. Some people see it as a recruitment organisation. Certainly it does serve that purpose because many of the great experiences that young Australians have in the cadets lead them to have a keen interest in a career in the Australian Defence Force. Of course, in the cadets they learn leadership skills and they learn the art of discipline so important in this modern society, but also they learn to drill and to shoot and a whole range of things that we associate with the Australian Defence Force per se. They are not of course members of the Australian Defence Force but do receive firsthand experience in many of the areas in which our Australian Defence Force service men and women work.
Let me be, I suspect, the first person to say that the cadets have not always been perfect. It is an area not without its challenges. Whenever you are inviting 13- to 20-year-olds together as one, there are challenges, no matter how well intentioned and committed they might be to the cause. The cadets, like many other parts of the Australian Defence Force, have had their incidents over the years—incidents that have been challenging to those in charge of their units and to the Australian Defence Force more generally. That is why we need to be continually looking at and reforming the organisation to make sure it does keep pace with community standards and to ensure that the young people joining are benefiting from the experiences they expected to have as a result of joining the cadets. For example, there was a time—I hope it has changed, and I am confident it has changed—when the paperwork burden for the volunteers who were administering the scheme was so excessive that real-life experiences in camps and on rifle ranges et cetera became not necessarily the norm and gave way to too much theory and classroom teaching.
I am very proud that I was the minister in 2008, when I gave sanction to the then CDF's latest review into the cadets and therefore the reform of the cadets—reforms which I am confident have strengthened the administrative structure and the command structure and will ensure that the cadets continue to provide good experiences for young Australians. Of course our cadets do not just do good work within their units; they do good work out there in the community as well, including a number of community fundraising efforts—something they do in the name of the Australian Defence Force and therefore something which strengthens the branding and image of the Australian Defence Force.
So I pay tribute to those who are running the organisations at the moment, and I pay tribute and say thank you to all those who are participating. May many of them make the decision to join the Australian Defence Force in the future.
Debate adjourned.
Vietnamese-Australian Community
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (12:54): I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) in 2015, 40 years will have passed since the arrival of Vietnamese refugees in Australia at the end of the Vietnam War; and
(b) during this time, the Vietnamese-Australian community has grown from approximately 700 Vietnam-born Australians to approximately 185,000 Vietnam-born Australians, and 220,000 Australians speaking Vietnamese at home;
(2) acknowledges the contribution of Vietnamese-Australians to our society in the past 40 years, with Vietnamese-Australians becoming leading figures in business, politics, the arts, and in our communities;
(3) notes that the Vietnamese Community in Australia, or VCA, is marking the 40th anniversary through a series of events, programs and exhibitions; and
(4) encourages all Australians to take part in the celebrations to learn more about the culture and heritage of Vietnamese-Australians.
Next year marks the anniversary of an event that dramatically changed my electorate and our country for the better: 2015 is the 40th anniversary of the mass settlement of Vietnamese refugees in Australia.
Only 40 years ago, the Vietnamese community in Australia numbered just 700 people. At this time, Australia had only recently begun peering beyond the insular, bigoted legislative barricades of the White Australia policy to embrace the broader, more diverse world outside. But, with the first major arrivals of Vietnamese refugees after the Vietnam War, those barricades began to tumble down, not just in the letter of our law but in the lived experience of Australian multiculturalism. The migration of Vietnamese refugees to Australia 40 years ago changed our nation and changed it for the better. Today, there are around 220,000 Australians who speak Vietnamese in their homes.
I am proud to represent a seat, an electorate, that has been the welcoming mat for the Vietnamese community in Victoria and that gave these refugees and their families the safety, freedom and democracy that the government of Vietnam denied them. It was the hostels of Melbourne's west that provided refuge to the Vietnamese families finding their way in an alien world. The hostels like Wiltona and Midway in my electorate provided them with a bed to sleep on, and the suburbs like Footscray and Sunshine gave them the community in which to rebuild their lives.
This gift of safety and freedom has been repaid to our nation a thousand times over through the contribution of the Vietnamese-Australian community in our society today. They are now the doctors in our hospitals and the lawyers in our courts. They are the comedians and commentators, like Anh Do and Natalie Tran, who help us to laugh at ourselves and examine what it means to be Australian. They are the writers and leaders like Nam Le, Carina Hoang, Khoa Do and Hieu Van Le, telling stories about the evolving nature of what it means to be Australian. Finally, they are our friends and family.
The Vietnamese-Australian community has had an enormous impact on the way that Australians think about themselves and those around them. In fact, the 2013 Scanlon social cohesion survey found that, today, 84 per cent of Australians agree that multiculturalism has been good for Australia, and 60 per cent agree that multiculturalism strengthens the Australian way of life.
As I said in my first speech, Australian multiculturalism is one of our nation's greatest assets, and in many ways we have the Australian-Vietnamese community to thank for embedding it in our community, for among the many things that the Vietnamese-Australian community has shown and taught Australians is what a community of refugees can bring to those who grant them refuge. That is why I also noted in my first speech, with disappointment, the current government's moves to cut our offshore humanitarian intake of asylum seekers to 13,750, down from the quota of 20,000 welcomed under the previous Labor government.
The Vietnamese-Australian community knows the impact of this policy better than most. Even today, we see a crackdown in Vietnam on protesters, unionists and religious groups by the Vietnamese government, leading more Vietnamese asylum seekers to seek refuge in Australia. These ongoing human rights abuses should not be ignored in Australia, and I welcome reports that 50 Vietnamese asylum seekers have been resettled in Perth in recent weeks. I am proud of the previous Labor government's record in increasing our offshore asylum seeker intake to record levels, and I hope that one day future governments will have the vision and compassion to do the same.
The Vietnamese-Australian community is holding a number of exhibitions, events and celebrations to mark their 40th anniversary in Australia, including displays of Vietnamese music and dance and social programs designed to give back to the community. I am pleased to say that many of these events will be in my electorate. We will see the establishment of a local park to honour the Australian soldiers killed in the Vietnam War in defence of the freedom of the Vietnamese people, soup kitchens bringing Vietnamese food to Melbourne's homeless, a major contribution to the Melbourne Royal Children's Hospital through their Good Friday Appeal, and publications on the history and contributions of our Vietnamese-Australians over the past 40 years.
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the hard work of the committee members of the Victorian chapter of the Vietnamese Community in Australia on this agenda for Victoria under the leadership of President Bon Nguyen and to acknowledge their vision and determination in making sure that this important occasion is not neglected. In closing, I would like to give a personal message to the Vietnamese community of Australia. To the Vietnamese community of Australia, I say : [Vietnamese language not transcribed]. I am sure I did not get it right, but I can say that in the modern, multicultural Australia we are a forgiving people. I am immeasurably thankful for the contribution that the Vietnamese community has made in my electorate and in the broader nation.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Ewen Jones ): Is the motion seconded?
Mr Coulton: I second the motion.
Mr RUDDOCK (Berowra—Chief Government Whip) (12:59): I hope the honourable member will be forgiving to me after my speech. Can I just take a moment to say that I do appreciate the member for Gellibrand moving this motion and giving us an opportunity to commend the Vietnamese community for its contribution to Australia. I very much appreciate the importance of the Australian-Vietnamese community, and particularly its association, and I recognise the 40th anniversary.
I thank the honourable member for drawing attention to it, but I hope he will be forgiving of me when I say that I am not sure that he got it quite right. I would encourage him to look at a motion on which I did something that no Labor member can ever do: I crossed the floor on a racism matter in 1988. I did so because I strongly believe in all of the principles that were enunciated here. The first point that was made in the resolution on which I crossed the floor was that the White Australia policy was abolished by Prime Minister Harold Holt. That was the motion moved by Bob Hawke in 1988, and I thank him for doing it. It gave me an opportunity to affirm the principle that I believe in very strongly.
I am disappointed that the member for Gellibrand did not mention the role of the Fraser government. I do not always agree with Malcolm Fraser, and he does not always agree with me, but it was the Fraser government that actually implemented the programs that brought the Vietnamese to Australia. I said some very nice things about a former Prime Minister. I regard him as a great Australian, but he did have some things to say that I would quarrel with. One of them—excuse the expletives—was said in 1975 after the fall of Saigon by Gough Whitlam to Don Willesee:
I'm not having these f..king Vietnamese Balts coming into the country with their religious and political prejudices …
I am glad that we have an approach to multiculturalism which says that people are entitled to their different religious beliefs. They are entitled to their culture. They are entitled to be just as Australian as anybody else. I think the Vietnamese who have settled in Australia have made an enormous contribution to this country.
I well remember the circumstances that led to so many fleeing. I had a dear friend, Duyet Le Van, who was going, under the old Colombo Plan, to Sydney university, studying engineering. I can remember him leaving in my first year at university, going back to Vietnam and telling me he was going back to a tragic situation. I commented on what was happening in Laos and he told me that I should be more concerned about what was happening in Vietnam. I later saw him come back to Australia as a refugee, having returned after the completion of his studies. I saw him become the leader of the Vietnamese community in New South Wales.
I might say a former member for Prospect, Dick Klugman, was asked by Ian Macphee, as minister, to help the settlement process for Vietnamese coming to this country because it was going to be extraordinarily difficult. I think the 200,000 or more who came under the programs initiated by the Fraser government have made an enormous contribution to this country. I acknowledge the South Australian governor. I acknowledge my dear friend Quang Luu, who headed up SBS Radio for a long time. I acknowledge a young lady in my own political party who is ambitious, and I hope we will see her one day in public office—Dai Le. If we look at the enormous contribution that has been made by these people, we should be justly proud.
I thank the member for moving the motion. I am just sorry that it was not a little more balanced to reflect, particularly, the engagement of Malcolm Fraser and his colleagues, who worked so hard against some opposition of the time to put in place the programs that have made this success story possible.
Mr HAYES (Fowler—Chief Opposition Whip) (13:04): I too would like to thank the member for Gellibrand for bringing this motion forward. My electorate, which is located in Sydney's south-west, contains the most multicultural communities throughout the whole of Australia. We have over 150 nationalities residing in Fowler, and over 20 per cent of my electorate is made up of Vietnamese-speaking Australians.
I have to admit that, when I first came to the seat of Fowler in 2010, I did not know a single Vietnamese person. The Vietnamese community have been very kind to me. Not only did they welcome me, but they allowed me to share in their rich culture and traditions. I have attended many Vietnamese community events over the past four years, including the renowned Tet festival celebrating lunar New Year. Attending these events allowed me not only to learn more but to grow in my respect for Vietnamese cultural values and their unshakable belief in freedom, democracy and respect for human rights.
The Vietnamese community have come a long way since first arriving in Australia following the fall of Saigon. When Vietnamese refugees arrived in Australia, they had very little knowledge of Australian language and our culture, and they struggled to find employment. They faced great challenges, not the least being the effect of post-traumatic stress as a product of years of conflict and upheaval in their homeland. Almost 40 years on, Vietnamese people can stand proud, as they are one of the most successful communities ever to establish a new life here in Australian society. They have successfully established Vietnamese community services, religious organisations, education facilities and various social and supporting groups to underpin the settlement of their community. I would like to acknowledge the invaluable work of the Vietnamese Community in Australia—the VCA—and particularly the contribution of my friend Tri Vo, the national president, and Dr Thang Ha, of the New South Wales chapter. These people play an extraordinary role in our Vietnamese-Australian community.
The Vietnamese community have promoted their vibrant culture and traditions to Australian society and have done much to contribute in all areas of community life. When you look around at this country, you will find that the Vietnamese are well represented in all of our professions including medicine, law, finance and engineering. Their achievements are not by accident. Their achievements are indicative of the diligent and hardworking nature they have.
Another quality which I strongly admire in the Vietnamese is their strong sense of fellowship and desire to help others in times of need. Earlier this year the Vietnamese community raised funds in support of the Blue Mountains bushfires. They did the same in respect of the victims of the Queensland floods and other calamities faced by fellow Australians. The Vietnamese community also raised funds to help the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Aside from this, the Vietnamese community have also been involved in a number of initiatives that have led to life-changing experiences for many disadvantaged people both within Australia and abroad. Projects like Vietnam Vision, problem-gambling counselling and the Senhoa project have positively impacted on the lives of thousands of people, giving them not only hope but a chance of life. The Vietnamese community's charitable and compassionate work is definitely second to none.
I have always wondered why the Vietnamese have been so committed when it comes to helping others, not just within the Vietnamese community. A good friend of mine once told me of an old Vietnamese saying that goes something like, 'When you eat the fruit of the tree, have regard to those who planted the seed.' He explained to me that the Vietnamese community has always felt a great sense of gratitude for Australia welcoming Vietnamese refugees when they fled their country in search of peace and freedom. Because Australia gave Vietnamese refugees a chance for a new start in life, the Vietnamese community will never forget.
Today there are more than 200,000 Vietnamese in Australia. They are the fifth largest ethnic group to migrate here. I would like to commend the Vietnamese community for all that they have done in helping shape the modern face of Australia.
With the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon just around the corner, I would like to join the Vietnamese community in Australia in commemorating the fallen and those who continue to fight for freedom, human rights and democracy in Vietnam.
Mr SIMPKINS (Cowan) (13:09): I thank the member for Gellibrand for bringing this motion forward because it gives me the opportunity to speak about the organisation Vietnamese Community in WA, which was established in 1987. It is a very active, not-for-profit, cultural, social and welfare community organisation. It is also the peak organisation, with over 20 sub-organisations. Its membership encompasses the entire Vietnamese community in Western Australia. From its offices in Brisbane Street in Perth, the organisation's main role is helping people of Vietnamese heritage in their settlement. It also provides social work services.
From what I see of its work, it also works very hard to preserve Vietnamese language and culture through educational activities—which I will explain later—and to showcase the Vietnamese culture to a wider Western Australian community. The community's main annual events are the lunar new year, or Tet festival, which is held at the Wanneroo showgrounds in February, and the Moon Festival, which falls around August, and this great event takes place at Girrawheen Senior High School. Both venues are within the electorate of Cowan. An interesting point about Tet in 2015 is that the community has decided that the event will be free to those who wear traditional Vietnamese dress. I am sure this will further expand the standing of the Vietnamese in Perth and will prove to be a highly colourful event.
Next year, it will be 40 years since the Vietnamese people first began to come to Australia in certain numbers. Although 1975 is credited as being the first time Vietnamese people started coming to Australia, it was only after the Fraser government came to power that the way was really open for them. As we have already heard from the Chief Government Whip, it was Prime Minister Whitlam who was against Vietnamese immigration. There are two unchallenged quotes that he made about the Vietnamese at the time of the fall of Vietnam. He said to his foreign affairs minister:
I'm not having these—
expletive—
Vietnamese Balts coming into the country with their religious and political prejudices against us.
And, after his celebration of the victory of the communists, he said:
Vietnamese sob stories don't wring my withers.
Given that attitude of Prime Minister Whitlam, it is obvious that it was only from 1976 that significant numbers of Vietnamese were allowed to resettle in Australia.
It was in April 1976 that the first boat arrived in Darwin carrying Vietnamese asylum seekers. In the next five years, 56 additional boats with just over 2,000 asylum seekers on board arrived. While escape from persecution was predominantly by boat, the numbers of those who came to directly to Australia by boat was insignificant compared to those who escaped by boat and went to nearby Asian countries where they were assessed and resettled in third countries, including Australia. So, while Australia had relatively few boats arrive directly from Vietnam, almost all of those that came in 1976 and the following years had escaped by boat.
It is for that reason that the Vietnamese Community in WA, under the outstanding leadership of Dr Anh Nguyen, created the Vietnamese Boat People Monument of Gratitude in a small park in Highgate, Perth. This memorial commemorates those who escaped by boat and lost their lives at sea and also thanks Australia for accepting them. This is an outstanding memorial, and I was pleased to attend the opening ceremony. Dr Anh Nguyen told me that on Friday last week that the town of Vincent has just renamed the park Tu Do—or Liberty Park. This is a magnificent achievement for the Vietnamese Community in WA, and I congratulate them and their committee for their work.
I would also like to mention the other great achievements of the community. The Vietnamese language and cultural school has, for several years, conducted classes in a primary school near the city However, Dr Anh Nguyen has just reached an agreement for the 200 students to move to classes at Girrawheen Senior High School, being in the centre of where Vietnamese people live in Perth.
There are many people of Vietnamese origin in the Cowan electorate. Around 4,000 voters are of Vietnamese descent. In Cowan, we also have the Fo Guang pagoda, a Vietnamese Buddhist temple, and just south of Cowan there is the Vietnamese Catholic Church.
In all aspects of society and life in Australia, and particularly in the Cowan electorate, Vietnamese Australians are positive. Their drive to succeed, their outstanding work and academic ethic and their positive attitude are combined with living in a land of opportunity. Under such circumstances, they are successful and will continue to be so. I congratulate Dr Anh Nguyen and the committee that includes two lawyers, two pharmacists, and two engineers for their successes and their great efforts for the community. I am very glad that Australia has benefited so much from the positive impact of Vietnamese migration.
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (13:14): I also commend the member for Gellibrand for taking the initiative on this motion regarding the anniversary of the arrival of Vietnamese refugees. The term 'boat people' entered the Australian language in the 1970s with the arrival of the first wave of boats carrying people seeking asylum from the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Over half the Vietnamese population was displaced in these years and, while most fled to neighbouring Asian countries, some embarked on that dangerous journey by boat to Australia.
The conflict in Vietnam engulfed the neighbouring countries of Cambodia and Laos. I have been to Laos twice, just a few months ago and early in 1989 when it had opened up to tourists, and I have seen the legacy still affecting people in that country today from that war. In 1975, communist forces prevailed in all three countries causing millions to try and flee the new regimes. This was the beginning of a great migration and we will recognise its 40-year anniversary next year.
After the Vietnam War, enormous refugee camps were set up along the Thai border as hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and citizens from other countries fled the brutality and horror. The camps were overcrowded and sometimes violent, and people lived in them for years and years waiting for the chance of resettlement. It is estimated that approximately two million people sought to escape from South Vietnam after the communist victory.
In April 1976, the first boat arrived in Australia carrying refugees who had bypassed formal migration procedures. Desperate to find a new home, they were accepted as migrants on humanitarian grounds. It is interesting to see through the lens of this chamber today and our society today the spirit of bipartisanship that existed back then. It was not the case that everyone was accepting, but it would be nice to have a government and an opposition that were able to make decisions in the national interest about offering people a helping hand when we can, realistically, rather than the political point-scoring that sometimes is associated with people who are refugees arriving in Australia. Remember: we are, as a nation, a country that has ratified the UN convention on refugees.
By 1979, there was a continued outflow of refugees from Vietnam, including boats reaching Australia's northern coast. I actually remember that footage on TV. After assessment by Australian officials, airlifts to Australia from crowded refugee camps in South-East Asia were arranged for refugees. The Australian Refugee Advisory Council was established to recommend improvements in the way Australia handled this increasing number of refugees. By 1981, 56 boats with 2,100 people had reached Australia and, in fact, a total of 55,000 Vietnamese had arrived in Australia.
This is a story that we as a nation can be proud of and should remember and should tell. It is good to see that new waves of literature are coming out where people tell the story, their family story, that Australian story with a Vietnamese flavour. Obviously, the story of Australia has always been a story of migration, apart from the original Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who arrived here more than 40,000 years ago. Since then there has been a 226-year-long migration program, with the United Kingdom being the major source of migrants for all but two of those years. In these last couple of years we have turned towards Asia for our No. 1 source of migrants.
Thirty-nine years ago, the first Vietnamese refugees arrived on our shores, and we as a nation are all the richer for their arrival, as noted by speakers on both sides of the chamber. Many took that dangerous journey by boat. They came to Australia with nothing but innovation, determination and a willingness to work hard. They raised families, started businesses, studied hard, built homes, formed community organisations and weaved themselves into the fabric of Australian community, and they particularly do well in terms of looking after new members of the community who arrive from Vietnam. So many of them in Queensland settled on the south side of Brisbane in my electorate of Moreton and also the electorate of Oxley.
Many of the Vietnamese who travelled to Australia went through extremely traumatising ordeals, and I am glad that there will perhaps be more movies and documentaries telling that tale. A population-based study on the long-term effect of psychological trauma on the mental health of Vietnamese refugees and their families resettled in Australia gave a background to the harmful effects of mass trauma on their wellbeing. It happens in any war. The reality is that the fall of Saigon was a very sad moment for all Vietnamese people, especially for those who believe in liberty, freedom and democracy, and many of them still gather every year to acknowledge that event. There are 500 Australians who died there and served there, and there are more stories to be told.
Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (13:19): I commend the member for this motion. In rising to speak, I want to say that it is good to see that we are able to form bipartisan agreement on motions such as this, recognising, of course, the mistakes of the past—indeed, when our various political parties might have supported things like communism, a great evil in the world, or racism, or promoted policies that we now find to be completely abhorrent. Both racism and communism are abhorrent to modern Australians and modern Australians of Vietnamese background. The reason it is can be told in so many of the stories that arise from the migrants who have come here from Vietnam.
In particular, I want to tell the story of a person who I know personally, whose story, I think, is emblematic of what an experience had been in that time. Dai Le was a seven-year-old child when Saigon fell to the invading communist army from North Vietnam. As the tanks rolled into the city, fleeing soldiers called out to Dai's mother, Anh, to grab her three daughters and run towards boats that were putting out to sea without any idea of a destination. Dai and her younger sister were swept up in a solder's arms and carried to the boat. They were told that their father, a Vietnamese lawyer working with the American Embassy, would join them. He did not make it in time to board the boat. It was pushed from its berth and they have never seen him since.
Their boat made it to the Philippines and for the next three years they languished in a refugee camp without somebody to give them a home. Dai's mother then made the courageous decision to escape from the Philippines, went to Hong Kong and then, of course, they were offered a new home in Australia by Prime Minister Fraser. It is unfortunate that we have not acknowledged properly in this motion the role of Prime Minister Fraser, who was primarily responsible for the orderly departure program and the huge increase in migrants from Vietnam to Australia at this time.
In the meantime, Dai's family relocated to Cabramatta where they have lived ever since. Dai has gone on to university, a cadetship with the Fairfield City Champion, the ABC radio network and ABC television. She has been a councillor, she ran for state parliament for the Liberal Party and, of course, she recorded the second biggest swing in the state's history in a very difficult Labor seat. This is emblematic of the story of so many people.
It was, of course, a shameful episode when we consider the context of Whitlam of making the quote, which so many members have repeated here today, about the Vietnamese fleeing Saigon. Of course, his foreign minister, Don Willesee, wanted to bring some of the people to Australia at the fall of Saigon that had helped Australian forces and personnel in Vietnam. This is like us saying to Afghanistani interpreters in the modern day concept who had risked their lives and helped our forces, 'No, we won't take you.' It is like saying to the Iraqi people who had helped our forces, 'No, we won't take you.' Unfortunately, Prime Minister Whitlam had a very cold-hearted view towards these very impressive people who did so much for our forces and diplomats in Vietnam. It is to his great regret and our great regret that that never happened.
Of course, Prime Minister Fraser had a different view and he was right about it. He was well ahead of his time. Fraser embraced the Vietnamese refugees, praising their courage and hard work. Sydney resettled most of the Vietnamese population in Australia and continues to do so in areas like Cabramatta, Canley Vale, Canley Heights, Fairfield, Bankstown and Liverpool. This migration has been one of the most successful waves of migration and is really a flag bearer, a standard bearer, for migration from Asian countries to Australia. The Vietnamese community really led the way in the modern Australian context as pioneering, hardworking, successful, small business owners and strong families in Sydney—people who work for better education for their children, with extremely impressive and above-national-average results in all sectors of education and business ownership, as well as just sheer enterprise and endeavour.
It is a great privilege to rise and praise this community. Now we think of them, just as second nature, as ordinary Australians who have done so well in our biggest city. But it is important to reflect that these views were not common throughout our history and that this was controversial. Today I thank the member for Gellibrand for this motion. I say to those Australians from Vietnamese background: you are welcome, and you have done so much for our country. Thank you. We recognise the persecution that you fled. As a parliament, I think we can all commit to promise to learn from the mistakes of the past, whether that be supporting communist regimes or adopting attitudes of racism which are completely unwelcome in a modern, contemporary Australian society.
Ms VAMVAKINOU (Calwell) (13:24): It is a privilege to be able to rise and speak today on the motion put forward by the member for Gellibrand. I would like to congratulate the member for Gellibrand for bringing to the attention of this House this motion today. The member for Gellibrand and I share a border; the western border of Calwell borders the member for Gellibrand and, although he is fortunate enough to have a larger number of Vietnamese-Australians living in his electorate of Gellibrand, I can indeed boast that, of the 220,000 Australians who speak Vietnamese at home today, I have about 1,200 living in the federal seat of Calwell. I have on occasions in this place spoken about them.
But I would like to go to the motion of the member for Gellibrand and take this opportunity to mark the 40th anniversary of the Vietnamese community's presence in Australia. I have listened to other contributions that have been made and will not necessarily linger on the more negative aspects of Vietnamese settlement in Australia; I just want to say that, as far as my local Vietnamese community is concerned, I have never come across a gentler or more caring community, and I have a very diverse community in the federal seat of Calwell. I have become very friendly with the Vietnamese Senior Citizens Group, which operates out of Meadow Heights in my electorate. It is an organisation that was formed some 10 years ago as a response to the growing need for assistance with the Vietnamese community—especially the elderly community—to come out of their isolation.
I would imagine that that first generation when coming to Australia came here under enormously difficult circumstances not only in terms of what they fled in Vietnam butt he manner in which they came here and also the climate in which they were received in Australia, which often was not very positive, as has been noted by other speakers I think this probably would have influenced the manner in which they integrated into our community. That is why I would say the first generation tend to be a bit more insular. Maybe they did not have the benefits of becoming as involved in the border community as other ethnic communities may have at that time. They are now into their second and possibly third generation, and there was a time when the children of Vietnamese refugees were the focal point of concern in terms of how they were integrating as young people in our community, but when you look to incredible success stories—in particular the Vietnamese refugee who has recently become the Governor of South Australia. There is no greater honour or symbol of success for a community than one of their members attaining such high office. I think we can all agree that this community has now, after 40 years of living in this country, become well and truly a part of the Australian community.
I go back to my senior citizens in Meadow Heights. I look forward to sharing Vietnamese New Year with them each year, and each year their attendance grows. What is interesting is that it is an elderly citizens group but they manage to have with them their grandchildren in particular. I started by saying this was a wonderful community. Its family values and the value it places on respect for the aged have never ceased to amaze me. I think the care for their elderly and the respect that the grandchildren have are things we can actually learn from.
I look forward to seeing Tran and his committee again to celebrate the next Vietnamese New Year. I congratulate the member for Gellibrand for this wonderful motion. It gives us an opportunity to speak about the Vietnamese community in Australia, to speak about its successes. Yes, as the previous member said, they are now very much part of the Australian story as I am and everybody else is. So congratulations to the member for Gellibrand and, to my local Vietnamese community: great work, and thank you for your involvement in our community.
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (13:29): I too thank the member for Gellibrand for putting this motion forward. It is important to recognise the 40-year anniversary of the arrival of the first Vietnamese refugees in Australia in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. In doing so, we should not sugar coat the events of history. The facts are that the previous Labor government's initial reaction to those events and initial reaction to getting those Vietnamese refugees in Australia is one of the dark stains of our history.
There was a 1976 report by the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, entitled Australia and the refugee problem. This committee had members from both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. It concluded unanimously that, during the final invasion of Saigon in 1975, the Whitlam government had knowingly abandoned South Vietnamese people who were known to be in danger because of their previous association with Australian forces or for other reasons. The standing committee in fact found that during the final communist offensive, the Whitlam government had told the Australian embassy in Saigon to help only a token number of those South Vietnamese whose lives might be endangered. It put such obstacles in the way of the embassy that such evacuations, in many ways, were almost impossible.
It was a disappointing part of our history. Clyde Cameron, in his memoir China, Communism and Coca-Cola, threw a light on the previous government attitude. He noted in that publication:
Whitlam put out an injunction of the processing of all applications from Vietnam. He had no constitutional right to assume the powers which had been commissioned to me by the Governor-General. … on April 21, Don Willesee came to see me with a request that I accompany him to Whitlam's office before Whitlam left … for Jamaica … He wanted Whitlam to recognise the realities of war and ease the restrictions applicable to other migrants [from South Vietnam]. Whitlam refused and I supported him, saying I saw no reason why we should risk opening our doors to war criminals. But Willesee argued that this was not the proposition he was putting and stubbornly refused to budge in his fight for what he regarded as a humane approach. Finally, Whitlam stuck out his jaw and thundered: "I'm not having hundreds of … Vietnamese Balts coming into this country with their religious and political hatreds against us!" Poor Don looked pleadingly towards me for help but I replied: "No Don, I'm sorry mate, but I agree with Gough on this matter." Indeed, not only did I agree with him, but I could have hugged him for putting my own view so well.
Following the publication of that joint committee report, there was an editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald on 28 April 1975. I will quote that editorial:
Very many Australians must be deeply angry and ashamed about the callousness of our government's scuttle from Saigon and its abandonment—betrayal is not too strong—of hundreds of Vietnamese entitled to expect our assistance to flee the fate awaiting the marked-down enemies of Hanoi.
The committee concluded that the government's failure to rescue more Vietnamese had not been caused by incompetence but had been deliberate:
"We believe that by being in Vietnam Australia incurred a residual responsibility, not to mention a moral responsibility, to assist in the evacuation from Vietnam of those who had assisted our forces there and whose lives were believed to be in danger because of that assistance … in view of the Committee's belief that the Australian Government had been informed of the gravity and magnitude of the situation in South Vietnam some three weeks before the evacuation of the Australian Embassy, we are unable to come to any conclusion other than one of deliberate delay in order to minimise the number of refugees."
Thankfully for this country, Malcolm Fraser had the foresight to go in the other direction and to welcome those Vietnamese refugees to our country. What a valuable contribution they have made. I see that in my area and I see that in the areas of Liverpool and Cabramatta and throughout south-west Sydney.
The Vietnamese community have been so successful for a few reasons. Firstly, they are an entrepreneurial community. They believe in small business, hard work, getting in and having a go. Secondly, they believe in family. All of those in the Vietnamese community I know have strong family ties and a strong family as a support unit. Thirdly, there is education. The Vietnamese community have made a great contribution to our society. We should welcome them and admit our mistakes of the past.
Debate adjourned.
Sitting suspended from 13:35 to 16:01
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Australian Turkish Friendship Memorial Sculpture
Ms VAMVAKINOU (Calwell) (16:01): I want to congratulate the Turkish sub-branch of the Victorian RSL and its President, Ramazan Altintas, for initiating and making a reality the Turkish Friendship Memorial Sculpture. Its official public announcement ceremony took place today in Melbourne.
Ramazan Altintas has pursued the idea of a memorial sculpture for many years and, despite earlier setbacks, his efforts and those of the community have now come to fruition. The sculpture will be built on Birdwood Avenue, Kings Domain, Melbourne, in the gardens of the Shrine of Remembrance. It will be an enduring symbol of the friendship between our two countries, Australia and Turkey.
I want to thank my colleague the Hon.Warren Snowdon, who, as the Minister for Veterans' Affairs in the Gillard government, came to my electorate to meet with members of the Turkish community during a visit to Sirius College. Members of the school and the broader community, including Ramazan, took this opportunity to raise with Warren their long-held cherished plans to build the Turkish Friendship Memorial Sculpture. As a result, Minister Warren Snowden, on behalf of the federal Labor government, resolved to contribute to the community's efforts with a $100,000 grant, and I was thrilled to make that announcement last year. In addition, the project has received $10,000 from the Calwell electorate's Anzac Centenary Fund.
The Australia- Gallipoli relationship is of tremendous importance and significance to us all. For Ramazan Altintas and the Turkish RSL sub-branch and for my local Turkish community, this friendship memorial is an important part of their migrant story to Australia.
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Mr WILLIAMS (Hindmarsh) (16:03): On the weekend, I participated in and spoke at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk to Cure Diabetes event in Adelaide. The foundation is helping to build awareness of type 1 diabetes in the community and to raise funds for their researchers. I was joined by my colleague the Minister for Education and federal member for Sturt, Christopher Pyne, who was working with the Lawrence family to raise funds.
Over $100,000 was raised at the event, with the total still being collated, and over 1,500 people came out and participated—and my family was among them. It was a great family day out, with a great carnival atmosphere. There were many stalls and a bouncy castle, which the kids love each time. There was also fantastic support for the government's funding of insulin pumps and the $35 million for clinical research initiated by the Minister for Health—another good example of how the government is supporting the health system.
Type 1 diabetes is a life-long, anti-immune disease that usually occurs in childhood and which causes the body to mistakenly attack itself. The aim of Sunday's event was to raise awareness of this disease and also to promote clinical research. An event like this cannot occur without a great deal of support, including that of the hardworking staff of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, in particular Tamara Aitchison and Julia Lamb, as well as the many volunteers and supporters.
Finally, Santos, a great Australian company that was unfairly attacked by some in the other house last week, again demonstrated their support for the community by giving back to it, and they should be supported by our elected members and not boycotted.
International Development Assistance
Ebola
Ms BURKE (Chisholm) (16:04):I recently held a foreign aid forum in my electorate with Tanya Plibersek, the shadow foreign affairs minister, and Stefanie Perri, the ALP candidate for the state seat of Box Hill. My seat is home to the headquarters of both World Vision and the Christian Blind Mission and an overwhelming number of people of good faith and vision who are dedicated to the eradication of poverty. They came together to express their concern for our declining aid budget and to voice their desire to see Australia do more for the poor in our region and in the world.
The forum was outraged by the government's $7.6 billion cut to aid, including a $110 million decrease for the Asia-Pacific in one year alone. Many who attended work in the aid sector. They are concerned about the loss of dedicated aid professionals and the increase in the government's use of private providers. The loss of expertise threatens the effectiveness of our aid program, with over 500 staff being sacked in the foreign affairs department, including former AusAID expertise with critical experience in developing overseas aid.
They also expressed grave concern about the government's appalling approach to the Ebola crisis. The UN has warned that the world has just 60 days to get Ebola under control or face an 'unprecedented situation for which we don't have a plan'. The World Health Organization says the virus is 'running faster than us and it is winning the race' as it sweeps West Africa. The warning comes as the number of cases has hit that 10,000 mark, with the deadly virus killing half of those affected.
Ebola can be halted with vigilance. We need a better answer than 'Fortress Australia'. The government can send troops into harm's way in Iraq to the tune of $400 million, but they cannot send experts to West Africa to assist with a war on disease. I ask why.
O'Connor Electorate: Friends of the Porongurup Range
Mr WILSON (O'Connor) (16:06): Today I take the opportunity to commend the work of a dedicated group of conservation volunteers, the Friends of the Porongurup Range. I was recently invited to unveil a commemorative plaque in the Porongurups. I grew up in the vista of the nearby Stirling Ranges. Both the Porongurup National Park and the Stirling Range National Park are nationally heritage listed and form part of the internationally recognised biodiversity hot spot of the south-west region of Western Australia.
Despite the recognition of the exceptional natural and conservation values of this area, it is volunteer groups like the Friends of the Porongurup Range who play a pivotal role as the guardians, researchers and unpaid labour source for its upkeep and conservation. Their regular busy bees control weed incursions, build protective fencing and revegetate areas in need.
These friends have also worked together to secure an additional vital connection between the two parks with the purchase of the Twin Creeks Community Conservation Reserve. Through negotiations with local landholders and partnerships with other conservation landcare groups such as the Oyster Harbour Catchment Group, South Coast Natural Resource Management, Gondwana Link and the Department of Parks and Wildlife they have also created the Ranges Link, providing a significant flora and fauna corridor between the two parks. Collectively, they have created a considerable reserve for Australia's iconic plant, bird, mammal and invertebrate life.
I thank the Friends of the Porongurup Range, particularly Chairperson Lorna Long and Secretary Maggie Shanklin, for the opportunity to experience the beauty of this magnificent part of my electorate. It is an ever-changing vista of mountains and swirling mist and a haven of wild flowers and wildlife in the heart of O'Connor.
Defence Procurement
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (16:07): The shipbuilders at the BAE Williamstown shipyards, in my electorate, have been campaigning for months to bring attention to the valley of death facing their industry. Despite the imminent demand from the Australian Navy for the manufacture of ships in the near future, current contracts for the shipyards are almost complete, and the shipyards have been facing dithering and delays from the Abbott government in replacing them. The government have ignored the pleas to develop a plan for the future and even cut the amount of the potential contracts announced in June, claiming that the shipyards were not capable of replacing the supply ships HMAS Sirius and HMAS Success. Last Friday, we received the welcome news that three new blocks of the air warfare destroyers will be built in the shipyards in Williamstown.
I would like to congratulate the shipbuilders on their efforts in bringing their situation to the attention of our national and state governments and campaigning until their case could no longer be ignored. It is a testament to the expertise, skill and hard work of the BAE shipbuilders that they have been able to secure these contracts. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the AMWU in supporting their members and keeping the issue on the radar.
Now that short-term work for the shipbuilders has been secured, it is time to see a long-term plan for the future of the Williamstown shipyards. We need a long-term plan from the Abbott government that recognises and respects the highly skilled and strategically important shipbuilding industry that we have built in Williamstown. We need a plan that consists of more than ideological muddles and last-minute reprieves. The Abbott government needs to act now to ensure that the skills and talent we have in this industry are not lost through a lack of secure work and that our shipbuilders are treated with the respect that their skills and expertise deserve.
La Trobe Electorate: Aquaterro
Mr WOOD (La Trobe) (16:09): I recently met with Graeme Bulte, Managing Director of Aquaterro, an innovative, high-tech company in my electorate of La Trobe. The Aquaterro mission is to provide products and services to protect professionals whose jobs take them into harm's way. The company is currently providing a wide range of marine and aviation survival safety equipment to organisations such as the Australian Antarctic Division; the Tasmanian Maritime Police; the Royal Australian Navy, for their ship and aircraft cold-water operations; and the Royal Australian Air Force, for their F18 fighter pilot anti-g suits. The company has also broadened its traditional services to providing advanced body armour technology. It recently supplied 14,000 sets of armour to Victoria Police Protective Service Officers. This is the largest safety equipment contract in Australia's history and it has already been credited with saving five lives.
Aquaterro and its partners in the USA and Greece are to commence manufacturing precision parts for their high-performance night vision goggles and precision laser-targeting and weapon-mounting system. Aquaterro is planning a new built-for-purpose facility for future foreign investment, creating approximately 100 jobs in this high-tech defence manufacturing and supporting services sector. I congratulate Graeme and his team at Aquaterro.
Fraser Electorate: Jervis Bay School
Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (16:10): Because Australia's founders decided that every capital city must have a port, it is my honour to represent not just the north half of the bush capital but also the Jervis Bay territory. It is a territory with an ancient history. The Wreck Bay settlement reflects that, but the Jervis Bay settlement also has a history of its own. The school at Jervis Bay was opened in 1914, the year before the naval college, and will this weekend celebrate its centenary. The centenary celebrations will include aerial photos taken from a Seahawk helicopter and markets and food stalls. Kids activities will provided by the University of Canberra's Widening Participation team, and there will also be the Booderee National Park display. Other participants include the University of Wollongong, Shoalhaven City Council, Bay and Basin FM radio broadcasting, Bay and Basin Men's Shed, Anglicare Black Duck Service, St George Illawarra Dragons, and the AFP police and rural fire exhibition.
Jervis Bay primary is a great example of setting high standards for young people. Its newsletter every week reflects the school attendance figures and tracks them against the national average. I pay tribute to its principal, Bob Pastor, an outstanding school and community leader who is stepping down this year. Bob, you have been an extraordinary asset to Indigenous education. You set standards which other Indigenous and non-Indigenous leaders greatly admire, and we pay tribute to you for the work that you have done for this community.
Deregulation
WYATT ROY (Longman) (16:12): I am proud to be part of a government that is delivering to make life easier for Australians and locals. Members on this side of the House understand that, when you get government out of your life and out of the way, you allow Australians, including locals in my electorate, to reach their full potential. I will tell you how we are doing this. Labor members get very uncomfortable when you start talking about their record in government, but we have repealed Labor's carbon tax, which radically increased electricity prices for locals and businesses across my electorate. We have seen, since we have repealed the carbon tax, the single largest reduction in electricity prices since records were kept. That is something this side of the House is very proud of, something that makes Labor members go very quiet when you mention it.
This week, we are having a bit of spring cleaning and we are delivering on our second red tape repeal day. When we went to the election we said that we would repeal $1 billion worth of red tape every year. The Labor Party introduced 20,000 new regulations while they were in government. I am proud to say that we have actually doubled our commitment at the election: this week we will deliver over $2 billion worth of red tape reductions for businesses across the country but also for people in my electorate, where there are local businesses saving thousands of dollars. When you get government out of the way, when you have smaller government, you allow society to grow, you allow citizens to dream big and you actually give locals in my community that chance. (Time expired)
Indigenous Health
Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (16:13): I rise to speak about the ongoing operation of the Aboriginal Medical Service Western Sydney, or AMSWS. Earlier this month I met with two coordinators who were desperately concerned about the operational future of this vital body. It is a service operated by the Aboriginal community for the Aboriginal community. According to the latest census, Western Sydney has the highest urban population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia: 8,200, or 40 per cent, of Sydneysiders who identify as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent live in the Blacktown local government area, and a further 5,400, or 26 per cent, live around neighbouring Penrith. But the AMSWS's yearly budget is $5.3 million, a little over $3 million of that federal funding. Its submission suggested it needs close to $12 million to cover all the vital services it provides. Compare the $5.3 million and the services it has to cover—general health, mental health, dental, health education, clinics, drug and alcohol services, social and emotional wellbeing ventures—with the funding received elsewhere around the nation. For example, there is $18 million in Brisbane and between $8 million and $12 million for equivalent services in Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin. You know the Western Sydney service is being left grossly short-changed. They certainly do need greater support per head of population, and I urge the government to do so.
Petition: Falun Gong
Mr SIMPKINS (Cowan) (16:15): It is my privilege to present a petition of 4,487 names drawing the attention of the House to Falun Gong and the concern of the petitioners that practitioners of Falun Gong are being persecuted in China and calling for the Australian government to call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China. I was approached by the principal petitioner, Dr Albert Lin, and another practitioner. They told me that Falun Gong is a peaceful meditation practice and that it is based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Despite this philosophy and such principles, since 1999 the Chinese government has been persecuting them in China. The persecution they spoke of included imprisonment on nebulous or other false charges, and once in jail many were subjected to forced organ harvesting that resulted in their deaths. The basis of that allegation is the investigative reports published by the former Canadian Secretary of State, David Kilgour, and human rights lawyer David Matas.
I know we always raise the persecution of Falun Gong in the annual human rights dialogue that we have with China. I am also aware that the government believes there is insufficient credible evidence to support Falun Gong's specific allegations. Yet these are matters that should continue to be put to China in such forums as the dialogue as it is in that way that progress is made.
I conclude by thanking Dr Lin for bringing this issue to my attention and for gathering together the many people who signed the petition, which I now table.
The petition read as follows—
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of certain citizens and residents of Australia draws to the attention of the House that Falun Gong is a peaceful meditation practice based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. Falun Gong practitioners in China have been subjected to the most brutal and relentless persecution by the Chinese Communist regime since July 1999.
According to investigative reports published by human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia Pacific David Kilgour, a large number of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to forced organ harvesting for China's transplant market and lost their lives ( www.organharvestinvestigation.net ).
We therefore ask the House to request the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister to openly and forthrightly call for an immediate end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China.
from 4,487 citizens
Petition received.
Shortland Electorate: Marine Rescue Lake Macquarie
Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (16:16): Yesterday the Marine Rescue Lake Macquarie had their open day. They perform a wonderful job in Lake Macquarie. Lake Macquarie is an area where we have a lake and access to the sea and, if it were not for the effort of Marine Rescue Lake Macquarie, those waters would be a lot less safe than they are.
The marine rescue is staffed by volunteers, and they are dedicated. Many of them have been involved with marine rescue for many years. Each and every weekend they give up their time to go along and keep our waterways safe. I was particularly privileged to award recognition of service for 25 years to Kevin Stone, and Tony Milton and Gordon Schubert received their 15-year medals. This is an enormous contribution by three men.
I have been to many such presentations of marine rescue in my area because those people who become involved with marine rescue do not do so for a day or two days; it is a way of life. They make a commitment to keep those waterways safe. When coming into summer, when so many people take to the waterways, it is imperative that we all get behind the marine rescue not only in Lake Macquarie but throughout Australia.
Mental Health
WYATT ROY (Longman) (16:18): Once again I am very proud to be part of a government that is delivering for my local community. Something that I think should be above partisan politics but something that really is a scourge on our society is the challenge of mental health issues in young Australians. We know that three-quarters of all mental health issues manifest themselves with people who are under 24. We know that one in five Australians every year will face a mental health issue and we know that one in two Australians will face a mental health issue across the course of their lifetime. After years of advocating, lobbying and knocking down the door of Peter Dutton, who was the shadow health minister and is now the minister, I am really proud to update the House and say that Caboolture will be a site for a headspace facility.
I have had many discussions with my colleague and good friend the member for Petrie, who has a headspace site in Redcliffe, and it has made a big difference in his community and continues to make a big difference for young people there. I hope to see at least that same level of change in my community, because this is something that we have struggled with for a long time. This will be a very significant step in the right direction. It will provide young people with the opportunity to go to a place where they can find out about and acquire the services that they need to cope with whatever mental health challenges they might be facing on a personal level.
Ageing Expo
Mr SWAN (Lilley) (16:20): Last Thursday and Friday, at Taigum in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, we had the 10th annual Ageing Expo at Taigum Square. This event is organised by the Banyo RSL sub-branch in Taigum Square. It is also supported by our local Deagon Ward councillor, Victoria Newton. I would like to thank Bruce Meiklejohn and John Sutton from the Banyo RSL; Kylie Keioskie from Taigum Square; and Pat Carbis from the Banyo District Community Group for their hard work in organising this event. I would also like to acknowledge that it would not take place without the work in the past of Ron Virgen; it simply would never have occurred without his dedicated work over many years at the Banyo RSL.
It is a completely free event at which community organisations and companies set up stalls and provide seniors with information about products and services directly tailored to their interests and needs. There were something like 50 exhibitors there last week and plenty of information sessions for people to take advantage of on a variety of topics, from home safety to navigating the web. It does give seniors a fantastic opportunity to get the information they need in their day-to-day lives. It also says something about the great sense of community on the north side of Brisbane.
There was one thing that united everybody I spoke to at the expo last week, and that was their disgust with the decision taken by the government to slash the age pension by up to $80 a week over the next decade. The previous, Labor government put in place a fairer indexation system for age pension, and now it is being ripped apart by the coalition government— (Time expired)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Ewen Jones ): It is good to see a new face! I give the call to the member for Swan.
Blue Knot Day
Mr IRONS (Swan) (16:21): It is nice to see your face, too, Mr Deputy Speaker Jones. This morning I had the pleasure of attending a morning tea for Adults Surviving Child Abuse's, or ASCA's, national awareness day, Blue Knot Day, along with the member for Canberra, who is in the chamber. The morning tea was to raise awareness of this important initiative and the support network they provide for adults who have survived child abuse, as their name signifies. This year's Blue Knot Day focused on improving much-needed education and training initiatives in workplaces and organisations to support the five million Australian adult survivors of childhood trauma and abuse.
As members know, I have championed the issues of the forgotten Australians and the need for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in this place since I was elected, so it is with great pleasure that I continue to meet so many people who have chosen to dedicate their lives to supporting the victims of abuse. It is support groups like ASCA that have helped shape the royal commission inquiry and that will continue to ensure that the victims are supported long after the inquiry is completed.
Today, Minister for Health Peter Dutton joined with ASCA President Dr Cathy Kezelman and the royal commission chair, Hon. Justice Peter McClellan, to launch five videos which explore childhood trauma, including sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect; how this can impact survivors; and how recovery can be achieved.
I commend the work of ASCA for producing these videos which have the potential to improve support networks for survivors and their loved ones, workplaces and health professionals, and for their ongoing work with the royal commission. Congratulations to John Ellis, who took out this year's Blue Knot Day award. (Time expired)
St Dimitrios Festival
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (16:23): Yesterday I attended the annual St Dimitrios festival organised by the Greek Orthodox parish of St Dimitrios in Salisbury. The parish is led by the inspirational and tireless Reverend Christos Tsoraklidis, who is supported by his wife, Cathy, and his family; the St Dimitrios church committee; and so many volunteers. Not surprisingly, with the good weather, yesterday's festival was attended by more people than organisers had expected.
Each year, thanks to the church leadership team, the parish facilities get better. Today they consist of a substantial church, a large covered outdoor area, school classrooms, substantial car parking and, most recently, a modern 300-person function centre. The next stage is to build retirement homes for the elderly, and plans are already underway to do that, with the hope that the first homes will be opened sometime next year. At a time when many other community groups are struggling to remain viable and maintain their existing facilities, the St Dimitrios community is heading in the opposite direction, growing their facilities and their services to the wider community. I commend Father Chris and his team for another wonderful festival yesterday and for the many St Dimitrios initiatives which today benefit the whole community.
Janet Iles
Mr BROADBENT (McMillan) (16:24): A hundred years ago, White Bros of Williamstown build the Janet Iles, which then plied its trade near the southern tip of Victoria, close to Tasmania, off Port Welshpool in my electorate of McMillan. We celebrated the other day with Danny O'Brien, who is the upper house member for Gippsland, and Jim Fawcett, the Mayor of South Gippsland. Jeanette Harding and Mohya Davies were also there. From the committee were Frank Grylls, Elizabeth Robinson and—I think—Mr Gary Gordon and Janet Isles. These people are dedicated. We have heard from a number of members speaking about people who are dedicated to their communities.
These people have this beautiful museum, and in a part of that museum they have preserved the Janet Isles. It was a great pleasure just to go down to Port Welshpool to see how these people have preserved this boat that has been so much part of the community, this launch that has been so much part of the community, and the way that they go about tending their most amazing, very, very small but very, very articulate, beautiful museum. It is amazing.
For people that might like to travel to Port Welshpool and get along to that new jetty that we are going to fund into the future—if I can have a bit of a talk to the Prime Minister quietly!—the long jetty and this museum will make a partnership that will make Port Welshpool fly again.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (16:26): I rise today because I am greatly concerned about recent reports in the media that the ABC is preparing to axe its state based editions of 7.30, which run on Friday nights, and replace them with a national news chat show. It is believed that the potential changes are in response to the Abbott government's ABC budget cuts. As we know, 7.30 is enjoyed by thousands and thousands of Australians and thousands of Canberrans every week, and some are concerned that there will be a reduction in local news and current affairs.
I am concerned about a loss in great local journalism and television, not only here in Canberra but around the country. I am also concerned about potential job losses. There are eight state and territory editions of 7.30 around Australia, and talk of axing this program is creating stress and uncertainty for the journalists and producers, who do a fine job of producing this program each week. State and territory editions of 7.30 provide the only long-form full hour or half-hour of local news and stories once a week. Here in the ACT we are blessed with the much-loved Chris Kimball, who is produced by the highly respected Patricia Barraclough and a highly professional team. He is also supported by Adrienne Francis, who is also a great journalist.
7.30 ACT has covered territory stories told by territorians for years. Its Mr Fluffy story got an audience of 41,000 viewers. I urge the Abbott government to protect— (Time expired)
Macarthur Electorate: Focus on Families
Mr MATHESON (Macarthur) (16:27): I rise to congratulate Macarthur's Focus on Families volunteers for taking out the award of volunteer team of the year at the New South Wales Volunteer of the Year Awards. Focus on Families' 48 volunteers provide targeted support to families with infants and young children, which come from all cultural backgrounds in the Campbelltown local government area. Through home visit programs, parenthood groups and prenatal services, Focus volunteers enrich parenting experiences and assist with the healthy growth and development of young children. The volunteers at Focus have touched the lives of hundreds of families since its inception over 20 years ago, including the families of five sets of triplets born in the local area in the past 12 months.
Last Friday, I was very proud to see Focus on Families recognised for their valuable contribution to Macarthur at the 2014 Volunteer of the Year Awards ceremony at the Campbelltown Catholic Club. The ceremony was part of the New South Wales state-wide volunteer of the year awards, which aim to acknowledge and celebrate the work of those in the local community who generously give up their time to help others. Volunteers are the heart and soul of the Macarthur community and should be recognised for their selfless commitment. Fittingly, Focus volunteers were recognised at the ceremony as silent achievers, nurturing, guiding and supporting parents on life's most rewarding and fulfilling experiences.
I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Centre for Volunteering for organising the state-wide awards program, as well as ClubsNSW and the New South Wales Department of Education and Communities for generously sponsoring the event. It was great to attend it with my state colleagues Jai Rowell, Bryan Doyle and Chris Patterson.
New South Wales: By-elections
Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (16:29): Last Saturday we had two by-elections in the Hunter, and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate both Jodie Harrison and Tim Crakanthorp on their election to the New South Wales parliament. Jodie and Tim have been longstanding friends of mine. Jodie is the Mayor of Lake Macquarie and has been an outstanding mayor, and I know that she will bring those wonderful skills to the state electorate of Charlestown.
The one thing that people should know about Jodie is that she is a very honest person, she has the highest level of integrity and she is committed to ensuring that the New South Wales government is held to account and makes sure that the people of Charlestown get the services they need and can overcome the little blip that occurred on the scene when a Liberal member was elected to Charlestown and Newcastle and then disgraced themselves.
I congratulate both Jodie and Tim. I know they will be fine, honest, upstanding members of parliament. They will deliver to the people of Charlestown and they will deliver to the people of Newcastle, who will be proud of their members— (Time expired)
Bounty Boulevard State School
Mr HOWARTH (Petrie) (16:30): Today I had the pleasure of welcoming some students from a local school in my electorate to Parliament House. The students and teachers from Bounty Boulevard State School in North Lakes really were delightful and they were certainly energetic and excited to learn more about the Commonwealth government and Parliament House. I have been to the school a couple of times since being elected and have got to know the students there. I went out there recently and presented an Australian flag during National Flag Day. They were very informed: they knew about the Southern Cross, the Commonwealth Star and the Union Jack—everything that makes up our flag. I also had a chance to go and watch the students perform at their recent musical, Grease, which was on at the local Axis Church in North Lakes. There really are some talented students. They did a fantastic job with the production of Grease.
I want to thank the teachers for their dedication to the children's education and I want to thank their parents for allowing them to come on this trip. Bounty Boulevard really is a fantastic school. The students had much to tell me about the committees and the results of the committees they are working on. I encourage those students to let me know the results of those committees so that I, along with the state member for Murrumba, Reg Gulley, and a local council in that area can look at those issues and help implement them for the students. I am proud to have hosted them today and I thank them for coming.
Northern Light Theatre Company
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (16:32): I rise this afternoon to talk about the Northern Light Theatre Company's performance of White Christmas. As patron of the Northern Light Theatre Company, having been asked to be their patron a few weeks ago, I thought it was appropriate that I should go and have a look at how well they perform, and indeed they did just that. The performance was at the Shedley Theatre and they performed to a packed house at the end of two weeks of solid performances almost every day. The music, the acting, the costumes, the script, the lighting and the performances of the individuals were all superb and enjoyed by everyone. This is an amateur theatre company and, as members can appreciate, not very well resourced and relying very much on volunteers in terms of the performers, the costume makers, the set designers and so on. They proved to be as professional as any professional outfit ever would be.
I certainly commend and congratulate everyone involved in the production of White Christmas. I look forward to going along and seeing some of their other performances. They tend to be a group that do not perform that often, but when they do they put 100 per cent into the performance so they can ensure that the community get value for their money. Once again, I commend everyone involved in the production of White Christmas.
Supermarkets: Health
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (16:33): As Australians we spend $130 billion on our health system every year, more than the income tax we collect. We spend about $80 billion in the two major supermarket chains. But we spend barely $1 of health money in supermarkets. It is remarkable that out-of-pockets for health are around $100 a year median expenditure by Australian adults, yet we spend up to $4,000 in supermarkets. If we are going to get healthy, we need those two to intersect, and the major supermarket retailers can play a bigger role.
Loyalty programs are the key, and these two cards have over 8 million members each. These are at the moment fairly unsophisticated programs, simply tracking how we spend our money, but the time will come when they will be giving us information about the health of our shopping. Already, virtually every item on a supermarket shelf has a nutrient analysis performed by FSANZ. That information needs to be carried on here and we need to be able to tell supermarkets what our preferences are in shopping: low sugar, low fat, low fructose—whatever it is, we should be able to tell supermarkets what we are interested in to receive direct promotions around those items. That is now possible. We are now seeing Fitbits—wireless activated tools—as an ample way of telling supermarkets what we want to receive and receiving information from them. Only then do we have regular and frequent reminders about healthy eating. If we are reminded every time we shop of our total consumption of fats, sugars and proteins, we can embark on the valuable road to better health.
Canberra Islamic Centre
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (16:35): In April this year the Canberra Islamic Centre in Monash in my electorate was the victim of mindless and malicious violence that caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage. To show that the Canberra community has zero tolerance for hate and malice, I called out to Canberrans to help clean up the centre. About a week after that violent act the response from Canberrans was just extraordinary, with hundreds of people of all ages and from all walks of life turning out with buckets, brooms, mops and rolled up sleeves to help clean up the mess.
On Saturday, to coincide with National Mosque Open Day, the centre opened its doors to Canberrans to show its support and to thank Canberrans for their enormous show of support and understanding in April. The event was attended by a great many community leaders, including the imam; the Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn; the Principal of St Mary MacKillop College, Michael Lee; and the US ambassador, who presented an oak tree grown from an acorn from a tree planted by Eleanor Roosevelt when the embassy was opened during the Second World War. I was also honoured to accept an award on behalf of all the Canberrans who united against violence and showed that the intolerant will not divide us and that they will not define us.
Collie Rotary Club: 60th Anniversary
Ms MARINO (Forrest—Government Whip) (16:36): I want to congratulate the Collie Rotary Club on its 60th anniversary. This group has done extraordinary things in its local community as well as provided support to other parts of Australia, such as the Victorian bushfire relief needs, and has supported other rotaries. At a local level it has assisted with the Bibbulmun Track tourism attraction, helping to build huts, a bridge and a boardwalk; the erection of a new fence around the Collie cemetery; and other things, such as a concrete footpath and cycleway link from the town to the cemetery. Over the years there has been invaluable assistance in Collie to Silver Chain, providing nursing for the town's aged; the Police and Community Youth Centre; Meals on Wheels; local schools; and the district hospital, with equipment. It has just been endless.
This small group of people has worked very hard both locally and internationally, reaching out with their exchange program. Over the past 50 years they have contributed in excess of $500,000 to international causes. This is an extraordinary effort for a small group of people in Collie. They have also assisted in providing wheelchairs for children in the Philippines, clean water for villages in Africa and India, tsunami disaster-relief housing, support for New Hope leprosy care and polio efforts internationally. What an extraordinary effort. I want to commend them for 60 years of great work.
Petition: Climate Change
Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (16:38): I present a petition that has been approved by the Standing Committee on Petitions. This petition has been prepared by the Benalla Sustainable Future Group. It is signed by residents in and near the Victorian rural city of Benalla in my electorate of Indi. The intention of the petition is to draw to the attention of the House the scientific evidence published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which indicates that the earth will experience disastrous consequences if we do not immediately take action to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit temperature rises to two degrees Celsius. The petition further calls on the House to take the lead by introducing the following measures: a market based mechanism for pricing carbon, a higher mandatory renewable energy target, reduced support for the fossil fuel industry and restricted land-clearing practices across the nation.
The petitioners believe that Australia is well placed to influence global action on climate change. Additionally, they request that the House of Representatives legislate to introduce the above measures as well as increase the target for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 20 per cent by 2020 compared to 2000 levels. I support market mechanisms as the most efficient and effective way to price carbon and reduce emissions and I fully support the sentiments of this petition.
The petition read as follows—
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of the undersigned citizens of the electorate of lndi in Victoria, draws to the attention of the House the scientific evidence published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which indicates that the Earth will experience disastrous consequences if we do not immediately take action to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius.
We believe that Australia is well placed to influence global action on climate change if the Parliament of Australia takes the lead by introducing the following measures:
A market-based mechanism for pricing carbon,
A higher mandatory Renewable Energy Target,
Reduced support for the fossil fuel industry,
Restricted land clearing practices across the nation.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Representatives legislate to introduce the above measures as well as increasing the target for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 20% by 2020 compared to 2000 levels.
from 169 citizens
Petition received.
Misuse of Market Power
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (16:39): One of the basic premises of our free market system is that the exchanges along the production and distribution chain are voluntary. There must be a willing buyer and a willing seller. But the risk that we have to the very free market system is when our markets become overly concentrated. A recent example was what the ACCC have alleged in a case about one of our largest supermarket chains. They allege that one of their suppliers, a small business, actually fell short according to their budget but had $300,000 worth of profit, according to that large retailer. After they had sold it—they had the contract and sold their products—and moved on, they decided that they would go back on their so-called perfect profit day and screw $300,000 out of that retailer to make up for their lost profits, rather than reducing their own costs themselves. We know what happened. This is the case that the ACCC have alleged.
This is nothing other than coercion and extortion. The consumer should be very concerned about this. Wherever there is coercion and extortion in a market, whether it be by corrupt government officials, mafia-like criminal activity, a rogue trade union or a monopolistic power, it is the consumer who loses through higher prices—and this is what we are seeing here. We need to take action. Our current section 46 of the Trade Practices Act does not address this activity.
Grandparents Day
Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (16:41): Yesterday, 26 October, was Grandparents Day. It was an opportunity for communities throughout Australia to thank grandparents for the fine work that they do within our community. Each and every day parents rely on grandparents to provide support with their children. Grandparents contribute in so many different ways to the lives of their grandchildren, and it is really appropriate that yesterday communities throughout Australia came out and thanked grandparents for what they contribute to our society. When I was at the Marine Rescue Open Day—the day I mentioned earlier—one grandparent came up to me and told me just how important this was for her.
But, unfortunately, some grandparent programs—programs where grandparents are caring for their grandchildren and are being the carers—are being cut. The funding to those programs have been cut. I find that very upsetting. One of the really fantastic programs that has operated in the Shortland electorate has been operated by the Samaritans. It was only today that the coordinator of that program came into my office and expressed her concern at this government cutting that program.
Indian Festival 2014
Mr EWEN JONES (Herbert) (16:42): So it was that four months ago I sat at a dinner table with the Malayali Society of Townsville. It an Indian group. The first family moved to Townsville at roughly the same time I got there, in 1994, and now there are over 200 Malayali families in Townsville. They said that they were going to try to have a standalone Indian festival in Townsville. The local member is David Crisafulli, the member for Mundingburra. I sat there and said, 'Gee, you're leaving your run late.' We met with them a couple of times but there was a small band of hearty volunteers who brought the entire Indian community together.
On the weekend, to tie in with the Diwali Festival of Lights, we saw Townsville's first standalone Indian festival. We are now the proud owners of an Indian festival, a Filipino festival, an African nations festival, a Greek festival, an Italian festival and we also of course have our Culture Fest. All these things have come from a very small group of tables from about 20 years ago, and we have grown to love our multicultural side of the world. Over 15,000 people turned up over the weekend. It was my daughter's birthday on the Saturday night and we had homemade gnocchi for dinner—but I did still manage to squeeze in a little bit of butter chicken on the way out there.
A special thank you goes to Adani—that mining that is so vilified throughout the world—for being the major sponsor of this festival. It was a great weekend. To the committee of Biju, Sam, Ebby, Jacob and all the volunteers I say thank you.
Makin Electorate: RSL Annual Dinner
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (16:44): On Saturday night I attended the RSL annual dinner at Salisbury. The dinner was well attended, given that we were competing with the Rolling Stones performance at Adelaide Amongst those attending were representatives of the Para subbranch of the National Servicemen's Association and the Northam branch of the Vietnam Veterans Association, as well as many representatives from adjoining RSL clubs, naval clubs and air force clubs. The focus of the dinner was the preparations for next year's Anzac Day service. I commend all of the people who are working together to make sure that next year's Salisbury Anzac Day service is a success.
Aviation Heritage Museum of Western Australia
Dr JENSEN (Tangney) (16:45): I congratulate the RAAFA museum, Bull Creek, on its latest addition. Under the directorship of Mr John Park the museum has gone from strength to strength. In a public ceremony, I recently unveiled an acquisition of a Huey helicopter. I have written letters in support of this project and campaigned on its behalf many times in the past. Iroquois helicopters, dubbed Hueys, played a crucial role in the Vietnam War. This Huey was trucked from Damascus barracks in Queensland across the Nullarbor. This particular model is one of the last of its kind in Australia and was used for Australian Defence Force training in the 1970s. Many man-hours were required to set up the outdoor display area. This civic consciousness and selflessness embodies what is best in our community. More than the story of a helicopter, albeit an impressively versatile one, is the story of the men who once occupied her cockpit. It is the story of young men and their troubles in a foreign land, fighting for something of unclear importance or closeness to them. As important an object as the Huey is, it is more important as a permanent bridge to the past and to memory.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Whiteley ): In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members statements has concluded.
GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Debate resumed.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Whiteley ) (16:46): The question is:
That grievances be noted.
East West Link
Public Transport
Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (16:46): I rise to speak about the absurd addiction of our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to roads, which is about to wreck what is good about inner-city Melbourne. The Prime Minister and the Premier of Victoria, Denis Napthine, are planning to push the east-west tollway right through the inner city. It will do nothing to fix congestion and everything to wreck what is good about inner Melbourne.
On 2 October, the Prime Minister briefly landed in Melbourne and managed to fit in a joint press conference with the Premier to spruik their pet project. During this press conference the Prime Minister revealed that he has absolutely no understanding of Melbourne, its congestion problems, its traffic needs or the impact of this monstrous project on our city and on our community. The Prime Minister said:
… anyone currently sitting in a traffic jam on Hoddle Street, on Flemington Road, on Alexandra Parade knows that this—
the east-west tollway—
is a massive boost to their lives …
Just before last year's federal election, on 2 September, he said
I've spent enough time on Hoddle Street, I've spent enough time on Alexandra Parade and I've spent enough time on Flemington Road stuck in traffic jams to know how important this is. I want it to be done.
The Prime Minister may not have a great grasp of Melbourne's geography and its traffic network, but if you were on this wonderful new east-west tollway and wanted to get into the city there would be only two exits that you could get off at to come into the city. Do you know where those exits are? One is at Hoddle Street and the other is at Flemington Road. The Prime Minister is talking about the traffic jams on Hoddle Street and Flemington Road. They are the only two places where the thousands of cars that will be on the new east-west tollway can exit to get into the city. The east-west tollway is not going to provide you with a magical helicopter lift to get you in over the parks into the middle of the city. The people coming in from the east or from the worst who want to get into the city to go to work are still going to have to use roads to get there, and when they get on those roads they are going to add to the congestion. Everyone in Melbourne knows—which is perhaps why Denis Napthine did not chime in to back up the Prime Minister on this point—that if you want to get roads clearer and you want to get cars off the freeway in the morning the best thing to do is build a train line.
Before the last election the Prime Minister, when he was opposition leader, invited the then Prime Minister to come down and stand at Hoddle Street and look down the Eastern Freeway in the morning. He said anyone who did that would have to see that there is a problem. Yes, there is a problem. But I will tell you what you see. If you stand on the Hoddle Street overpass and looked down the Eastern Freeway in the morning, you see cars bumper to bumper because people are coming in and trying to get to work. As good as the west is , people coming in on the Eastern Freeway in the morning are not wanting to go out to Flemington, Footscray or Kensington; they want to get into the city and they are stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. If you look you can see the bus lane is a bit freer and has a bit more space for buses to come down. But when you look in the middle what you see is a whacking great swathe of grass running almost the whole length of the Eastern Freeway.
Do you know why that is there? That is there for the rail line out to Doncaster. That rail line has been promised to us for decades. In fact, if you go back and look in the Melway for 1979-80, you can see the rail line marked out there, and they have marked out stops as well. That is how long this has been promised to us. If you want to get 800 of those cars off the road, one train coming down the Eastern Freeway from Doncaster will do that. If you have a proper service running, you will start to clear the Eastern Freeway. If you have the Melbourne Metro coming in from the other side, you will start to clear the congestion that you find on Flemington Road.
If the Prime Minister had any understanding of Melbourne traffic at all, he would know that his project is about to pour more cars onto Flemington Road and Hoddle Street—as if you could fit more cars on Hoddle Street. There is only one rule of traffic in Melbourne, and that is, 'Whatever time of day it is and wherever you're going, don't go on Punt Road or Hoddle Street.' But the Prime Minister is planning to put thousands more cars onto Punt Road and Hoddle Street.
Everyone knows the simple thing to do would be to make Melbourne a world-class public transport city. If you have been lucky enough to travel around the world, you know that in a good city you can get around without having to use a car. Melbourne could be one of those cities. It is not that difficult. All we would need to do is build that rail line coming in on the Eastern Freeway from Doncaster. You could have it skirting underneath Fitzroy and Collingwood and have a couple of stops there. You could build the Melbourne Metro coming in from the west so that you could have a train stop underneath North Melbourne and Parkville, where we have the university and world-leading medical research institutes but no train stops. It would not only take thousands of cars off the road; it would make everyone in Melbourne breathe easier.
People in Melbourne need to breathe easier. Perhaps the Prime Minister does not know or, as I suspect, does not care, but when this new east-west tollway is built it is going to be between 20 and 40 metres from people who live in the Housing Commission flats in Flemington. These are people who are already about 100 metres away from the CityLink overpass. Most people fly on over it and see those towers there on their right or left and do not give them a second thought. But people live there. Currently between the CityLink overpass and these towers is a playground. There is a community garden and a community centre. All of that is going to go. The people who live there are going to be opening their windows to be almost within touching distance of the new east-west tollway.
Because I have been inside these towers but, more importantly, have spoken to many people who live there, I can tell you that if they have a couple of days over 40 degrees those concrete boxes do not lose the heat. They retain the heat. There are families in there with kids. They have no option but to open the window at night because it will be about 30 degrees inside one of those flats. When they open their window at night, if they happen to be living on the fourth or fifth floor, they will be about be 20 or 30 metres away from the east-west tollway. If they live on the ground floor—in a surprise that no-one saw coming because the Premier did not have the dignity to put this out to people before he signed off on the project—they are now going to open their window to find themselves next to a four-lane surface road that is about to take over the park and community centre they currently have. All of that is in the name of getting more cars on our roads in inner city Melbourne. All of that is in the name of dividing what is good, separating parts of communities from others and forcing people to live within touching distance of a new road.
For this, people are going to lose their houses. Collingwood resident Keith Fitzgerald's house is one of those that is going to be forcibly acquired. He is 70 and he has lived in the house since 1944. He is devastated that he is about to lose his home of 70 years—a lifetime—and it will be destroyed. And where did this come from? This whole east-west tollway was hatched when the state Labor government was in power. After 11 years in power in Victoria, the best that the state Labor government could come up with for solving Melbourne's transport problems was to suggest the east-west tollway in the first place.
I remember how we had to go and fight to make sure that JJ Holland Park, in Kensington, was not going to be a staging ground for five or 10 years while they built this monstrosity. We fought Labor off then. Now it has come back under the Liberals. But the good news is that there is a chance of stopping it yet again. Victorians will be voting soon, and they have a chance in the state election to put the Greens into the balance of power. We will insist that the contracts be ripped up and that the rail line out to Doncaster be built instead.
We know in Melbourne that you cannot trust the old parties. They talk big on public transport when it comes to an election year and then fail to deliver. I am sick of hearing people talk about the airport rail link once every four years at election time, and then it disappears and never comes back again. Well, people are wising up. There is a reason that the Greens are doing well in the polls in Victoria at the moment. It is that people want to fix Melbourne's congestion by building better public transport. By voting Greens they can get that.
Leichhardt Electorate: Insurance
Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (16:56): I rise to again speak on an issue which has been having far-reaching implications in my electorate and in northern Australia more broadly. A recent Cyclone Preparedness Index by RACQ showed that 8.4 per cent of residents had no home building or contents insurance at all. A further 11.7 per cent had insufficient cover to rebuild their home should it be destroyed. This equates to one in five families not being able to afford to rebuild their home should a major disaster hit Cairns. Add to this the current lack of competition in our insurance market, ongoing price gouging and denial of market failure, as well as the weather bureau's forecast for four cyclones this season, and the picture being painted is a perfect storm barrelling down on us literally and financially.
The Insurance Council of Australia is still showing a reluctance to engage—and that certainly is an understatement—aside from taking swipes at new initiatives such as those in a 23 October media release from Minister Cormann. ICA said of that release:
… it was concerned about Unauthorised Foreign Insurers being granted easier access to Australia's tightly regulated household insurance market—in North Queensland.
It continued:
… Acting CEO Karl Sullivan said the industry was urgently seeking more details about several initiatives … announced today by the Acting Assistant Treasurer, Mathias Cormann.
It should not be a surprise to the Insurance Council of Australia. We first flagged this back in December last year. It was again highlighted in May this year when Treasury released its discussion paper addressing the high cost of home and strata title insurance in North Queensland. The document included a lengthy section outlining the proposal to allow foreign insurers into the market, but it seems to have gone under the radar of the ICA.
The ICA is concerned that consumers "may not be able to rely on the company to deliver on its promise if the consumer needs to make a claim". What a joke. Many consumers cannot even get a policy with an existing Australian insurer due to the lack of competition in the market or the ridiculously overpriced premiums, and that is why we are being driven to overseas insurers in the first place.
It is interesting that the National Insurance Brokers Association does not have a problem with that initiative. Under current regulations, insurance brokers can place business with unauthorised foreign insurers if the terms, including price, available, from an Australian insurer are substantially less favourable.
The Insurance Council of Australia also said that it would seek more details about the proposed aggregator website, which would compare home and contents products based on price, features and claims handling. The ICA warns that insurance premiums 'reflect the risk that each policyholder faces … buying a product on a price alone may result in the consumer not having cover for the risks they face.' National Insurance Brokers Association of Australia echoed this fear, saying consumers will assume that all cover is 'the same'. Mr Deputy Speaker, do they really think consumers are stupid? Do they think that consumers would purchase a product as important as property insurance, whose complexities have been amply highlighted in recent years, simply on the lowest price?
A number of aggregator websites already operate in Australia; for private health insurance, car insurance, travel insurance and more. While the products are initially sorted by price, a summary includes the key points of cover for the policy, in a simple comparison with other policies that come up. There is no reason why our aggregator website cannot work the same way—except, of course, that it may highlight the lack of competition in the market if a search returns only a couple of results or none at all.
The Insurance Council of Australia ends the release by saying that the Australian Government Actuary found the market to be competitive'. How is it competitive when prices are five times higher in the northern towns than they are in the southern cities? I certainly look forward to the outcome of the second report into home and contents insurance that I asked to be commissioned. I have no doubt at all that it will also show insurers in a very poor light. I have also requested that the Government Actuary look at small business insurance, given the massive increases that have been reported by the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry in recent times. I would also like to have a look at rural residential as well.
It is still very disappointing to note the lack of significant action to date by the big insurers. A couple of them are trying but it is just not enough. Suncorp launched its new residential product in conjunction with Good Shepherd to help cover lower income customers. However, it is still a pilot. It has not been trialled in North Queensland and will only assist a very limited sector. Brooklyn recently entered the market with a view to individually assessing small and medium complexes north of Rockhampton. However, teething issues showed that Brooklyn does not insure storm surge on properties within 500 metres of the coast. I have sent information to Brooklyn's CEO, urging him to address this issue. CGU is more promising. I had a briefing with CGU when it completed engineering assessments on its first 100 properties, whereby 86 of the properties received a reduction on average of 15 per cent and one received a reduction of 29 per cent. At the end of the day, how and when insurers decide to address broader affordability and availability issues will determine how much of an impact these moves will have on the market.
You have to ask the question: why have insurance prices only recently begun to skyrocket in Far North Queensland? Cyclones have been around for far longer than insurance. Clearly there are a number of factors at play. Northern Australia has four per cent of Australia's inhabitants spread over 40 per cent of the land mass. It is easy for insurance companies to fob us off to reduce their own risk, with little impact on their bottom line; but this demonstrates zero social and community responsibility.
Let us look at the change in the insurance industry's approach to profits. In the past, they had a national focus but in recent years they have shifted to a regional approach. Managers in each region are given incentives based on their results and are therefore motivated to opt out of certain insurance products or markets or to significantly increase price to give themselves a greater opportunity to receive a bonus. This creates significant variation in premiums across the country and disadvantages communities in exposed regions.
While we are on the subject of profits, let us crunch a few numbers. IAG, which is the Insurance Australia Group, owns CGU, NRMA, WFI, Coles and Lumley Insurance. It recently announced an insurance profit of $1.579 billion for the year, up 10.6 per cent from the previous financial year. CEO Michael Wilkins earned $6.1 million for the year, up from $4.9 million the previous year. That is not a bad effort.
AAI Limited, which owns AAMI, GIO, Suncorp, Vero, Apia, Bingle CIL, InsureMyRide, Just Car Insurance, Shannons and Resilium, just to name a few, recently announced a consolidated profit, after tax, of $918.6 million, up from $812 million the year before. Interestingly, its net earned premium increased by $218 million despite there being lower natural hazard costs and a decrease in underwriting expenses. Its CEO, Patrick Snowball, took home a very tidy $9 million pay cheque—an increase of $1.1 million over the year before, thanks to maturing bonus shares.
I think it is time we started looking outside the square. One of the things that I think we need to look at is companies or a model that, instead of focusing on profit, employs a concept that works to counter that—such as a mutual. Similar institutions already occur in the banking sector, like the Cairns Penny bank and the Bendigo Bank, which have a community driven focus. There is a lot of merit because a mutual is not profit driven. It does not have the responsibility to provide returns to shareholders, so profits can be reinvested back into the fund. And, of course, all the policyholders become shareholders in the mutual. We are certainly looking forward to finding out more about this. A lot of work is being done on that model at the moment. We will see how that can work across northern Australia.
I have also been working with TIO. We are having meetings with them later this week in the hope of seeing whether or not they have an appetite to also get engaged in northern Australia.
I accept the advice that the measures we are taking are going to be successful in increasing competition and driving down prices. However, I will continue to monitor the situation very closely. As I have been warning insurance companies when I meet with them, I certainly have more extreme measures that I am determined to promote if these initiatives that are currently on the table do not achieve the acceptable outcome.
Run with the Wind
Climate Change
Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (17:07): As a keen runner, it was a great pleasure for me yesterday to say a few words at the third annual Run with the Wind community fun run at Woodlawn wind farm near Tarago, New South Wales. Situated between Tarago and Bungendore, the Woodlawn wind farm comprises 23 wind turbines and has been operating since October 2011. The fun run was hosted by the owner and operator of the wind farm, Infigen Energy, and organised by a sports and athlete management firm, Elite Energy. In the latter case, it is mere coincidence that the term 'energy' appears in the name.
The fun run is aimed at serving two main purposes: firstly, to encourage people to get fit and stay fit by completing a five- or a 10-kilometre run and, hopefully, the organisers tell me, in the future maybe even a half marathon; and, secondly, to raise awareness of the important role that wind power will have in Australia's future. Contrary to the Treasurer, who finds wind farms 'utterly offensive' and 'appalling' and has said that they are ruining the landscape, many of those in attendance beg to differ. In fact, the sight of Infigen's wind turbines serving as a backdrop to the many fit Canberrans and New South Wales residents who hit the run yesterday was a sight to behold.
I pay tribute to Frank Boland and Miles George, from Infigen Energy, for their support for the Run with the Wind. It is, as I mentioned to the runners at the start of the race, very much Australia's future, because we know that in the future Australians need to be fitter. We have to bring down those rising obesity and overweight rates, and we need to produce more of our energy using clean, green methods. And that is exactly what wind farms are doing. If the Treasurer would like to join us at the next fun run, I am sure he would be more than welcome to enjoy the aesthetic, sporting and environmental benefits of the wind farm.
This run comes at a time in which Australia is sadly slipping backwards on international rankings for tackling climate change. The Global Green Economy Index, prepared by the US consultancy Dual Citizen has Australia's performance ranked 37th out of 60 countries for actions that support clean energy and combat climate change. In contrast, in 2012 Australia was ranked 4th on the same index.
As shadow minister for climate change Mark Butler said:
Where Australia was once leading the world, developing countries such as Kenya and Rwanda are now taking more meaningful action against climate change.
In the 'Leadership' section, Australia ranks dead last. That is, on the Global Green Economy Index. This comes after the prominent New Republic magazine categorised Tony Abbott and Stephen Harper as Earth's greatest 'climate villains'. It reflects the deep concern around the globe at the Direct Action policy, which, frankly, everyone in this place knows to be a joke. The attempts to scrap the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Prime Minister's continued tolerance of anti-science rhetoric are not surprising in a government that lacks a science minister.
The Abbott government's latest moves on climate have been to attack the renewable energy target, suggesting that the renewable energy target should be set at 26,000 gigawatt-hours rather than at 41,000 gigawatt-hours. The renewable energy target has always been set in terms of gigawatt-hours rather than as a share of production. One can hardly imagine that if energy demand had been increasing rather than decreasing there would be claims that the RET ought to be increased to be a so-called real 20 per cent. What a so-called real 20 per cent claim means is that effectively there will be a 40 per cent cut in the renewable energy target. That comes off the back of clear evidence that jobs in the sector have tripled. There has been $18 billion in investment, and the number of homes with solar panels have increased to 1.3 million.
In September 2013, Australia was ranked in the top four most attractive places to invest in renewable energy, with the US, China and Germany. But, since the Abbott government's political interference with the renewable energy target, since its establishment of a renewable energy target review, headed by a prominent climate sceptic, we have fallen down to 10th. Even that review, headed by a climate sceptic, found that the renewable energy target would drive down power prices over the medium term. So the Abbott government is seeking to wind back the renewable energy target, a policy we know to be reducing emissions and putting downward pressure on power prices.
Labor is working to restore the bipartisanship that has existed for a decade over the renewable energy target, and that frankly could continue to exist if Mr Abbott would stick to his election promise not to touch the RET, and his commitment to 41,000 gigawatt-hours.
The discussion about climate change is occurring in a context in which other nations are realising the threat and taking sensible action. A recent report by the Pentagon has noted that climate change poses an immediate threat to national security, with increased risk from terrorism, infectious disease, global poverty and food shortage. The US Department of Defense will soon begin integrating plans for climate change risks across all of its operations, including war games and strategic military planning. When recently speaking to a meeting of defence secretaries in Peru, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said:
The loss of glaciers will strain water supplies in several areas of our hemisphere. Destruction and devastation from hurricanes can sow the seeds for instability. Droughts and crop failures can leave millions of people without any lifeline and trigger waves of mass migration.
The time for childish things has passed. It is vital that all of us in this place recognise the danger of unchecked climate change and commit to policies that will deal with it.
A new declaration, signed by 74 countries and more than 1,000 businesses has called for a global price on carbon. The declaration, released in September, was signed by China, Shell, Dow Chemical and Coca Cola. It calls on all nations to enact laws encouraging carbon pricing in order to check carbon pollution. As World Bank vice president for sustainability, Rachel Kyte,has said:
The most powerful move that a government can make in the flight against climate change is to put a price on carbon.
Now there are around 40 countries that have implemented carbon pricing, while there are dozens more which are exploring it. As Robert Stavins of Harvard has noted:
There is increasing recognition that approaches that have been taken in the past haven't worked, and that the only way one can affect the hundreds of millions of decisions is through price signals.
It is ironic that in nominally communist China there are seven pilot cap-and-trade programs operating in provinces covering millions of people. Yet the nominally free market Liberal and National parties in this country continue to oppose a market based approach to climate change. The danger is real, and when I see parliamentarians in this place attacking the Bureau of Meteorology and putting their cheap political point-scoring ahead of good evidence based approaches to tackling climate change, I hang my head. The coalition must accept that a Direct Action plan which raises taxes on households in order to give money to polluters is a shadow carbon tax. The way in which it operates is that it achieves abatement by taxing households. But it achieves abatement in a highly inefficient manner. If the work were done—and of course no cost-benefit study has been done on Direct Action—it would likely reveal that, for every tonne of carbon pollution abated through Direct Action, the effective tax on Australian households is hundreds of dollars. Direct Action is a dog of a plan. I call on this government to support the international consensus on the dangers of climate change and the need for a market based mechanism to tackle it.
Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network
Mr LAUNDY (Reid) (17:17): I would like to pay tribute to the Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network, which is an organisation located in Sydney Olympic Park inside my electorate. They are a wonderful organisation that do great work all year round. However, on Friday they had their first ever FUSE summit, 'FUSE' not being an acronym but meaning 'fuse'—bring together. They brought multicultural youth from right around Australia to Sydney Olympic Park to the GWS Learning Life Centre. I would like to thank GWS for making their facility available, which I know that Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network, MYAN, is going to take more advantage of.
The three-day summit was a wonderful opportunity. I speak in this place a lot about multiculturalism, and I have been blessed to grow up in a multicultural area, but a lot of different parts of Australia have become multicultural of late. Whilst what we take for granted in Reid—the networks of support and advocacy—are well-founded and well-functioning, in other parts of Australia that is not the case.
MYAN had the vision to bring together our youth, the next generation of leaders, from right around Australia to spend three days talking about what we do in Western Sydney and ways that these young people could become advocates. It was a train-the-trainer, I guess, where they could go back to their different parts of Australia—and there were people from every state and territory there—and start advocating and working on setting up the migrant infrastructure that I know the member for Greenway and I have the benefit of leaning on when we need to and that the community, more importantly, have the benefit of leaning on.
I joined a panel with Senator the Hon. Concetta Fierravanti-Wells; the Hon. Matt Kean, who is the state parliamentary secretary to Dominello, the Minister for Citizenship and Communities; Megan Mitchell, the National Children's Commissioner; and me. We were given five presentations and at the end of each presentation there was a question-and-answer session. Topics included things like education and employment for multicultural youth; ESL teaching—something I spoke about in my maiden speech—and the need to do it better as the core building block on which we can build; perceptions in the media, obviously very topical at the moment; being inclusive as a society, once again very topical; and, lastly, asylum seekers, once again very topical.
It was refreshing to see such a great gathering of such great people, our youth. They are the hope of the side—I say that so often. They do not look at each other and identify by race, skin colour or religion. They just see fellow Australians. In the opening words of a song which was written in 1987 to reflect on our past but is just as relevant today and, I hope, reflects so strongly our future:
We are one
But we are many
And from all the lands on Earth we come
I looked around the room. It was no different to what Michelle and I see daily in our electorates—something we take for granted. I hope that the passion in that room spreads like a flame across all the different parts represented in that room and that different societies that do not have the background we have can come to know it better. Well done, to MYAN and the GWS Giants.
I would like to talk about an event, called Walk Together, I attended with the member for Greenway and the member for Blaxland on Saturday afternoon. I congratulate Brad Chilcott and his team at Welcome to Australia. We marched for a harmonious and inclusive Australia. It is a common theme and very topical, with what we confront right now on the world stage and the implications that has for our local communities. I was particularly pleased to see a team from St Patrick's College at Strathfield. It is my old school and that of the member for Watson. My father went to the school also. It is a school that is run by Christian Brothers, and where there are Christian Brothers there is Catholic social justice. As someone who was raised by them it was so refreshing to see that, one generation on, the Christian Brothers, who have been instilling social justice since the early 1800s, are still doing such a wonderful job. It was a real thrill to walk down George Street. I have only ever had the opportunity to cross George Street; I have never had the chance to have traffic stop and walk down it. There would have been a crowd of 1,000 walking. The walk ended at Darling Harbour, where we listened to a great variety of speakers passing on the message 'Welcome to Australia'. I say a lot that this is a country that has been and will be built on the back of migration. We should not falter at this stage in our country's history because of events halfway around the world which scare all of us, irrespective of where we come from or what we believe. Well done, to Brad and all his team.
I had the opportunity on Saturday night to join my local Hindu community at Diwali, the festival of lights. The Sri Mandir temple in Auburn is Australia's first. I was invited to spend some time with the community. Diwali is a festival that celebrates the triumph of good over evil, of light over darkness. I had the wonderful opportunity to speak to a large gathering of people, to say how fitting it was—although I am not Hindu; I gave away earlier that I am Catholic—how topical that theory is. I spoke about world events at the moment and about how pleasing it was to be celebrating the triumph of good over evil. I got a rousing reception. There was great camaraderie from Dr Rajeev Spada and all of the board, who put in time and time again at the temple. It was a precursor of what I often refer to as migrant infrastructure of the spiritual kind. The temple was build in the 1970s and has grown into something fantastic. Traffic arrangements did have their moments, but they run such a great show. There was a feed afterwards, great hospitality and great camaraderie. To all at the Sri Mandir temple, thank you, once again—I have been there many times—for making me so welcome.
I had the chance on Saturday morning to catch up with the recently convened Navy cadet unit based at Lidcombe depot. I joined the Royal Australian Navy Strategic Adviser on Islamic Cultural Affairs, Captain Mona Shindy, and the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Tim Barrett. This is a Navy cadet unit with a difference. Its members are Muslim. It is a great initiative from the Australian Navy.
We were there to launch a boat that was being donated by a generous benefactor and the Navy, and the Navy had the foresight to invite Sheikh Douish to christen the boat. He spoke that day with some 40 or 50 young boys and girls standing in front of him, some of them related to him; they were his grandchildren. He is a wonderful man. He spoke of the irony that, at a time when—he is a great moderate leader—he stands in his mosque and instils in his congregation the importance of being Australian and paying homage to your homeland, he was standing and talking to 50 or 60 young boys and girls who wanted to one day joint he Navy. They were starting their career with the hopes of one day standing in the front lines and defending this country, their country, our country. This 'us and them' just has to stop. When Sheikh Douish said this—and I get it because I battle to say it myself—he cracked up. He broke down. He cried. That made it even more powerful. It shows you strain that these communities are under. It shows you the strain that my friends and my neighbours are under. The preachers, the people who talk to their congregations on a daily basis, the people the congregation come to with stories of abuse—one mentioned in the main chamber today a girl in a hijab being pushed over and breaking her arm.
When you meet people like Sheikh Douish, when you see the next generation of Australians of Islamic background and all they want to do is be a member of the Australian Navy, it gives you a shot in the arm. My only drama is that I hope to get the media interested in this story because these are the stories that we need to tell. These are the stories that bring us together. We have too much discussion about things that divide us, not enough about things that bring us together.
It was an honour to join the Australian Navy cadets. Thank you to Chief of Navy Tim Barrett, all involved and, most importantly, the boys and girls, great young Australians, who will make a big difference.
Walk Together
Abbott Government
Ms ROWLAND (Greenway) (17:27): Before I begin my grievance for the people in Greenway, while the member for Reid is here I also want to acknowledge the Walk Together event that we shared in on Saturday, holding up that banner and walking at the front of a very peaceful procession of like-minded people across a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities, all united under one banner: that racism has no place in this country and more than ever social cohesion should be uppermost in all of our minds as public office holders and as leaders in our own communities. I was privileged to be able to join Brad Chilcott, and congratulations to his organisation and all the volunteers who put in for that. As the member said, along with the member for Blaxland, we were but a few people in a very big ocean of community sentiment that supports social cohesion and understanding amongst our communities.
I rise on this occasion to grieve for my constituents in Greenway who have been harshly and unfairly treated by this government on the great trio of issues which show up in every survey, in every piece of feedback that one receives in the local community: health, education and jobs. When I talk about jobs, I am not just talking about statistics and the unemployment figures, although of course they bear out the very significant disadvantage that is faced by so many young people in Western Sydney in particular. I want to talk about employability and job security, but before I do that I want to acknowledge the daily struggle that many constituents I represent go through each day to meet cost-of-living pressures and their concerns about this government's cuts and changes to the areas of health, education and jobs. I want each of them to know, because I have been contacted by so many of them and have so many individual stories, many of which I have highlighted publicly. I want to do that because I want to acknowledge that each of them is important.
In the chamber the other day I quoted from former Prime Minister John Howard in discussing this budget. Australians will respond to an argument for change and reform, but they want two requirements, and I think these are fundamental to emphasise. They want to be satisfied that it is in the national interest because they have a deep sense of nationalism and patriotism. I totally agree with that. And they also want to be satisfied that it is fundamentally fair. That is why, when I meet so many constituents in my electorate, they have such a visceral anger about the impact of this budget on them.
When the recent NATSEM modelling shows that under this budget my electorate is experiencing over four times the cuts that the electorates of the Prime Minister and Treasurer are experiencing, you can understand why this is a significant grievance. Greenway families with children will be over $1,600 worse off each year because of this budget. I think we need to be clear how overwhelmingly disproportionate this is. If we were to combine the financial impact of the budget on the electorates of the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the Minister for Communications and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, they would still be $150 per year better off than the people of Greenway.
I want to also specifically discuss issues in relation to health. If any specific measure epitomises this harsh and unfair budget, it is the proposed $7 GP tax. At the heart of this measure is an attack on the universality of Medicare, one of the signature achievements of the Whitlam and Hawke-Keating governments. In the lead-up to the budget, what really disappointed me—and I know it disappointed my constituents because they have told me so time and again—was the Treasurer dismissing the concerns of ordinary Australians who rightly believe that such a tax will be a significant impost on their bottom line. They especially took issue with comments on ABC Radio National from the Treasurer such as:
One packet of cigarettes cost $22. That gives you three visits to the doctor.
As if that would be the key concern of the people of Greenway. I heard one of the early defences of this proposal was, 'A lot of people go to the doctor just for the company. They don't really need to go there'—as if we are an electorate of hypochondriacs. I can tell you how badly that was received in the electorate of Greenway. It may not be the case for the Treasurer, but for many of my constituents $7 is a lot of money. Furthermore, illnesses will not be treated as they arise, meaning they will be treated only once. Their situations will deteriorate into something more serious, putting added pressure on the healthcare system. So you can see why the electorate of Greenway is so disappointed with these measures.
I want to turn to education. I grieve for the people of Greenway, who have a government that has slashed funding for schools. I have often referred to Greenway as Australia's nursery, given its zero-to-14 age group is one of the largest in the country. This explains why education is so important in Western Sydney, combined with the fact that Western Sydney is home to so many new and emerging communities. These people have come to Australia under that great contract: 'I will come to this country. I will do my best. I will give up a life that I had in another place so that my children can get the best chances in life through education.' That is the contract that they have with Australia. In Greenway there are some 50 schools—independent, Catholic, government and so on. One of my great privileges is visiting a lot of them and listening to them. I can tell you that, for principals, teachers and parents, the cut that they did not see coming was in the last two years of Gonski, especially since in the last campaign this government went to the election on a unity ticket. Whereas before they had called the Gonski reforms 'conski', now it was a unity ticket. I can tell you how much people have really taken badly to this government's cut of the final two years of Gonski funding.
I mentioned in this place only a couple of days ago the issue of the employability of our young people. I mentioned specifically BREED Education, Employment and Economic Development, whose programs include the school business community partnerships' structured workplace learning throughout my electorate. One thing they alerted me to was a recently announced program of $44 million for a learn-or-earn plan. As Stephen Frost, the managing director, has pointed out to me:
The Federal Government is looking at rolling out a new program next year for 10,000 young regional youth both disengaged from school or work and the young unemployed.
And this is where there is an existing National Network of PB—
partnership brokers—
who have been working with this target group for the past five years. The Federal Government funded the establishment, administration and development of the intelligence and business and connections that will be dissolved at the end of this year—
again, one of the outcomes of this budget—
This short sighted action by the Government will now fund the establishment of a new set of program delivery organisation with the associated set-up costs and lag time recruiting staff and them getting up to speed and developing local connections - just after the providers have ceased to operate or keep their valued talented and connected teams employed as they are not resourced to continue their employment whilst awaiting for these programs to be commenced some time in 2015.
That is from someone on the front line who has done tremendous work in my local community.
I commented the other day on the success of the partnership brokers for BREED. Between 2010 and 2013 alone, BREED assisted 15,400 young people with career direction, often re-engaging them in school with a career focus or employment. The costs of this program have actually declined over time as the program has been so successful and has so diligently partnered young people seeking employability with their local institutions but also local businesses. It is this kind of intelligence that is going to be lost when these partnership brokers' funding ceases.
There is a good reason why I specifically raise this. It is because, as of today, youth unemployment is almost three times the rate of unemployment for those aged 25 and over. In my electorate of Greenway, youth unemployment stood at over 17 per cent in June this year. This compares to seven per cent only two years ago.
I have some specific programs I am looking at connecting with a number of emerging communities. One that the member for Parramatta and I have been particularly involved in has involved reaching out to the various African communities, many of whom believe they are suffering some form of discrimination in getting employed. But for a lot of them their gripe is this: 'We tell our young people and our children if they work hard, study hard and do well they will get a job.' The frustrating thing for them—and I know the member for Holt feels the same because I was in his electorate only recently hearing very similar from various African communities—is that that message is being broken under this government and this budget. We had successful programs that were doing great jobs in this area. They need to be reinstated, not doing the same and not achieving— (Time expired)
Dobell Electorate: Sport
Mrs McNAMARA (Dobell) (17:37): The Central Coast is immensely proud of its sporting talent and achievements. Dobell is home to a strong sporting community. The people of Dobell have a passion for sport which is evidenced in the many outstanding achievements of our sports men and women. From the Central Coast Mariners, champions of the A-League, to our local sporting champions, our sports stars of tomorrow, the Central Coast has an array of sports men and women who excel on the domestic and international stages.
As a mother of two young rugby union players, I have experienced the joy of watching your child take to the field and give their best to the game. I also know that sport has the unique quality of uniting communities. When players take to the field and when families watch in the stands, we transcend the barriers that at other times divide us. We should always celebrate the things in life that bring us together and unite us.
As the member for Dobell, I have had the pleasure of getting to know many local players and the people behind our local sporting clubs. From rugby union to cricket, from Aussie Rules to swimming, from league to equestrian—and everything in between—we have much to be proud of. Being involved in sport provides a sense of community and self-worth and, importantly, leads to active and healthy lifestyles. I want to see more people provided opportunity to engage and excel in sport. In order to provide these opportunities, it is important that we support our local sporting clubs and ensure that appropriate infrastructure is made available.
This is why I am determined and committed to deliver the Tuggerah Sporting Precinct, which will enable the hosting of regional and national sporting tournaments as well as relieve pressure on pre-existing local sports infrastructure. The development of this precinct would place the Central Coast as a strong contender to become the sports tourism capital of New South Wales as well as promote growth in tournaments such as the Central Coast Rugby Sevens and Oztag championships.
Held over this past weekend, the Central Coast Rugby Sevens is Australia's premier rugby sevens tournament outside the international world series. The tournament featured international, national and club champions from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, Brazil, Malaysia, Japan and the United States. Tournament director, Craig Morgan, has worked hard to promote equality between the men's and women's tournaments and, as a result, the women's tournament featured one of the richest women's rugby tournaments in the world. This year, I was honoured to be appointed ambassador for the women's tournament. I am proud to advocate the need for equality in sport. Such is the significance of tournaments such as the Central Coast Rugby Sevens, I was privileged to welcome the Prime Minister to officially open this year's competition. I hope that we can bring more tournaments of this size to the Central Coast not only to encourage international talent to Australian shores but also to promote the Central Coast as a choice destination for sporting competitions. This will see a strong and prosperous tourism industry develop to underpin continued economic growth and job development. This year's Central Coast Rugby Sevens also provided an opportunity for local sporting talent to compete against international stars. One of the most appealing elements of the tournament was the opportunity for locals to showcase their skills and talent in front of national selectors.
The more we can encourage competitions of this calibre the greater the opportunity for local sports champions to be discovered. Every weekend local sporting participants take to our fields and demonstrate their talents, often dreaming of one day wearing our revered coat of arms and representing this great nation. Over the past year, I have had the pleasure of assisting these local sportsmen and sportswomen through the federal government's Local Sporting Champions program. This program has assisted many young sporting champions take part in overseas and interstate competitions. Many of these young sportspeople will no doubt follow in the footsteps of Central Coast sporting legends such as Olympic boxer Jai Opetaia, rugby league player David Fairleigh, triathlete Nicole Hackett, cricketers Alan Davidson and Nathan Bracken, rugby union players Adam Ashley-Cooper and Nathan Hines, netballer Alison Broadbent and baseballer Craig Anderson—to name just a few of our sporting legends.
It is not only our local sporting champions that are excelling on the world stage. In dance, Danielle Muir of Ourimbah has achieved a most outstanding ballet milestone. Danielle started dancing at age 2½ with Marni's Studio of Performing Arts on the Central Coast. Through hard work and dedication she was one of only 16 girls worldwide to be offered a position at the Royal Ballet School in London. Danielle commenced at the Royal Ballet School, aged 16, in September 2010 and graduated with honours in July 2013. She auditioned for the world renowned Staatsballett company in Berlin. Over 200 girls auditioned, and she was one of only two to be offered a contract. Danielle is the first Australian ever to be offered a contract with the company. Danielle has quietly gone about her outstanding career with the love and support of her family. Her ultimate goal is to be a principal ballerina. I wish her well in achieving this goal.
These local and upcoming stars—like Danielle—have reached this stage in their aspiring careers with the strong support of family, friends, coaches, mentors and volunteers. The role of family and volunteers in grassroots sport can never be overstated. From keeping score to manning the barbecue or washing the team kits, volunteers' time is every bit as important as the performance on the field. I remember fondly many weekends spent at Warnervale and Woongarrah ovals with members of the Warnervale Wildcats family. As well as being a supportive mother, I found myself helping in the running of the club. This is not a unique situation. It is shared by mums, dads, grandparents and communities Australia-wide. We do it to support our children and for love of our community. We are rewarded through on-field triumphs and the satisfaction of the young men and women who put it all on the line in the name of their beloved local club.
Ethan Milne, secretary of The Entrance District Cricket Club, exemplifies the commitment of a volunteer within a sporting club. A dedicated, community minded individual, Ethan is also a member of Surf Life Saving Central Coast. Not only is young Ethan professional in his approach, he has actively sought to improve his club by successfully applying on behalf of The Entrance team and players for several grants. All levels of government are strong supporters of local sport. However, without the outstanding work of volunteers like young Ethan our grants and funding would not deliver the benefits to sporting communities.
My love for local sports and the pride it brings to us as a community has not wavered since being elected to parliament. I am grateful to The Entrance District Cricket Club, the Warnervale Wildcats Cricket Club, the Warnervale Wildcats Rugby Club and the Woongarrah Wildcats Football Club, who have invited me to become patron.
Not only do our local sporting clubs excel on the field they also play a strong role in our community by supporting and giving to worthwhile causes. The Warnervale Rugby Club earlier this season hosted a Black Dog Institute fundraiser: a day where the club turned orange to support the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder. This is an example of the contribution of local sports clubs that extends beyond the sports fields and into the broader community. I have often spoken of the number of Central Coast residents who commute out of our region for employment. Unfortunately many of these parents are unable to transport their children to and from sports training. As a result many children experience difficulty in accessing sport. The federal government's Active After-school Communities provides primary school children with access to free sport participation after school. In Dobell alone this program provides over 5½ thousand annual placements. Not only does the program engage children in sport through a positive and fun experience, it also allows children with both parents working or commuting the opportunity to participate in a local sport. Earlier this year I attended the Soccer5s school cup which included students from over 10 schools on the Central Coast. Through the work of the Active After-school Communities these students were able to participate in Soccer5s in a fun, safe and friendly environment.
Another local organisation providing additional support to tomorrows sports stars is the Central Coast Academy of Sport. Founded in 2004, the academy is a non-profit sporting organisation that exists to provide locally based sports-development opportunities for athletes, coaches, officials and administrators on the Central Coast. Overseen by academy director, Mr Ian Robilliard, the academy offers a total of 15 high-performance sporting programs.
Recently I had the privilege of attending the inaugural Women in Sports Luncheon hosted by the Central Coast Sports Federation. The Central Coast Sports Federation for many years has been considered the voice of sport for the New South Wales Central Coast. President of the federation, Mr Kevin Dewar, has been a strong advocate for the development and advancement of sport on the Central Coast for the benefit of Central Coast sporting organisations, facilities and community wellbeing and fitness. Both Kevin and Ian have been strong supporters of the need for new sporting infrastructure on the Central Coast and have accompanied me in advocating the need for the Tuggerah Sporting Precinct.
The pride of sport on the Central Coast is embodied within the Central Coast Mariners, who for 10 years have been a perennial force in the A-League competition. Often dismissed as the underdog to Sydney powerhouses Sydney FC and the Western Sydney Wanderers, the Central Coast Mariners have consistently punched above their weight and demonstrated the strength of the Central Coast community. In their 10th year the Mariners will again call upon the support of Central Coast locals as they challenge their second A-League championship. I look forward to joining them as they demonstrate that the Central Coast is a force to be reckoned with in Australian football. From the Mariners to the local football club I am immensely proud of the sporting achievements of Central Coast locals and look forward to sharing their continuing success with the House.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 17:47
QUESTIONS IN WRITING
Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption
(Question No. 117)
Mr Kelvin Thomson asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, in writing, on 13 May 2014:
(1) What arrangements have been put in place for the remuneration of the Royal Commissioner and Counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.
(2) Is it a fact that the final terms of reference for the Royal Commission were amended from the draft terms released when the Royal Commission was announced.
(3) Is it a fact that terms of reference number (i) which refers to persons other than trade unions and their officers and associated separate entities, was amended to provide that the participation of persons or organisations other than trade unions and their officers '…in a matter mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (h)' of the terms of reference was within the scope of the inquiry.
(4) Is the effect of this amendment that employers, employer organisations and persons or entities other than trade unions and their officers and associated separate entities, will only be subject to inquiry by the Royal Commission in circumstances where they are involved in a matter that includes the involvement of a trade union, officer of a union, or an associated separate entity.
Ms Julie Bishop: The Attorney-General has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:
(1) The Royal Commissioner, the Hon John Dyson Heydon AC QC, was appointed under the Letters Patent signed by the then Governor-General, Her Excellency the Hon Quentin Bryce AC CVO on 13 March 2014. Counsel Assisting the Commission (Mr Jeremy Stoljar SC, Mr Michael Elliott and Ms Fiona Roughley) were appointed under section 6FA of the Royal Commissions Act 1902 (Cth). It is general practice that the terms and conditions (including daily or hourly rates) on which the Commonwealth engages individual legal counsel are not disclosed.
(2) Yes.
(3) Paragraph (i) of the terms of reference was amended for drafting purposes and ensures that all activities and conduct mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (h) are within the scope of the Royal Commission's inquiry.
(4) See the response to (3) above.
Health: Data Linking Agreement
(Question No. 268)
Ms MacTiernan asked the Minister for Health, in writing, on 26 August 2014:
(1) Has the Data Linking Agreement between the Commonwealth and the Western Australian Government in respect of health data linkages been terminated; if so, why. (2) Is he aware that information sharing between the Commonwealth and State of Western Australia through this agreement has provided valuable research results that are possible only when state and Commonwealth data are linked. (3) Will he consider directing his agency to reinstate this agreement with the Western Australia Government.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(1) The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in 2002 between the then Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing and the Western Australia Department of Health concerning the cross-jurisdictional linkage of administrative health data has not been terminated.
(2) Yes I am aware of the valuable results from the linkage of state and Commonwealth data.
(3) Access by the Western Australian Government to linkable Medicare and Pharmaceutical Benefits data, can be provided where they have approval from an accredited Human Research Ethics Committee for a defined project that has been assessed as contributing to improvement in Australian health systems and outcomes. As for all research, any provision of data requested for a project will be subject to cost recovery, and requestors should consider this in the cost benefit analysis for their research.
Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission
(Question No. 274)
Dr Leigh asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 26 August 2014:
Can he provide a table detailing any meetings on the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission held between 1 January and 20 August 2014 that he, and/or his personal staff, attended with stakeholders, including both the name of the stakeholder organisation and the date of the meeting.
Mr Andrews: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
I meet with many different stakeholders on an ongoing basis.
Speech and Media Training
(Question No. 315)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister for Health, in writing, on 1 September 2014:
In respect of speech and/or media training since 7 September 2013, (a) what total sum has the Minister's department spent, and (b) what is the breakdown for such training for the (i) Minister, (ii) Minister's staff, and where applicable, each (iii) junior Minister (including Assistant Ministers), (iv) junior (and Assistant) Minister's staff, (v) Parliamentary Secretary, and (vi) Parliamentary Secretary's staff, and (c) what services were provided, and by whom.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) and (b) The Department of Health has not incurred expenditure in respect of speech and/or media training since 7 September 2013.
Freedom of Information
(Question No. 319)
Ms Rowland asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 2 September 2014:
In respect of a letter from his department dated 6 June 2014 in response to Freedom of Information request No. 13/14-078,
(a) what are the titles of the two documents that were exempt,
(b) what category or type of documents are they, ie, Ministerial briefs, advice to the Minister,
(c) why were these two documents exempt entirely rather than redacted like the other nine documents, and
(d) did his department receive any legal advice regarding this exemption; if so, on what date.
Mr Andrews: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) Both documents, including their titles, were decided to exempt in full under section 47C of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) on the basis that access would disclose matter in the course of, or for the purposes of, the deliberative processes of the Department and disclosure would be contrary to the public interest. Full reasons were set out in the decision letter to the applicant dated 6 June 2014.
(b) The first document was a Ministerial Minute to the Minister; the second document was a Ministerial brief.
(c) The decision was made that two documents were exempt in full under section 47C of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth). The decision-maker outlined the reasons for this decision in the decision letter to the applicant dated 6 June 2014.
(d) The decision was made by a Principal Legal Officer employed in the Department. The Department did not receive any external legal advice regarding this exemption.
United Muslim Women Association Inc.
(Question No. 322)
Ms Rowland asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 2 September 2014:
(1) On what date did his department meet with the United Muslim Women's Association Inc.
(2) Has his Parliamentary Secretary met with the Association; if so, on what date; if not,
(a) was a meeting requested and refused, and
(b) did an adviser or staff member meet with the Association instead; if so, (i) on what date, and (ii) where.
(3) Did his Parliamentary Secretary have a planned meeting with the Association in late 2013; if so, did this meeting go ahead; if not, why not.
(4) Has he met with the Association; if not, why not; if so,
(a) on what date, and
(b) where.
Mr Andrews: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(1) The Department (NSW Office) met with Ms Wafa Zaem, United Muslim Women Association Centre Coordinator, most recently on 1 July 2014. Additionally, Ms Maha Abdo OAM, CEO of the United Muslim Women Association, was a guest at the Australian Multicultural Council's Interfaith Roundtable on 22 May 2014, attended a roundtable discussion on the Second Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022 on 6 February 2014, and was a guest at the official launch of the Second Action Plan on 27 June 2014. Departmental officers were also present at these events.
(2) to (4) The Parliamentary Secretary, her staff, the Minister and his staff meet regularly with various stakeholders.
Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet: Drinks Cabinet for Ministers
(Question No. 329)
Mr Conroy asked the Prime Minister in writing, on 3 September 2014:
Since 7 September 2013, has the Minister's department paid for or stocked the 'drinks cabinet' for (a) the Minister, and where applicable, each (b) junior Minister (including Assistant Ministers), and (c) Parliamentary Secretary; if so, at what cost.
Mr Abbott: I am advised that the answer to the Honourable Member's question is as follows.
(a) In relation to the contents of the cellars at The Lodge and Kirribilli House, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet routinely responds to questions on this matter at Senate Estimates. The most recent response is available at
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Senate_Estimates/fapactte/estimates/bud1415/pmc/index.
Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator the Hon Nigel Scullion: Nil
(b) Nil.
(c) Nil.
Department of Finance: Drinks Cabinet for Ministers
(Question No. 335)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister representing the Minister for Finance, in writing, on 3 September 2014:
Since 7 September 2013, has the Minister's department paid for or stocked the 'drinks cabinet' for (a) the Minister, and where applicable, each (b) junior Minister (including Assistant Ministers), and (c) Parliamentary Secretary; if so, at what cost.
Mr Hockey: The Minister for Finance has supplied the following answer to the honourable member's question:
(a) to (c) No.
Department of Social Services
(Question No. 340)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 3 September 2014:
Since 7 September 2013, has the Minister's department paid for or stocked the 'drinks cabinet' for (a) the Minister, and where applicable, each (b) junior Minister (including Assistant Ministers), and (c) Parliamentary Secretary; if so, at what cost.
Mr Andrews: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) to (c) No.
Department of Health
(Question No. 343)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister for Health, in writing, on 3 September 2014:
Since 7 September 2013, has the Minister's department paid for or stocked the drinks cabinet for (a) the Minister, and where applicable, each (b) junior Minister (including Assistant Ministers), and (c) Parliamentary Secretary; if so, at what cost.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
The Department of Health has not paid for or stocked drinks cabinets for any of its Ministers.
Department of Finance: Hospitality
(Question No. 353)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister representing the Minister for Finance, in writing, on
3 September 2014:
In respect of hospitality since 7 September 2013, has the Minister's department paid for any function to introduce to the department (a) the Minister, (b) the Minister's staff, and where applicable, each (c) junior Minister (including Assistant Ministers), (d) junior (and Assistant) Minister's staff, (e) Parliamentary Secretary, and (f) Parliamentary Secretary's staff; if so, at what cost.
Mr Hockey: The Minister for Finance has supplied the following answer to the honourable member's question:
(a) The Secretary of the Department of Finance initiated and hosted a morning tea for staff to meet the Special Minister of State at a cost of $283.25 (GST inclusive).
(b) to (f) No.
Department of Agricultural: Hospitality
(Question No. 354)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 3 September 2013:
Since 7 September 2013, has the Minister's department paid for any function to introduce to the department (a) the Minister, (b) the Minister's staff, and where applicable, each (c) junior Minister (including Assistant Ministers), (d) junior (and Assistant) Minister's staff, (e) Parliamentary Secretary, and (f) Parliamentary Secretary's staff; if so, at what cost.
Mr Joyce: The Minister for Agriculture has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:
Since 7 September 2013, the Department of Agriculture has not paid for any 'official hospitality' (defined as meals, beverages, entertainment and social functions provided by the department to external clients) to introduce the Minister, the Parliamentary Secretary or their staff to the department.
The department has spent $256.83 on catering, consisting of light refreshments such as tea, coffee, biscuits and muffins for departmental staff to meet the Minister and his staff.
Department of Social Services: Hospitality Expenditure
(Question No. 358)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 3 September 2014:
In respect of hospitality since 7 September 2013, has the Minister's department paid for any function to introduce to the department (a) the Minister, (b) the Minister's staff, and where applicable, each (c) junior Minister (including Assistant Ministers), (d) junior (and Assistant) Minister's staff, (e) Parliamentary Secretary, and (f) Parliamentary Secretary's staff; if so, at what cost.
Mr Andrews: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
The Department of Social Services has not incurred official hospitality expenditure for any functions to introduce Ministers, the Parliamentary Secretary or their staff to the Department for the period 7 September 2013 to 31 August 2014.
Department of Health: Hospitality Expenditure
(Question No. 361)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister for Health, in writing, on 3 September 2014:
In respect of hospitality since 7 September 2013, has the Minister's department paid for any function to introduce to the department (a) the Minister, (b) the Minister's staff, and where applicable, each (c) junior Minister (including Assistant Ministers), (d) junior (and Assistant) Minister's staff, (e) Parliamentary Secretary, and (f) Parliamentary Secretary's staff; if so, at what cost.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) and (b) No.
(c) Yes, $54.
(d) to (f) No.
Department of Social Services: Secondments
(Question No. 376)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 3 September 2014:
Since 7 September 2013, (a) how many departmental officials have been seconded to the (i) Minister's office, and where applicable, each (ii) junior Minister's office (including Assistant Ministers), and (iii) Parliamentary Secretary's office, (b) for how long, and (c) at what level.
Mr Andrews The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) to (c) Nil.
Department of Health: Secondments
(Question No. 379)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister for Health, in writing, on 3 September 2014:
Since 7 September 2013, (a) how many departmental officials have been seconded to the (i) Minister's office, and where applicable, each (ii) junior Minister's office (including Assistant Ministers), and (iii) Parliamentary Secretary's office, (b) for how long, and (c) at what level.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
The Department of Health does not second staff to ministerial offices.
Rural Research and Development for Profit Program
(Question No. 408)
Mr Fitzgibbon asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 4 September 2014:
In respect of the Government providing $100 million over four years for rural research and development, (a) how will his department administer this funding, (b) are administration costs included, (c) when will the program guidelines be released, (d) what are the research priorities for the first round of funding, and (e) what is the application process.
Mr Joyce: The Minister for Agriculture has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:
(a) The Rural Research and Development for Profit programme will be administered as a grants programme.
(b) Yes, administration costs are included in the $100 million and total $3.14 million over four years. These costs are for departmental staff expenses, the expert assessment panel for providing advice on applications, and for programme evaluation.
(c) I launched the programme on 15 October 2014, with the guidelines released that day.
(d) Research priorities for the first round are:
1. Increase the profitability and productivity of primary industries
Priority 1(a) |
help producers increase yields and/or reduce costs by applying innovative technologies and/or technologies from other industries. |
Priority 1(b) |
research the potential for cost effective infrastructure to assist producers boost profits and break barriers to increased enterprise infrastructure investment. |
Priority 1(c) |
help producers manage natural resources in an integrated way at enterprise or regional level for long-term use and profit. |
2. Increase the value of primary products
Priority 2(a) |
add value to primary products by creating supply-chain efficiencies, extending the shelf life of products, developing new or improved products or demonstrating product provenance or integrity. |
Priority 2(b) |
provide information to producers about markets and consumer preferences to better inform producer business decisions, or improve their access to new and existing markets. |
3. Strengthen primary producers ' ability to adapt to opportunities and threats
Priority 3(a) |
integrate data and deliver information to help producers manage risk, benchmark performance and make production decisions for greatest profit. |
Priority 3(b) |
improve biosecurity surveillance systems and tools to help producers plan for and respond to pests and disease. |
4. Strengthen on-farm adoption and improve information flows
Priority 4(a)
|
consolidate knowledge of extension and adoption to better deliver practical results to primary producers, founded on what producers want from extension services. |
Priority 4(b)
|
identify practical proposals to stimulate private sector extension services, particularly to fill current gaps. |
Priority 4(c)
|
identify practical means to co-ordinate extension services for producers, including the development of tools and/or platforms. |
(e) Applications may be lodged by 15 December by any of the 15 rural research and development corporations (RDCs). An applicant RDC must partner with one or more researchers, research agencies, RDCs, funding bodies, businesses, producer groups or not-for-profit organisations. Full details of the application process are outlined in the programme guidelines available on the department's website.
New South Wales based Ministers: Ministerial Offices
(Question No. 409)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister representing the Minister for Finance, in writing, on 22 September 2014:
(a) Since 7 September 2013, what has been the (i) location, and (ii) lease cost, of each ministerial office of New South Wales (NSW) based ministers; and
(b) Has there been any unutilised floor space in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Office at 1 Bligh Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000; if so, (i) when, and (ii) how many square metres.
Mr Hockey: The Finance Minister has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:
(a) The following NSW Ministers, location and lease cost from 7 September 2013 to 30 September 2014 is:
The Hon Joe Hockey MP, Treasurer
(i) Level 6, 100 Mount Street North Sydney
(ii) $203,534.13 (excluding GST) (this is a combined Ministerial and Electorate office)
The Hon Barnaby Joyce MP, Minister for Agriculture
(i) The rent for the leased premises at 164 Beardy Street, Armidale commenced on 1 May 2014, but the office is not occupied as the fitout has not been completed
(ii) $20,833.30 (excluding GST)
The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP, Minister for Communications
(i) Ground Floor, 287 New South Head Road, Edgecliff
(ii) $242,445.24 (excluding GST) (this is a combined Ministerial and Electorate office)
The Hon Scott Morrison MP, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
(i) Sydney Commonwealth Parliament Offices
(ii) $159,745.27 (excluding GST)
The Hon Luke Hartsuyker MP, Assistant Minister for Employment
(i) Sydney Commonwealth Parliament Offices
(ii) $148,728.34 (excluding GST)
Senator the Hon Fiona Nash, Assistant Minister for Health
(i) Sydney Commonwealth Parliament Offices
(ii) $141,378.25
The Hon Sussan Ley MP, Assistant Minister for Education
(i) Melbourne Commonwealth Parliament Offices
(ii) $45,852.53
Senator the Hon Marise Payne, Minister for Human Services
(i) Sydney Commonwealth Parliament Offices
(ii) $157,691.07 (excluding GST)
Office of the Assistant Treasurer
(i) Sydney Commonwealth Parliament Offices
(ii) $157,691.07 (excluding GST)
(b) No.
Sensura New Mio
(Question No. 412)
Mr Ewen Jones asked the Minister for Health, in writing, on 22 September 2014:
At what stage of the accreditation process is the appraisal of the product Sensura New Mio, for listing as part of the Stoma Appliance Scheme, and when does he expect to announce a decision.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
The product Sensura New Mio was listed on the Stoma Appliance Scheme Schedule on 1 October 2014.
Department of Social Services: Staff Overseas Travel
(Question No. 443)
Mr Conroy: asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 22 September 2014:
In respect of departmental staff overseas travel since 7 September 2013, what (a) was the total cost, (b) is the breakdown of this cost ie, airfares, accommodation, hospitality, official passports and minor incidentals, and (c) was the travel for.
Mr Andrews: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) The total cost of departmental staff overseas travel for the period 7 September 2013 to 31 August 2014 was $128,362.
(b) The breakdown of the cost is:
Airfares |
Accommodation |
Meals and Incidentals |
Official Passports/ Visas |
Hospitality |
Ground Transport |
$85,484 |
$16,235 |
$21,562 |
$1,770 |
$68 |
$3,243 |
(c) Travel by departmental officers was in relation to international social security agreement negotiations, engagement in multilateral policy forums such as the OECD, APEC, ANZSOG, the International Social Security Association and representation at Intergovernmental Consultation on Migration, Asylum and Refugee integration working group.
Department of Social Services: Corporate Credit Cards
(Question No. 462)
Mr Conroy asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 22 September 2014:
Since 7 September 2013, how many corporate credit cards have been issued to departmental staff, and what is the total cost of all transactions made on them.
Mr Andrews: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
During the period 7 September 2013 to 31 August 2014, 945 corporate credit cards were issued to departmental staff. The total cost of transactions made on them was $2,370,784.