The SPEAKER ( Hon. Bronwyn Bishop ) took the chair at 12:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
MOTIONS
Centenary of Anzac
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (12:01): by leave—I move:
That this House:
(1) acknowledge that the 25th April 2015 marked 100 years since Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli;
(2) pay its respects to the 60,000 Australians who fought in the Gallipoli campaign, the nearly 9,000 who died, the 20,000 who were wounded and the thousands more who carried the unseen scars for the rest of their lives;
(3) remember the brave soldiers of Great Britain, France, India and Newfoundland who fought alongside the ANZACS 100 years ago;
(4) note that on the 25th of April, solemn services of remembrance were conducted at Anzac Cove and at Lone Pine in Turkey, attended by some 8,000 Australians, including the widows of Australian veterans;
(5) extend its thanks to the people and the government of Turkey for their support of the centenary commemorations and their ongoing and faithful care of the Gallipoli battlefields; and
(6) note that on Anzac Day, millions of our fellow Australians gathered to remember the ANZACs and all those who have worn our uniform and served in the name of Australia, and that the people of every electorate represented in this parliament have honoured this milestone, the centenary of the landings at Gallipoli.
On Anzac Day, the Leader of the Opposition and I stood together with thousands of Australians and New Zealanders on the distant shores of Gallipoli, together with representatives from New Zealand, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Greece, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Canada. And, together with representatives from Germany, Hungary and Turkey—the foes we now count as friends—we paid our respects to the Anzacs whose spirit has moved our people for a century. We went to honour the generation of young men who rallied to serve our country when our country called and who were faithful even unto death.
At dawn at Anzac Cove and later at Lone Pine, these places of peace that were once battlefields, we remembered the original Anzacs. This parliament was only 13 years old when the Great War broke out. This parliament still sat in Melbourne. Nine sitting MPs served in the Great War. In all, some 120 members of the Commonwealth parliament served in World War I. On behalf of all members, I pay my respects to them. I honour all the men and women who have come to this parliament after service in our armed forces. This parliament should always count amongst its number men and women who have served our crown and worn our uniform.
One that we should especially remember on the Centenary of Anzac is our eighth Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, Military Cross, who was wounded at Suvla Bay serving with the British Army. It would have been easy, even natural, for a man like Bruce to be full of hatred for the enemy who had wounded him and killed so many of his mates. But this man—this former Prime Minister of ours, who in 1915 had fought to seize control of the Dardanelles for the allies—in 1936 chaired a conference in the Swiss town of Montreux which restored the Dardanelles to full Turkish control. He forged a lifelong admiration for Mustafa Kemal. He had great respect for Ataturk, the general turned statesman, whose famous words of consolation to the grieving mothers of Australia, that their sons were lying in the soil of a friendly country, stand in stone on the Gallipoli Peninsula and are carved on the Kemal Ataturk Memorial here in Canberra. Ataturk's words and Bruce's example challenge all of us who seek to build a better world, to be greater than our fears and to serve the true interests of the people we represent.
Wherever we find ourselves on Anzac Day, Australians at home and abroad pause to remember all who have served our country. On this centenary, Australians gathered in numbers not seen in decades to acknowledge a poignant milestone. On 19 April in your electorate, Madam Speaker, adjoining my own, thousands of people lined Pittwater Road, Warriewood, to watch over 2½ thousand people march to Pittwater Rugby Park in honour of the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. It was a great crowd, as you know. You and I joined with the Governor of New South Wales to remember the men of the 1st Australian Imperial Force from Warringah and Mackellar and to acknowledge their service and sacrifice.
There were record numbers at all the annual services in our electorates as there were in most electorates right around our country. At schools around our nation, students paid their respects at special ceremonies before and after Anzac Day. To give one example, the South Curl Curl Surf Life Saving Club organised the 100 Years 100 Hundred Boats Anzac Beach Memorial. Hundreds were expected to attend but, instead, thousands lined the beach to watch the boats come in with more than 450 rowers from Australia and New Zealand and one Turkish crew. As well, groups across our country participated in the Centenary of Anzac grants program, restoring memorials and honour boards to demonstrate that we are a country that really does remember. I acknowledge my own Centenary of Anzac committee headed by Colonel John Platt. I am sure all members would want to acknowledge their own Centenary of Anzac committees.
Here in our nation's capital some 50,000 people were expected to attend the dawn service at the Australian War Memorial but doubled that and at least 100,000 people showed up in the cold and dark to pay their respects. This has obviously been a momentous time for the Australian War Memorial—the shrine and the museum which has served us so well. It has been a momentous time for its director, our former colleague Dr Brendan Nelson, with the opening of the new First World War galleries and the launch of the Spirit of Anzac Centenary Experience, which will begin touring our nation later this year. The War Memorial has well and truly kept faith with the spirit of Charles Bean, the official historian of the Great War.
At Gallipoli, at Villers-Bretonneux, in Belgium, in Israel and at other points around the globe, as well as here at home in Australia, the work of appropriately marking the centenary of the Gallipoli landings has been exacting. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Senator Ronaldson, and his department have well earned our respect for the meticulous planning and the reverent touch that they brought to all these commemorations. I thank—and I am sure I do so on behalf of all members of parliament—all the arms of government that have been involved in the centenary commemorations: Foreign Affairs and Trade, Attorney-Generals, Defence, the Australia Federal Police and also the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. I thank the government and the people of Turkey for their support of these commemorations and for their hospitality to Australian pilgrims this year and every year as well as for their faithful care of the battlefields where our soldiers lie still. I acknowledge the Office of Australian War Graves and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission that protect the last resting places of Australian service men and women all around the world. You cannot visit one of these cemeteries and not be moved. As you look at the headstones and read the epitaphs you can hear the voices of an earlier generation of Australians. Their love, their suffering and their loss do not diminish with time.
On Anzac Day we remembered the original Anzacs and the legacy of all who have followed in this path. We honoured all who have served in the Second World War, Korea, Malaya, Borneo, Vietnam, Iraq and, our longest war, Afghanistan as well as those who have served in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. We especially remember those serving today in the Middle East and elsewhere defending the values that we hold dear.
Our nation is not just a place on a map or a mass of people who happen to live somewhere. Our nation is shaped by our collective memory, by the compact between the dead, the living and the yet to be born. On Anzac Day this year and every year the pact between the past and the present is renewed for the future for all those who seek to understand what it means to be an Australian.
On every Anzac Day, the phrase echoes around our services: 'Lest we forget'. But we have not forgotten and we will not forget. Planning is well underway for commemorative events marking the 100th anniversaries of other key events of the Great War—the battles in Palestine and on the Western Front. In 2018, we will open the Sir John Monash Centre at Villers-Bretonneux to honour the life of Australia's finest general in our greatest war. We will never forget the 400,000 who volunteered from a population of nearly four million, the 330,000 who served overseas, the 155,000 who were wounded or the 61,000 who never returned. We will never forget the long funereal pall that the Great War cast over our country and our world. We will never forget the magnificent defeat at Gallipoli or the terrible victory on the Western Front. We will never forget the suffering of those men, and we will never forget the just cause for which they fought.
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education and Training) (12:13): I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the honourable the Leader of the Opposition speaking to the Prime Minister’s motion for a period not exceeding 12 minutes.
Question agreed to.
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (12:13): I thank the Prime Minister for his words. Like the Prime Minister, like thousands of Australians and, in particular, like those amazing widows of the First World War veterans, I had the honour of attending the commemorations at Gallipoli last month. I wish to congratulate all who have worked so hard to commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. The Anzac Centenary Advisory Committee, chaired by Sir Angus Houston, worked in partnership with the former Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Warren Snowden, and the current minister, Senator Ronaldson, in setting up and implementing the architecture for commemorating the Centenary of Anzac as well as the program to commemorate the period of the Great War until Armistice Day 2018 centenary.
I think it is also important, as the Prime Minister has done, to recognise and thank the role of all the departments of government, including the Department of Veterans' Affairs in undertaking on our behalf to ensure that the Anzac commemoration events were so well organised.
I pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Australians who attended events commemorating the event of the Anzac landings at Gallipoli. I also acknowledge the work of Lindsay Fox and his committee to raise a quarter of a billion dollars to ensure that the celebrations could be done in the best possible way.
I wish to pay tribute to the staff of the Australian embassy in Turkey who were so helpful to so many of our people. I can assure those listening of the absolute professionalism of that organisation—the experience for Australians to commemorate this most important event in Australian history. It was done to a level which would satisfy all. It was a massive logistical effort. It was a vivid, dignified and very Australian experience that allowed us to see and imagine the history made there a century ago.
Like many Australians, I have read a lot about the landing over the years. But, like every Australian who has ever visited Anzac Cove, I found that nothing prepares you for surveying the span of Anzac Cove and those very steep cliffs. You see for yourself the sheer rocky impossibility of scaling and seizing not one, not two, but three ridge lines. You imagine the prospect that confronted our young men so far from home in the chill dawn of 25 April 1915. And seeing and realising that reminds you that, in some part of their being, those first Anzacs must have known this too—the difficulty of their mission. There can be no courage without a fear to conquer. As they grasped the task before them, in their heart of hearts, these volunteers—these citizen soldiers determined to do their duty—must have clamped down their fear and charged on, despite that ferocious enfilade fire from a determined opponent fighting to defend their homeland.
When Patsy Adam-Smith was researching her famous history of Gallipoli, The Anzacs, she said the worst part of reading soldiers' diaries was 'all those empty pages'. A string of entries full of humour, understated bravery, loyalty for mates, love for those left behind—then, as she wrote:
And there is no more. You turn the pages quickly: perhaps he's only wounded, he'll write when he gets to hospital. But you are on to the back cover before you see his hand again: 'In the event of my death I wish this book to be sent to my Dear Wife to let her know that my last thoughts were of her and Essie my darling daughter …
Australia bore these empty pages for a generation. In his book Farewell, Dear People, Ross McMullin writes of the exceptional Australians lost in the carnage and chaos of the Gallipoli campaign. At 31, Clunes Mathison was already an internationally acclaimed researcher. The director of the Lister Institute in London remarked, 'No man I have ever known possesses the genius for research so highly as Mathison'. At the time, one British professor wrote, 'For the science of medicine throughout the world, the loss is irreparable.
Robert Bage survived Douglas Mawson's expedition to Antarctica, leading a 300-mile sledge expedition in the windiest place on earth, the home of the blizzard. One scientist in the party said of Bage, 'He is the best liked man on the expedition, and personally I think he is the best man we have.' Bage too was killed in the first fortnight of Gallipoli. Their bodies still lie there, alongside thousands more; empty pages and lives of potential and possibility cut short or left unfulfilled.
In one of those twists of families that we all know well, the last Sunday before I left for the commemorations, I was chatting with an older member of my family tree at a christening—as one does. I told him I was visiting Gallipoli. He revealed to me that he had two uncles who were killed there: Private William Burgess who was killed on 28 April 1915, and his younger brother Nathaniel, 21, who was killed at the end of November, barely two weeks before the evacuation. He is buried at Embarkation Pier cemetery. As Uncle Brian explained, the family never recovered: the family broke up and the father left, leaving a mother wracked by grief. The two younger sisters—the youngest being Brian's mother—were placed in foster care. The family was literally wrecked. For those two split seconds in seven months on the other side of the world, he said, his family was damaged for two generations.
When I visited the cemetery at Lone Pine, I saw the wall which records the names of over 3,000 Anzacs whose bodies have never been recovered. I found the name of William Burgess, 16th Battalion, AIF. Placing a poppy next to these letters, mutely carved in stone, moved me in a way that I could never have expected. And the Burgess story is just one amongst 60,000. In that first war, 60,000 young men were lost to an even younger nation. It was a generation of children who never knew their parents; young widows who grew old with grief; and hundreds of thousands more who came home but were never whole again. They were forever changed by the hardship they had faced and overcome; the wounded, unable to return to the jobs they left behind; soldier settlers stretched by a hard land they battled to tame.
There were all those who carried the hidden scars of trauma: the husbands and fathers who could never find the words to tell the people they loved why things could never be the same again. Parents, wives and children welcomed home a different person to the one they had farewelled. We all know country towns and coastal towns where the lists of names etched into the weathered white stone seems impossibly long. I think we have all paused in front of honour roles in local halls where the surnames come not in ones but in twos and threes—the brothers who could not be separated; strapping sons lost to their families, sometimes in the same hour or day of the same chaos.
When we try to think of the trauma, the heartache and the inexplicable, unknowable horrors of this war, it is small wonder that for some Anzac Day is a time of mixed emotions. There have been some who felt the need to rage against Anzac Day, to repudiate the tragedy of war. But I prefer to believe that we have as a people embraced the true lesson of Anzac Day—not glorifying war but celebrating peace; acknowledging the waste and the futility of lost lives but paying respect to the resilience, courage, resolve and loyalty of those who risked and lost their lives for the mates they served beside and for the home that they loved. There is no-one left amongst us who knew firsthand the courage and chaos of 25 April 1915. Those left to grow old have gone too. Yet the Anzac story will always be part of the Australian story. The Anzacs will always speak to us for who we are and for who we wish to be.
I add my support to the former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer's campaign to honour General John Monash, an exceptional leader who, unlike so many others, learned the right lessons from Gallipoli; a leader who amongst his many proud accomplishments included the observation that he spent more time preparing for his battles than fighting his battles. In the coming years of commemorations, I would encourage all Australians to honour the memory of those who served by looking up into the branches of your family trees. Try to discover, if you can, the history of your family's service to find new personal meaning in the Anzac story—a legend, in the words of Keating, at the heart of our War Memorial:
It is a legend not of sweeping military victories so much as triumphs against the odds, of courage and ingenuity in adversity. It is a legend of free and independent spirits whose discipline derived less from military formalities and customs than from the bonds of mateship and the demands of necessity.
Learn and tell the story of ordinary people who found the courage to do the truly extraordinary. Learn and tell the story of our military sacrifice from this conflict through to the Second World War, Korea, Malaya, Borneo and Vietnam, the peacekeeping roles in Iraq and Afghanistan and right now to our men and women serving in the Middle East. As a new generation, let's use the Centenary of Anzac to give new meaning to our most solemn national promise. Lest we forget.
Debate adjourned
BILLS
Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Bill 2015
Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (Norfolk Island Reforms) Bill 2015
A New Tax System (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Amendment Bill 2015
Health and Other Services (Compensation) Care Charges Amendment (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
Health Insurance (Approved Pathology Specimen Collection Centres) Tax Amendment (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
Health Insurance (Pathology) (Fees) Amendment (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
Private Health Insurance (Risk Equalisation Levy) Amendment (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
Aged Care (Accommodation Payment Security) Levy Amendment (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
Cognate debate.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr SNOWDON (Lingiari) (12:25): This is a very historic day for the community on Norfolk Island. This legislation will forever change the government's arrangements for the people of Norfolk Island and indeed provide for them for the first time access to all the services and all the rights that other Australian citizens take for granted.
I was a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories inquiry into economic development on Norfolk Island and I welcome the report entitled Same country: different world—the future of Norfolk Island, which was passed down by that committee here in this parliament in October of last year. The report made recommendations which had universal cross-party support within this parliament and had wide support across the Norfolk Island community, although there has been and continues to be contention about one of the recommendations—that is, to effectively end the self-government act of Norfolk Island and to set up a new legislative framework and a new governance structure which provides regional government to the community. I understand that that is a cause of concern but, nevertheless, it is my strong view that this legislation is important to the future of Norfolk Island and to the Norfolk Island community.
I have been associated in one way or another with discussion around these issues since the early 1990s. It has been a cause of much frustration not only to myself but to other members of this parliament and former ministers who have found it almost impossible to get the sorts of reforms required to move Norfolk Island forward. The report of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories provided the opportunity for the government to respond to the recommendations of the report. It has done that in the form of this legislation, where it has effectively adopted the principal recommendations of that report.
It is time for action. It is time to address the economic development of Norfolk Island, to address declining employment, to create growth in a range of industries—but particularly in tourism—to better manage the revenue and expenditure of the island community and to bring an even more confident outlook to the community of Norfolk Island and a satisfaction to the lifestyle of the islanders equal to other communities on the mainland, which is their right. The objectives of this legislation are: to reform governance arrangements of Norfolk Island; the extension of mainland social security, immigration and health arrangements; and changes to the tax system.
For the Norfolk Island community—so people understand—currently there is no access to the age pension. There is no access to family tax benefits. People on Norfolk Island do not fully participate in the Australian taxation system. They do not have access to the Medicare and pharmaceutical benefits entitlements of other Australians. They do not have access to the protection of employment laws that other Australians have. So these changes are fundamental and are very, very important.
This legislation will introduce changes through a transitional period over the next 12 months so that from July 2016 Norfolk Island residents will pay income tax and other direct federal taxes on all their income and will obviously get the benefits of being members of the Australian community through the other entitlements which I have referred to. The introduction, for example, of the mainland social security and taxation systems will have enormous economic benefits for the island community. These systems will provide, in my view, confidence in investment in the island.
There is strong bipartisan support for the Norfolk Island Legislative Assembly to be transitioned to a regional council. The template for local government—in this case, this regional council structure—is going to be unique for each territory, in particular, in this case, on Norfolk Island. I will in a moment refer to the other external territories which we have. I have the fortune of being the member for Lingiari, which includes the external territories of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island. This legislation we have before us will effectively bring Norfolk Island in line with Christmas and Cocos islands in terms of their governance arrangements and their treatment for taxation purposes. There are obviously different environmental circumstances to Norfolk Island, but the challenges are remarkably similar. The regional council to be established on Norfolk Island will have to make decisions about what services can be managed and can be delivered.
We need to appreciate that, as a result of this legislation, effectively the body of law which will apply in terms of state type functions will become the laws of New South Wales as they change from time to time, but ultimately the person responsible for those laws as they apply to Norfolk Island will be not the New South Wales Premier but the minister responsible for territories in this parliament. I know that there is a concern which has been expressed on other occasions about people not having access to the New South Wales parliament, when decisions are made by that parliament about laws which will have an impact on Norfolk Island. This is true also of decisions which have been taken in the Western Australian parliament in the case of Christmas and Cocos islands around laws of Western Australia which apply on Christmas and Cocos islands. There will need to be the development of service delivery arrangements for the range of state type services that will apply on Norfolk Island, as has been the case for Christmas Island. This will include, for example, potentially health and hospital services, adequate roads, infrastructure, maintenance, the application of the local government act and many other spheres of activity.
The coming 12 months of what is titled the 'interim transition time' under the legislation are critical for the future of Norfolk Island as a new foundation is laid through a local advisory council to be appointed by the minister as a precursor to the election of a regional council. It is important, and I want to encourage people of Norfolk Island to put their names forward if they think they want to be a participant on this advisory council. This is not a council which is here to do the bidding of the minister; this is a council to provide advice to the government around issues to do with the transition process on Norfolk Island. As we know, as a result of this legislation, other federal laws will apply which currently do not apply on Norfolk Island. As Minister Briggs pointed out in his second reading speech earlier in the year:
These changes—
in this legislation—
will bring Norfolk Island in line with other Australian communities and ensure services are delivered to a modern standard by the appropriate level of government.
That is as it should be.
I said earlier that I have had some experience with these matters before, and it is a challenge. It must be a partnership between the Commonwealth and Norfolk Islanders in the process for implementing these reforms. It is really imperative that the community is brought along, that there is adequate and appropriate consultation and that people are involved in the discussions as equals and not seen as being vassals. They have to be put in a position where they understand that they have a real voice, and I am sure that will be the case if this consultation process, which I know that the minister envisages, takes place.
But, having said that, there has been feedback from Norfolk Island about people being unhappy with the consultation processes currently in play. Whilst many islanders are excited and express their support at the prospect of changes, they are nonetheless apprehensive. That is to be understood, and we need to appreciate it. It is therefore important that this consultation period is an effective consultation period where people feel as if they are engaged in the decision-making process in providing advice, ultimately, to the government. Islanders clearly need to be informed of when the consultations are going to take place so that they can make sure that their voice is really heard and to give them a say. We need to make sure that there is a clear understanding of how the benefits which are derived from getting access to mainstream services will impact upon those communities.
I know that the member for Canberra, who will speak later, will have the great good fortune, as a result of this legislation, of having the Norfolk Island voters voting in her electorate. In my case, the external territories of Christmas and Cocos islands vote in my electorate. For the purpose of federal elections from here on, this will mean that the Norfolk Islanders will be voting in the electorate of Canberra, and the member for Canberra will be their member of parliament. She already has people on Norfolk Island who have voted in her electorate in the past because there has been a capacity for people to choose which electorate they vote in, effectively. She will now have the responsibility of representing them here in the parliament, and I know she will be a very strong voice for their interests, as she has been thus far.
As I said at the outset, this is an historical piece of legislation. Things will change forever for the people of Norfolk Island. Instead of some people working two, three or four jobs and not having access to appropriate healthcare, not having support services if they are aged, not getting access to the social security system and income support and not getting proper protections as employees, life will change for them. It will give them great benefit and they will be full members of the Australian community, just like all of us in this parliament and everyone in our own home electorates. That is the important message here. I understand the concerns about people saying, 'This means our rights are being trammelled because self-government is being taken away from us,' but, frankly, self-government did not work. It was clearly not sustainable.
I said that I had been engaged in discussions about this 20 years ago. I went to the island in the mid-1990s as the person responsible for the external territories and initiated the discussions with people about normalising taxation arrangements and changing governance. This discussion has been ongoing. The first inquiry took place in Norfolk Island in 1979. The fact that we are here today with this legislation is the result of many inquiries and a royal commission into the affairs of Norfolk Island. I know it is a harsh statement, but in part the fact that we are doing this today is because of the obduracy of some elements of the Norfolk Island community—not all, but some. I know from my own experience and personal interaction that there are very strong advocates on the Norfolk Island committee for the changes which we are putting in place today.
I give this undertaking—and I know this is something which will be shared by my colleagues on this side of the chamber and I am sure even on the government benches—that we do want to make sure this works to your benefit. We do want to make sure that you are engaged in the discussions and the decision making which will happen around the future of Norfolk Island, and we do want to make sure that these changes are to your benefit. I commend this legislation to the House.
Mr SIMPKINS (Cowan) (12:40): I certainly welcome this opportunity to speak on this important legislation surrounding the changes for Norfolk Island, the Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. I had the great fortune to visit Norfolk Island in 1979 as part of a school excursion when I was in year 10—so a long time ago—and I can look upon what my recollections were of what was going on on Norfolk Island then and compare it to the several trips that I have made since I have been a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories. Unfortunately, the changes have not been good. Still, Norfolk Island has always been a beautiful place and will always be a beautiful part of Australia.
When you consider that the island has a population of probably fewer people than the smallest suburb in the electorate of Cowan and we have asked since 1979 for that island to look after federal, state and local government services, it is no great surprise that the island has not prospered under that model. I am very pleased, as the chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories, to have been involved with members opposite, in a completely bipartisan manner, in the presentation of a report which has led government to this legislation. I completely endorse the legislation. I would say to all those present, or who might read the transcript of this debate later, that this is an opportunity that the government has taken up and that we as a joint standing committee are very happy to see implemented.
Our report, Same country: different world, really did reflect on what was in the best interests of the people of Norfolk Island: the Australians and other residents who live on Norfolk Island. Last year on one of the visits that we made as the standing committee I said at the administrator's residence, when I got the chance to address a number of the locals, that really what we wanted were the same opportunities and the same support for Australians on Norfolk Island as there are on the mainland. Norfolk Island has been part of Australia, and has been incredibly entwined in the history of this nation, since 1788. A lot of people do not know that it was shortly after the First Fleet established the presence in Sydney Cove that a ship was sent out to Norfolk Island and, since that time, Norfolk has effectively been part of the colonies and then Australia—and that is good.
As I said before, since 1979 self-government has required a range of different services to be looked after by the Norfolk Island government. It is true, and there is no doubt, that so many people on Norfolk welcome the changes that this legislation will provide because they have seen that it has not been possible to achieve the delivery of service to the required standard. As the member for Lingiari said, through his wide experience in these matters with regards to the territories, it has been a very difficult time. There have been many inquiries into the arrangements for Norfolk Island. When you consider that Medicare does not apply, the tax system does not apply and the welfare system does not currently apply it really has made it very difficult for Australians living on Norfolk Island. So again I welcome this legislation. I welcome the excellent bipartisan support from both members of the committee and I think the whole parliament. It will see a better future for Norfolk Islanders.
Before going through some of the reforms that this legislation will deliver I would like to formally thank all the members of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories who participated. They used their experience with regard to Norfolk Island and the territories and their broader experience to great effect in the creation of the report Same country: different world. I would also like to thank Sara Edson from the committee secretariat for her great support to the committee and Alison Clegg, the committee secretary. I thank the minister for doing what needed to be done in the ministerial processes. I also thank Minister Briggs for his excellent work.
Former administrator Neil Pope was extremely helpful to enable us to fully understand the challenges of Norfolk Island. His forthright and frank testimony before the committee was extremely useful to us. I also thank everyone who made a submission to the committee and those who appeared before the committee. It was all very useful evidence and support for us. In relation to the challenges in recent months and in the future, the current administrator, Mr Gary Hardgrave, our former colleague in this place, is doing excellent work in helping to steer the reform process on Norfolk Island and helping local people with the delivery of the results that are going to come.
I will go through the key elements that will come out of this legislation. There will be transitional arrangements to establish a five-member advisory council to support and steer the implementation of the full reforms. Like the member for Lingiari, I would say that anyone who feels they can make a good contribution to that should certainly put their name forward. There will also be the preservation of the existing administrative structures, such as the Norfolk Island Public Service, during the transition period. There will be the establishment of a locally elected regional council from 1 July 2016 and the community will be consulted on the details of that model.
There will also be the extension of all Australian taxes, with the exception of course of the goods and services tax and customs duty. The Norfolk Island GST will be removed and the Australian GST, as I said before, will not be extended, as a measure to assist the economy in transition. The extension of the superannuation guarantee will take place over a phased period. There will also be social security payments, including income support payments—such as age and disability support pensions, sickness allowance, carers payment, Newstart allowance, youth allowance and special benefits—family assistance payments for family tax benefit, parental leave pay, dad and partner pay, parenting payment and childcare assistance, and supplementary payments, such as rent assistance and carer allowance, and concessions, such as the health concession cards. Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and related healthcare programs will be instituted as will Commonwealth immigration, biosecurity and services. Obviously, the whole range of services will be of great benefit to the social welfare of local people across the island.
I understand that modelling by the Centre for International Economics in 2014 projected that the combined impact of these measures will actually see an increase in economic activity for the island of 14 per cent and a larger increase in household consumption of around 38 per cent. That is certainly good news. I know as well that the cost of these measures across the next four years will be $136 million.
I will not go much further into this. This is what the majority of people on Norfolk Island have wanted to see for a long time. Many committees, ministers and members of this House and the other place have wanted to see a better future for Norfolk Island but there have been people and interests that have gotten in the way of that and have stymied real reform for a better future. I think we have got to the point now where there is genuine strong support in a bipartisan manner because we see that the best interests of every man, woman and child on Norfolk Island will be better served by the sorts of reforms the minister has put forward in this legislation and that I think we all support.
Our duty as members of parliament, members of the Senate and members of the executive is to make sure that the best interests of Australians are served as much as possible. Through legislation such as this there is a better future for Norfolk Island coming. We have had plenty of consultation as a committee, with interactions with people on Norfolk Island, through the processes the minister has put in place and through what the administrator has been doing. Whilst there are some people who desperately want to hold onto self-government, what we have seen since 1979 is that it has not worked and that failure has come at the cost to individuals on the island and the opportunities for people on the island.
Because it is part of Australia the people on the island deserve the best future we can possibly deliver. I look forward to this bill passing and the transition of Norfolk Island to the regional council model. With the full implementation of the measures provided for under this legislation, a better future for Norfolk Islanders and Australians is coming and it is coming quickly. I thank everybody who was involved with the report Same country: different world and all those involved with the legislation in the best interests of Norfolk Island.
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (12:52): Before I begin, I would like to commend the speeches of the member for Lingiari and the member for Cowan on the Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 and related bills and thank them for those contributions, which I wholeheartedly agree with. This historic piece of legislation—and today is a historic moment—which has bipartisan support has come about following the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories report into the current situation on Norfolk Island, and it follows decades of reviews, a royal commission as my colleague has mentioned, recommendations, reports and inquiries—decades and decades of work and close examination of the economic, social and health situation of Norfolk Island, and a range of examinations across the entire Norfolk Island community and society.
The committee, of which I am a member, produced the report Same country: different world—the future of Norfolk Island. The report looks at the island's prospects for economic development in the wake of falling tourism figures, a budget deficit and other ongoing financial concerns. The committee recommended:
… that, as soon as practicable, the Commonwealth Government repeal the Norfolk Island Act 1979 (Cth) and establish an interim administration, to assist the transition to a local government type body—
which is actually going to be a regional council—
determined in line with the community's needs and aspirations.
I underscore that recommendation: 'determined in line with the community's needs and aspirations'. And so that is exactly what this legislation aims to do.
In my case, I have been discussing these issues with the people of Norfolk Island for some five years now, both as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories and as the local member. I know a number of my colleagues are not aware of this, but Norfolk Island falls into the electoral division of Canberra. Norfolk Islanders have the option of voting in federal elections. They have the option of choosing which seat they want to vote in, and the majority of them vote in Canberra. As a result of that, I have visited Norfolk more than 10 times since I have been the member for Canberra. I have attended committee hearings, held mobile offices and business roundtables, taken part in Bounty Day celebrations, spoken at women's and Labor functions and been to school presentations. Every time I have visited the island, I have noticed a further deterioration over the last five years. That is why I wholeheartedly agree that, by reforming the island's governance arrangements and by bringing them into the Australian taxation system and the Australian social security system, we are providing the best chance of economic, social and cultural sustainability and prosperity for the people of Norfolk Island and the best way of preserving their human rights and their welfare.
The Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 is part of a package of eight bills to reform the legal and governance framework for Norfolk Island. It establishes a sustainable governance framework for Norfolk Island by transitioning the Norfolk Island Legislative Assembly to a regional council, and it moves to establish an advisory council as an interim consultative body. It also moves to establish the final governance arrangements, including the application of New South Wales state law to Norfolk Island as Commonwealth law, and to allow the Commonwealth to enter into arrangements with the New South Wales government for the delivery of state-level services and extending certain mainland social security, immigration and health arrangements to Norfolk Island.
Norfolk Island is a small, remote, island community with a shallow economic and revenue base almost entirely reliant on the fluctuations of a fickle tourism industry, a smattering of duties and charges and a goods and services tax. In August 2011, which is when the census was conducted on the island, Norfolk Island's population was 2,302, which included visitors. Anecdotal evidence suggests Norfolk's population has fallen to about 1,600, as people have left the island to seek work on the mainland. Of this decreasing population, about 200 public servants support an administration responsible for every layer of government—federal, state and local, from customs, immigration, health and education to roads and rubbish. Successive Norfolk Island administrations have not made significant inroads into broadening and diversifying the economic base or addressing the internal barriers and impediments to increasing tourism and business investment. In April 2013, economic activity was down some 24 per cent on the previous year, about 40 per cent of the shops had closed, and 25 per cent of the island's 25- to 50-year-old men had left since August 2011.
Aside from a struggling economy and falling population, Norfolk Island's infrastructure is also desperately in need of upgrading. Due to the government's dire financial situation, it is unable to pay for general repairs and upkeep on the island, and this is significantly hindering the island's economic prospects. It has only been at the behest of the Commonwealth, through the road map which seeks to integrate Norfolk Island into the Australian tax and social security system, that the administration is now considering municipal rates and taking steps to abolish policies that discourage growth. In its report on the 2012-13 financial statements, the Australian National Audit Office noted that the Norfolk Island administration estimated it would not hold sufficient cash and cash equivalents to cover operations in 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17. The forecast for Norfolk Island's public finances puts it in the red to the tune of $7.4 million, $7.4 million and $7.8 million respectively. In the 27 months to June 2014, Australian taxpayers spent $40 million keeping it afloat, and I understand that over the last five years that is about $60 million. So, without yearly Commonwealth bailouts, the administration just cannot pay its bills, and the impact of this economic position on the residents of the island is dire.
As I mentioned earlier, I have visited Norfolk more than 10 times over the last five years, since I have been elected member for Canberra, and the simple fact is that people are struggling; they are doing it tough. Although the islanders are Australians, they pay no tax and so get no Commonwealth services. They have no access to Medicare and are not eligible for the PBS or any of the other services most of us take for granted. Norfolk is part of Australia but, not just because it is an external territory but because of the arrangements that were set up in 1979, Australians have to take their passport and fly out through the international terminal to get there. These anomalies ultimately only do harm to the people of Norfolk Island.
Imagine being out of work in an economy doing it tough—which it is—with no access to Newstart payments or job seeker support. Imagine having to work three to five jobs to make ends meet—and that is what people do—or relying on donated food parcels to feed the family each week. In a recent Lateline story about Norfolk Island—and I commend John Stewart for the piece that he did just recently—resident Rachael McConnell said:
There's a lot of people that would just wish that there were nobody like me on Norfolk. There's people that just wish that there weren't people doing it tough. But at the end the day, a lot of people here are in comfortable positions; they own their own homes. They haven't had to go to their parents' house and beg for food. They haven't had doors slammed in their face who they ask for assistance. They haven't had to beg off the Church for food parcels.
I quote Rachael again:
We dread having to go up to the doctors because of the expense. You don't know that something minor could lead on to something larger and you just imagine the expense of it. I was meant to have medication, but I refused to get that because it's so expensive at $70 a box—
because there's no PBS.
It's just something we can't - we don't have the luxury of going up to the hospital on a frequent basis for checkups or anything like that.
This is a quote from Eve Semple:
When you can't feed your children or pay for their sporting activities, that's a high cost to pay for the notion of self-empowerment, autonomy, self-government.
There is no point in having self-government for self-government's sake. The first and foremost recommendation of the report Same country: different world: the future of Norfolk Island, which brought about this legislation, is that the island move away from self-government. The report heard from a wide range of witnesses, including members of the Norfolk Island Legislative Assembly, the Manager of Norfolk Island Tourism and community members. The committee looked over a number of the many reviews and reports that have assessed the effectiveness of self-government and questioned whether it has best served the interests of Norfolk Island residents. The report states that this model has failed and on many levels.
It is now clear to me that the current governance arrangements have met only the basic social and economic needs of Norfolk Island residents. For self-government to have my support it needs to be stable, economically responsible, democratic, sustainable and in the best interests of the people it serves. This is not the case under the current governance model on Norfolk Island.
I want to underscore the fact that there will be democracy on Norfolk Island under the new arrangement; it will just take a different form. Norfolk Islanders will fall into my electorate of Canberra, as we have heard. That means they will be represented by a federal representative in the House of Representatives, and voting will not be optional; it will be compulsory as it is on mainland Australia. This is in addition to electing their own regional council, with elections to be held early next year.
I am also adamant that the transition from the assembly to a regional council needs to be carried out in close consultation with the Norfolk Island community. That is why this legislation moves to establish an advisory council consisting of five members to act as an interim consultative body. As the member for Lingiari did—and I echo his words—I encourage people to nominate for that advisory council. I understand nominations have already opened. Consultation is something I am passionate about, and I will continue to work to ensure it is meaningful and inclusive.
Before I close I would like to commend a number of people who have been involved in this historic legislation either directly or indirectly over many years. I commend, of course, the committee chair as well as the secretariat of the committee that was involved in writing the report that got this legislation up and running. I would like to commend and thank the member for Lingiari and also the former senator for the ACT, Kate Lundy, who have been deeply involved in Norfolk Island issues for, as was mentioned, almost two decades. I would like to thank our former colleague Simon Crean, who started the first step in this journey by implementing the road map and also the minister who took over from him, Catherine King. I would particularly like to thank and commend Neil Pope, who was the Administrator during the road map process and who did a fantastic job at informing this legislation.
Mr Bowen interjecting—
Mr Briggs interjecting—
Ms BRODTMANN: Gents! Neil Pope, who did a brilliant job along with his wife, Jen Pope, in informing the committee and assisting us in coming to this position. Finally I want to thank Mike King and Norfolk Labor, who have been advocating for these changes for more than two decades. I know that Mike was the one who actually came up with the concept of the road map many years ago, and that framework and those guidelines have informed where we are today. I want to thank Mike and Norfolk Labor for their persistence, their tenacity and their vision for a better future for Norfolk Island.
A new model of government on Norfolk Island will provide the best chance of economic, social and cultural sustainability and prosperity for the people of the island. After all, it is home to an incredibly unique history and culture, and it is in the interests of all Australians to keep this history and culture alive and vibrant for centuries to come. Anyone who has visited the island appreciates its beauty and its colourful history. It is a rich and wonderful history with a beautiful and rich language. I genuinely believe these reforms will have a beneficial impact on all Norfolk Islanders and will protect the human rights and welfare of the residents of Norfolk Island through access to opportunity, equality and fairness. As their federal representative, that is my primary concern. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler) (13:06): Labor will be supporting the Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 and related bills, which are a comprehensive response to the difficulties that have arisen around governance relationships in Norfolk Island over a considerable period of time. It is our hope that the governance arrangements included in this package will provide a sustainable improvement in the delivery of services and infrastructure to this community of around 1,800 Australians.
At the current time, Norfolk Island is Australia's only self-governing external territory and the only territory that operates outside the Australian tax and social security framework. What this package does is integrate Norfolk Island into the tax and social security systems that apply to all other Australians. There is give and take in terms of revenue responses by including Norfolk Islanders into the taxation system; there are obviously implications there. There are also expenditure implications—which is why this legislation, taken as a whole, is a cost to government. That is appropriate, in terms of bringing together a system whereby a regional council will be established to provide a state-level legislative model, using New South Wales as a template.
There is no doubt that some elements of this legislation are controversial and I have had some contact with Norfolk Islanders who are concerned about parts of this legislation. I say to the government: there is a need for ongoing consultation as these changes are implemented. Change is always difficult. This process, though, is the outcome of considerable consultation up to this point. At some point in time a decision needed to be made, and progress made. What this legislation does is just that. It will amend the Norfolk Island Act 1979 in order to transition the Norfolk Island legislative assembly to a Norfolk Island regional council, with elections to be held in the first half of 2016.
As a member newly-elected to this House I was somewhat surprised when I attended a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference and the Norfolk Island representative had one vote—the same number the Australian government representative had. It was a surprise to me, and I think it would have been a surprise to most Australians, that under those governance arrangements Norfolk Island was treated almost as a separate nation—notwithstanding the fact that the tyranny of distance presents real challenges, as it does for so many Australians who live outside our highly-populated areas.
From this point, as a result of this legislation, Norfolk Island citizens will be required to pay taxes, including more personal and business taxes, but will be excluded from the GST. In return, they will be entitled to access social security payments, Medicare and pharmaceutical benefits. In recent times the spur for the proposed change of governance has been the work of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories—in particular its report of October 2014, Same country: different world—the future of Norfolk Island. It is important to acknowledge the work that has been undertaken by this committee, and I want to particularly acknowledge the work of my colleagues the member for Lingiari and member for Canberra who have worked so hard on these issues and who are passionate about making a difference to the lives of Norfolk Islanders.
It is important that any legislation that brings significant change, such as this, be pursued in a bipartisan way. Often our parliamentary committees do just that, and allow issues to be debated. There is no doubt that the committee will have an ongoing role. It would be appropriate, in my view, to have an assessment of how these changes have impacted in reality over the first couple of years of their operation, to ensure there are not unintended and unenvisaged consequences as these substantial governance changes go forward.
The inquiry focused on the island's prospects for economic development in the wake of a significant decline in tourism, a large deficit and ongoing financial management concerns. There is no doubt that the existing arrangements could simply not be allowed to continue into the future. It would have been quite irresponsible, given the hardships the member for Canberra so eloquently outlined to the House.
This report is not a one-off. It included many inquiries. There has been a royal commission that looked at matters to do with Norfolk since self-government was established some 36 years ago. In 2014, the National Audit Office forecast ongoing budget deficits of over $7 million a year and found the current administration was not a going concern. These bills, therefore, have not emerged from a vacuum. The former government put in place a roadmap for reform in 2011; the then minister, Simon Crean, was very determined to pursue these issues. At that point the government provided emergency funding and support for infrastructure projects; however, the state of infrastructure remains in long-term decline.
Important federal functions on islands such as Norfolk include immigration, Customs and quarantine, which at the moment simply are not able to be sustainably provided. In its recent report the committee looked at the state of infrastructure on the island. In order to provide economic development and support for key industries like tourism, Norfolk needs good-quality sea and air access, roads and electricity and communications networks. The standard of safety surrounding the two piers, Kingston and Cascade, is of particular concern and one that occupied the time of my former department of infrastructure, when I had the honour of being the minister. The lack of quality infrastructure to convey people and freight safely from ships to shore is preventing the greater involvement of cruise ship operators at a time when opportunities in this rapidly-growing sector are abundant.
Norfolk is a highly sought-after cruise destination. The completion of Cascade pier upgrade will need ongoing Commonwealth support. The former government allocated $13 million to this project under the Regional Development Australia Fund program. I note the current government's infrastructure reannouncement tour extends beyond the mainland, and the same $13 million grant for this project was reannounced by the assistant minister in March of this year. It is a good thing that that grant, provided by Labor and cut by the coalition, has been restored by the government.
The department has indicated that a program to repair a large number of the roads that are in a bad state will take a number of years. The committee concluded that only the Commonwealth could fund the necessary works. Under current arrangements, Norfolk Island is unable to access funding sources like the Roads to Recovery Program and Financial Assistance Grants. This places Norfolk Island, as a remote community, in a less advantageous position for funding than other remote communities.
The efforts of the Australian government have also contributed to underwriting an airline service to the island. It is the bipartisan view of the committee, and indeed of this parliament, as a result of this legislation receiving broad support, that the time has come to integrate Norfolk Island's revenue and services with arrangements that apply to the rest of Australia. I commend the bills to the House.
Mr BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (13:16): I thank all the members who have participated in the debate on the Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 and related bills, particularly the member for Canberra, who has had a long interest; the member for Lingiari; the member for Grayndler, for the contribution he has just made; and the member for Cowan, the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories, who penned the Same country: different world report, which the government is in effect responding to with these changes.
I agree with some of the comments from all the speakers. I welcome the support of the Labor Party too, I should mention, for these reforms. It is not just because of one report that we are moving these changes. This has been a long time coming. In fact, the previous government—and I commend the work of the previous minister, Simon Crean, in this respect—took many steps down this path. I also commend the former administrator, Neil Pope, for the work that he did in getting us to this point.
A couple of points raised by the member for Grayndler I cannot let pass. The infrastructure on the island—he is right—has not been upgraded since the 1970s. We have begun already a review of what road funding will be required and what we need to do on the island to invest in some of the infrastructure needs, to upgrade the roads and so forth. So we have moved on that already, before the legislation has even passed the parliament. On the Cascade port, it is not true to say that that was cut. That money remained there the whole time. The issue was that it could not be delivered by the Norfolk Island government. So we have said that we will deliver it. We will actually get the project to be not just on a piece of paper, which was so common with the member for Grayndler when he was minister—he would announce projects and they would not actually happen. We are making sure that they are actually delivered.
After that bit of partisanship, can I say that this reform will deliver on the election commitment to extend taxation, social security and healthcare services to Norfolk Island. These changes deliver equity to Norfolk Island and ensure residents have access to the essential services that all Australians deserve. This package of bills also delivers much-needed governance reform. Unlike any other community of its size, Norfolk Island is currently required to deliver local, state and federal law. This has not been sustainable, and the situation is now critical. The infrastructure on Norfolk Island is run-down and at risk of collapse. The health system is not up to standard and many laws are out of date. Numerous investigations, including a royal commission, 12 parliamentary inquiries and 20 expert reports, have all called for a change. The Norfolk Island government has also acknowledged that the current arrangements are unsustainable.
The Australian government has undertaken extensive consultation, which has demonstrated strong support for change, particularly through the bipartisan nature of this debate. The government will continue to consult with the local community, including on the model for the Norfolk Island Regional Council. Local services will continue to be delivered locally, national services will be delivered by the federal government, and New South Wales will be engaged to provide state-level services. Those who claim that this removes state government are wrong. People on Norfolk Island will vote for local people to represent them on their local issues. They will have a voice in the national parliament, through the member for Canberra, and they will have the opportunity, like never before, to vote not only in federal elections but also in local elections. Consultations will continue to be a very important part of this reform process.
I thank the Administrator, Gary Hardgrave, for the work he has done so far with talking to the community, and my department for the hard work they have put into consulting with the community. We are establishing an office on Norfolk Island to ensure that people will be able to access important information so that they can engage with the Australian entitlement system and taxation system. We are also establishing a community consultation committee, which will begin its work when these bills pass the parliament. I am very pleased that the Speaker of the current Norfolk Island parliament, Mr David Buffett, has agreed to participate in that committee. We will make announcements in respect of the other members of that committee in the coming weeks.
These reforms will put Norfolk Island on the path to sustainability and will deliver certainty for this unique part of Australia. I commend these bills to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
Third Reading
Mr BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (13:21): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (Norfolk Island Reforms) Bill 2015
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
Third Reading
Mr BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (13:22): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
A New Tax System (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Amendment Bill 2015
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 BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (13:23): 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 (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
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 BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (13:24): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Health Insurance (Approved Pathology Specimen Collection Centres) Tax Amendment (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
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 BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (13:25): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): I hope the commentators are explaining to the general public what is going on here!
Health Insurance (Pathology) (Fees) Amendment (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
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 BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (13:26): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Aged Care (Accommodation Payment Security) Levy Amendment (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
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 BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (13:27): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Private Health Insurance (Risk Equalisation Levy) Amendment (Norfolk Island) Bill 2015
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 BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (13:28): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment (Exit Arrangements) Bill 2015
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR (Gorton) (13:28): On indulgence, I associate myself with the contributions made in the previous debate and the reforms that will take effect for Norfolk Island.
I rise to speak on the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment (Exit Arrangements) Bill 2015. As the government's explanatory memorandum states:
The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 … establishes … (the Comcare scheme) to provide compensation and rehabilitation support to injured Australian Government and Australian Capital Territory employees, as well as employees of private corporations that hold a licence under the Act.
On 25 February this year, the ACT government announced its intention to leave Comcare. It was announced that the Territory government would conduct a six-week consultation period before taking the decision about designing a new scheme. That consultation only ended on 8 May—last Friday. Of course the design of any new scheme will take a significant period of time, and the ACT government has made a commitment to work with stakeholders—so there is no need to rush this legislation, as the Abbott government seems to be doing. Labor's first priority is to ensure— (Time expired)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order No. 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the honourable member will have leave to continue his remarks at that later hour.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Richmond Electorate: Budget
Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (13:30): The Liberal-National government's unfair plans continue to attack families, with the Prime Minister and his ministers only worried about saving their own jobs. That is all they are focused on—their own jobs. They do not care at all about families that are hurting because of their policies.
The government's plans hurt families in my electorate with their attacks on health, on education and on family payments, and with their cuts to paid parental leave and also to child care. The fact is that all these attacks are brutally unfair and cruel—particularly cruel to those people living in regional areas, like in my electorate of Richmond.
If we look at education and the government's plans for $100,000 university degrees, this means that kids from regional and rural areas will not be able to access university. If we look at health, they have had three different forms of the GP tax so far and they are committed to dismantling Medicare. This is really going to hurt families very much.
The fact is that the Prime Minister and the Liberal-National parties broke their election commitments, and their dishonesty and their incompetence continues to hurt local families. Prior to the last election, in my area on the New South Wales North Coast we had all the National Party candidates running around saying, 'No cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to family payments.' They got in, and that is exactly what they did: cut education, cut health and cut the family payments as well. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, families in my electorate are really hurting because of the unfair and cruel policies of the Liberal-National party government.
Brisbane Electorate: Small Business
Ms GAMBARO (Brisbane) (13:31): I would like to update the House on a recent visit by the Minister for Small Business to the electorate of Brisbane to meet with a number of exceptional women, particularly those involved in small business.
On Monday 4 May 2015, Minister Billson and I hosted a number of women from across Brisbane who shared their stories of success and the challenges they face in running a small business. It is not possible for me to list all of the successful businesswomen who attended the event, but I would like to specifically highlight a few success stories from my electorate: Maria Anello, from the New Farm Deli, which has been an institution in New Farm since 1977; Debora Sutton, principal of Belle Property in Wilston and Ascot; Margaret Campbell-Ryder of Red Hill Gallery; Kristina Georges of Samie's Girl, who has been part of a tremendously successful family seafood business since 1984; and the wonderfully successful Sascha Drake, a fashion designer of Paddington.
These women are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to examples of creative, driven and hard-working women across Brisbane and Australia. I want to thank Minister Billson for visiting Brisbane and meeting with these entrepreneurial women.
The government is working to ensure that the settings are right for women in small business to prosper. With decreased red tape and increased access to information and assistance programs, our goals are to see more women succeed in small business now and into the future.
Newcastle Electorate: Health Services
Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (13:33): The Abbott Liberal government's approach to health has been nothing short of calamitous and has had a profound negative impact on families and individuals in my electorate of Newcastle.
In their first budget last year, more than $150 million was ripped out of the Hunter-New England Health's budget, a major hit to our local hospitals and health services. Beyond immediate cuts other health services still face an uncertain future, with the new health minister extending funding for vital programs by just one year. This includes vital services in drug and alcohol treatment, mental health and important rural health programs.
The people of Newcastle were let down again by the Prime Minister when he broke his promise not to close any Medicare Locals. Instead, Hunter Medicare Local will close next month. While a level of primary care coordination will continue in Newcastle under the new Primary Health Network, a number of services currently delivered by our Medicare Local are now faced with closure.
One service in particular, our GP Access After Hours service will close on 30 June if they do not receive funding certainty in tonight's budget. More than one million Hunter residents have used GP Access After Hours since its inception more than a decade ago, easing pressure on already overworked hospital emergency departments and providing families and individuals with access to quality GP care after hours.
Today I again call on the government to give GP Access After Hours the funding certainty it needs to continue its important work in our community. The people of Newcastle deserve no less. (Time expired)
Lyne Electorate: Taxation
Dr GILLESPIE (Lyne) (13:34): For the past few weeks I have been hosting a number of forums across my electorate and have also distributed a household survey dedicated to providing locals with the opportunity to put forward ideas about how we might improve our federal system of government.
With two major white papers being developed to identify potential reforms for improving the federation and Australia's tax system, many people from across my electorate have begun participating in this process. The Commonwealth government and the states are committed through the COAG process to developing the federation and tax white papers. With ongoing demand for the nation's finances we must continue to find new ways of delivering services more efficiently, avoiding the loss of taxpayer's dollar value via multiple fiscal transfers, or the so-called 'middleman effect'; ending the blame game; stopping ad hoc cost shifting; and removing the duplication and ambiguity of responsibility that often occurs between the three levels of government.
That is why we also need to look at how we can improve the whole tax system, making it simpler and fairer, increasing compliance with it and making it competitive with our competing jurisdictions. There is no one silver bullet or perfect solution to address the problems and challenges confronting the federation and the tax system. Many ideas have been floated by constituents, but many of them have suggested broadening or increasing the GST to reduce the tax burden on families, small business and employers. (Time expired)
Lalor Electorate: Budget
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (13:36): Twelve months ago, the Abbott government and Treasurer Joe Hockey brought down a cruel and unfair budget—unfair to residents in my electorate of Lalor. It was a budget that attacked families at every level; a budget devoid of a families impact statement and a budget devoid of an impact-on-women statement. So you will forgive us, Mr Deputy Speaker, for our cynical response to the 2015 family package announcement by this government.
It has been delivered to rebadge the government as concerned about fairness. Conversely, it reinforces how out of touch this government really is with families in this country—particularly with families in my electorate of Lalor. It attacks the existing PPL program that will leave tens of thousands of families with new mothers out of pocket. It continues to be predicated on cuts to the childcare benefit that will leave families with two kids and who earn $65,000 a year with a $6,000 cut in their income. It continues to insist that childcare benefits will be cut after the child reaches six. This budget does not reflect a change of mind, and it will not reflect a change of intent. In fact, the member for Kooyong said today that he is 'very proud' of the 2014 budget and that it is 'unfortunate' that the GP tax will not go through. No, this is a budget about the Prime Minister's and the Treasurer's jobs.
Moore Electorate: Infrastructure
Mr GOODENOUGH (Moore) (13:37): I acknowledge the federal government's announcement last week of an additional $499.1 million in funding in the budget to my home state of Western Australia for road infrastructure projects. In particular, 42 per cent of this funding, amounting to $209.1 million, was allocated within my electorate of Moore for the six-kilometre extension of the Mitchell Freeway from Burns Beach Road to Hester Avenue and associated infrastructure. Most notably, the freeway exit at Neerabup Road and the related extension eastwards from Connolly Drive to Wanneroo Road are designed to provide a direct transportation link to the Neerabup Industrial Area via Flynn Drive, acting as a catalyst for the development of the 1,000-hectare industrial area. When fully developed the Neerabup Industrial area is forecast to create 20,000 new direct jobs, adding $7.9 billion to gross state product and generating a further 24,000 jobs off site for a total economic impact of $13.3 billion.
This investment by the federal government represents a significant economic development initiative for my electorate, boosting business confidence and providing greater local employment self-sufficiency to cater for the rapid residential growth in the northern coastal corridor.
Australian Consensus Centre
Ms MacTIERNAN (Perth) (13:39): Science and education have been the big losers under the last Abbott budget. Eight hundred jobs went from the CSIRO and round 17 of the CRC funding disappeared altogether. Yet, curiously, $4 million has been found to fund the ironically named Australian Consensus Centre, a think tank which has at its heart a commitment to cherry-pick the scientific evidence to argue against urgent action on climate change. The education minister said that the decision to fund this new centre at UWA followed a proposal put forward by the university and Dr Bjorn Lomborg, but the vice-chancellor at UWA said that the proposed project was not initiated by them but arose out of discussions between Dr Lomborg and the government. It seems that the offer came directly from the Prime Minister's office and it came to UWA only after the Australian Catholic University rejected it. Extraordinarily, this special research initiative, unlike any other such initiative, did not go through the Australian Research Council or any peer review. UWA has now refused to accept the funds after academic students and donors protested the corrupt process. This protest is not about limiting academic freedom; it is saying that the PM should not have the right without an independent—(Time expired)
Northern Territory: Nursing and Hospitals
Mrs GRIGGS (Solomon) (13:41): I rise today to commend the work of Northern Territory nurse, Jeff Tinsley. A few days ago, Jeff was named the 2015 Northern Territory Nurse of the Year, and I would like to offer my congratulations on behalf of my electorate.
Nursing in the Northern Territory brings with it the same challenges as everywhere else in Australia: dealing with people in difficult circumstances; maintaining an up-to-date clinical knowledge; and working in a physically and intellectually demanding role, often with unsociable hours. However, in the Northern Territory our nurses face additional challenges. The geographical isolation means that, in many cases, they often have limited backup. The language and cultural diversity of the Northern Territory, with Greek, Italian and South-East Asian communities and more than 100 Aboriginal language groups, means that nurses must develop an understanding of their patients beyond the spoken word. As I said, our nurses do a fantastic job and deserve our thanks. So, on behalf of all the people of Solomon, I say thank you to all our wonderful nurses in the Territory.
The Giles government have committed $40 million to upgrade the Royal Darwin Hospital. This is in addition to the $40 million they have contributed to the building of the Palmerston Hospital. Despite the scaremongering from Labor, work on the Palmerston Hospital is well underway. Hospitals are complex projects that cannot be built overnight. So Palmerston Hospital is being built and is well underway. (Time expired)
Scullin Electorate: Budget
Mr GILES (Scullin) (13:42): It is often said that a week is a long time in politics, but I have been wondering today how long the past year has seemed to government members—a very long time, I would imagine. But my sympathies are not with them and their desperate desire to hold onto their jobs. My thoughts are with the people I represent and the people my friends on this side of the chamber represent, the people who have been affected by last year's budget and let down by the profound breach of trust at its core and also by the substantive impact.
Today and in recent days, while the Treasurer has remained in witness protection, we have heard the word 'fairness'. It is one thing for government members, the minister and the Prime Minister to talk of fairness, but it is quite another to make things fairer from a government that has dedicated itself relentlessly to driving up inequality in this country. So I welcome the belated recognition by members opposite that the government got it profoundly wrong last year. But I remain concerned and indeed sceptical that mouthing the word 'fair' carries any meaning for government members. I think of the families in my electorate earning less than $65,000 who have had $6,000 ripped away from them, compounded by record low wage growth and by deep cuts to health and education. I say again that mouthing 'fairness' does not make things fair. It is no substitute for a plan for the future, a plan for jobs. That is 'fair', Mr Hockey.
Mitchell Electorate: Centenary of Anzac
Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (13:44): I rise today to echo the words of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and the whole House, in commemorating the most significant event in Australia's history, the 100-year anniversary of Anzac. Over 25,000 people attended the dawn service at Kellyville in Castle Hill in my electorate, and it was one of the most moving commemorative services that I have been involved in. The Anzac legend has shaped our nation like no other event before it or since. It was pleasing to see so many people turn up and commemorate the 100-year anniversary. We remember the brave servicemen who left our shores so long ago, and all our brave servicemen and servicewomen who have come since. For those who made the ultimate sacrifice, those who made Australia the great free nation that it is today, we say thank you. We owe it to all those to stop, remember and say thank you for another 100 years to come.
I want to pay particular tribute to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Michael Ronaldson, for the efficient and seamless way in which the entire process was handled, including the commemorative grants that were provided to each electorate enabling Centenary of Anzac committees. My local committee was led by Colonel Don Tait—who was responsible for the entombing of the Unknown Soldier in the War Memorial—and it was first in with its application, I am advised, of any in the nation, and it did an outstanding job for my community.
I want to pay tribute to all of the figures involved: David Cronan, Mike Yeo, Des Brady, Brian Walters, Graham Handley, Chas Naylor, Jeff Lowe, Peter Westwood, Allan Roderick, Ron Smith, Mike Lee, Claude Zavattaro, Barry Russ, Phil Evenden, Robbie Duncan, Bill Dokter, Eva Want— (Time expired)
Budget
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (13:45): Like many Australian women, I watched in utter shock yesterday as the Treasurer made an announcement that 80,000 Australian mums will be losing part of their entitlement to paid parental leave. The worst thing is that this was all presented as a measure of 'fairness'. I think we all learned last year, when that toxic budget was handed down by the government, that these people have absolutely no understanding of what fairness means. And this policy announcement is further evidence of that.
One of the things I am finding most frustrating is that I thought—perhaps foolishly—that this could be one shadow of an issue on which the Prime Minister had actual genuine conviction. We heard the Prime Minister say several years ago that a paid parental leave scheme would be introduced in this country over his dead body. Then we had this charade of a signature announcement that he would lay his life on the line for this policy. And what we see now, the shock that we see now, is that in this budget they are introducing a policy that will see 80,000 to 90,000 Australian women worse off at one of the most vulnerable times in in their whole lives.
The Treasurer tried to sell that budget last year by telling us that this was all about the children. I say to the Treasurer: if that is the case, why are you tying changes to child care to a $6 billion cut to family tax benefits that will see some of the poorest families in this country $6,000 worse off? Those opposite have no idea about fairness and I reject these changes.
Budget
Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (13:47): Indeed, tonight is budget night. Unlike those opposite, we understand and will never forget that it is important for government—just as it is for small business and families—to live within their means. So I am looking tonight for a credible path back to surplus. Small business, as most people on this side understand, is the engine room of our nation's prosperity. There are two million small businesses in Australia that will be looking to the budget tonight to support small business, to confidently invest and to create more jobs for our nation.
I will be looking for a budget that encourages all Australians to have a go. It is in our ethos, and we need a budget tonight that will support that. I am looking for a budget that will play to our nation's strengths, and our nation's strengths are our people. I welcome the announcements in respect of families—the significant investment in child care to make it more affordable, more flexible and more accessible for more families.
I specifically will be looking for the $203 million over the next four years for the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme; $60 million for tranche 2 irrigation investment; more money going into the jobs program and a budget that continues to build on confidence in my state of Tasmania.
Budget
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (13:48): Here we are again. It is another budget day, and we have already seen in the early media leaks and the backgrounding that is going on that the government again tonight will attack working families, families in our electorates. It is pretty clear to all of us on this side of the House, and to all Australians who will be out there tonight watching, that the government are only interested in doing one thing tonight; they are only worried about saving their own jobs.
They had better think again about some of the budget measures they are putting forward tonight. What we have already heard is that they are going after women and they are going after families. They are saying to 80,000 women who are about to embark on having a child, 'You will possibly lose some of your paid parental leave entitlements.' They are saying it is one or the other. They are completely ignoring the fact that we have enterprise bargaining in this scheme; the government currently, through the former Labor government, has a minimum payment; and then, through hard work and negotiations with employers, workers are able to get that topped up.
Just so the government are clear who they are attacking when they introduce this measure, they are attacking women who work in retail; they are attacking nurses; they are attacking teachers. They are attacking some of the hardest working Australians. The government are only interested in saving their own jobs. This government and the budget tonight are for elite men. It is written by elite men and it will continue to— (Time expired)
Eden-Monaro Electorate: Citizenship Ceremonies
Dr HENDY (Eden-Monaro) (13:50): One of the most pleasing aspects of my role as a representative of the people of Eden-Monaro is to attend citizenship ceremonies. I place a very high priority on attending these very special events. I recently attended two such events in my electorate of Eden-Monaro, in Bega and Queanbeyan. On 7 April I was honoured to join Mayor Michael Britten in officiating as eight of our newest Australians living locally in the Bega Valley Shire became citizens. I passed on a message from the minister that reminded those present that 'people of all backgrounds and religions strengthen our country, and only together, united, will our future be as strong as our present and past.'
On 30 April, I joined Queanbeyan Mayor Tim Overall and Deputy Mayor Peter Bray in officiating at a truly remarkable ceremony. The Queanbeyan ceremony welcomed 59 people, from an extraordinary 22 countries. This strikes me as an 'only in Australia' moment. These new citizens become part of our great multicultural experiment that is the envy of the world. They become our teachers and technicians, our builders and barristers, our mechanics and musicians. They become our neighbours and our community leaders. They become us. Australian citizenship confers on them great benefits; but equally it confers rights and obligations. I thank the individuals and families in Bega and Queanbeyan for taking the important step of becoming Australian citizens.
Budget
Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (13:52): At the risk of giving away my age, tonight's budget will be my 20th. It will also be the Treasurer's 20th—we are both members of the class of '96. Like the Treasurer, I am hopeful that this will be a better budget than last year's budget, for different reasons. I hope it will be a good budget for the nation; Joe Hockey hopes it will be a good budget for him. I am here to stand on behalf of those who are living in rural and regional Australia in particular because, by any measure and indeed on the count of those in the Nationals and Liberal Party representing country areas, like the member for Eden-Monaro, last year's budget was an abject failure. When we cut higher education, it falls hardest on the bush. When we cut health, it falls hardest on the bush. When we raise petrol taxes, it falls hardest on the bush. And tonight, when the Treasurer cuts family payments and paid parental leave, it will fall hardest on those living in rural and regional Australia.
I say to all those on the other side, members of the Nationals and Liberal Party representing rural and regional Australia: stop being lions in your electorates and cowards in Canberra and start speaking up for your constituents, those who were smacked in last year's budget and those who again tonight will be the most disadvantaged as a result of this budget if what we read in the paper is proven to be right. I call upon them again to stand up for their electorates.
Page Electorate: Beef Week
Mr HOGAN (Page) (13:53): A very exciting event will be happening in my community from 23 May to 2 June, Beef Week in Casino. I actually had the member for Capricornia sitting next to me under the delusion that the Beef Week capital of Australia is Rockhampton; it is not. The Beef Week capital of Australia is indeed Casino. The week's events are going to be very exciting. We kick off with opening night and the crowning of the Beef Week queen. There will be a lot of events. We will have Beef Meets Reef at Evan's Head, busking, fashion parades, art exhibitions, a golf open, breakfast with the butchers, cow pat lotto—a lot of money can be won doing that—cattle competitions, the Beef Week races and a rodeo, a 'Mr Beef'—that is always a highlight of the week—and much more.
I congratulate the committee: Stuart George, Frank McKey, Belinda Dockrill, Grant Shedden, John Hamilton, Sam Chilton and Sarah Yeo. They were assisted by Cherie Holdsworth and Lena Mager. The sponsors—very important—were: Richmond Valley Council, The Land, Casino RSM, TURSA, 900 2LM and ZZZ FM, West Lawn and Richmond Dairies and more. To the member for Capricornia, you have been told: we are the Beef Week capital.
Budget
Ms BUTLER (Griffith) (13:54): We all know it is budget day. We are looking forward to seeing the budget tonight and seeing what this government has in store for Australia. But I would like to think that the real question, when we are talking about whether the budget is a good budget, is what it will do for living standards for Australian people, what it will do for jobs and what it will do for the future economic security of our nation. Those to me are the questions that ought to be asked about the budget when we hear from the Liberal Party and the Nationals tonight.
We have already had a lot of leaks about the budget, of course. The idea of saying to families that in order to get better child care they should sacrifice their family tax benefit has been floated. It is a terrible idea. Families should not be asked to sacrifice the family tax benefit in order to improve child care, because this country needs better child care. This country needs better child care right now. We need better child care because we need early childhood learning for all of those kids. We all know that 90 per cent of brain development happens in the first zero to five years of life. We need workforce participation benefits and that is a key benefit of investing in early learning in this country. We have an ageing population—that means we need to increase female workforce participation. It is actually very important that we do that, so we have to get child care right. That is why improving child care should not come with a ransom note. It should not come with an idea that says: if you do not cave in to cutting support for families, we are not going to deliver better child care. I hope that we will see something more positive tonight.
Domestic Violence
Mr HOWARTH (Petrie) (13:56): I want to quickly speak about an issue in Australian society that affects many people around the country—that is, the issue of domestic violence against women and children. I recently held a fundraiser in my electorate to raise money for Redcliffe's Zonta, where Senator Michaelia Cash came and spoke along with 200 local men and women from the Petrie electorate. We raised approximately $3,000.
Today I was talking to Senator Barry O'Sullivan, a Queensland senator who, before he came to the other place, was a police officer of 16 years and saw firsthand children experience violence on a daily and weekly basis in the most horrific circumstances. I would encourage members here on both sides of the House and in the other place to talk to Senator O'Sullivan if you would like some real-life experiences that he encountered whilst he was a police officer.
I do, of course, also want to mention that this weekend the Sandgate and Bracken Ridge Action Group will be holding a peaceful walk at Keogh Street, Sandgate that will go through to Einbunpin Lagoon. Interested people in the community can come along and raise support around this very important issue.
Finally, I want to say that all members in this place on both sides of the House want to work together to ensure that domestic violence throughout Australia is eliminated. I want to thank those men that are looking after their families, that are loving their wives and doing the right thing in raising their families in this area.
Budget
Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (13:58): In a few hours time, the Treasurer will stand at that dispatch box and is going to have an opportunity to atone for the sins of the last 12 months. In this catalogue of sins, we see the GP tax version 1, 2 and 3 and, like the Jaws movie itself, versions 2, 3 and 4 were no better than the first version but equally devastating for the people who the sins were going to be visited upon. We saw cuts to hospitals and schools in the magnitude of $55 billion, so there are a lot of sins to atone for. We are told that this budget is going to be about families and jobs. Well, it had better be, because unemployment is at an all-time high at 6.2 per cent. In fact, unemployment has never been this high since the current Prime Minister was workplace relations minister.
I am very mindful of the position of Nationals members as we come into this budget, because they went to the last election promising that there would be an increase in Medicare rebates for patients who were living in rural and regional Australia. We know that the truth in the last budget and the proposal of this government is exactly the opposite—that is, to freeze Medicare rebates—so I sincerely hope that the members of the Nationals have had more success in the joint party room this year.
Budget
Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite) (13:59): In the seven seconds that remain: this federal budget will be good for families, jobs growth and opportunity. It is a budget that will be responsible, measured and fair. I am very much looking forward to the Treasurer giving this budget. It will be a fair, responsible budget for families and for jobs. (Time expired)
The SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
CONDOLENCES
Walsh, Hon. Peter Alexander, AO
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:00): I move:
That the House record its deep regret at the death, on 10 April 2015 of the Honourable Peter Alexander Walsh AO, former Senator for Western Australia and Minister, place on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service, and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.
When Peter Walsh retired from the cabinet, The Australian newspaper ran the headline on the outgoing finance minister that he was 'the man who made Keating look soft'. Yes, he was a hard-bitten farmer who became a very hard-bitten finance minister and in so doing shaped the way that both sides of politics see the budget for the next quarter of a century. It is serendipity that we acknowledge Peter Walsh's contribution to our nation on this budget day. On his watch, the government he served delivered three surplus budgets, cut tariffs and company tax and enacted major micro-economic reform. His first portfolio was resources and energy, but it was as Minister for Finance between 1984 and 1990 that he most made his mark and left an enduring legacy. Peter Walsh had deep intellectual integrity, and that brought a great moral clarity to the portfolio. When he was once asked about measures to crack down on rorts, he said, 'Why is it that so many people think stealing from the government is okay, while stealing from them is dreadful?'
He was an iconoclast. He was impatient of waste and scornful of policies to enrich sectional interests at the expense of the taxpayer. In 1990, he warned famously that Australia was living—in his words—'on borrowed money and borrowed time'. He understood that nations that do not control their debt risk being controlled and that political sovereignty and economic sovereignty are indivisible. And he understood that the foundation of prosperity was economic growth. To his credit, he saw that as an enduring Labor value. He is a delight to quote—a delight to read and a delight to quote. He said:
… mouthing Chifley rhetoric is a poor substitute for sharing his beliefs, especially his belief that economic growth, or development as he would have called it, has a paramount role in improving the life of ordinary Australians.
As he said:
Those who stultify growth always ensure that others bear the cost.
He was tough on everyone. He was tough on his opponents. He was tough on members of his own party. But that toughness was universally respected, particularly after he had left.
When Australia's longest serving finance minister, Nick Minchin, retired, magnanimously he refused to claim the mantle that many on this side of the House would cheerfully have granted him—that of the best finance minister Australia ever had. Instead, in his valedictory speech, Minchin said:
That honour—
that is to say the honour of being the best finance minister Australia has ever had—
rightfully belongs to Peter Walsh, the Labor identity whom I most admire and who is a great Australian.
Indeed, the current finance minister, Senator Mathias Cormann, says that Peter Walsh's book Confessions of a failed finance minister 'remains the compelling manual of choice for any finance minister today'. So, to the extent that we well and truly absorb the lessons of his life, we well and truly serve our country, at least when it comes to public finances.
His family refused the offer of a state funeral because, like him, they are also against any taxpayer funded extravagance. On behalf of the government, I extend our sympathies to his wife, Rosalie, and his family and in particular to our friend and colleague the member for Brand.
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:05): Madam Speaker, Peter Walsh was a distinguished son of Western Australia and of the Labor Party. With your leave, I would seek that the member for Brand, his son-in-law, offer a tribute to his life and service on behalf of the opposition.
The SPEAKER: It is a pleasure.
Mr GRAY (Brand) (14:05): Thank you, Bill, and thank you, Prime Minister. Peter left school at 14. His achievements in this place, in this community, are quite remarkable. He was a farmer, a finance minister and a father, and when he died he was surrounded and supported by his loving and understanding family.
In his younger days, Pete and Rose, his brother, John, and Margaret had farmed wheat and sheep at Doodlakine, in Western Australia, in the grain belt. In a family of outstanding farmers, Peter was a good farmer, but he was also a very good left-handed shearer. Harry Perkins told me that. Harry was beaten by Peter in a junior farmers regional shearing zone final in the early 1950s. Peter was very pleased because Harry was Country Party! Although it was thought radical in the 1960s, Peter built contour banks on the farm to contain and direct heavy rainfall. He was very proud of his contour banks. They remain today in full working order, saving soil and water and controlling erosion. Shortly after the change of government in 2008, the new minister for agriculture and I went up to the farm to have a look, and Peter and Burkie spent a lot of time contemplating the value of the work of contour banks while Peter described how they had been built using a Chamberlain tractor in the 1960s.
In the 1950s Peter did his national service, but Peter was not an enthusiastic soldier of the Queen. Peter was an enthusiastic soldier in the battle for a stronger economy, and he was a general in the fight for a better, fairer budget. Peter was outstanding at that. As resources minister Peter introduced Australia's petroleum resource rent tax and, like his contour banks, that tax remains in place today working for future generations.
Bob Hawke reflected that it was as finance minister for six years that Peter had made his mark, bringing an unprecedented level of discipline and rigour in public finance. Significant expenditure cuts were required from 1986 in order to weather collapsing terms of trade. The government adopted a simple trilogy: not to raise taxes as a share of GDP, not to raise outlays as a share of GDP, and to reduce outlays in real terms. For four years, using IMF expenditure definitions, Peter fulfilled that trilogy. He produced four budgets which reduced outlays in real terms—something no other government or finance minister has done more than once. So Peter remains the gold standard. Cutting spending in real terms while increasing fairness, the old child endowment universal payment was abolished and the family allowance was introduced. It was means tested to provide an income boost for the less well-off. Peter worked with Bob, Paul and his cabinet colleagues to pursue a philosophy of restraint with equity, ensuring that the most vulnerable in our society were protected. Fairness was increased as a consequence of the cuts.
Labor's primary vote rose and its two-party preferred vote rose too. At the 1987 double dissolution on 11 July—Gough Whitlam's birthday—with declining outlays, Labor's vote increased and its majority increased. Peter was proud of that and we are proud of Peter—proud of him as a West Australian and proud of his role as a senator and as a minister. My family are proud of him as a father. He was not always easy to live with or work with and, Madam Speaker, you know that—you shared the chamber with him. He was a bloke who enjoyed a laugh, a joke, a drink and a good party. Members, senators and public servants would seek out Peter's corridor parties in the company of Gareth Evans, John Button, Ralph Willis, John Dawkins, John Howard, John Hewson and another great son of the West Australian wheat belt, John Stone—I could keep on going but you get the picture. Peter enjoyed a party and he was not going to let hard work get in the way of a good party. He enjoyed any game of football that the Eagles won, and he enjoyed his children.
Australia was made stronger and fairer for Peter's public service. No Australian can aspire to better than that. I thank the whole Walsh family for letting Peter perform that service: John, for holding things together on the farm and Rose, for holding things together at home. Peter is survived by Rosalie; his daughters Karen, Shelley, Anne, Deborah and 11 grandchildren. Thank you and thank you, Peter.
The SPEAKER (14:10): I thank the member for Brand, and I certainly do remember Peter Walsh with respect as a fine minister. I ask all those present to rise in their places as a mark of respect.
Honourable members having stood in their places—
The SPEAKER: I thank the House.
Debate adjourned.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education and Training) (14:11): I move:
That the resumption of the debate on the Prime Minister's motion of condolence in connection with the death of the Honourable Peter Alexander Walsh be referred to the Federation Chamber.
Question agreed to.
MacKellar, Hon. Michael John Randal, AM
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:12): I move:
That the House record its deep regret at the death, on 9 May 2015, of the Honourable Michael John Randal MacKellar AM, a former Minister and Member for the Division of Warringah from 1969 to 1994, place on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service, and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.
Michael MacKellar was in fact my predecessor as Member for Warringah. He held the seat from 1969 to 1994—a record-breaking quarter century. When we last met just a few months ago he was spritely, energetic and engaged despite a long battle with cancer. Typically, he did not want to lament or to reminisce; he wanted to focus on the future. He wanted to talk about the issues facing the government and, more importantly, the policy solutions to those issues, because, as always, Michael MacKellar's focus was on the lasting and not the ephemeral.
As a minister in the Fraser government his philosophy was straightforward. In his own words: 'You bring people with you and you govern from the centre.' His passion to address policy was evident in his very first speech to this parliament. The former agricultural scientist who was raised on a farm near Narrabri chose as the bill for his maiden speech, as we then called them, the Wheat Stabilisation Bill. And as he later said, it had caused a bit of controversy because Warringah is not known as a premium wheat-growing area. But he was shaped by his rural upbringing. He was shaped by his life on the land. 'Times were hard' he said, 'and it was too far to go to school, so my sister and I were taught at home by our mother. I earned my first money at the age of five running rabbit traps and picking wool from dead sheep.' It was a fitting upbringing for someone who served for so long in this House and who empathised with people from all walks of life.
He was a fine tennis player, who chose to claim that his fame was mostly 'to have been beaten by all the greats: Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall and John Newcombe'—and John Newcombe was his lifelong friend. In fact, he paid his way through university by coaching tennis, painting houses and, it has to be said, punting on horses.
His greatest local legacy is probably the TV repeater on North Head, which ended the grainy reception that for years bedevilled the people of my electorate and yours, Madam Speaker. His greatest national legacy was almost certainly as the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs where he oversaw the settlement in this country of tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees fleeing communism. This was in fact one of the finest achievements of the Fraser government. He presided over it and the Vietnamese people have added a rich dimension to our national life in all the years since. He was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2001 and in 2011 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, not just for his service to the parliament but for his contribution to research and health organisations, in which he immersed himself after leaving this parliament.
Madam Speaker, as you well know, Michael MacKellar was particularly proud of his children: Cameron, Maggie and especially Duncan, who is thriving and happy despite a significant disability. Michael MacKellar was one of the happy warriors of this parliament. His wife, Robbie, predeceased him. To his partner, Pamela, his children and his grandchildren I extend on behalf of the government and the people of Warringah our deepest sympathies.
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:16): On behalf of the Labor Party I pay my respects to the Hon. Michael MacKellar AM. Michael lived a life dedicated to his family, his party and his country. He came to the federal parliament in 1969. He was an agricultural scientist turned politician who regained the seat of Warringah for his party from the maverick former Liberal Edward St John.
It was as immigration minister that Michael saw perhaps his best triumphs in the parliament. He oversaw Australia's first comprehensive policy for the resettlement of refugees, subsequently superintended by the Hon. Ian Macphee and John Menadue. In 1977 Michael MacKellar said:
I believe that there would be few in this House who would not support a commitment for Australia to play the most effective role possible in refugee settlement … there is a community willingness to assist the dispossessed and displaced from overseas in a sensible and realistic way to seek sanctuary and a new life in Australia …
It was under Michael's stewardship that the first Vietnamese refugees found a new home here. Their place in our nation's story and their part in our thriving modern multicultural Australia will stand forever as a tribute to Michael MacKellar's moderation, compassion and decency. We salute the service he gave to our nation. We extend our sympathies to his partner, Pamela, his children, Cameron, Duncan and Maggie, and his grandchildren.
The SPEAKER (14:18): The Prime Minister properly referred to the fact that I knew Michael MacKellar extremely well. Until I became the member for Mackellar, Michael MacKellar was my member in Warringah. The two name crossovers used to cause confusion for many people. I very well remember Michael all those years with his then wife, Robbie, and family, the great love they had for their children and the difficulties that they had to overcome. I served as a branch president and vice-president of his conference. I knew him very well. He was someone who was totally committed to seeing Australia prosper and her people prosper. It comes to me as a great shock that he has passed away. I ask all those present as a mark of respect to rise in their places.
Honourable members having stood in their places—
The SPEAKER: I thank the House.
Debate adjourned.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education and Training) (14:19): by leave—I move:
That the resumption of the debate on the Prime Minister's motion of condolence in connection with the death of the Honourable Michael John Randal MacKellar AM be referred to the Federation Chamber.
Question agreed to.
Churcher, Ms Elizabeth 'Betty' Ann Dewar, AO
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:20): Madam Speaker, on indulgence, I rise to speak on the passing of Betty Churcher AO. On 31 March a lifetime's conversation with our nation on the power of art came to an end. Betty Churcher's enthusiasm for art was absolute and she wanted the whole nation to share in that joy. Her love for art started at a young age. She won a scholarship to study in England, where she received the Princess of Wales scholarship for the best female student at the Royal College of Art. Despite this early promise as a painter, she did not choose to continue down that path. As she reflected on her own work, she said:
What I lacked is that particular quality that makes the difference between a good painter and an excellent painter and that is the vision and imagination that is going to keep pushing your art forward to the next square. I lacked that obsessional need to keep moving on.
Nevertheless, while not continuing as a painter she did become an evangelist for art and because of that she was a woman of firsts. She was the first female head of a tertiary institution, as dean of the School of Art and Design at the Phillip Institute of Technology in Melbourne; she was the first female director of a state art gallery, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia; and, of course, she was the first female director of the National Gallery of Australia for much of the 1990s, as she presided over 12 international exhibitions which not only led to tremendous growth in attendance and revenue for the gallery but also inspired her nickname 'Betty Blockbuster'.
Everything she did was in a great cause: to excite Australians to taste and experience art in a way they might never have done before. She knew that, even to the uninitiated, a great painting compels attention. For her services in educating the public about art on a grand scale, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1990 and in 1996 an Officer of the Order of Australia. She wanted Australians to know that art should not be the preserve of the few but the possession of us all.
Her sons, Ben, Paul, Peter and Tim, have lost their mother—sadly, soon after losing their father. To them, and to all who knew Betty Churcher, we extend our deepest condolences.
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): Betty Churcher was a storyteller, a trailblazer and a national treasure. She was a masterpiece of her own making and became our country's most loved and respected cultural communicator. Her 84 years enriched our nation and the way we saw ourselves. Betty Churcher was the National Gallery's first and, as of today, its only female director. She indeed established a glowing reputation for the calibre of exhibitions she brought to the gallery.
Betty served as director for seven years, a period that was highlighted by her lifelong passion for art and a compelling desire to share her love of art with Australia. Betty brought historic and significant exhibitions to our country—schools and styles that Australians had never seen before. She could digest, analyse and assess a work of art and yet still engage with it on an emotional level, responding with love as well as expertise. In a subjective industry, she had a rare gift of crystallising the essence of a work of art and sharing its magic with those around her. After she left the gallery, Betty's love of art and her passion to share it with Australians did not end. Betty spent her final years sharing hidden and unknown acquisitions of the National Gallery of Australia in her ABC TV show Hidden Treasures.
Betty Churcher will always be remembered as a beloved teacher and an adored leader in Australia's arts community. She and her husband, Roy, shared a love of life and a love of creativity and art that they have passed on to their four sons and seven grandchildren. Labor extends its condolences to all of Betty's family and friends.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education and Training) (14:25): by leave—I move:
That further statements on indulgence on the death of Elizabeth Ann Dewar (Betty) Churcher AO be permitted in the Federation Chamber.
Question agreed to.
Benaud, Mr Richard, OBE
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:26): Further on indulgence, with the passing of Richie Benaud OBE we have lost a great cricketer, a great captain and an absolutely superlative commentator. Richie Benaud was the first test cricketer to achieve the double of 200 test wickets and 2,000 test runs. As a captain, he led Australia in 28 test matches, and he never lost a series. And, of course, as a commentator from the 1960s until just a couple of years ago, he was not just the voice of cricket; he was the voice of summer.
His was a very distinctive voice, as we know. I am not the greatest Richie Benaud imitator—I leave that to others—but once, in a domestic match in Hobart, Richie announced that the score had reached 'choo for choo hundred and chwenty-choo'. His fellow commentator, Bill Lawry, became incapacitated with laughter at that moment and was unable to commentate further, but Richie, showing a mark of pride and stubbornness, refused to cover for his colleague, and there was dead air for two overs.
What can we say except that the voice that held our nation, the voice that held much of the world, is now forever still but not forgotten? I extend condolences to his wife, Daphne, his sons, Greg and Jeffery, and his brother, John, as well as to his millions of fans in Australia and around the world. Summers will not be the same without Richie Benaud. It has been a marvellous innings, and we thank him.
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:28): Richie Benaud was the voice of the Gatting ball, the heartbreak at Edgbaston, and the first and last word on the underarm controversy. He was the voice of all our summers and, with the passing of Richie Benaud, Australian cricket lost a legend, Australia lost an icon and Australians lost a dear friend, a brilliant and daring captain, a cool head in the controversy of the World Series cricket and the undisputed doyen of the commentary box. In a profession that can lend itself sometimes to hyperbole and histrionics, Richie was always an island of calm understatement. When he spoke, we listened. For millions of Australians, Richie Benaud was cricket, the personification of our great game.
The Richie that Australia first knew was a dashing all-rounder, striking boundaries and bowling leg breaks with his hair slicked back. From young tyro, Richie became a captain whose sportsmanship helped revive and enrich test match cricket. He took very seriously Don Bradman's instruction that every cricketer is only ever a trustee; no-one is bigger than the game that we love. Richie kept faith with this idea till the very end.
Richie Benaud was mourned by millions not just here in Australia but wherever cricket is followed around the world. But no-one will miss him more than his wife and family that he adored so deeply, and we offer them our heartfelt condolences. I suspect our nation will not see his like again, but he will live forever in the endless summer of our shared memory.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education and Training) (14:30): by leave—I move:
That further statements on indulgence on the death of Richie Benaud be permitted in the Federation Chamber.
Question agreed to.
Gibson, Mr Adrian, OAM
The SPEAKER (14:30): I inform the House of the death on Thursday, 30 April 2015 of Adrian Gibson, a member of this House for the division of Denison from 1964 to 1969. As a mark of respect to the memory of Adrian Gibson I invite honourable members to rise in their places.
Honourable members having stood in their places—
The SPEAKER: I thank the House.
STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE
Australian Natural Disasters
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:31): on indulgence—I note the natural disasters that have caused damage, disruption and heartache to our fellow citizens since this House last met. As we know, fire, flood and storms are a regular feature of life in Australia, but we have had some exceptional events over the last couple of months. In April there was what has been described as a once-in-a-decade storm in New South Wales. Severe winds and flooding rains caused widespread damage, including in your electorate, Madam Speaker, and in mine. Our electorates were among 17 local government areas declared as natural disaster areas following this particular storm, which was absolutely ferocious and indiscriminate. At least two members of this House—the member for Paterson and the member for Robertson—experienced damage to their own homes in that storm.
I am pleased to say that the Commonwealth state natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements were activated in this storm and for subsequent floods, and I acknowledge the fine work done by Minister Keenan and in this instance by Premier Baird in getting those arrangements in place so that support could be rapidly provided to affected areas.
In the April storm, tragically, lives were lost. Three people perished in Dungog when their homes were submerged. Another died when her car was swept away in floodwaters near Maitland. We mourn with their families and continue to work with those communities as they recover from this terrible devastation.
And then, less than a month later in Queensland and in northern New South Wales, there was further widespread flooding. About 9,000 residents in New South Wales communities on the upper North Coast were isolated for some time. Tragically, there were five fatalities this time, including a young child, when vehicles were washed away by floodwaters.
On behalf of the government and, I am sure, the parliament, I thank the State Emergency Service, who in New South Wales alone responded to over 20,000 calls as a result of these two events. The SES and all of our emergency services save lives and they save livelihoods.
Not only is Australia a land of flooding rain; it is also a land of drought, and the cruelty of nature has meant that, while some parts of our country were flooded, other parts—particularly western Queensland and western New South Wales, as the member for Maranoa and the member for Parkes so well know—have been in the grip of a severe drought that has now lasted for three seasons. Drought is the crisis that creeps up on people. After a flood, a fire or a storm, there are emergency services personnel on your doorstep. Help comes rushing in. But drought is the crisis to which no-one comes. People just stop coming to the areas hit by drought.
I was in Longreach last weekend with the member for Maranoa, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Agriculture and Senator Barry O'Sullivan to see for myself the devastation that three long years of unprecedented low rainfall have wrought. I acknowledge those who are doing it tough for whatever cause and I say that our country will stand with you now as it always does.
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:35): I thank the Prime Minister for his words. On behalf of the opposition, I once again send our deepest sympathies to the loved ones of those who tragically lost lives in the storms and floods that have lashed New South Wales and Queensland. As the Prime Minister has said, Australia stands shoulder to shoulder with the citizens of Queensland and New South Wales who were affected by this weather. They begin the difficult task of cleaning up and rebuilding homes, businesses and communities. We salute and recognise the tireless courage of emergency services personnel and SES volunteers, who once again entered the fray, putting the lives and safety of others above their own. And I commend the Prime Minister and premiers Baird and Palaszczuk for their swift response. We offer our full support in doing everything necessary, as has been occurring, to help Australians in this difficult time.
Australians know Mother Nature at her spectacular best and her spectacular worst. They know that rising floodwaters and furious winds will again test their resilience, just as drought does. We know that they will rise to the task. We know that the brave men and women of our emergency services and SES will again stand ready to risk their lives for others. We know this is not the last time that Australians will come together as neighbours and communities to help tear up muddy carpets, hose down shop floors and rebuild homes and lives. Be it due to drought, flood or storm, we know this will not be the last time our parliament pauses to reflect and to grieve for those who suffer and those who have lost due to the elements. We know they are not forgotten.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education and Training) (14:37): by leave—I move:
That further statements by indulgence on the Queensland and New South Wales floods and storms be permitted in the Federation Chamber.
Question agreed to.
MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:38): I inform the House that the Treasurer will be absent from question time today while he attends to the budget lockup. The Deputy Prime Minister will answer questions on his behalf.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Paid Parental Leave
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:38): My question is to the Prime Minister. First the Prime Minister told Australians that paid parental leave would be introduced 'over his dead body'. Then the Prime Minister told Australians that he was committed to his 'gold-plated' parental leave scheme. Now the Prime Minister's cuts to paid parental leave will leave 80,000 mums worse off every year. So when it comes to paid parental leave, Prime Minister, Australians just want to know: what do you actually believe today?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:39): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question because, as I think all members of this House would well know, I am very committed to paid parental leave. I have actually got quite a few political bruises as a result of my commitment to paid parental leave. But the important thing is to do what is right for these times, and something that might have been right under different circumstances is not necessarily right in these circumstances.
This budget will be measured, responsible and, above all else, fair. Fairness will be the hallmark of this budget. Maybe it would be okay—under different circumstances, for argument's sake—for Commonwealth public servants to claim a generous paid parental leave from their employer, the Commonwealth, and then in addition to claim paid parental leave as part of the general population scheme. Maybe, under different circumstances, that might be fair. But at a time of fiscal stringency—a time when this government is still dealing with the $123 billion worth of cumulative deficits and the $667 billion of peak debt that we inherited from members opposite—I am afraid it would not be fair. It would not be fair under these circumstances, and that is why we will end this double dipping. We will not allow Commonwealth or state public servants to claim generous paid parental leave from their employers and then go to the Commonwealth taxpayer and claim more. Under these circumstances it simply is not fair. It is passing strange that the Leader of the Opposition should want the double dip to continue. If he wants the double dip to continue, he is going to have to tell us how he is going to pay for it. Where is the money coming from? That is the point. If he wants to see a double-dip paid parental leave scheme, he has to tell us exactly how he is going to pay for it.
Budget
Mrs GRIGGS (Solomon) (14:41): My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister please inform the House how tonight's budget will strengthen the economy and help Australian families and small businesses to get ahead?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:41): I thank the member for Solomon for her question and I am sure that all members of this House, including members opposite, would say that the economy of this country is fundamentally strong. We have a fundamentally strong economy because we are a fundamentally strong and capable people. The challenge for government is to build on our strengths, and that is exactly what this government has been doing since September 2013. I am pleased to say that growth today is 25 per cent higher than it was in 2013. I am particularly proud of the fact that jobs growth is three times higher today than it was in 2013, and a quarter of a million new jobs have been created by Australian businesses since this government was elected in September 2013. Export volumes are up seven per cent in the last 12 months; housing approvals are up over 20 per cent in the last 12 months; and business and consumer confidence is above long-term average levels.
Our challenge is to build on this record. Our challenge is to build on last year's budget, which halves Labor's debt and deficit going forward. Madam Speaker, I can assure you and I can assure the people of Australia that this is a budget for them. This is a budget for confidence. It is a budget for middle Australia. It is a budget for fairness. It is our plan for jobs, growth and opportunity. It is our plan for a strong, safe and prosperous future. Above all else this budget will be measured, responsible and fair. There is a very significant tax cut for small business so that small business can do what it does best: go out and create jobs. There are significant incentives so that people can take the jobs that are available. There are better wage-subsidy arrangements, there are better employment services and, above all else, there is a Jobs for Families childcare package—because the more jobs there are, the more prosperity there will be for everyone. This is a budget that is designed to encourage the people of Australia to have a go—because that is what we do best; we have a go—to deal with our difficulties and to build on our strengths.
I want to thank the Treasurer, in his absence, for the work he has done on this budget. I thank all members of the Expenditure Review Committee. This is not simply a budget for a government; it is a budget for every Australian, to give all of us the prosperity that we all seek.
Paid Parental Leave
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:45): My question is to the Prime Minister. Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss, Kate Carnell, today said:
It's hard to see why employers would keep paying parental leave if it meant the government stopped paying.
So why is the Prime Minister undermining paid parental leave, when he has been telling Australians for some years how much he is committed to it? And, by the way, why does the wannabe Treasurer keep accusing mums of being rorters on Sky News?
The SPEAKER: I call the honourable Prime Minister, and he will ignore the last part of that question.
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:45): Of course I support paid parental leave, but it has got to be the right paid parental leave at the right time. That is what it has got to be: the right paid parental leave at the right time. And the first priority right now has got to be to build jobs, to build opportunity, to promote economic growth—and I was told by many people, including, it has to be said, by members opposite, that the priority right now has got to be a better childcare system. And that is exactly what this government will deliver tonight: a Jobs for Families childcare system.
The great thing about the childcare proposal that this government is bringing down as part of this budget is that, if you are a low- or middle-income family with children in the childcare system, you will be better off to the tune of $30 a week. That is working families benefiting to the tune of $30 a week.
Mr Pyne: And no carbon tax.
Mr ABBOTT: And, of course, as I am reminded by the Leader of the House, there is no carbon tax and no mining tax, much less regulation. We are a country that is open for business because we have three historic free trade agreements with our three biggest customers, China, Japan and South Korea—all of which spells more jobs. It all spells more jobs.
This is a government which has to make choices. This is a government which has to decide what our most urgent priorities are for this time. I have to say our most urgent priority when it comes to benefits for families is an improved childcare system as part of our Jobs for Families package. This is not just good policy for families, although it certainly is good policy for families; it is strong economic policy. That is what it is. It will contribute to the strong and prosperous economy that ultimately is the best thing that governments can give to the people of our country.
Small Business
Mr ALEXANDER (Bennelong) (14:48): My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Will the minister update the House on steps the government is taking to grow the economy, create more jobs and boost productivity in the small business sector?
Mr BILLSON (Dunkley—Minister for Small Business) (14:48): I am very delighted to receive that question and want to thank the member for Bennelong not only for his work for his small business community but for the great campaign he runs to encourage local members of his community to shop small and to shop local. I was there just a couple of weeks ago. We had a West Ryde small business forum, and you could not help but be encouraged by the positive response that we got to the program that we have already implemented and the progress we have made in supporting small businesses and in energising enterprise.
We all know we have a lot of work to do to recover the 519,000 jobs lost in small business under Labor. We know we have a lot of work to do, and we are delivering on our commitments: repealing the carbon tax; the free trade agreements; support for entrepreneurship; a fairer, healthier competitive environment through franchising reforms; the food and grocery code; and unfair contract terms protections. We are doing this because we know that small businesses are not just the engine room of our economy but the key to our economic future and jobs growth.
Tonight we will hear about the government's excellent jobs and small business package. Who is for a small business package?
Government members: Yes!
Mr BILLSON: We are, on this side, because we know tonight it is what is needed to build on what we have already achieved. These are important next steps to help small business invest, grow and employ more, because we know that small business is the engine room of the economy and we want the environmental settings right for enterprising men and women to have a go, to invest in their business and to create jobs. We know, as the mining investment declines, small business will be the key to our future economic opportunities, wealth creation in our economy and jobs growth. That is why we will be announcing an outstanding package tonight.
Small business are telling us that red tape continues to be a bane of their life. We have made a good start—more than $2½ billion of red-tape reduction to date—but the Treasurer and I were pleased to announce last week even more measures that will make it easier for small businesses to start, to get going, to grow and to transform themselves to meet new opportunities: immediate deductibility of professional costs to start a business, to restructure and to pitch for crowdsourced equity funding; a streamlined online business registration process; the capacity to change their business structure so they can support growth, succession planning and new investment; and employee share schemes.
All of these things are the actions that we have in train, and tonight there will be another important instalment, another significant step, in our plan for our nation's economic future. It is about encouraging enterprising men and women to boost creativity—the dynamism in our economy—to stimulate investment. A strong and healthy small business economy is essential for a strong Australia, for healthy jobs growth, for job security and for income security, so we are about enterprising; we are about energising; we are about creating support for small business, because we are the best friends small business has ever had in this place and— (Time expired)
Budget
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (14:51): My question is to the Prime Minister. At the last election, the Prime Minister described a budget deficit of $24 billion as 'a debt and deficit disaster' and 'a budget emergency'. What does the Prime Minister now call a budget deficit of more than $24 billion?
Government members interjecting —
The SPEAKER: There will be silence on my right to allow the Prime Minister to speak.
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:52): Debt and deficit is Labor's legacy. They created it and we are fixing it. I can assure the shadow Treasurer that, while this is a budget for jobs, growth and opportunity, while this is a budget that will be responsible, measured and fair, at the heart of this budget is a credible path back to surplus.
Members opposite will discover that, while they were completely incapable of dealing with the deficit, this coalition government will reduce the deficit every year. As a figure, we will reduce spending as a percentage of GDP every year because we understand economic management and economic responsibility in a way our predecessors simply do not.
Mr Swan interjecting —
Mr ABBOTT: It is good to see the member for Lilley still in this chamber, isn't it? And he wants to be here for a long time to come, to the dismay of the Leader of the Opposition. I hope he will be here for a long time to come because as long as he is here we will remember his infamous beginning to the 2012 budget—'the four years of surpluses that I announce tonight'. That is what he said. Instead, they delivered debt and deficit as far as the eye can see.
At the beginning of the 2013 election campaign, members opposite told us that the deficit was going to be $18 billion. It came in at $48 billion—a $30 billion black hole that they should have known about and should have told us about. That is the legacy that we are dealing with.
But as the Australian people will see tonight, they can trust their fiscal future with this government. We are on, at last, a credible path back to surplus. We are back on a credible path to economic responsibility. We are a government that are serious about economic responsibility, and we will be again a country that can live within its means.
Corporate Governance
Mr PALMER (Fairfax) (14:54): My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. Why is the Commonwealth the No. 1 petitioner of bankruptcy and liquidations in Australia, closing businesses down and moving people from productive employment to unemployment? Why doesn't the government introduce a chapter 11 provision similar to the US, where 85 per cent of companies in chapter 11 emerge to keep people employed, exports going and government revenue flowing? Will the government lead and introduce such a measure for Australia?
Mr TRUSS (Wide Bay—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (14:55): In response to the honourable member, I suggest that if he listens to the budget tonight he will see a government that is delivering on its commitment to small business. There are tax reductions for small companies and unincorporated businesses, all giving them a much better chance to make a go of it in a thriving economy.
We are more interested in building strong businesses than we are in propping up or dealing with failures. But we do recognise that there are many businesses that are living with the legacy of Labor governments that have imposed burdens upon them that make it very, very difficult to be competitive. For instance, Labor governments have introduced industrial relations systems that can make it very difficult for them to be competitive with countries around the world. Labor governments have put in place barriers to prosperity rather than encouragements for businesses to do well. As a result of our budget initiatives, there will be more opportunities for businesses to do well and more opportunities for business to be optimistic about its future and to employ more people.
The honourable member has referred to the US chapter 11 system, and that is a system that has attracted quite a bit of attention also in other countries. We have a taxation review coming up and we are looking at a whole range of measures in that regard, and I have no doubt at all that the chapter 11 proposals in the United States will be a part of any consideration of that nature.
But our primary objective tonight and today is to build an atmosphere of confidence for Australian business so that they can create jobs and look prospectively to the future, one of profitability, so that issues about what might be done in bankruptcy do not even come on their agenda, so that they can be profitable, employing, earning and helping to build a better country.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
The SPEAKER (14:57): I wish to advise that we have with us today the foreign minister from Guatemala, His Excellency Carlos Morales, who is here to open their newly established embassy. We also have Her Excellency Ms Connie Taracena Secaira, the ambassador for Guatemala.
We also have with us Mr Stuart Henry, the former member for Hasluck. We make them all most welcome.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Budget
Mrs McNAMARA (Dobell) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Social Services. Will the minister update the House on how the government's Jobs for Families package will provide families with greater choices?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Social Services) (14:58): I thank the member for Dobell for her question, and for the consultation and engagement she had with service providers and families in her electorate, as so many members on this side of the House have done, to contribute to the formation of the Jobs for Families package that was announced on the weekend.
Fifty-seven per cent of families go back to work to pay the bills and to maintain their standard of living. Fifty-seven per cent are saying that is why they are going back. Forty-seven per cent of those who do not go back to work say they do not go back because of the cost of child care. The Jobs for Families package is going to change that for those families because this package will give greater choice to 1.2 million families. We are going to make child care simpler, more affordable, more flexible and more accessible.
This support for child care is not a welfare payment; it is a support that helps families be in work, stay in work and work more. That is what families are increasingly needing to do, and we want to make sure they have those choices. We are investing $3½ billion in lower income and middle income families to ensure that they get better childcare support, to keep them in work and to put them in work.
Also, that funding is going to vulnerable and disadvantaged families through our childcare safety net. There will be greater subsidies for those on those lower to middle incomes. As the Prime Minister has said, those who are using those services in child care will be $30 a week better off. The safety net, particularly for those families with children with disabilities or for those in remote and rural areas, means that there is support to ensure that they get the same choices that other families can access through the childcare system.
There will be greater flexibility with our in-home care nanny pilot program which allows access for those who cannot access mainstream care—nurses, police families, firies, ambulance officers and shift workers. All of those who cannot get access to the program now deserve the same choices that other families get. It has been well received. Early Childhood Australia said of this package that:
These historic reforms … will make access to early learning services more affordable for the majority of working families.
The Early Learning and Care Council of Australia said that this is:
… a big step forward for affordable child care and early learning.
Chief Executive Women said:
The shift in thinking about childcare as a facilitator of workforce participation rather than welfare is essential for the sustainability of Australia's economic future.
Goodstart Early Learning, the biggest provider of childcare services around the country, said: 'These reforms will improve child care affordability for most low- and middle-income working families and get more mothers to work.' This package gives families choice.
Paid Parental Leave
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (15:01): My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has famously said:
Providing more government benefits to employed mothers than to stay-at-home ones is not only unfair but it's going to strike many people as an attack on the traditional family.
In light of his own famous comments, why is the Prime Minister cutting $6,000 to family payments and why is he slashing childcare assistance to stay-at-home mums?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (15:02): I am sure there are many members of this House who could be researched, and you could go back 10 or 15 years and find some statements that they have made which were sincerely made and believed then but which are no longer quite believed in exactly the same way. As I have said often enough, over the years I have listened, I have learned and, where necessary, I have changed. Frankly, when circumstances change, you should change. That is what sensible people do.
Of course I support a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme, but it has to come in when the time is right. While dealing with the debt and deficit disaster that we inherited from members opposite is not the right time to do it. There are many things that would be desirable at this time but simply cannot be delivered because of the $123 billion of cumulative deficits and the $667 billion of peak debt which we inherited from members opposite.
This is a budget which has to be measured because we are dealing with Labor's debt and deficit disaster. It has to be responsible. There will be a clear and credible path back to surplus. Above all else, it has to be fair. Under these circumstances, it is just not fair to have well-paid state and Commonwealth public servants getting generous paid parental leave from the taxpayer in that capacity and then getting another paid parental leave scheme from the taxpayer. I have a responsibility to try to ensure that the taxpayer funds of this country are used in the best possible way at this time. Double dipping on the subject of paid parental leave is not the best investment of taxpayers' money at this time.
There was a time when members opposite cut $15 billion from family tax benefits. They thought it was fair. There was a time—it was in 2013, in fact—when Labor forced 84,000 single mums on to Newstart as part of a budget to save $738 million over four years. There was a time when members opposite froze family tax benefit part A and part B payments. This is a government which is doing what is right for these times—always has and always will.
Drought
Mr BRUCE SCOTT (Maranoa—Deputy Speaker) (15:05): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture. Will the minister update the House on the government support for farmers suffering the ongoing effects of drought in Queensland and New South Wales?
Mr JOYCE (New England—Minister for Agriculture) (15:05): I thank the honourable member for his question. It was a great privilege to be back in Queensland to announce a further tranche of drought support. It is in fact our third tranche since we have been in government. You have to look at all of these together. In combination, they are rather substantial package. Since we have been in government we have delivered over $23 million for on-farm water infrastructure for low-level bores, piping and troughs. We have delivered another $15.9 million into the GABSI scheme for piping and capping of more substantial bores to make sure that that precious resource continues to be available. We have made available, with the $20 million that we announced on the weekend, over $33 million now for mental health, to support those who are under the pump in dealing with the issue of depression that can happen when a person is under-resourced, the seasons are against them or they are in remote locations. We acknowledge that. We have put substantial money into that.
With the $25 million that we announced last week we have now delivered over $33 million for pest control for issues such as wild dogs. In Barcaldine I am aware that they have shot over 850 dogs in the last three years. One dog in one night can kill up to 40 head of sheep. This is a devastating problem which they call surplus kills, where dogs kill not because they are hungry but because it is a thrill for them.
In relation to farm household allowance, when we came to government, only 367 people were receiving interim farm family payments. We now have more than 4,800 people receiving farm household allowance. In this year alone, which is about to conclude, it is about $70 million in costs. In the forward budget estimates it is going to be a substantial amount. I approximate it will be getting close to half a billion dollars. That is the sort of investment we are making to help people on the land.
With respect to concessional loans, when we came to government only eight were given out; we now have more than 530—in fact, we have lent out 531—more than $270 million. In the next 12 months we will extend that program, making available $250 million at concessional rates to keep that program going. We have also made available $35 million for a regional stimulus package. It is not just that; it is the commodity turnaround as well. When we came to government, for a 500-kilogram steer at Gunnedah you got between $700 and $800 a head. Now it is up to $1,500 a head. This is a substantial turnaround. Lambs were $85 when we came to government; they are around $140 now. The eastern wool indicator has gone over 1,200c. I will wait for Thursday night to see Labor's plan, to see whether they have any plan for people on the land.
Budget
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (15:08): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's promise: 'We, the coalition government, are not going to repair our budget this year at the expense of your family budget.' So why then is the Prime Minister still ripping $6,000 a year from the typical family budget?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (15:09): This is the opposition's problem: they have not moved on. They are still fighting the battle of last year's budget. They are incapable of understanding that we are building on the successes of last year to give tonight a budget for confidence, a budget for Middle Australia and, above all else, a budget for fairness. That is what we are doing tonight. The fairest thing that we can do is give the people of Australia a government which is living within its means, and that is what members opposite and, indeed, the entire Australian people will see tonight—a credible path back to a sustainable surplus. That is what people will see tonight.
I am very happy to repeat for members opposite the themes of this budget. It will be a budget that is measured, responsible and fair. It will be a budget that is focused on jobs, growth and opportunity. It will be a budget that delivers a tax cut for small business and gives more and more Australians the opportunities to take the increased number of jobs that will be out there. That is what it does. We want to encourage the Australian people to be the best they can be. This is a budget that will invite the Australian people to have a go, because that is in our nature. It is in our nature to want to have a go and to seize the better future that is within our grasp.
We as a nation have so much going for us. We have the best people. We have excellent schools and universities. We have tremendous institutions. We have people who are creative and adaptable. I want the people of Australia to be the very best they can be. I want the people of Australia to have all the opportunities they deserve, and that is exactly what tonight's budget aims to give them—the opportunities that they deserve to get a job, to work more, to work better and to earn more. I want the small businesses of Australia to invest more and to employ more, because I have faith in the people of Australia; I have faith in the small businesses of Australia. Tonight's budget will be a demonstration—
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Gorton is warned!
Mr ABBOTT: of the faith that this government has in the people and the small businesses of this great country of ours. On that note, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
STATEMENT BY THE SPEAKER
Budget
The SPEAKER (15:12): I would like to deal with some housekeeping arrangements for this evening. I would like to remind members that the usual arrangements and courtesies will apply to the budget speech and equally on Thursday to the speech in reply by the Leader of the Opposition. As with any other proceedings of the House, the member with the call is entitled to speak without interruption. In accordance with precedent, if any action under standing order 94(a) is required it will be by a written note.
I ask members to ensure that their guests arrive at the galleries in time to undertake security clearance and be seated in the galleries in a timely way. I trust there will be cooperation from members and their guests in the galleries and that budget night and budget reply night will proceed smoothly for the benefit of the House and those watching and listening to proceedings.
AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS
Reports Nos 28 to 36 of 2014-15
The SPEAKER (15:13): I present the Auditor-General's audit reports Nos 28 to 36 for 2014-15. Details of the reports will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
Ordered that the reports be made parliamentary papers.
DOCUMENTS
Presentation
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education and Training) (15:13): Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Standard of Living
The SPEAKER (15:13): I have received a letter from the honourable Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The Government’s failure to act in the national interest by protecting Australia’s standard of living.
I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (15:14): Whilst we have to wait until 7.30 to hear the budget speech, we already know a fair bit about this budget and what Australians can expect. We know that this budget is conceived in desperation. It is conceived by a Prime Minister under pressure and a Treasurer under siege in witness protection. We suspect that Joe Hockey's last budget will be as bad as his first budget. This budget is not about the Australian people. It is about one job; it is about saving Tony Abbott's job. A Mission: Impossible script could not have dreamed up a tougher mission for Tom Cruise than has been dreamed up for poor old Joe Hockey. The mission, should he choose to accept it, is to save Tony Abbott. You can just hear the brains trust of the Liberal Party: 'We know last year was terrible, so we have got nothing to fall back on there.' I feel as though we Australians live in a parallel universe when I hear our Prime Minister say that last year was so successful. If last year was successful, I would hate to see what failure looks like.
They have come up with a plan: they have discovered child care—well, they have sort of discovered child care, as we will unpack. They have put in their big hitter, Scott Morrison. Scott Morrison is the sort of guy you do not want shadowing you, because you know he will be sitting in your seat next. His job is to rescue child care and to rescue Tony Abbott. What is the plan that they have cooked up? It is a ripper. First of all, forget everything Tony Abbott has ever said. We wish we could, but we just cannot. I heard that marvellous piece of contorted grammar from the Prime Minister when he was asked about what he believed. We have a transcript, because we love recording Tony Abbott's first words straightaway. When we asked him how he reconciles his last comment with his current comment—and, goodness knows, with what he will say tomorrow—he said:
… you could go back 10 or 15 years—
actually, it was a lot more recent than that, Prime Minister—
and find some statements that they have made—
that means the Prime Minister—
which were sincerely made and believed then—
as if this bloke has ever sincerely believed anything in his life—
but which are no longer quite believed in exactly the same way.
If it wasn't true it would have won a Logie for comedy.
What they have done with the childcare policy is say, 'All right, we love little children.' So all of a sudden there has been an invasion of coalition ministers at childcare centres around Australia, and then what happens—
An opposition member: Scary!
Mr SHORTEN: Yes, just what a three-year-old needs: Scott Morrison beaming down on you to give you a hug! Fair's fair, you have to give points to people for trying, except for NRL analogies. They have worked out that they want to give some parents who have children between two, three and four years of age some money. That sounds all right initially, doesn't it? And they have discovered that they like the idea of women working. That is another breakthrough—sort of. But then we have the detail. These guys on the other side have the disease of trickiness. Even if they get part of a concept correct they always stuff it up with their own trickiness. The way they are going to look after child care in Australia—I do not know why anyone did not think of it beforehand, but when we step it through you will realise why no-one ever did—is that obviously children stop needing to eat, drink, wear a school uniform or do anything after the age of six. What will happen in their childcare fantasyland is that they are going to take away thousands of dollars in family payments, as the member for Hotham pointed out to the Prime Minister, from the parents of children who have reached six years of age. Why didn't the childcare experts of the world ever dream up the idea of robbing parents whose children have turned six and giving that money to the parents of children who are not yet six! The problem with that logic is that they do turn six. Here we have a policy where the only way they can pay for Tony Abbott's Mission: Impossible rescue package is by backing in last year's failed cuts. Remember, they think they were successful and they really do like them.
Of course, there is the other measure, and this is what the Prime Minister struggles with. He said, rather famously, that he believed—oh my Lord, as soon as he says he believes, you know he doesn't; that is sort of like code, in Abbott language, believe (not believe):
Providing more government benefits to employed mothers than to stay-at-home ones—
remember that, National Party? You occasionally have a little bit of vertebral fortitude—
is not only unfair—
see, he does have a passing knowledge of the word 'unfair'—
but it's going to strike many people as an attack on the traditional family.
Remember Tony Abbott, the man of principle? He, more than any other in the 20th century, 21st century and 22nd century, was going to be a politician who kept his word? He cannot even hold his own position for a matter of some years without changing.
But it does not stop there. We have looked at their childcare rescue plan. It involves funding cuts. It involves taking money from some parents to give back to others, who, by the way, will not get that money until 1 July 2017, although families will get the cut now. It is going to be funded by cuts that have not even passed the Senate. It is 'funny money'. It is taking money from some to pay to others, but it does not solve the issue. All along, one thing that working women in this country know is that, when Tony Abbott says he wants to deliver something, not only will he not deliver it; he will not keep his promises.
Let us move onto paid parental leave. Never have I seen such blatant hypocrisy. This man is a weathervane on steroids. He is like Beetlejuice—Michael Keaton is the actor—whose head could spin 360 degrees. That is what this Prime Minister is doing when it comes to paid parental leave. Let us track the zigzag pattern, the crazy quilt pattern, of the Prime Minister on paid parental leave. Remember, it was going to be introduced over his dead body. Then he said that he had had a change of heart, a Damascene conversion, to use an analogy he would be familiar with. We picked him up on it today, saying, 'Once upon a time, you were against paid parental leave and then, all of a sudden, you were going to be the world's greatest champion of paid parental leave.' He said, 'Circumstances have changed and now I've got to go back to taking 80,000 mums off paid parental leave.' What he tried to imply was that his love of the rolled-gold paid parental leave scheme for millionaires was something that he thought about way back in the dim, distant past of Tony Abbott, and that more recently, when he had a look at the books, he realised his program was over the top and silly, which, to be fair, we all knew, those opposite all knew, everyone knew.
The Prime Minister is right: we do research some of his comments for a good laugh every now and again. He did not talk about his paid parental leave scheme—his rolled-gold scheme—back in the dim, distant past when he was writing a book called Battlelines, which was really more fiction than fact, because he has not even stuck to what he said there. In a press conference last year—2014, not 2004, not 1994 and not 1954, where he seeks some of his inspiration and views—this man who would save the nation with his great confidence-building budget compared himself to Richard Nixon.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr SHORTEN: Possibly! The comparison was with Nixon when he went to China. He said:
… conservatives thought: 'My God, has he suddenly abandoned the faith?"' … "Progressives thought: 'My God, is China no longer a progressive country?'
The clear implication is that the Prime Minister of Australia said that his backing of paid parental leave was as momentous as America's recognition of China.
Well, Tony Abbott never even got off the runway, because he has dumped that policy. When it comes to paid parental leave, this is a person who has now said that the only way you can have paid parental leave in this country is that women who have already negotiated it as a term of their employment lose it, or they lose government support. Kate Carnell, the boss of the employers federation, has said, 'Well done, Tony Abbott—you are just going to lead to a strike on employers paying any of this benefit.' It will all come back to the taxpayer. Yet again, Tony Abbott, bungle, bungle, bungle.
The real thing we expect to see from the budget tonight is that the colours of this party have not changed; their intentions have not changed. You can hear the gnashing of teeth and understand their frustration at night-time, when they look at each other and ask why would the people in the Senate and Labor not simply roll over, lie doggo, and accept their unfair budget last year? The Prime Minister let the cat out of the bag in debate. He said that Labor has not gone past the 2014 budget. Nor have the Liberals. They would still put up their rotten changes to universities, with $100,000 degrees. They are still taking $80 billion out of health and schools. They still desperately want to slug pensioners—they just think that they have to change tactics. This is the mob who are no longer trying to come in the front door to do over Australian families—they are going to try to go around the side. Labor is awake to them.
Last year I believe this government in their budget were sufficiently arrogant, sufficiently full of their own hubris and puffed up with their own importance, that they believed they could say and do anything—as is their right, they believe, as the natural party of government. They got a shock last year—the Australian people and the Labor Party stood up to them. And we will do it again. We will evaluate the budget tonight. They have done all their selective leaks, they have embarrassed poor old Hockey on the way through—hung him out to dry. But tonight we will do two things. First of all we are going to play a little bit of budget bingo. Joe Hockey said the word 'fair' four times last year. I will bet you in budget bingo he will say 'fair' more than that this year. More importantly than that, we will make sure we fight for the future. That is what Labor does.
Mr PORTER (Pearce—Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) (15:24): For anyone interested in some of the economics of the actual drivers of increases in standards of living in modern Western economies, a very important report was released in 2011. That report, by the UK Institute for Fiscal Studies, was the first comprehensive study since the late 1960s of the factors that actually drive family income growth, as they apply to the UK. The lessons are very pertinent for Australia. It was interesting to listen to the Leader of the Opposition because, if this matter of public importance is about standards of living and how they might be improved and increased, particularly for low-middle income working families in Australia, that was a speech in the year of Labor ideas which was completely devoid of any new idea or any plan whatsoever for increasing the standard of living for low-middle income families. What we have before the House, in the form of the releases from the Minister for Social Services, the details of which will be provided in the budget, is a clear plan revolving around child care.
The report by the UK Institute for Fiscal Studies showed two things—first, that the drivers of increased standards of living differed somewhat across various income levels in the United Kingdom economy. Secondly, they focused on low-middle income households and looked at data over a 40-year period. What they found with respect to those low-income households was very simple and very clear: they found that the key factor in raising the living standards of low- to middle-income households over the last 40 years in the United Kingdom had been the entry of women into the workforce in large numbers. The factors that drove income growth since the late 1960s differed across income levels. In upper-income families, male wage growth had been the strong provider of substantial growth in the increase in the standard of living. But, significantly, that trend had not applied to low- to middle-income households since about 1980. Employment income for low- and middle-income households had increased, and that increase had been generated by female income earners returning to the workforce. In 1968 in the United Kingdom, 86 per cent of low- and middle-income household gross employment came from men and 14 per cent from women. By 2008-09, 63 per cent came from men and 37 per cent from women in low- and middle-income households.
Overall, incomes in the low- to middle-income households rose in real terms by about 143 pounds between 2002 and 2008. The substantial driver of that was increased female participation in the workforce. The Institute for Fiscal Studies report said that between 1968 and 2008-09 over a quarter of all the growth in household wealth—a quarter of the increases in standard of living for UK low- to middle-income households—came from women working, compared to only eight per cent of the increase in the standard of living coming from men in work. So, looking just at the increases in employment, it meant that 78 per cent of all the growth in low- and middle-income households' income, in their standard of living, came from women while income from men's work barely increased the standard of living for that cohort. So the trend, if you like, was reversed over that long period of time. Low-middle income families went from being more reliant than wealthier households on a sole male income earner to being much less reliant than wealthier households on a sole male income earner.
That report is very applicable to Australia and to other Western democracies, and it raises the same question for Australians as it does for the UK—and that is a question that this budget deals with in a very detailed way: where will the income growth for low-middle income families come from over the next decade to increase the standard of living for the men, the women and the children in those families? The coalition answer to that question is greater female workforce participation. The plan before the House in the budget to achieve that revolves around child care. The Labor answer seems to be this: business, with the range of handouts that exist, absolutely as usual—which presumes that everything that happens by way of transfer payments, whether it be FTBA or FTBB, is the perfect response for all economic circumstances to generate increases in standard of living. That just cannot be the case.
The second problem with the Labor plan, if I can be so generous as to call it that, is that it talks about assistance revolving around handouts that have no behavioural link whatsoever to increasing female participation in the workforce—none whatsoever. So what this government intends to do is to take some money that has previously been applied to a certain outcome—which was simply the transfer of the money—and use that money in a different way to engage, incentivise and make much easier increased female participation in the workforce.
As I said, in the UK the average household income almost doubled in real terms in the 40-year period considered by this report. In Australia the story is very similar: real household disposable income in 1994 was $540 a week; that had increased to $820 a week in 2014. So Australian households are $290 better off today in real terms than they were two decades ago. From looking at the best evidence and available research, it seems quite clear that that has been generated by women entering the workforce, particularly from low- to middle-income households.
What are the barriers in 2015 to further female participation in the workforce? Is it FTBB? Is it something else? Or is it the affordability and availability of child care? Is the barrier for women entering the workforce the notion that they may no longer be able to receive two payments for the one purpose, which is maternity leave? Or is the barrier the ongoing affordability of child care?
In Australia, the Productivity Commission found 165,000 respondents explicitly stated that they wanted to work more, but that there were disincentives in the present system for them to do so. Departmental qualitative research around the plan that will be in tonight's budget showed that 24 per cent of the families in the relevant cohort with children under 12 said that they would be encouraged to work more under this plan. That demonstrates that this side of the House has a plan to increase workforce participation for mothers and that historically that is the best driver of the standard of living for Australian low- and middle-income households. If we have a look at the plan: there is an extra $3.5 billion extra, and families who earn between $65,000 and $175,000 will be $30 a week better off. They will then receive an effective subsidy of 85 per cent of the cost of child care. Those above $170,000 will receive a subsidy of around the 50 per cent mark and they remain essentially at the same level that they were before this reform. So let's put to bed right now the nonsense that, somehow, this is skewed to the upper end of the household income market. It certainly is not; it is the low-to-middle income end where this is designed to create incentives and ease return to work. Below $65,000 there is a specific package tailored to children in situations of disadvantage, but the assistance in this plan is not like the assistance that we seek to make savings from. The assistance that we seek to make savings from is assistance which is not in any way connected to achieving any behavioural outcome that leads women back into the workplace, but makes the transition easier and allows the family income of those families to increase. This is a plan that actually targets public money in a way which, based on best evidence and available research, has the best chance to increase the living standards of low-to-middle income families in Australia.
Perhaps most telling in this circumstance is that the activity test is both modest and fair, but it incentivises work. All that you need to do is to provide yourself with the gateway to greater employment—starting off with eight hours a fortnight in paid work or in unpaid work in a family business, in education, in training or in some form of participation which may indeed be charitable. By providing that gateway to earn income for your family—which has been the driver of better standards of living for Australians—this plan is so far superior in its target to reach an outcome than that which the saving seeks to achieve. I will leave you with this thought: in Australia in 1983 the families where both parents worked were about 42 per cent of all families; in 2010 they were 61 per cent. Those families are better off financially. Even more importantly, perhaps, 32 per cent of single mothers were in work in 1983; today that figure is 57 per cent. They are much better off.
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (15:34): Last Sunday the Prime Minister went on live television and said that a household income of $185,000 a year is not especially high. This comment goes a long way to showing Australians just how out of touch this Prime Minister is. A study by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling studies finds that those with an income of $185,000 a year were in the top six per cent of all family incomes, including singles, this financial year. If the Prime Minister thinks that that income, which only applies to six per cent of the Australian population, is not especially high, it just goes to show how out of touch this Prime Minister is and how completely out of touch this government is. That comment is underscored by the Treasurer's comment last year that poor people do not drive cars. Here we have a Prime Minister saying that $185,000 a year is not an especially high income and Treasurer who believes that poor people do not drive cars. It just goes to show that this government does not understand how tough Australians are doing it—how tough low-to-middle income earners, pensioners and those on fixed incomes are doing it. Go to a mobile office or hold a community forum, but go out and speak to the people.
Some backbenchers got a very good sense of what was happening when they went to their electorates last Christmas. They got a very, very good sense of how out of touch this government is, particularly with the struggles that low- and middle-income earners are facing, the struggles that pensioners are facing, the struggles that vets are facing—and not just the struggles in terms of cuts to every part of their lifestyle but also all the confused messaging. There are pensioners who are terrified. I remember my mother going to the supermarket last year and she had a friend of hers come up to her and say, 'Faye, with these changes that they're making, does this mean I can't get the pension until I'm 70?' There have been how many positions on the pension? There are been how many positions on the GP tax? There have been how many positions on veterans pensions?
Government members interjecting—
Ms BRODTMANN: Not only are you making cuts in so many essential areas, which indicates that you are completely out of touch with what people in Australia are going through at the moment, but you are also confusing the bejesus out of everyone and terrifying everyone in the process.
Mr Chester: It's your scare campaign.
Ms BRODTMANN: You are the ones who have scared these people. They are completely confused. They are also doing it tough and they are struggling, and you are not listening.
In terms of this government being out of touch, I think its real blind spot is my electorate. The beloved electorate of Canberra has been hit so, so hard by this government. Since this government was elected, 17,300 Public Service jobs have been cut. Seventeen thousand three hundred Public Service jobs have been cut.
Mr McCormack interjecting—
Mr Chester interjecting—
Ms BRODTMANN: I would like to see how the members opposite me at the table, from regional centres, would feel if 8½ thousand jobs were cut from their electorates just in the last 12 months. We had the Treasurer just one month ago, at the COAG meeting, saying to the ACT Chief Minister: 'Don't worry, Chief Minister; everything's going to be okay. The worst is over.' We open the papers yesterday, and what do we see? We see the finance minister talking about not only more cuts to education and health in terms of jobs but reviews of eight government agencies, and the collapse or consolidation of other government agencies. You have already promised between 1,000 and 1,650 jobs out of Defence. This is the future that this government offers to the people of Canberra.
This government is out of touch with Australia. It is out of touch with the people of Canberra. It does not understand the tough times that the Australian people are going through, particularly those from low- and middle-income backgrounds, pensioners, veterans and those on the disability support pension. Shame on you. We will continue to fight any unfair cuts in the future and any unfair budget. (Time expired)
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (15:39): Somebody has left their reading glasses here. Probably the opposition leader threw them over here when he finished his speech, because he is a bit short-sighted! The Leader of the Opposition is a bit short-sighted! He said—
Mr Giles interjecting—
Mr McCORMACK: Be quiet. He said: 'I'd hate to see what failure looks like.' That is a quote from his speech in this matter of public importance debate: 'I'd hate to see what failure looks like.' Deputy Speaker, I know you would pull me up if I used this picture as a prop, so I am not going to show it to you, but it is what failure looks like. I will just hand it to my colleague here, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence.
Mr Chester interjecting—
Mr McCORMACK: It is the Labor front bench of the previous government; that is what failure looks like. That is what failure looks like, because Labor in government failed families, Labor in government failed small business, Labor in government failed farmers. It failed defence. It certainly failed veterans, Member for Canberra. And it failed Australia. Its legacy was debt and deficit as far as the eye can see. We have heard the Prime Minister say it many, many times: 'as far as the eye can see'.
Now, I listened to the Prime Minister closely in question time, as I always do, and I heard him talk about achieving policy which is 'right for these times'. He talked about export volumes, up seven per cent, and housing approvals, up 20 per cent, under the coalition government, and about getting Australia back on 'a credible path to surplus'. We need to be a country that 'lives within its means', he said today in question time. He said, 'I want all Australians to have the opportunity to get a job.' They are the sorts of parameters, the sorts of policy decisions, that we are taking and making to get Australia back to working, to get the economy back to ticking, after we were left in such economic malaise by those opposite. The coalition government's focus has been on strengthening economic growth, strengthening job creation and paving a realistic path back to surplus as soon as possible.
At 7.30 tonight, the Treasurer is going to stand exactly where I am standing now and deliver a strong, fair, measured and reasoned budget. He is not going to promise all sorts of things years out, without any realistic hope of achieving them—like we saw with the member for Lilley, who stood here not that long ago, on this very spot, and promised to get us back to surplus. He promised:
The four years of surpluses that I announce here tonight …
What a load of poppycock. What a load of nonsense. The country is seeing real progress, and the coalition plan is to get jobs up—and jobs are up. We need more jobs, though. We need to support families, particularly in regional areas. I am going to be followed by the member for Casey, a good member, and the members for Dobell and Banks, good members, who will talk further about our economic plans. But I would like to just highlight some of the things the Nationals are doing, in conjunction with the Liberals, to help small business and to help farmers.
Last Saturday, we saw the Prime Minister, with the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture, announce a drought assistance package for regional communities—a support package worth $333 million. I know how valued that is going to be in your seat of Maranoa and your Queensland communities, Deputy Speaker, and certainly in those of the member for Parkes. There is $35 million for shovel-ready local infrastructure and employment projects. It also includes, along with a host of other things, $25.8 million for programs to manage pest animals and weeds in drought affected areas, which is so important in those areas that produce so much of Australia's food and fibre.
I also know how hard the Assistant Minister for Employment, the member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, is working on the national rollout of the Work for the Dole, which is also playing a vital part in regional communities to help people get into jobs—to help those people whom Labor forgot into what is often their first meaningful employment, which will hopefully generate full-time work for them when the program for those particular people ends. I commend the member for Cowper for the work that he is doing. He said that, over the past 10 months, there have been some terrific activities and projects conducted as part of the Work for the Dole pilot schemes, which are now obviously being rolled out further afield. That is good. That is a really good for Australia but particularly good for regional Australia.
Tonight's budget is going to deliver further on our jobs package. It is going to make further advances on all the things that we are doing to make this country tick again. I commend the trade agreements that we have forged with South Korea, Japan and China; hopefully, we will be able to conclude one with India this year. We are getting on with the job of making this country work again.
Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (15:44): Instead of acting in the interests of Australians, this government is now acting in the interests of two people: the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.
In the wake of last year's disastrous budget the government descended into chaos and dysfunction. Literally only eight months after they had been elected by the Australian people we saw the backgrounding against particular ministers begin. Then started the leaks from cabinet, then, funnily enough, from the National Security Committee of cabinet. Then we had the incompetence of certain ministers: the Treasurer claiming, rather rudely, that poor people in Australia do not drive; and the defence minister—the former defence minister, I should add—claiming that Australian workers could not build a canoe.
Then we had the failed leadership spill, in which 39 members of the government said that they no longer wanted the Prime Minister to be Australia's Prime Minister. Then after that we had a major cabinet reshuffle. It is now not clear who the Treasurer actually is in this government and who is actually behind the announcements that are going to be made tonight.
Whilst all this was happening, Australians have continued to suffer. Unemployment has crept up to 6.2 per cent, the highest that it has been since 2002. Business and consumer confidence in Australia has crashed and that has affected domestic demand—we have seen that in our growth figures. Real incomes of Australians are growing at their lowest rate in history. The lives of several groups of Australians—students, families, pensioners and workers—have been made harder by this government. But one thing that we can say is that since this government was elected, Australians are worse off. We can say that with some certainty. Why? Because the government are more worried about their jobs than the jobs and welfare of Australians.
Tonight's budget will not be about the interests of the nation; it will be about the personal interests of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. We have a Prime Minister who is under pressure. He faced a spill motion some months ago, and he had the hide to blame the member for Berowra for putting him in that position! It is rather ironic. Then you have the Treasurer, about whom it is claimed the government whip has said to the Prime Minister: 'If the Treasurer doesn't deliver tonight in the budget, he's got to go. He'll lose the confidence of members of the government.' What a wonderful endorsement of the Treasurer on the eve of this year's budget!
One of those who knows this more than most is the member for Cook, who, under indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, does not mind referring to himself as 'ScoMo'. ScoMo is on the hunt. ScoMo wants the Treasurer's job. How do we know this? At the weekend the Treasurer was asked by Laurie Oakes in an interview a question about what is an important element of the budget, and that is child care. What was the answer by the Treasurer? I will leave that to ScoMo to tell the Australian people later on today.
Yesterday ScoMo hit the airwaves selling his budget. He was out there in the morning and at one of his 50 media engagements, ScoMo—rather gracefully—credited the work of the Treasurer and compared the budget to a rugby league analogy.
Mr McCormack: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask the member to refer to members by their correct titles.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I remind the member for Kingsford Smith that he should—
Mr Chester: Five times is enough!
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kingsford Smith has the call and he will refer to people by their titles.
Mr THISTLETHWAITE: The member for Cook rather gracefully referred to the work of the Treasurer with a rugby league analogy. And we all know that there is no higher praise that one can give an Australian alpha male than to compare him to a rugby league player! What a compliment the member for Cook gave the Treasurer. He said, when describing the budget:
It's not unlike, you know, the way that a prop forward takes the ball up. I'll be the prop forward talking it up and he can be the one who will score the try and that's what he'll be doing on budget day.
… … …
He's our Greg Bird.
For those from the southern parts of our federation who do not know who Greg Bird is: Greg Bird is currently suspended for eight weeks. So, he is sitting on the sideline—not unlike our Treasurer! And Greg Bird was recently fined for urinating on a police car on the eve of his wedding. This was his description:
It's put a dampener on our wedding weekend.
What an understatement! That is the description that the member for Cook offers of the Treasurer. That is why they are in chaos; that is why— (Time expired)
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (15:50): Well, it is budget day and, like budget day last year, we have just seen another insubstantial performance from those opposite. The Leader of the Opposition proposed his matter of public importance on the standard of living and barely mentioned it. The member for Canberra did talk about the subject briefly. But then particularly the last speaker, like all their members, did not address the topic of their own matter of public importance. Instead he came in here to practise his lines in some sort of vain competition with those behind him.
The member for Canberra, like those opposite, here on budget day is stuck in a fantasy world where they deny their past fiscal failure and they offer no solutions to the nation's problems. Just to take one example, the member for Canberra bemoaned the policy decision to increase the age pension age, as if this had never been spoken about. But she sat in a government where the ministers responsible—the former Treasurer, Mr Swan, and the former minister, Ms Macklin—said this in 2009:
Increasing the age pension age is a responsible reform to meet the challenge of an ageing population and the economic impact it will have for all Australians.
… … …
Australia must move towards a higher pension age over the next decade.
That was the announcement on budget night in 2009.
We did not hear any stories about her mother and her friend being scared shopping, based on a Labor announcement, because those opposite—
Ms Burke interjecting—
Mr TONY SMITH: The member for Chisholm, who I know very well, is not treated—no, I will not say it. But we know one thing about the member for Chisholm—and I have a soft spot for the member for Chisholm—and that is that, whenever she feels that the Labor Party is vulnerable, she interjects wildly and incomprehensibly. That is what the member for Chisholm does.
Ms Burke interjecting—
Mr TONY SMITH: There she goes again! Is the member for Chisholm speaking on this MPI?
Ms Burke interjecting—
Mr TONY SMITH: Very, very interesting. But, of course, the member for Canberra either ignored Labor's policy announcement in 2009 or she is completely ignorant of the subject. Let us take the Leader of the Opposition's matter of public importance on the standard of living. He does not talk about it, but this side of the House is focused on it. We have had a families and childcare package that those opposite have criticised but that they have no alternative to. When they were in government they pursued policies that did not work. Their solution to every problem was to borrow money and spend it in areas where there were no improvements—and child care would have to be their best example of that when it came to standard of living.
What about small business and job creation? For those who are unemployed and underemployed, a stronger economy and a job do a lot for their standard of living. But what about the 519,000 people in small business who lost their jobs when those opposite where in office? They were not worried about their standard of living. They were not worried about the standard of living of small businesses when they introduced their carbon tax, where small business got no compensation and it put their costs up and reduced their ability to be competitive and to employ. They were not worried about standard of living then. And they have had absolutely nothing to say about building a stronger enterprise-focused economy where there would be more opportunity and more jobs.
It is just hours until the budget—and with this MPI we have already seen Labor's approach. We do not have to wait until Thursday night for it; we have seen it. They will give political speeches, they will deny their fiscal failure, they will offer no solutions to the problems that exist with the budget and they will offer no innovation on their own side on how to create a stronger economy with more jobs and more support for families. Without a stronger economy, you are not going to have a stronger budget and you are not going to have an ability to do the things that we all want to do to support families, small business and the broader community. (Time expired)
Ms BURKE (Chisholm) (15:55): One year ago today, the Treasurer stood in this place and delivered Australians the most unfair and underhanded budget this country has ever seen. It was a budget aimed squarely at lowering the living standards of middle- and low-income families by cutting their benefits, increasing the cost of visiting a doctor and instituting $100,000 degrees. Thankfully, the Treasurer was unable to secure the approval of the parliament for his most horrendous measures and, one year on, the nation is still talking about the cuts that the last unfair budget failed to deliver. So I will be fascinated to see if tonight's budget actually achieves or delivers on anything.
For all my many years in this place, I have never seen a budget that has lasted 12 months. We are still talking about last year's budget. Indeed, most of the measures from last year's budget have still failed to pass the parliament. So I am not sure why we are having this budget, because last year's budget is still in abeyance—cuts that the Minister for Social Services is demanding still be passed to pay for his new childcare package. The Minister wants a $6,000 a year budget cut to families earning less than $65,000. How unfair is that? If we go by the Prime Minister's analysis, people on $65,000 are very low-income earners. If you are already doing it tough under this government, rest assured, later tonight you will be doing it tougher.
The Treasurer has been all but invisible before his second attempt tonight, and it is no surprise that Australians are looking on with cynicism and reservations. At least last time we saw him out smoking his cigar, but he has been nowhere to be seen this time. Actually, the 'treasurer in waiting' has been out working it hard.
Before the election the Prime Minister explicitly promised no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. Every one of those promises has been broken at the expense of the living standard of average Australians. If you want to talk about scare campaigns, then go out and talk to a part-pensioner at this point in the cycle. They are terrified! My office has been inundated with calls from individuals who are not sure what is going to happen to them tonight. These people are living within set budgetary constraint and they have no way of earning any extra income.
In my electorate, this government's $57 billion cut to the health budget means that Eastern Health, which runs Box Hill Hospital and the Peter James Centre, has lost $1 billion from its budget over the next decade—$1 billion just from one hospital network. And it gets worse, because Monash Health, which operates the Monash Medical Centre—an enormous hospital in my electorate—has lost $1.7 billion from its budget. These figures, produced by the Victorian Health Department, show that over the next decade the living standard of any person needing elective surgery will severely decline. But the current government say that there have been no cuts to health. Well, there have been—and they have been dramatic. With such massive cuts, there is no way that these hospitals will be able to keep up with demands and provide timely treatment for patients. I challenge the Treasurer to explain to the people in my electorate, languishing in pain on already long surgery waiting lists, how these cuts have improved their living standards.
Mr Whiteley interjecting—
Ms BURKE: My friend from Tasmania may call out, but a lot of Tasmanians attend both of these hospitals for services. He may want to explain to his own constituents why they are now going to be on much longer waiting list. The Treasurer also needs to explain how the living standards of hardworking families are improved by a freeze on Medicare rebates, which will deliver higher out-of-pocket costs to families than the original $7 GP tax, and where and how that is going to impact? It is another mean tricky thing from a government that said 'no surprises'. The Prime Minister, in his deception, has started using the word 'fairness', but the sad fact is that these cuts were true Liberal cuts in a true Liberal budget. They would not know the meaning of 'fairness' if it came up and attacked them from behind—I will not use unparliamentary language to say what I really think.
The Liberal Party cannot be trusted to protect the living standards of middle- and low-income Australians. And they cannot—as the stream of angry pensioners and retirees calling my office this week can attest to—be trusted to protect the living standards of people on fixed incomes. The Prime Minister thinks it is fair to pay for child care by taking away support for low-income families. The Prime Minister thinks it is fair to stop 46 per cent of new mums accessing paid parental leave in the way the scheme was designed because he can give nannies to some others. Perhaps the worst of all, but least surprising, is that the Prime Minister thinks it is fair to ignore Australian jobs while he tries to protect his own. (Time expired)
Mrs McNAMARA (Dobell) (16:00): Tonight the government will deliver the 2015 federal budget that will continue to deliver our responsible long-term economic plan to grow the economy and fix Labor's debt and deficit disaster.
The Leader of the Opposition wants to talk about acting in the national interest and protecting Australia's standard of living. But what does his record say? And what is his plan? The Leader of the Opposition was a senior member of the former Labor government that oversaw six years of chaos, waste and mismanagement—a government that protected the national interest by delivering higher taxes and debt and deficits as far as the eye could see. Labor turned nearly $50 billion in the bank into projected net debt worth well over $200 billion. That is the fastest deterioration in debt in dollar terms as a share of GDP in modern Australian history. It is quite an achievement—not!
They burdened Australian businesses with the world's biggest, job-destroying carbon tax and a grubby deal with the Greens. They watched as small business after small business struggled with high electricity bills and unnecessary red tape.
Sadly, the only industry to prosper under the Leader of the Opposition's time in government was that of the people smuggler. More than 50,000 people arrived illegally by boat, creating a blow-out of $11.6 billion in border protection costs. This record certainly did not protect Australia's standard of living; it eroded it. The Leader of the Opposition wants to lecture us on the responsibility of government to do the right thing by our citizens?
Our aim since day one has been to ensure that all Australians live in a strong, safe and prosperous community. Unlike members opposite, who spent six years destroying our economy, we are committed to stabilising the nation's finances and reducing debt. We are doing so because we know this is the key to building a stronger economy and a better future for all Australians. Australia is seeing real progress. Our economic plan is working. Growth is up and jobs are up. This is a budget for confidence, a budget for middle Australia. It is about encouragement to all Australians to have a go.
The government's Jobs for Families childcare package will encourage more than 240,000 families to increase their involvement in paid employment, including almost 38,000 jobless families. We are lifting Australia's standard of living with a new childcare safety net to support families who are vulnerable and disadvantaged. Our achievements demonstrate that we are almost certainly acting in the nation's interest.
Labor's projected debt and deficit has been cut in half. We are on a credible path back to surplus. Unlike the former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government—which stumbled from opinion poll to opinion poll, and spent like Craig Thomson with an HSU credit card—we are taking responsible decisions that are in the long-term interest of Australia.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mrs McNAMARA: I would love to have the opportunity to debate the opposition's plans for Australia; unfortunately, I cannot because they do not have one.
This year, 2015, was to be the year of big ideas for Labor. What have we seen come from Labor's intellectual break-out year? Two new taxes: a multinational tax and their supposedly Fairer Super Plan. Same old Labor. Labor continue to stand for higher taxes and Labor want to lift Australia's standard of living by reintroducing the world's biggest, job-destroying carbon tax. Labor want to lift Australia's standard of living by running up more debt and bigger deficits. And Labor want to lift Australia's standard of living by opening our borders and spending Australian taxpayers' money on establishing reception centres for the people smugglers.
Mr Perrett: Rubbish! Where did you get that from?
Mrs McNAMARA: What is your plan? He has not got one; he cannot answer. Australia has spoken before about Labor's failed policies, and Australia voted for a responsible government that would put the interests of those in our community ahead of the backroom, faceless men. Australia voted for a government that would protect future generations by living within our means, just as all Australians have to do. We are delivering jobs, growth and opportunity in a way that is responsible, measured and fair.
Ms Burke: How?
Mrs McNAMARA: You will find out tonight. Just listen and you might learn something, especially tonight. We want to help Australians get ahead and provide them with greater capacity to make their own decisions about their future. We have a plan and it is a good plan, and you will hear all about it tonight.
Mr GILES (Scullin) (16:05): What an instructive debate this has been! What an instructive half-hour or so we have had from government members, who have failed to engage with the basic challenge of government in setting out what they have been doing to maintain and secure the living standards of Australians! It is telling, not for the first time, that this is a government entirely concerned with looking in the rear-view mirror, looking at the past, instead of dealing with its responsibilities today and, more fundamentally, its responsibilities into the future.
Perhaps for the member for Casey there can be some excuse. He shares a couple of burdens. One is that he is a Carlton supporter, and that must be very dispiriting! I know how dispiriting that is. I can only imagine how dispiriting it must be for him to sit on the backbenches of this government as it fails to grapple with the fundamental challenges of maintaining the living standards of Australians.
The government's failure that this matter of public importance sets out is failure at two levels. It is a failure to have a credible plan for the economy. At one level this might be excusable, because the government does not seem to have any understanding of the state of Australia's economy. Are we in an emergency? Or are these times made for dullness? Perhaps I will come back to that theme of chaos and confusion in a minute. Also, the government and its members have no understanding of—and, perhaps worse, no concern about—the pressures on households, particularly those of low- and middle-income Australians. To add insult to injury, this is in a context where the Prime Minister has said: 'We are not going to repair our budget at the expense of your family budget.'
Well, let's add that to the roll call of misleading statements he has made from the time he was the opposition leader to the present day. The present debate around child care and paid parental leave exemplifies this. It shows this chaotic and dysfunctional government building on that background to have an incoherent and inconsistent approach to these fundamental policy challenges—an incoherent and inconsistent approach which is adding to the anxieties of working families in my electorate and right around Australia. And this is a government that is not really engaging with the policy challenges.
The new minister—the sometime Acting Treasurer or the Treasurer-in-waiting—looks very pleased with himself but can he answer the fundamental questions going to the three challenges in this area of social and economic policy he should be grappling with? How is he going to boost our participation rates to the level, for example, that Canada has? It is a really critical part in safeguarding our economic future. How is he going to support the needs of working families, particularly low- and middle-income families? And fundamentally—and this seems to be a point lost on members opposite—how is he going to engage with boosting the early learning of our children? How is he going to engage with that? We know that 90 per cent of brain development happens before the age of five yet the activity test which has been floated is going to put some of our most vulnerable kids at an extraordinary disadvantage before they even start primary school. This is a fundamental failing that will impact not only living standards today through the pressure on families and parents but will fundamentally undermine so many young Australians' chances of living life to their full potential.
This government is all over the shop on paid parental leave and childcare policy. The Prime Minister moved once and quickly from 'over my dead body' on PPL to it becoming his signature. And now he seems to have invented a notion of double-dipping—a notion that was clearly foreign to him this time last year when we entered this debate in very different circumstances. Of course, let's not forget that this supposed good news story on child care is to be funded by way of blackmail—the ransom note that is the cuts to family payments. It is a key part of the unfair budget that is still sitting in the Senate from this time last year, a budget that the member for Chisholm reminded us is unique in that it continues to dominate discussion in this place and in the communities we represent one year after it was introduced. It is an albatross around the Treasurer's neck and around the neck for all government members.
While members opposite talk about the failure of Labor to evidence a plan, let us be clear about this. Labor is engaging with the community on these issues around living standards. We have been listening to community members, particularly those on low- and middle-incomes—that is, not $185,000 a year, Prime Minister. We understand their concerns, particularly those on pensions and other fixed incomes, about a fair superannuation system, their concerns around managing out-of-pocket costs in health care and their concerns in family support more generally. We know and they know that fairness is not simply a four-letter word; it is about a values approach, it is about priorities and it is about having a vision of economic management that supports the concerns of families today and supports their living standards into the future. (Time expired)
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (16:10): Even by the very low standards of those opposite, this has been a particularly lacklustre performance on this MPI. I think an objective observer would agree with that. I think a part of the reason is that those opposite are completely bereft of ideas. They have been running around the country for the past year or so, distributing unfunded empathy and talking a lot about fairness. But what they have not done is come up with any alternative plans or rationale for their political philosophy other than a consistent addiction to increased taxation.
I think that lack of a rationale is really telling and really obvious when you look at the reaction to the social services minister's statements around pensions reform in the last couple of weeks. What we saw there was the minister make some difficult decisions, but important decisions which would see further benefits for people generally at the lower assets level who are on the pension—and substantial increases in many cases—but with a changed taper rate for people at the higher end of assets. You would expect those opposite to embrace such a plan, but what we saw was the opposition leader sort of squirming around trying to work out how he could oppose such a sensible plan that obviously contributed substantially to budget repair.
It is really sad when you see a politician bereft of a philosophy and a politician searching for a rationale. That is what those opposite are doing. You can only run around the country and talk about fairness for so long before people start to ask: 'What are you going to do about it?' The thing that we can draw together very consistently from those opposite is an absolute belief that more tax is a good thing. The year of ideas has consisted of two ideas, both very bad ideas and both related to taxation.
The shadow Treasurer described the first capital idea of those opposite—the misguided plan to change the thin capitalisation rules for multinational corporations—as the opening salvo in the battle of ideas. If that was the opening salvo, it was fired from a very small pop gun, because that is an idea which will raise a very small amount of money but will cause a lot of uncertainty in the corporate sector and cost substantial jobs. Their other idea was to increase superannuation taxes. So for people who have saved, who have managed to get themselves to a point of being financially solid in retirement, they said, 'We do not want you to do that; we want to increase tax on those people.' We reject that philosophy.
This tax theme we see through Labor in opposition and we see it through Labor in government. We talk a lot about the carbon tax, one of the great public policy failures of Australian history. We know that they will bring it back. The reason we know that they will bring it back is because they have said so. It is not a scare campaign; they have said it so that means you would have to think it would happen. The shadow Assistant Treasurer was shouting from the rooftops in an editorial some time ago about his love for the carbon tax and also the mining tax, which, of course, raised some three per cent of what it was budgeted to raise whilst smashing the mining industry in Western Australia in particular.
There is another, perhaps less well known, tax that the Labor Party decided to put on the economy when last in office, and that was on employee share options. Many employees, particularly in high-growth companies in the technology sector and other places, are not paid a big salary, but they are given an incentive in the form of share options. The way that works is that you basically get a piece of paper that says: 'If everything works out, this could be worth a substantial amount of money in four or five years time. It's worth nothing today.' But what Labor did, extraordinarily, was tax employees on the value of what might happen in four or five years time, even though that employee had no money today, which made these schemes in fact a disincentive for employees. Under the stewardship of the Minister for Small Business, we have gotten rid of that bad tax. We are opposed to a philosophy that says 'tax more', and that is a big difference between our parties. (Time expired)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): The discussion has concluded.
BILLS
Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill 2014
Australian River Co. Limited Bill 2015
Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015
Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2014-2015
Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2014-2015
Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2015
National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2015
Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Miscellaneous Matters) Bill 2015
Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Regulatory Levies) Amendment (Miscellaneous Matters) Bill 2015
Migration Amendment (Protection and Other Measures) Bill 2014
Public Governance and Resources Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2015
Telecommunications (Industry Levy) Amendment Bill 2014
Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation) Bill 2014
Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2015
Assent
Messages from the Governor-General reported informing the House of assent to the bills.
COMMITTEES
Membership
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) (16:15): I have received messages from the Senate informing the House that Senator Gallacher has been appointed a participating member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for the committee's inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 federal election, and the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia; informing the House that Senator Gallacher has been appointed a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories; and informing the House that Senator Gallacher has been appointed a member of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit.
BILLS
Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2015
Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims Amendment Bill 2015
Returned from Senate
Messages received from the Senate returning the bills without amendment or request.
Construction Industry Amendment (Protecting Witnesses) Bill 2015
First Reading
Bill received from the Senate and read a first time.
Ordered that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting day.
Tribunals Amalgamation Bill 2015
First Reading
Bill received from the Senate and read a first time.
Ordered that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting day.
Customs Amendment (Anti-dumping Measures) Bill (No. 1) 2015
Consideration of Senate Message
Bill returned from the Senate with amendments.
Ordered that the amendments be considered at the next sitting.
Customs Tariff (Anti-Dumping) Amendment Bill 2015
Consideration of Senate Message
Bill returned from the Senate with amendments.
Ordered that the amendments be considered at the next sitting.
COMMITTEES
Standing Committee on the Environment
Membership
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) (16:19): I have received advice from the Chief Government Whip and the Chief Opposition Whip nominating members to be supplementary members of the Standing Committee on the Environment for the purposes of the committee's inquiry into the Register of Environmental Organisations.
Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and ParliamentarySecretary to the Minister for Trade and Investment) (16:19): by leave—I move:
That Mr Christensen and Ms Claydon be appointed supplementary members of the Standing Committee on the Environment for the purpose of the committee's inquiry into the Register of Environmental Organisations.
Question agreed to.
Public Accounts and Audit Committee
Dr SOUTHCOTT (Boothby) (16:20): I ask leave of the House to make a statement on behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit concerning the draft budget estimates for the Australian National Audit Office and the Parliamentary Budget Office for 2015-16 and also for leave to present a copy of my statement.
Leave granted.
Dr SOUTHCOTT: As the committee responsible for parliamentary oversight of the Parliamentary Budget Office and the Australian National Audit Office, the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit is required by legislation to consider the draft budget estimates for each office, with the chair making recommendations to both houses of parliament. Therefore, on budget day each year, the committee makes a statement on whether, in its opinion, these offices have been given sufficient funding to carry out their respective mandates. To this end, both the PBO and the ANAO are empowered through their respective legislation to disclose their draft budget estimates to the joint committee, which the committee then considers in making any representations to the government and the two houses.
On the Parliamentary Budget Office: in accordance with the Parliamentary Service Act 1999, the committee received a copy of the PBO draft budget estimates in February this year. The PBO's resourcing is expected to total approximately $8 million for 2015-16, an increase on last year's resourcing of approximately $7.6 million. This increase in resourcing is in accordance with the supplementation provided every third year to help the PBO meet the additional demands associated with a general election. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has advised the committee that the PBO plans to draw $300,000 from its special appropriation in 2015-16 and further amounts over the forward estimates. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has also advised the committee that the PBO's resources are adequate for 2015-16 and the forward estimates period. The committee commends the PBO for its work and notes that the demand for the PBO's costings and budget analysis services continues to steadily increase. The committee endorses the proposed budget for the PBO in this financial year.
On the Australian National Audit Office: in accordance with the Public Accounts and Audit Committee Act 1951 and the Auditor-General Act 1997, the committee received a copy of the ANAO draft budget estimates in December last year. The ANAO's total revenue from government is expected to total approximately $72.9 million in 2015-16—a decrease on last financial year's revenue from government of $73.4 million. In its 2014-15 statement to the parliament on the ANAO's draft budget estimates, the committee expressed concerns regarding a range of pressures and funding uncertainty experienced by the ANAO. The committee recommended that steps be taken to place the ANAO on a more financially sustainable footing to ensure that its essential work scrutinising government processes and expenditure was properly resourced and that funding be provided to ensure that there was no further reduction in the number of performance audits conducted.
The Auditor-General has advised the committee that, despite anticipating the need to seek additional funding in the 2015-16 budget, the planned sale of Medibank and the abolition or mergers of a number of other public sector entities has provided the ANAO with the potential to absorb the current pressures on its audit programs provided it can maintain the funding of approximately $1.1 million previously allocated to these audits. The committee notes the Prime Minister's decision to allow the ANAO to maintain the funding released as a result of the planned sale of Medibank and the abolition or mergers of a number of other public sector entities.
The Auditor-General has advised the committee that the ANAO does not expect to seek supplementation in the 2015-16 budget and will instead focus on realigning this funding to meet the various pressures on its programs. The Auditor-General has advised the committee that this will allow the ANAO to deliver one additional performance audit report each of the budget and forward years: from 48 to 49 in 2015-16 year and from 47 to 48 in the next two years. The committee commends the Auditor-General and his office for maintaining its financial statements audit program and their performance audit program in a challenging fiscal environment, and will continue to support the ANAO's goal of restoring the performance audit program to its benchmark of 50 reports over time.
The committee's work surrounding the passage of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 and its focus on greater performance measurement and reporting highlights the importance of a robust system of performance reporting and auditing and the invaluable service that the ANAO provides to the parliament and the Australian people. The committee endorses the proposed budget for the ANAO in 2015-16.
In conclusion, the committee will continue to closely monitor the pressures being placed on the PBO and the ANAO and the effect that these pressures may have on their work programs. As independent authorities, the PBO and ANAO need to be sufficiently funded to fulfil their legislative requirements and adequately support the parliament. The committee appreciates the efforts of both the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor-General in maintaining strong working relationships with the parliament and particularly with this committee. They have made themselves available for regular briefings and provided invaluable advice to the committee on a variety of matters. The committee looks forward to continuing these productive relationships.
Intelligence and Security Committee
Report
Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (16:26): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the committee's report on the inquiry into the authorisation of access to telecommunications data to identify a journalist's source.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
Mr TEHAN: by leave—I am pleased to present this short report which formally concludes the committee's inquiry into the authorisation of access to telecommunications data to identify a journalist's source. The committee's inquiry followed its earlier completion of an inquiry into the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014. In its report on the bill the committee had recommended that it be tasked with undertaking a separate inquiry on the 'question of how to deal with the authorisation of a disclosure or use of telecommunications data for the purpose of determining the identity of a journalist's source'. Since the referral of that inquiry, however, amendments were made to this bill to introduce a journalist information warrant regime and to establish the position of a public interest advocate for the purpose of making submissions to the warrant issuing authority.
The amended bill also provides that the committee will be notified of the issuing of any journalist information warrants and will have the opportunity to request briefings from the Commonwealth Ombudsman or the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security on any reports produced in relation to those warrants or authorisations. The number of journalist information warrants and the number of authorisations issued under those warrants will also be included in an annual report which the committee will be able to review. The bill as amended was passed by the parliament on 26 March 2015. Given these developments, the committee determined to conclude its formal inquiry on the matter. I commend the report to the House.
Electoral Matters Committee
Report
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (16:28): On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters I present the committee's report, incorporating dissenting reports, together with a corrigendum to the report on the conduct of the 2013 federal election and matters related there to.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
Mr TONY SMITH: by leave—The loss of 1,370 Senate votes in Western Australia at the 2013 federal election was the greatest failure in the history of the Australian Electoral Commission. It was caused by multiple failures at multiple levels within the AEC. The consequences included the necessity for a re-run election at a cost of over $21 million and unprecedented damage to the reputation of and confidence in the Electoral Commission.
This report outlines the failings that contributed to the loss of votes. It assesses in detail the reforms that have already been or are in the process of being implemented within the AEC to rectify the failings and, critically, it makes a number of unanimous recommendations for further reforms aimed at delivering a more competent, accountable AEC in which Australians can have a high degree of confidence.
The committee has closely monitored and analysed the actions of the AEC in response to the Keelty report. This, together with an important body of audit work undertaken by the Australian National Audit Office and a range of issues raised in submissions, public hearings, site visits and private briefings, has been the committee's focus since it commenced its inquiry in December 2013.
The committee acknowledge the work already undertaken by the AEC; nevertheless, we have identified a number of areas where we believe further changes are necessary, including the accountability of state manager positions, the development of key performance indicators for senior service delivery staff and the commencement of a corporate culture, leadership and performance measurement reform program. The recommendations for these important additional reforms are unanimous.
If these recommendations, together with the other critical reforms that comprise new Electoral Commissioner Mr Tom Rogers's plan, are fully implemented and the AEC as an organisation comprehends and supports rather than resists the necessary changes, the committee believes there is a high probability that in the years ahead the disastrous events of 2013 will be seen as a turning point. This must be the AEC's positive ambition: to embrace reform and to undertake it in order to create the best electoral administration possible and regain the confidence of the Australian people. If it is achieved, in the future the 2013 federal election will be seen as a catalyst that shattered carelessness and complacency and put professionalism and accountability front and centre within the AEC.
Mr Rogers has consistently and candidly acknowledged the failures and the reasons for them. The committee has found Mr Rogers to be open, committed to major reform and determined to lead the required transformation within the AEC, but the government majority strongly believes that further measures are necessary to ensure the integrity of, and public confidence in, our Australian electoral system. Australians deserve to know that the electoral roll is as accurate as it can be and that those entitled to vote vote only once. The government majority recommends that the automatic enrolment provisions be amended to require confirmation by the individual that the information is accurate before they can be added to the roll or have their details updated.
The majority also recommends that voter identification requirements be introduced for the next federal election to help reduce multiple voting. At present our system of voting is essentially trust based. If a voter is prepared to be dishonest, there is nothing to stop them voting at other polling locations within an electoral division on the day either in their own name or in another elector's name. With voter identification it is obviously much harder to vote in someone else's name. For those who would seek to vote multiple times in their own name at different locations, voter identification is a major disincentive. It is an additional hurdle for voters to seek to vote more than once. The identification is provided and the traditional defence that a second or subsequent vote must have been cast by another person is diluted.
I want to place on record my thanks to the permanent members of the committee during the inquiry. I make particular mention of the members for Brand and Moore, who are here in the chamber this afternoon. I particularly want to thank the deputy chair, the member for Bruce, Mr Griffin, for his cooperation and hard work on a range of difficult and complex issues. We have worked together with the committee to reach agreement on a number of recommendations for critical electoral reform. We have not in this report agreed on every issue, as I have indicated, and we have some major differences of opinion on those issues, but let me say that our disagreements have been at all times civil and professional, as you would expect from the premier committee of the parliament.
I would like to thank all of the staff of the secretariat for their valuable work, particularly committee secretaries Glenn Worthington and Nicholas Horne and all the staff who travelled and worked directly with committee members: Siobhan Leyne, Rebecca Gordon, Jeff Norris, who was seconded from the AEC, and James Bunce. They have all provided a high level of support to the committee and their work is greatly appreciated. In the coming weeks I will advise the House on the committee's further work priorities for the year.
Mr GRAY (Brand) (16:35): by leave—I thank the member for Casey for his presentation of the 2013 federal election report and for his leadership of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and the deputy chair, the member for Bruce. I acknowledge the terrific contribution that has been made by the member for Moore to the vital work of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.
Since the early 1980s the committee has provided a largely bipartisan system for evaluating and making recommendations on the conduct of federal elections in Australia. It is a unique vehicle for doing so. It is unique in parliamentary systems to have such a facility. It is an important facility too. Given the issues of the 2013 federal election—namely, the loss of ballots in Western Australia—the role of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has never been more important.
Most of the recommendations in the final report tabled today will strengthen the already robust Australian electoral system; however, Labor members of the committee, rightly, had concerns about the intent of two recommendations, and I will specify these concerns. Firstly, it is inconceivable that with an estimated 1.5 million Australians not on the electoral roll the government majority on the committee thought it was acceptable to make it harder for the direct enrolment program to operate. Secondly, the introduction of identity requirements for casting a vote on election day will have serious implications for voter engagement for many groups of disadvantaged voters.
The report also captures the recommendations made by two interim reports regarding electronic voting and Senate reform. The electronic voting report is simply excellent. The report on Senate voting is critical. Australians have recently become aware of the damaging potential impact of electoral manipulation in the Senate. Last year's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Interim report on the inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 federal election: Senate voting practices clearly identifies threats to the integrity of Senate elections. The report highlighted voters' lack of control over the distribution of their own preferences. Above-the-line voting relies on preference flows. Ninety-six point five per cent of formal Senate votes in the last federal election were above-the-line votes. To get a box above the ballot line, a party must lodge a valid group voting ticket, which dictates the flow of its preferences. The current system has encouraged the creation of microparties that harvest and then direct preferences to each other, from voters who have no practical way of knowing where their vote will ultimately land. Parties can garner primary votes above the line and then harvest the preferences in a cascade of preference swaps.
Recent state and federal elections have seen a proliferation of microparties, highlighting the ease with which parties can register and creating a risk of manipulation of election outcomes. The inquiry by the committee concluded that the risks were real. The committee's remedies encompassed better regulation of political parties, not allowing individuals to act on behalf of multiple parties, the removal of group voting tickets, the introduction of limited optional preferential above-the-line voting, and making voting below the line simpler.
The government is yet to respond to the recommendations of the May 2014 report. I hope that this delay does not indicate a lack of resolve. It would be a travesty for Australian democracy if these careful and thought-through reforms were not in place in time for the next federal election. These reforms will significantly strengthen our democratic process by reducing the capacity for manipulation and increasing transparency in our electoral system, which, despite these concerns, still remains among the most stable and effective in the world.
These reforms are not intended to stifle or prevent the formation of new parties or the operation of existing parties. People should be encouraged to join political parties, be involved in political debates and policy formulation, and actively participate in electoral processes. However political parties that field candidates for election should meet integrity standards. These standards are reasonable and are not a reflection on our current Senate composition; they are instead a safeguard against future manipulation.
We should see the government's response to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report soon, I hope. Its response should be consistent with the committee's six recommendations. It should not break new ground, and it should attend to the clearly identified threat to the integrity of Senate elections—and that threat has been identified. If not, then Australians will be entitled to ask after the next election why we in this place did not act when we in this parliament knew and were aware of the integrity flaws and the threats to our electoral system.
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (16:40): I move:
That the House take note of the report.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (16:40): I move:
That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.
Question agreed to.
Corporations and Financial Services Committee
Report
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (16:40): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services I present the committee's report on the 2013-14 annual reports of bodies established under the ASIC Act, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.
Leave granted.
Mr COLEMAN: I rise to present a report by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services on the 2013-14 annual reports of bodies established under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act. Section 243 of the ASIC Act specifies the committee's duties, which include 'to examine each annual report that is prepared by a body established by' the ASIC Act. The report on the 2013-14 annual reports has been prepared in accordance with section 243 of the ASIC Act.
For this report, the committee examined the 2013-14 annual reports of the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, the Australian Accounting Standards Board, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board, the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee, the Financial Reporting Council and the Takeovers Panel and held a number of hearings in relation to some of those reports. The committee considered the 2013-14 annual reports to be generally satisfactory and would like to thank the organisations for their implementation of the committee's previous recommendations and their cooperation with the committee's work. I would also like to extend the committee's thanks to the secretariat staff, who so ably assisted with these various matters. I commend this report to the House.
Treaties Committee
Report
WYATT ROY (Longman) (16:42): On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties I present the committee's report entitled Report 148: Treaties tabled on 10 February 2015, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.
Leave granted.
WYATT ROY: Just briefly, before I come to the report, can I use this opportunity to place on record that the committee's thoughts are very much with the deputy chair, the member for Wills, who is recovering from a pretty serious health issue. We have no doubt that he will be back stronger than ever, hopefully pretty soon.
Today I present the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties Report 148. The report contains the committee's views on two proposed treaties: the Agreement Between Australia and the Republic of India on Social Security, and amendments to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships.
The Agreement Between Australia and the Republic of India on Social Security is another bilateral social security agreement. These agreements aim to close gaps in social security coverage for people migrating between two countries. The agreement ensures that the responsibility for providing benefits is shared. This will make it easier for people moving between Australia and India to live or work to claim benefits, including the age pension and superannuation. Such agreements are becoming increasingly important, as growing numbers of people live and work across national boundaries. In today's mobile world, it is essential that benefits are portable and that both employers and employees are not disadvantaged. While it is important to make sure that employees receive their full entitlements, employers should not be required to pay compulsory payments in both countries simultaneously.
The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships is the key international treaty addressing the problem of marine pollution from ships. A number of amendments have been made to the treaty to reduce the risk of marine pollution, reduce risk to the environment and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The amendments include making it mandatory for countries that are party to the treaty to be subject to audits to make sure they are complying with the International Maritime Organisation standards. They also require stability instruments to be fitted to all oil tankers from January 2016. This will reduce the risk of maritime incidents, such as capsizing, and the consequent potential risk of serious pollution and damage to wildlife. Other amendments will streamline the measurement of nitrogen oxide emissions, contributing to the reduction of air pollutants.
The committee supports the ratification of these two treaties. On behalf of the committee I commend the report to the House.
Joint Standing Committee on Migration
Report
Mrs MARKUS (Macquarie) (16:45): I present a corrigendum to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration inquiry into the business, innovation and investment program.
BILLS
Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment (Exit Arrangements) Bill 2015
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR (Gorton) (16:46): As I was saying earlier in this debate, the opposition has some concerns with the bill before the House. Labor's first priority is to ensure that we get this bill right. We have made clear that the design of any new scheme will take a significant period of time, and the ACT government has made a commitment to work with stakeholders, so we would say that there is sufficient time to resolve any outstanding matters and ensure certainty for those affected by the changes outlined in this bill.
Our first priority is to ensure that no workers will be worse off under the government's proposed bill. We must also be certain that this bill will not provide an incentive for others to make workers worse off. That is why we took the responsible position to refer this bill to a Senate committee for a thorough investigation. The Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee will consider the bill. The opposition are concerned that the government has not undertaken a proper consultation with all relevant stakeholders in constructing this bill. It really is important that there is a comprehensive investigation of the legislation because this government—the Abbott government—has already sought to make damaging and adverse changes to the Comcare scheme.
The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 was introduced into the parliament in March last year, and the changes proposed in that bill will directly and indirectly risk the workplace health and safety of Australian workers. It will also remove the rights of Australian workers to fair and reasonable cover when they suffer the misfortune of a work related illness or injury. Labor strongly opposes that bill. In that bill the government has included provisions in an effort to hollow out state workers' compensation schemes by opening up the Comcare scheme to private sector companies. The government has sought to do this by applying a very liberal definition of what constitutes a national employer.
We are concerned that significant large companies will flee state schemes, reducing the capacity for those schemes to properly look after workers under those schemes. We do believe that would not be in the interests of workers and certainly not be in the interests of those state based schemes. Yet in this bill, if it is constructed incorrectly, there is also a risk that the government may allow for the exiting of the Comcare scheme to an inferior scheme.
Why is this particularly important? It is important because there is yet another Comcare bill that has recently been introduced by the Abbott government. The bill makes cuts to lump sum compensation payable for permanent impairment for the vast majority of injured workers and removes the already modest pain and suffering payment; changes eligibility requirements, meaning injured workers are locked out of the scheme altogether; reduces incapacity payments; expands sanctions against workers, including removal of medical support if a worker fails to attend a medical appointment; and more, all of which is totally opposed by the opposition.
The Abbott government is asking the parliament to make a determination on a matter while it has very recently introduced a very substantial bill which potentially contains crucial information about future changes it proposes to the very same act. Given the introduction of the third substantive Comcare bill, Labor does not believe that the Senate committee inquiry into the current bill was afforded a reasonable opportunity to thoroughly investigate the interaction of this bill with the third Comcare bill.
As I referred to earlier, the ACT government has not made a determination on the makeup of any new scheme, and thus to support this legislation before that has occurred is to put the cart before the horse. We have made it very clear to this government and, indeed, to the ACT government that we would like to see some clarity and certainty about the future of coverage for workers who work for the ACT government. There is no point saying you are going to leave a scheme if you cannot advise those workers where you are going to end up. It is not reasonable or fair to suggest that you would be exiting a particular type of arrangement that covers workers if they are injured at work and not be able with any certainty to outline what entitlements they may have in any subsequent scheme. So we have got some reservations about this bill.
Of course we believe the ACT government should be making decisions for its own workforce in relation to workers compensation, including rehabilitation, but we think it is only reasonable that they make clear their intentions before this bill passes. We have said to the minister responsible in the ACT government to outline the concern, to outline the intentions, to explain whether there would be, for example, any material changes to the entitlements of those workers if injured. If that were to happen then the opposition would be supporting this bill forthwith. I do believe we have sufficient time for that to happen—for this to pass through both houses of parliament. The ACT government just needs to provide that information to the government and, indeed, to the federal opposition so that we can ensure there are no adverse consequences for this bill—allowing for that government to exit the scheme.
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (16:52): I also rise to speak about the significant changes proposed by the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment (Exit Arrangements) Bill 2015 and related bills to the Comcare scheme. Labor opposes many of these bills, as the previous speaker outlined. I want to take a moment to remind the House why it is that people like me and the workers in my electorate are opposed to the changes the government has put forward in regards to Comcare in both this bill and the other bills they have tabled previously in this House.
First of all, these bills will directly and indirectly increase the risk of workplace injuries. They will put at risk the workplace health and safety of a number of Australian workers. These bills the government has put forward in relation to Comcare, including this one, will also remove the rights of Australian workers to fair and reasonable cover when they suffer the misfortune of a workplace-related illness or injury. It struck me today that there are not many Liberal MPs standing up to speak against this bill, as we have seen with previous Comcare pills; perhaps it is because they are slightly embarrassed by what they said during their contributions to this debate previously. To demonstrate how many of the members of the government—the backbenchers—misunderstand the importance of having a strong, robust workplace health and safety scheme that supports those workers who suffer an injury at work, we cannot go past the comments that were made by the member for Hinkler during the previous debate on Comcare bills that came before the House. I will quote from the Hansard for Wednesday, 26 November 2014:
… if you leave your workplace in your lunch hour and you go down the road and perform hang-gliding—or go rock-climbing, go for a run, or play Rugby League—you would expect the employer to cover these things if you are injured.
That was his contribution to this debate. Members of the government and the backbench, including the member for Hinkler, believe that what workers do on their lunchbreak is go hang-gliding; that what workers do on their lunchbreak is go rockclimbing. Just to remind the House and any people who may not have engaged in hang-gliding: it is not something you can do on your lunchbreak. You actually have to go somewhere. You have to get up; you have to have the equipment. You have to harness yourself and then run down a hill and glide. It is a fairly extreme sport. So to suggest that workers can go hang-gliding on their lunchbreak shows how out of touch this government and members of this government are about what actually happens in Australian workplaces. I have never met a nurse, a teacher or a cleaner who has gone rockclimbing or hang-gliding on their lunchbreak. What they tend to do on their lunchbreak is sit down in the tearoom. That is why it is appropriate that we have WorkCover schemes that cover the tearoom and what happens on your lunchbreak.
The problem with the Comcare package the government has put before the House is it removes cover for workers on their lunchbreak. It is a reminder to people of how out of touch this government is when it comes to workers and workplace injuries. As the previous speaker stated, what this government tends to do—not just in this bill but in their entire package around Comcare, safety rehabilitation and compensation legislation—is to water down and weaken the rights of Australian workers. This is specifically about workers in the ACT, including the workers here at Parliament House, and the many workers within the government itself. Broadly, the government claims this bill will promote fairness and equity in the outcomes for injuries of employees by targeting the support at those who need it most. Then why on earth are they seeking to water it down in this bill? It is more rhetoric from the government. Why on earth would they take away the right to protection during your lunchbreak?
It is important, when we discuss Comcare bills, that we talk specifically about the kinds of injuries that people can receive and why it is so important we have a strong supportive workplace health and safety system and WorkCover system. Contract workers here in the ACT and throughout Australia are quite often subject to some of our most horrific workplace injuries. Recently, in my own electorate, a contract worker was taken to hospital after falling into the orchestra pit of the Ulumbarra Theatre. This happened in late March. The audiovisual contractor was undertaking work for the new Ulumbarra Theatre, which was partly funded by the federal government through the former federal government's RDAF. At the time, the person responsible for the site—the department—and the council said they would work with WorkSafe Victoria to investigate the incident, which happened in late March, to ensure that the subcontractor will be properly supported and cared for.
This is again a reminder of why we need a strong and robust workplace health and safety scheme in WorkSafe. Other injuries that commonly occur in the construction industry, including here in the ACT, are around working on cranes. Working on cranes is a dangerous profession, and a man in his 30s—again, in my part of the world—was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital with facial injuries after an accident at a New Gisborne factory on late Thursday afternoon. The WorkSafe Victoria spokesperson said to the media at the time:
… the crane's chain became snagged, causing an object to strike the man's face. WorkSafe is making inquiries.
More importantly, WorkSafe will be working with the employer to ensure that this injured worker receives their full entitlements.
With what we have going on at a state level, we need to ensure, where we have got the strongest and most supportive rules, that they are not undermined. We want to see that the ACT has, like other states—like Victoria, like New South Wales—the strongest and most comprehensive support for workers who become injured. But what we have seen from the government's package of bills around Comcare is a weakening of these rights and supports.
An another example, an injured mineworker, a father of three in Heathcote—again in my electorate—was left devastated after he was sacked from his job a few weeks after being injured at work. So it is not just about what happens when they are injured; it is about making sure that they have the proper support and recovery plans and that they are not unfairly sacked if they are injured. These are issues that have occurred just this year and last year in my electorate. Our concern is that we could see such issues across the country if we do not have a strong, robust Comcare system here in the ACT as well as interstate.
We could talk at length about the kinds of injuries that workers could have in construction or in mining. Those are the common industries that we are concerned about where injuries can occur. Some injuries that do not get as much attention are those that occur in, say, cleaning or nursing. Here at Parliament House we have a very strong team of cleaners that will be busy here working tonight after we all leave, after the budget. They are here early in the morning to make sure that our offices are clean, that we are able to enjoy a clean working space in the morning. Cleaning is one of those jobs which is very tough on the body. It is the repetitive work that you do, whether it be pushing the trolleys or whether it be the mopping. It is not like it is for us, who might go home and clean for an hour a day or a couple of hours a week. When it is your full-time job, strain is put on the body. That is why we need to make sure that, if an injury does occur in an industry like cleaning, there is a well-funded, well-supported Comcare system to support those workers.
I guess we are not surprised that this government is going after workers in the ACT, particularly our cleaners here in Parliament House, given that last year, as part of its red-tape repeal day, it proposed to cut the pay of cleaners. Whether it be cutting cleaners' pay through red-tape repeal day, repealing the Clean Start guidelines, or weakening their rights in terms of workplace health and safety, this government does not put the interests of the workers at heart. This government is more interested in the employers, which is disappointing, because it is supposed to be a government that represents all workers, all people, in Australia and not just employers.
The ACTU has raised its own concerns about this bill, as well as a number of other bills, when it comes to Comcare. The ACTU recently said that this bill:
… is a lowest common denominator approach that absolves big business their responsibility for protecting and compensating their workers if they are injured.
So, rather than our federal government showing national leadership and having the highest common denominator when it comes to workplace health and safety, when it comes to having support for workers who are injured at work, we are seeing the government go to the lowest common denominator. The ACTU went on to say:
This means less health and safety rights for workers and in the long term less viable state-based workers' compensation systems.
Workers, especially those in high-risk jobs—
as I have outlined, whether or not they are in construction—
could be excluded from compensation if they were moved onto Comcare, this is simply unacceptable …
That is why people on this side of the House continue to oppose the government's push to allow workers to be moved onto Comcare, which will strip away many of their common-law rights.
I think it is important within this debate that we focus on what is actually going on as we speak in terms of health and safety in our workplaces. Here are some of the key facts. Last year in Australia, 184 Australians—including some workers in the ACT—lost their lives at work. Those stats are from WorkSafe Australia. ABS stats show that 50 out of 1,000 workers experience a workplace injury or illness every year. That is why we need a strong and robust system in place to support these workers. The cost of workplace injuries in Australia is an estimated $60 billion, or 4.8 per cent of our GDP every year—another stat from WorkSafe Australia. These figures and facts are the reason why we need to ensure that we have a strong, robust workplace health and safety scheme.
During the break, I had the opportunity to join members of the Victorian state Labor government at the Victorian Trades Hall at a memorial that recognised Victorian workers who have lost their lives as a result of a workplace injury, an accident. It was a very moving and quite heartbreaking event to be involved in. A pair of shoes was put out for every worker that had lost their life on a Victorian worksite. My concern is that we do not want to be going to memorials like this for ACT workers. We do not want to see more and more sets of shoes being put out to acknowledge, to respect and to recognise the number of lives that are being lost every year in our workplaces.
Our government, at a federal level, needs to show leadership. It needs to go to the highest common denominator, not the lowest common denominator, when it comes to workplace health and safety and when it comes to a Comcare scheme.
I urge the government to rethink these bills, including the other bills that they have put forward, to start listening to workers and their workplace delegates, to start working with workers to ensure that they have the best possible support when they are injured, because with the best possible support they have the best opportunity of recovery and returning to work.
Mr HARTSUYKER (Cowper—Deputy Leader of the House and Assistant Minister for Employment) (17:07): In summing up, this bill will amend the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 to provide for financial and other arrangements when a Commonwealth authority exits the Comcare workers compensation scheme. The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment (Exit Arrangements) Bill 2015 will not adversely affect any employee entitlements to compensation. An employee who is injured before the employer exits the Comcare scheme will continue to be compensated under the SRC Act, as is currently the case.
There are currently no provisions in the SRC Act requiring exiting premium payers to meet rehabilitation responsibilities to their injured employees. Importantly, the bill will ensure that the employees injured before the employers exit continue to be supported by an appropriate rehabilitation authority. This will protect the rehabilitation rights of employees.
The Comcare workers compensation scheme's outstanding claims liabilities exceed the future funds available to meet these liabilities. The bill will ensure exiting employers do not leave the Comcare scheme without contributing an appropriate amount to cover their current and prospective liabilities that are not funded by premiums.
It will support current measures that Comcare has in place to restore scheme funds to adequate levels and will protect the rehabilitation rights of employees. These amendments will ensure that employers remaining in the scheme are not penalised with higher costs to meet the liabilities of employers who have left the scheme.
The government amendments to the bill are technical and include a number of measures to make it easier for Comcare and an exiting employer to manage payment of unfunded liabilities through instalments over a longer period of time. This will assist exiting employers with their cash flow as well as providing a good amount of time for estimated liabilities to settle and for Comcare's liability to be accurately determined.
The bill has been the subject of a Senate committee inquiry, and the committee recommended the bill be passed. The committee noted that maintaining the financial sustainability of the Comcare scheme through appropriate exit contributions is essential to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the scheme, to pay claims and to support injured employees. The committee was satisfied that the bill will not change any existing benefits or entitlements for injured workers.
The committee noted that the bill will ensure that employees injured before a Commonwealth authority exits the Comcare scheme will continue to receive compensation and rehabilitation under the SRC Act. The committee was persuaded the bill will ensure stability for workers, employers and the Comcare scheme when a Commonwealth authority exits the scheme.
Labor senators on the committee broadly supported the legislation, which is welcome. That said, unfortunately, submissions to the committee and contributions from opposition speakers indicate that some people and organisations completely misunderstand the effect of the exit arrangements bill.
The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment (Exit Arrangements) Bill 2015 is about the framework for premium paying Commonwealth authorities leaving the Comcare scheme; it is not about premium payers leaving the state and territory workers compensation schemes to join the Comcare scheme. The bill will not lead to a reduction in the premium pool in state and territory schemes.
Further, the exit arrangements bill will not provide an incentive for employers to leave the Comcare scheme. In fact, if the bill is not passed, the losers will be the premium payers who stay in the Comcare scheme and the employees who are injured before their employer exits the Comcare scheme who will have no rehabilitation authority to cover the costs of rehabilitation.
Finally, some members may be aware that the ACT government is considering leaving the Comcare scheme and establishing its own workers compensation scheme. This bill will ensure that if the ACT government does decide to do that, existing workers and premium payers will be protected by that decision. It will also ensure in future, if other Commonwealth authorities decide to leave the Comcare scheme, existing workers and premium payers will be protected as well. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for the bill and proposed amendments announced.
Consideration in Detail
Bill—by leave—taken as a whole.
Mr HARTSUYKER (Cowper—Deputy Leader of the House and Assistant Minister for Employment) (17:12): I present the supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill. I ask leave of the House to move government amendments (1) to (18) as circulated together.
Leave granted.
Mr HARTSUYKER: I move government amendments (1) to (18) as circulated together:
(1) Schedule 1, item 12, page 11 (after line 9), at the end of section 97CA, add:
(5) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(c), if, under subsection 97HA(5), Comcare has permitted an amount of exit contribution payable by the body corporate to be paid in instalments, assume that all of those instalments have been paid to Comcare.
(2) Schedule 1, item 12, page 12 (after line 21), at the end of section 97CB, add:
(6) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(d), if, under subsection 97HA(5), Comcare has permitted an amount of exit contribution payable by the successor to be paid in instalments, assume that all of those instalments have been paid to Comcare.
(3) Schedule 1, item 12, page 13 (after line 21), at the end of section 97CC, add:
(5) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(b), if, under subsection 97HA(5), Comcare has permitted an amount of exit contribution payable by the Australian Capital Territory to be paid in instalments, assume that all of those instalments have been paid to Comcare.
(4) Schedule 1, item 21, page 19 (line 4), omit "3 years", substitute "7 years".
(5) Schedule 1, item 40, page 25 (after line 18), after subsection 97Q(2), insert:
(2A) A determination under subsection (1) may only be made during the 7‑year period beginning at the cessation time.
(6) Schedule 1, item 40, page 26 (after line 23), after subsection 97QA(2), insert:
(2A) A determination under subsection (1) may only be made during the 7‑year period beginning at the cessation time.
(7) Schedule 1, item 40, page 27 (after line 21), after subsection 97QB(2), insert:
(2A) A determination under subsection (1) may only be made during the 7‑year period beginning at the cessation time.
(8) Schedule 1, item 40, page 27 (after line 26), after section 97QB, insert:
97QBA Refund of exit contributions to former Commonwealth authorities
(1) If:
(a) a body corporate ceases to be a Commonwealth authority at a particular time (the cessation time); and
(b) the body corporate continues in existence; and
(c) the amount that represents so much of available scheme funds as is attributable to:
(i) premiums paid by the body corporate before the cessation time; and
(ii) special premiums paid by the body corporate before the cessation time; and
(iii) interest earned on the premiums and special premiums referred to in subparagraphs (i) and (ii); and
(iv) exit contributions, or instalments of exit contributions, paid to Comcare by the body corporate after the cessation time; and
(v) interest earned on exit contributions and instalments referred to in subparagraph (iv);
exceeds Comcare's liability (if any) under this Act (including liability under actions for non‑economic loss), in respect of injuries suffered before the cessation time:
(vi) if the body corporate did not hold a licence in force under Part VIII—by employees of the body corporate; and
(vii) if the body corporate held such a licence—by employees of the body corporate in respect of whom the body corporate was not authorised to accept liability;
Comcare may make a determination that a specified amount is payable to the body corporate by way of a refund of the whole or a part of the exit contributions, or instalments of exit contributions, paid to Comcare by the body corporate.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the specified amount must be equal to or less than the excess.
(3) The specified amount is to be paid by Comcare within 28 days after the determination is made.
(4) A determination under subsection (1) may only be made during the 7‑year period beginning at the cessation time.
(5) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(c):
(a) liability includes prospective liability; and
(b) assume that Comcare's liability is not contingent on:
(i) the making of a claim for compensation; or
(ii) the giving of a notice under section 53.
(6) Comcare may defer making a determination under subsection (1) of this section in relation to the body corporate until Comcare has made a payment to the body corporate under section 97Q.
97QBB Refund of exit contributions to successors of former Commonwealth authorities
(1) If:
(a) a body corporate (the first body corporate) ceases to be a Commonwealth authority at a particular time (the cessation time); and
(b) the first body corporate ceases to exist at the cessation time; and
(c) under a law of the Commonwealth that was in force at the cessation time, another body corporate (the successor) becomes the successor in law of the liabilities of the first body corporate; and
(d) the amount that represents so much of available scheme funds as is attributable to:
(i) premiums paid by the first body corporate before the cessation time; and
(ii) special premiums paid by the first body corporate before the cessation time; and
(iii) interest earned on the premiums and special premiums referred to in subparagraphs (i) and (ii); and
(iv) exit contributions, or instalments of exit contributions, paid to Comcare by the successor after the cessation time; and
(v) interest earned on exit contributions and instalments referred to in subparagraph (iv);
exceeds Comcare's liability (if any) under this Act (including liability under actions for non‑economic loss), in respect of injuries suffered before the cessation time:
(vi) if the first body corporate did not hold a licence in force under Part VIII—by employees of the first body corporate; and
(vii) if the first body corporate held such a licence—by employees of the first body corporate in respect of whom the first body corporate was not authorised to accept liability;
Comcare may make a determination that a specified amount is payable to the successor by way of a refund of the whole or a part of the exit contributions, or instalments of exit contributions, paid to Comcare by the successor.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the specified amount must be equal to or less than the excess.
(3) The specified amount is to be paid by Comcare within 28 days after the determination is made.
(4) A determination under subsection (1) may only be made during the 7‑year period beginning at the cessation time.
(5) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(c), liability means any liability, duty or obligation, whether actual, contingent or prospective.
(6) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(d):
(a) liability includes prospective liability; and
(b) assume that Comcare's liability is not contingent on:
(i) the making of a claim for compensation; or
(ii) the giving of a notice under section 53.
(7) Comcare may defer making a determination under subsection (1) of this section in relation to the successor until Comcare has made a payment to the successor under section 97QA.
97QBC Refund of exit contributions to the Australian Capital Territory if it ceases to be a Commonwealth authority
(1) If:
(a) the Australian Capital Territory ceases to be a Commonwealth authority at a particular time (the cessation time); and
(b) the amount that represents so much of available scheme funds as is attributable to:
(i) premiums paid by the Australian Capital Territory before the cessation time; and
(ii) special premiums paid by the Australian Capital Territory before the cessation time; and
(iii) interest earned on the premiums and special premiums referred to in subparagraphs (i) and (ii); and
(iv) exit contributions, or instalments of exit contributions, paid to Comcare by the Australian Capital Territory after the cessation time; and
(v) interest earned on exit contributions and instalments referred to in subparagraph (iv);
exceeds Comcare's liability (if any) under this Act (including liability under actions for non‑economic loss), in respect of injuries suffered before the cessation time by employees of the Australian Capital Territory;
Comcare may make a determination that a specified amount is payable to the Australian Capital Territory by way of a refund of the whole or a part of the exit contributions, or instalments of exit contributions, paid to Comcare by the Australian Capital Territory.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the specified amount must be equal to or less than the excess.
(3) The specified amount is to be paid by Comcare within 28 days after the determination is made.
(4) A determination under subsection (1) may only be made during the 7‑year period beginning at the cessation time.
(5) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(b):
(a) liability includes prospective liability; and
(b) assume that Comcare's liability is not contingent on:
(i) the making of a claim for compensation; or
(ii) the giving of a notice under section 53.
(6) Comcare may defer making a determination under subsection (1) of this section until Comcare has made a payment under section 97QB.
(9) Schedule 1, item 40, page 27 (line 28), omit "or 97QB", substitute ", 97QB, 97QBA, 97QBB or 97QBC".
(10) Schedule 1, item 40, page 27 (after line 34), after section 97QC, insert:
97QD Remission of exit contributions payable by former Commonwealth authorities
(1) If:
(a) a body corporate ceases to be a Commonwealth authority at a particular time (the cessation time); and
(b) the body corporate continues in existence; and
(c) under subsection 97HA(5), Comcare has permitted an amount of exit contribution payable by the body corporate to be paid in instalments; and
(d) one or more of those instalments have not been paid; and
(e) the amount that represents so much of available scheme funds as is attributable to:
(i) premiums paid by the body corporate before the cessation time; and
(ii) special premiums paid by the body corporate before the cessation time; and
(iii) interest earned on the premiums and special premiums referred to in subparagraphs (i) and (ii); and
(iv) instalments of exit contribution paid to Comcare by the body corporate after the cessation time; and
(v) interest earned on instalments referred to in subparagraph (iv);
exceeds Comcare's liability (if any) under this Act (including liability under actions for non‑economic loss), in respect of injuries suffered before the cessation time:
(vi) if the body corporate did not hold a licence in force under Part VIII—by employees of the body corporate; and
(vii) if the body corporate held such a licence—by employees of the body corporate in respect of whom the body corporate was not authorised to accept liability;
Comcare may remit the whole or a part of the amount of any or all of the unpaid instalments.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the total amount remitted must be equal to or less than the excess.
(3) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(e):
(a) liability includes prospective liability; and
(b) assume that Comcare's liability is not contingent on:
(i) the making of a claim for compensation; or
(ii) the giving of a notice under section 53.
(4) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(e), assume that all instalments of exit contributions payable by the body corporate have been paid to Comcare.
97QE Remission of exit contributions payable by successors of former Commonwealth authorities
(1) If:
(a) a body corporate (the first body corporate) ceases to be a Commonwealth authority at a particular time (the cessation time); and
(b) the first body corporate ceases to exist at the cessation time; and
(c) under a law of the Commonwealth that was in force at the cessation time, another body corporate (the successor) becomes the successor in law of the liabilities of the first body corporate; and
(d) under subsection 97HA(5), Comcare has permitted an amount of exit contribution payable by the successor to be paid in instalments; and
(e) one or more of those instalments have not been paid; and
(f) the amount that represents so much of available scheme funds as is attributable to:
(i) premiums paid by the first body corporate before the cessation time; and
(ii) special premiums paid by the first body corporate before the cessation time; and
(iii) interest earned on the premiums and special premiums referred to in subparagraphs (i) and (ii); and
(iv) instalments of exit contribution paid to Comcare by the successor after the cessation time; and
(v) interest earned on instalments referred to in subparagraph (iv);
exceeds Comcare's liability (if any) under this Act (including liability under actions for non‑economic loss), in respect of injuries suffered before the cessation time:
(vi) if the first body corporate did not hold a licence in force under Part VIII—by employees of the first body corporate; and
(vii) if the first body corporate held such a licence—by employees of the first body corporate in respect of whom the first body corporate was not authorised to accept liability;
Comcare may remit the whole or a part of the amount of any or all of the unpaid instalments.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the total amount remitted must be equal to or less than the excess.
(3) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(c), liability means any liability, duty or obligation, whether actual, contingent or prospective.
(4) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(f):
(a) liability includes prospective liability; and
(b) assume that Comcare's liability is not contingent on:
(i) the making of a claim for compensation; or
(ii) the giving of a notice under section 53.
(5) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(f), assume that all instalments of exit contributions payable by the successor have been paid to Comcare.
97QF Remission of exit contributions payable by the Australian Capital Territory if it ceases to be a Commonwealth authority
(1) If:
(a) the Australian Capital Territory ceases to be a Commonwealth authority at a particular time (the cessation time); and
(b) under subsection 97HA(5), Comcare has permitted an amount of exit contribution payable by the Australian Capital Territory to be paid in instalments; and
(c) one or more of those instalments have not been paid; and
(d) the amount that represents so much of available scheme funds as is attributable to:
(i) premiums paid by the Australian Capital Territory before the cessation time; and
(ii) special premiums paid by the Australian Capital Territory before the cessation time; and
(iii) interest earned on the premiums and special premiums referred to in subparagraphs (i) and (ii); and
(iv) instalments of exit contribution paid to Comcare by the Australian Capital Territory after the cessation time; and
(v) interest earned on instalments referred to in subparagraph (iv);
exceeds Comcare's liability (if any) under this Act (including liability under actions for non‑economic loss), in respect of injuries suffered before the cessation time by employees of the Australian Capital Territory;
Comcare may remit the whole or a part of the amount of any or all of the unpaid instalments.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the total amount remitted must be equal to or less than the excess.
(3) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(d):
(a) liability includes prospective liability; and
(b) assume that Comcare's liability is not contingent on:
(i) the making of a claim for compensation; or
(ii) the giving of a notice under section 53.
(4) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(d), assume that all instalments of exit contributions payable by the Australian Capital Territory have been paid to Comcare.
(11) Schedule 1, item 47, page 29 (line 2), omit "and".
(12) Schedule 1, item 51, page 29 (line 15), omit "and".
(13) Schedule 1, item 55, page 29 (line 28), omit "and".
(14) Schedule 1, item 59, page 30 (line 13), omit "and".
(15) Schedule 1, page 30 (after line 13), at the end of the Schedule, add:
60 Subparagraph 97QBA(1)(c)(vi)
Omit "did not hold a licence in force under Part VIII", substitute "was not a licensee".
61 Subparagraph 97QBA(1)(c)(vii)
Omit "such a licence", substitute "a single employer licence".
62 At the end of subparagraph 97QBA(1)(c)(vii)
Add "and".
63 After subparagraph 97QBA(1)(c)(vii)
Insert:
(viii) if the body corporate was covered by a group employer licence—by employees of the body corporate in respect of whom a relevant authority for the licence was not authorised to accept liability;
(16) Schedule 1, page 30, at the end of the Schedule, add (after proposed item 63):
64 Subparagraph 97QBB(1)(d)(vi)
Omit "did not hold a licence in force under Part VIII", substitute "was not a licensee".
65 Subparagraph 97QBB(1)(d)(vii)
Omit "such a licence", substitute "a single employer licence".
66 At the end of subparagraph 97QBB(1)(d)(vii)
Add "and".
67 After subparagraph 97QBB(1)(d)(vii)
Insert:
(viii) if the first body corporate was covered by a group employer licence—by employees of the first body corporate in respect of whom a relevant authority for the licence was not authorised to accept liability;
(17) Schedule 1, page 30, at the end of the Schedule, add (after proposed item 67):
68 Subparagraph 97QD(1)(e)(vi)
Omit "did not hold a licence in force under Part VIII", substitute "was not a licensee".
69 Subparagraph 97QD(1)(e)(vii)
Omit "such a licence", substitute "a single employer licence".
70 At the end of subparagraph 97QD(1)(e)(vii)
Add "and".
71 After subparagraph 97QD(1)(e)(vii)
Insert:
(viii) if the body corporate was covered by a group employer licence—by employees of the body corporate in respect of whom a relevant authority for the licence was not authorised to accept liability;
(18) Schedule 1, page 30, at the end of the Schedule, add (after proposed item 71):
72 Subparagraph 97QE(1)(f)(vi)
Omit "did not hold a licence in force under Part VIII", substitute "was not a licensee".
73 Subparagraph 97QE(1)(f)(vii)
Omit "such a licence", substitute "a single employer licence".
74 At the end of subparagraph 97QE(1)(f)(vii)
Add "and".
75 After subparagraph 97QE(1)(f)(vii)
Insert:
(viii) if the first body corporate was covered by a group employer licence—by employees of the first body corporate in respect of whom a relevant authority for the licence was not authorised to accept liability;
Question agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Third Reading
Mr HARTSUYKER (Cowper—Deputy Leader of the House and Assistant Minister for Employment) (17:14): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
BUSINESS
Rearrangement
Mr BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (17:14): I move:
That business intervening before order of the day No. 35, government business, be postponed until a later hour this day.
Question agreed to.
CONDOLENCES
Fraser, Rt Hon. John Malcolm, AC, CH
Debate resumed on the motion:
That the House record its deep regret at the death on 20 March 2015 of the Right Honourable John Malcolm Fraser AC, CH, former member for Wannon and Prime Minister, and place on record its appreciation of his long and highly distinguished service to our nation and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.
Dr SOUTHCOTT (Boothby) (17:15): I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak on the condolence motion for the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minister of Australia.
I want to begin with something which Paul Kelly wrote about Malcolm Fraser in 1984 in his book The Hawke Ascendancy, which does chronicle those years: 'In 1977, Malcolm Fraser reached the zenith of his power in a career which would establish him as Australia's second-longest-serving Prime Minister to Sir Robert Menzies. He would soon lay claim to being the best Prime Minister produced by the Liberal Party, even including its founding father. His record as a power politician is rivalled in Australian history only by Billy Hughes and Menzies. Fraser's assets were an iron resolution, immense physical stamina, dominance of his party, extensive political management skills and his economic policy, despite the celebrated deviations from it.
The 1977 election had reaffirmed Fraser's control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate originally won in 1975. This meant he bestrode the nation, dominant in parliament, the cabinet and the Liberal Party in a manner so comprehensive that it is not likely to recur for many years.'
I read this book over 20 years ago and that portrait has always stuck with me—the fact that he was such a dominant figure in his time. I think in the years that have passed there have been so many different shades of Malcolm Fraser that people have seen that they have forgotten how dominant he was as Prime Minister in the parliament and in the Liberal Party.
I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with Dr Jim Forbes last month. Of all the parliamentarians that served with Malcolm Fraser, Jim Forbes and his wife, Margie, probably knew Malcolm the longest. They had known each other at Oxford, before Malcolm Fraser became a Prime Minister. They had known him in his early 20s.
Jim told me a story which is in the biography by Philip Ayers. Jim is one of the last surviving ministers from the Menzies government. But when Menzies stepped down and Harold Holt became Prime Minister, Harold Holt called in all of the ministers and asked them what they would want to do. Jim had been the Minister for the Army. He enjoyed being Minister for the Army but he felt as a professional politician that it was time to seek new challenges. So Harold Holt asked him, 'Who do you think should do it?' Jim said, 'What about Malcolm Fraser? He's shown an interest in this and he is chair of the backbench committee.' And Harold Holt said, 'Well, he's not an ex-serviceman.' Jim's response was, 'Look, it's now 20 years after the end of the Second World War. We do have to start bringing on people who didn't serve during the Second World War.' As a result of that conversation, Malcolm Fraser became the Minister for the Army and later Minister for Defence.
He became Prime Minister when I was in year 3—I was eight—and when he lost the election I was 15, so my immediate interests and priorities were not necessarily politics. I was very much focused on other things. I can still remember the evening when he came on to introduce Countdown. Like most schoolkids at that time, we were waiting for it and suddenly Malcolm Fraser came on and said, 'And now for something completely different: welcome to Countdown.' I remember the subject in the schoolyard and then in the classroom the next day was how disappointed we had all been that the Prime Minister was there. But then we were relieved that it was just that he was only introducing Countdown!
I was just starting to become interested in politics towards the end of the time he was in government. I can remember the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, where we won all of those gold medals in swimming. Malcolm Fraser seemed to have the knack of turning up when Australia was going to sweep the freestyle or whatever. I think it is probably something that John Howard learnt from at the Sydney Olympics, because I remember him being ever present while Australia was doing well.
I can remember seeing it on TV, that night when he had to concede defeat in the 1983 election—the tear rolling down his cheek when he was at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne. I have vague memories of elections at that time. We lived in what was then the seat of Kingston—a large part of that is now the western part of my electorate. In 1980 it was won by 120 votes; it was the second-most-marginal seat in Australia at that time and was held by Grant Chapman. We were very conscious that we lived in a marginal area. We were in an area where in the subsequent election Gordon Bilney ran against Grant Chapman and won that seat in 1983.
In 1979 I had the opportunity to come to Canberra on a school trip, as so many do. We were shown around by Ian Wilson, who was then the member for Sturt. He spent some time giving us copies of Hansard and telling us how the building worked—we were then in Old Parliament House. I think we passed him—Mr Fraser. We did not meet with him then.
There are some other things that are memories of mine. Since Mr Fraser died I have also spoken with John Bolt, who has been a mentor of mine and who rowed for Australia in the Olympics. He had a different view of Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister, because John was part of the Australian Olympic team preparing to go to Moscow and very nearly did not go. It was a very narrow vote which allowed Australian sports to make the decision to go to Moscow. That kind of sporting boycott is something that I hope we do not see again, where sports men and women, who suspend their careers and spend years of their lives training, do not end up going to the Olympics due to a political decision.
I have spoken to many people who were part of the Fraser government. During the Fraser government we saw the rise of an organised modest members' society. The issues they were considering were things like the duopoly in domestic airlines. But there was the start of a movement to see microeconomic reform and taxation reform, and I think that group did not feel that Malcolm Fraser was really their champion. I got to know John Hyde very well during my time as a member of parliament, and I think he and Malcolm Fraser had a very testy relationship during that time. John Hyde had a very clear idea of what sorts of economic reforms he would like see.
Malcolm was very dominant in the cabinet. One of the early decisions the Fraser cabinet made, in March 1976, was to proceed with the ban of cigarette and tobacco advertising on TV and on radio. One of the stories I have read about that decision—I could not immediately source it—was that they had a debate and the health minister proposed that they continue with the ban while the Minister for Posts and Communications put up an argument that they should seek further information and not continue with the ban. I read once that the vote was eight to six in favour of not continuing with the ban and then Malcolm Fraser said, 'Well, that's very clear; we will continue.' So, on a vote, the cabinet decision was clear but, as chair of cabinet, ultimately, Prime Ministers have to make their own judgement. I think his judgement on that occasion was right. It has been a very important reform and one of the reasons we have such low smoking rates now.
I admired his work with the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group and the role he played in criticising the apartheid regime in South Africa. When I worked in South Africa in 1989 and 1990, I found that many South Africans were aware of Australia's position on apartheid and many of them were aware of Malcolm Fraser's work on that. One of his legacies, which I am sure he would not be so proud of, was the role he had with Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe should have been a great country, and it is tragic to see what Mugabe has done in that country.
One of Malcom Fraser's courageous decisions was to allow more than 200,000 Vietnamese to settle in Australia. He saw, correctly, that Australia had a moral obligation to the Vietnamese with whom we had fought side-by-side in the Vietnam War. Malcolm Fraser had a Senate majority from 1975 to 1 July 1981. Since the reform of the Senate electoral system to a proportional representation system in 1949 it has been a very rare event for a government to have a Senate majority. After it ended in 1981, the next time a government had a Senate majority was during the Howard government from 2005. So it is a rare thing.
Another thing I would like to mention is the relationship between Malcolm Fraser and John Howard. In my lifetime, they have been the two dominant figures in the Liberal Party. I remember well during the 1996 election that Malcolm Fraser wrote an opinion piece which was a very strong endorsement of John Howard. It explained why Malcolm had promoted John Howard over more senior colleagues to be Treasurer in 1977. I keep going back to that and thinking how the Liberal Party and Malcolm Fraser underwent an estrangement. It is not all that long ago that, while Malcolm Fraser did not necessarily agree with everything the Liberal Party did, he was prepared to put his name to endorsing John Howard in 1996.
I had the opportunity to hear Mr Fraser speak at a Young Liberal Movement dinner in Adelaide in July 1993. It was just after the 1993 election. He was a fascinating speaker with clarity of thought. He was not a fan of Fightback!—which will not surprise anyone—but even 10 years after being Prime Minister he closely followed issues like Mabo, and his dissection of our campaign was very good.
In closing, one of the really beautiful moments at his funeral was when his granddaughter spoke about how he had adopted the iPad and how he had adopted social media and Twitter. It is almost incongruous that someone we remember so well from the seventies and eighties was so up to date with modern technology, but perhaps we should not be surprised.
Paul Kelly described how Malcolm Fraser operated as Prime Minister:
He devoured paper at work, at The Lodge, at Nareen, in cars and planes, at home and abroad … He processed information, recycled it, recalled it; the telephone was his companion in calm, conundrums and catastrophes.
But technology was only an enabler. He still was the same Malcolm Fraser. He made a real impact on this country. One of the regrets, I think, is that many of the reforms which Labor underwent in 1983 and 1984 could have been undertaken by the Liberal Party earlier—they were not, for reasons that have been well canvassed. It is appropriate that we honour his service and his contribution to the nation.
Mr SIMPKINS (Cowan) (17:31): It is nice to be able to speak about the life of former Prime Minister the Rt Hon. John Malcolm Fraser AC. I remember a fair way into Malcolm Fraser's political career was the first time I began to take some notice of politics. It was 1972, so I was eight years old at the time. My father was quite left orientated—and in fact my family was also, at least around my father—a real supporter of Gough Whitlam.
So 2 December 1972 was an interesting moment. The TV was on and my father was highly excited about the election of Edward Gough Whitlam. It was an interesting time; there is no doubt about it. There was much promise and hope. My father saw it as a very popular thing. Obviously, if he were still alive, he and I would see things entirely differently from each other. But it was an exciting time, and it is interesting to think about what changed in just those three years. And I will speak a little bit about that.
Malcolm Fraser's career in politics started way before that. He was elected as the member for Wannon, and then he rose to be a cabinet minister. Much has been said as well about him accusing Prime Minister Gorton of interfering in his portfolio and how that helped to weaken and bring down Gorton. Fraser returned to the cabinet under Prime Minister McMahon, but it was not long after that, at the end of 1972, that the Whitlam government was elected.
It was after the re-election of the Whitlam government in 1974 that Malcolm Fraser eventually rose to become leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party and, therefore, opposition leader. Then came the series of events that are commonly known as 'the Dismissal', which took place in 1975.
At this time I was 11 and I remember the significant media coverage of those events—not so much the lead-up, not so much the blocking of supply and the reasons and events behind that, but certainly that moment when Gough Whitlam emerged on the stairs of Old Parliament House. There had been the announcement from the Governor-General's aide saying that Prime Minister Gough Whitlam had effectively been sacked and that Malcolm Fraser had been appointed as caretaker Prime Minister. Then there was Gough Whitlam's speech. And there were hundreds there. By the looks of it there were many hundreds of people in front of Old Parliament House. After that, there were a number of protests around the country in outrage. It looked like a lot of people were greatly concerned by what had happened—the politics and the practicalities of what actually happened.
But it was in the election that followed the dismissal that the biggest majority in, I believe, parliamentary history was achieved—a 55-seat majority. And, obviously, if everyone in Australia had been concerned and outraged by Gough Whitlam's dismissal, they certainly did not vote that way in the subsequent election. Malcolm Fraser went on to lead a coalition government for years to come—until 1983, and with great success.
In many ways, particularly on this side, we look upon the years since—the more recent years—and we tend to concentrate far too much on what the Hon. Malcolm Fraser said and did in those years since. He did some simply outstanding things as Prime Minister of this country, and we should always remember that. The member for Boothby referred to his foreign policy activities; to oppose apartheid was a very important thing. What happened with Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe was not such a good outcome; there is no doubt about that.
But I would particularly like to concentrate on his work to allow Vietnamese refugees to come to this country. Whilst we should remember that there were a number of boats that arrived in Australia, the vast majority of Vietnamese people left Vietnam by boat but ended up in refugee camps in the region. Hong Kong, for instance, had thousands of Vietnamese refugees.
When we look upon what Malcolm Fraser actually did, he established a Vietnamese refugee intake for this country. We think now about what fabulous contributions Vietnamese Australians have made in the years since, certainly in the electorate of Cowan. In my seat of Cowan, I have in excess of 3,500 people of Vietnamese origin, including many shopkeepers and professionals. The head of the Vietnamese community, Dr Nguyen, is a very prominent general practitioner in Perth. There are many professionals amongst Vietnamese Australians in my electorate. Really, they owe all that to the good grace and the foresight of Malcolm Fraser. I certainly pay tribute to him. Much has been said about the previous Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam's, very negative attitude to the Vietnamese. It is no wonder really that—
Ms MacTiernan: You know it was a bipartisanship that was offered to Mr Fraser.
Mr SIMPKINS: There is no doubt. On the record, Member for Perth, you can talk about whatever you like, but the reality was—
Ms MacTiernan: The reality is you cannot help yourself.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ): The member for Perth will be silent.
Mr SIMPKINS: I will not go into the negativity of what Gough Whitlam had to say. Fortunately it was not shared by Malcolm Fraser. It was great to have Malcolm Fraser make that sort of effort for Vietnamese Australians. At the time of Malcolm Fraser's funeral, the Vietnamese Australians were prominent in their acknowledgement of what Malcolm Fraser did for them. It was a good moment in Australia's history. Again, I pay tribute to the work that Malcolm Fraser did to ensure that those people were given safety.
As I said, we often look at the different aspects of someone's life when they have been in public life for so much of their lives. Often some regard as negativity the things we did not like about what somebody did during their lives. But we should never forget that there was great work done as well. There was highly positive and important work done nationally and internationally.
We have to remember that Malcolm Fraser, the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia, was a great Prime Minister. He did some great, important work for our nation and there is no doubt that we should remember him fondly and we should remember him always as a great Australian.
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (17:40): I never met Malcolm Fraser, but, like all of us who have participated in this debate, I was touched by and well aware of his remarkable life. I need not recount all of the successes of that life; that has been done by others. I do not feel that I can add much to the economic debates of the seventies and eighties; I was not there. But I can observe that Malcolm Fraser showed remarkable leadership on the most important issue of the second half of the twentieth century: the defeat of the evil of communism.
Sometimes we forget that in the 1970s it was not fashionable to call Soviet communism for the evil that it was. In the seventies, detente with the Soviets was more than a fashion: it was the accepted wisdom. Presidents Nixon and Ford, for understandable reasons, sought to accommodate the Soviet presence rather than confront it. There was a near consensus in the United States, even among conservative Republicans, that the USSR was here to stay. In that decade, the West moved dangerously close to accommodations with the USSR which would have helped to ensure its ongoing survival.
One of Malcolm Fraser's first acts was to rescind Australia's recognition of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as part of the Soviet Union—a decision which had been made in the previous parliament. He correctly recognised that accommodation of the Soviet Union's expansionism was not in the interests of Australia or the wider world. In June 1976, Mr Fraser gave an eloquent speech in this place about the dangers of the Soviet Union. In that speech, he noted that, understandably, 'There is a yearning in the world for peace and security.' But he warned that this yearning should never obscure our view of the hard facts. In that June 1976 speech, he observed that in those times 'unrealistic notions that an age of peace and stability had arrived encouraged a neglect of power realities'. He worried that detente could lead to an overall weakening of the West's position, and said:
…the primary concern is an international environment which could progressively limit the capacities of Australia, her friends, and allies, to advance their interests and ideals, which reduces options, which almost imperceptibly weakens the capacity to pursue our interests and advance the cause of human dignity.
Again, with the benefit of hindsight looking back some 26 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, those words may not appear remarkable. But in 1976 it was not the conventional wisdom that anything other than containment could be pursued as a policy towards the Soviet Union. Containment, as I said, understandable though it was as a policy, also had the very real potential of helping to perpetuate that most evil of systems. In that same speech, Mr Fraser made it clear where he stood on the threat of communism. He said:
The time has come to expect a sign from the USSR that it understands this and that it is serious about reaching global accommodation with the West. A tangible signal is required from the USSR in the form of a restraint in its military expansion. The pace is being set by the USSR, not by the US.
And again, in 1976, that was very much the case. It was only in the 1980s that the Americans really began to catch up and then exceed the pace of development of the military capacity of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 made it very clear that Mr Fraser's concerns about the intentions of the USSR were entirely valid. In supporting President Carter's call for a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, of course Malcolm Fraser upset and enraged many Australians, including many Australians involved in sporting fields. But we can only judge a leader by their times, and in 1980 the boycott became symbolic of a hard line against the Soviets. The proposed boycott might have been a mistake; the hard line most certainly was not. I believe that it was the ultimate taking of a hard line by the West which led to the demise of the Soviet Union, and Malcolm Fraser in his public statements and in his policies in the late seventies spoke for a course that was consistent with that.
His abhorrence for communism was also seen in his acceptance of Vietnamese refugees. In the discussion about Mr Fraser's legacy, there has been a lot of debate about whether he was liberal or conservative or a combination of the two. I think that, when you look at his approach to Vietnam, you can see elements of both, strands of both philosophies, because it was liberal to care about the human rights of refugees in Vietnam; it was conservative to do something about it, and 56,000 people benefited from that very practical demonstration of compassion. Many of those people and indeed their descendants live in my electorate of Banks. As the member for Cowan said previously, the Vietnamese community right around Australia holds incredibly deep affection for the memory of Malcolm Fraser because he enabled tens of thousands of people to flee an appalling rule and come to our wonderful country.
I am pleased to have been able to contribute to this debate, and I pass on my condolences to Mr Fraser's family. I certainly think it is important that we all remember his legacy in this parliament and the strong stand he took for freedom in his period of prime ministership.
Mrs ANDREWS (McPherson—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Science) (17:48): I rise to speak on the condolence motion in respect of the death of Australia's 22nd Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, on 20 March. Malcolm Fraser led the country in a time of great change. While not every decision was applauded, the enduring legacy of many of his decisions is demonstrative of his efforts to truly act in the best interests of Australia.
In a clear demonstration of his connection to the Australian public, he led the Liberal-Country Party coalition to the greatest win in Australian political history, winning 91 seats out of 127 in the House of Representatives. The Australian people had sent a very clear message about what they wanted for their future.
Malcolm Fraser restored economically responsible government and was determined to restore Australia's economic fortunes for future generations.
In my home state of Queensland, Malcolm Fraser declared the Great Barrier Reef area a marine park, prohibited the mining of sand on Fraser Island and banned whaling in Australian waters. Under his leadership five properties were placed on the World Heritage List: the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, the Willandra Lakes, Lord Howe Island and south-west Tasmania.
In building a fairer, safer Australia, Malcolm Fraser established the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Freedom of information laws were enacted, and the Australian Federal Police was established.
Families too benefited from Fraser's time as Prime Minister. The introduction of family allowance provided direct help for mothers and families. The family income supplement was introduced, along with the lone fathers benefit, and the Office of Child Care was established. Pensioners benefited from a new pensioner housing scheme. Their pensions were automatically indexed, and the means test was replaced by a simpler income test.
His multicultural legacy is so deeply woven into the Australian culture that it is impossible to imagine what our communities would look like without his influence. It is fitting that, having just celebrated Harmony Day on 21 March, we reflect on the influence his strong multicultural efforts had on the fabric of our country. He was instrumental in resettling tens of thousands of Vietnamese people in Australia and established the Institute of Multicultural Affairs. The establishment of the special broadcasting system was instrumental in assimilating the many varied cultures with Australia's, and he introduced the child migrant education program. The result today is communities which are rich, vibrant places, and Australia is proudly renowned for its multiculturalism.
Australia is also known for its athletes, and under Malcolm Fraser's leadership the Australian Institute of Sport was established. The AIS is responsible for the delivery of Australia's international sporting success, and approximately 700 athletes now receive scholarships from the institute each year. Thirty-four years after he officially opened the centre, Malcolm Fraser's legacy continues through the hundreds of athletes who have world-class facilities at their fingertips.
And the building we are all proudly standing in today was approved by Malcolm Fraser in 1978.
Malcolm Fraser's prime ministerial role may have come to an end in 1983, but each and every Australian today experiences the ripples of his leadership when they walk down the street, call on the Commonwealth Ombudsman, take a holiday to the reef or cheer Australian athletes at the Olympics. Malcolm Fraser's contribution to our country is humbling, and I am honoured to be able to speak of his legacy today. My thoughts are with his wife, Tamie, and the Fraser family at this time.
Mr LAUNDY (Reid) (17:52): The sad passing of Malcolm Fraser has provided an opportunity for much reflection and soul-searching in Australian politics. There is no doubt he was a giant of a man who over the course of his life had been both celebrated and criticised by almost the entire breadth of the political spectrum. In his condolence motion, the Prime Minister summed up the mood in parliament when he stated:
Our challenge is not to say goodbye; it is to be more magnanimous in his death than we were in his life and to acknowledge this giant, who was surely one of us.
Many tributes and memorial speeches have been written since Fraser's passing, and most have covered the highlights of his career more eloquently than I could ever hope to do. But what I would like to see become the focus of the discussion going forward—and one I hope to start—is how we might emulate Fraser's vision for this country in the future. To put my position most clearly, let me state that on matters of human rights, multiculturalism, racial equality, racial discrimination and asylum seekers I stand with Malcolm Fraser. I am proud to be a part of the modern day broad church they call the Liberal Party; a dichotomy of staunchly conservative economic principles and, for me, a strong sense of social justice resulting from my Christian beliefs and upbringing. That is certainly not to say that I agree with everything Fraser has ever stated on the above topics, but the beliefs he stood for are the ones that I hope will play a more central role in our thinking into the future for the benefit of both the Liberal Party and Australia.
In 1977 the Fraser government adopted a formal policy for a humanitarian commitment to admit refugees for resettlement, resulting in one of the most generous per capita humanitarian intake programs in the world and nearly 50,000 Vietnamese refugees being welcomed to our shores by 1979. The economic and cultural benefits of his embrace of immigration, humanitarianism and multiculturalism are still being seen today nearly 40 years on. I strongly believe the same benefits would be seen in another 40 years with a more ambitious policy in this area. I mention 40 years, as the 2015 Intergenerational report has just recently been released. The IGR is a social compact between generations, and what it aims to do is to raise our minds from the immediate policy cycle and look down the road to see what the country will look like in four decades. It is interesting to note that in this report net migration is forecast at 215,000 per annum, and as part of that figure the humanitarian intake covers 13,750 places growing to 18,750 in the next four years.
According to the UN human rights commission there were 13 million refugees and 46.3 million persons of concern globally by mid-2014. Many of these people are fleeing war and conflicts; some of which involve Australian troops. The need for humanitarian assistance has never been stronger. There have been various attempts to have a discussion on this policy over the years. Fraser himself wrote a submission to the government in 2012 arguing that the annual humanitarian intake should be increased to 25,000 and that this could be done without the need for legislative change.
Looking into the details and the migration assumptions of the IGR we see a strong economic case for increasing migration levels as well—the way that we have seen in the 40 years since Fraser changed this. I have seen, like Fraser saw in you, the eagerness to participate in the communities in my electorate of people coming here under humanitarian visas; the appreciation of families who were a few short years ago facing death or torture on a daily basis; and the determination and giving nature of refugees who, having only settled here recently themselves, have set up charitable organisations to assist others in our communities that are in need of assistance.
I refer all the way back to Fraser's inaugural address to the Institute of Multicultural Affairs in 1981. There are points of that speech that ring just as true today. He said:
Multiculturalism is about diversity, not division—it is about interaction not isolation.
In the same speech Fraser also pointed out:
It is perhaps the greatest failure of all to be blinded to real possibilities by myth and prejudice.
I have not just seen the possibilities but also the real results in my electorate of Reid and across Western Sydney of the policy positions that the visionary Malcolm Fraser took. I hope that in my time here in parliament I may in some way push the debate to consider topics that we at this point in the political cycle consider taboo. I thank you very much, and I honour Malcom Fraser's legacy.
Debate adjourned.
Sitting suspended from 17:57 to 19:30
BILLS
Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016
First Reading
Message from the Governor-General transmitting particulars of proposed expenditure and recommending appropriation announced.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Hockey.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (19:31): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Tonight I am speaking directly to you the people of Australia. I want to inform you of the next steps in the government’s plan to strengthen our nation’s economy.
As we all know, over the past 12 months Australia has had to deal with its fair share of challenges.
We have stared down terrorist events in Sydney and in Melbourne.
We have had to deal with a terrible drought in Queensland and New South Wales.
On the economic front, iron ore prices have fallen dramatically and the recovery in the global economy has been weaker than expected.
But I say to you, the economic plan laid down by this government more than a year ago is in place and it is helping us to deal with these challenges.
Through careful planning, we are successfully navigating the difficult transition from a mining investment boom to one of broader based growth across our economy.
In the past 12 months, we have coped well with weaker than expected global demand, lower commodity prices and falling revenue.
Even in the face of the largest fall in our terms of trade in half a century, which has contributed to a significant fall in tax receipts, our economic plan has helped Australia to have one of the fastest growing economies in the developed world.
I can report tonight that despite the headwinds, our timetable back to a budget surplus is unchanged from last year.
We inherited $123 billion of deficits when we came to office. We have now brought that down to $82 billion over the next four years.
This is despite the fact that we have lost $90 billion in expected tax revenue over that same period.
A $40 billion improvement in the bottom line is good, but we need to do more.
On a daily basis, the government borrows $96 million just to pay the bills, which is down from the $133 million a day that we inherited from the previous government.
So, today, we have taken steps to continue repairing the budget with sensible savings and with a prudent approach to spending. We are redirecting funding to areas such as small business, child care and infrastructure which will boost growth and create jobs.
At the same time that we have been repairing the budget, we have overseen a strengthening of growth in employment, housing construction, retail trade and in exports.
This is not an accident.
Since we came to government, we have abolished the job-destroying carbon tax and we have abolished the job-destroying mining tax.
We have helped create a quarter of a million new jobs and there is more to come—a lot more to come.
We have abolished 50,000 pages of regulation and red tape, which was costing our economy nearly $2½ billion a year.
We are rolling out the biggest infrastructure program in Australia’s history, with new road and freight corridors being built right across the country.
We have helped to bring down the cost of living. Australians today are paying less for their electricity and less on their mortgages.
I say again, our economic plan is working and things are getting better.
A lower Australian dollar is now providing a boost to sectors like manufacturing in South Australia and Victoria, and tourism and education in Queensland.
On election night, the Prime Minister declared that Australia was back open for business. His words have been proven true. Since then, we have seen a significant increase in approved foreign investment applications in Australia, up 23 per cent in the last year alone.
The world has expressed its growing confidence in Australia’s economic future, and I too share that optimism about our future.
This budget is the next step in our economic plan.
The budget empowers small business to invest, grow and create jobs.
This budget gives Australians the opportunity and the freedom to participate in the workforce, no matter what their circumstances.
This budget continues to implement our plan to build new roads, new rail and new infrastructure that will generate new growth opportunities across all parts of Australia, from our cities to our regional areas, from Tasmania to our northern frontier.
A great economic opportunity
Madam Speaker, the global economy is turning for the better.
The United States is back to near full employment, Europe is looking a little stronger, and Japan is finally starting to grow.
And our biggest trading partner, China, continues to grow at nearly seven per cent, despite a recent slowdown.
With more than 1.3 billion consumers living in China, the demand for our exports will continue to grow.
For every dollar we spend buying Chinese goods and services, the Chinese spend two dollars buying our goods and services.
We are the big winners out of that relationship.
Each year, we send enough iron ore to China to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge from Sydney to Perth and back to Sydney.
And in the next five years, we will become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. Together with our annual exports of coal, this is enough energy to power Tokyo, Singapore and Mumbai for an entire year.
And while the prices are lower, and we wish those commodity prices were higher, the opportunities from Asia for our resources are enormous.
People ask me where the future jobs are going to come from. Well, consider this: if we could lift our service exports like higher education, tourism, health care and financial services to just half the level of our commodity exports, it would add $50 billion to our economy every year.
That is why, in order to open that door, we are investing $6 billion in new trade agreements with China, Korea and Japan. And we are expanding that to India, which is the fastest growing economy in the world, but still a very small trading partner of Australia.
Australian based businesses, exporting our own home-grown skills, in everything from advanced manufacturing to services, will be the big drivers of wealth creation and job creation over the next decade.
This is the growth opportunity that Australia has been patiently waiting for, and it is here now and it is available now.
So as part of our economic plan we want to do more to help business, particularly small business, take advantage of these opportunities.
Energising small business
I, like so many of my colleagues, grew up in a small business family.
That small business put a roof over our heads. It paid the bills. It gave all of the family a chance at a better life.
Small business is often a family business; a business of brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, parents and children. And for those who work in a small business, who are not related, well, they often become family.
Our future growth will come from growing small business into big business.
Every big company in the world started small.
Every big idea in the world came from just one person or a handful of people working together.
That is why tonight, I am announcing a package of measures that will make a genuine and permanent difference to small business in Australia.
To start, every small business will get a tax cut. We are giving you back more of your own money.
From 1 July this year, small companies with annual turnover of less than $2 million will have their tax rate lowered, from 30 per cent to 28½ per cent.
This is the lowest small business company tax rate in almost 50 years.
Most small businesses are not run as companies. So we will also give an annual five per cent tax discount of up to $1,000 a year for unincorporated businesses.
We are the only government that will deliver tax cuts for small business, because we want small business to grow and employ more Australians.
But we recognise that small business, in order to succeed, needs better cashflow and better tools for innovation as well.
So I announce that, from 7:30pm tonight, small business can claim an immediate tax deduction for each and every item they purchase up to $20,000.
From tonight, it can be instantly written off to reduce your tax liability.
And this will benefit the 96 per cent of Australian businesses—more than two million of them—that have a turnover of less than $2 million a year.
This will be of enormous benefit to their bottom line and help businesses with their cashflow.
It means innovation.
It means jobs.
It means more money to invest and grow your business.
If you run a cafe, it might be new kitchen equipment, or new tables and chairs.
If you are a tradie, it might be new tools or a computer for the home office.
Cars and vans, kitchens or machinery, anything under $20,000, is immediately 100 per cent tax deductible from tonight.
We also want Australians to start a new business, and we want them to grow.
Why?
Because new businesses create new jobs.
That is why we will ease the financial strain by allowing business owners to immediately deduct the costs incurred when starting up a new business, or receive tax relief when restructuring their existing business.
In addition, we are expanding the tax concessions for employee share schemes, to make it easier for small start-up companies to attract the skills and talent they need to grow.
Unlike the old system, under the old government, employees will not have to pay tax on their shares until they actually receive a financial benefit from those shares.
This is great for workers and it is great for innovative start-ups.
And to help small business grow, we are facilitating new opportunities for crowdsource funding, making it easier for small investors to marry up with growing small businesses.
And, in a further new policy initiative, which is just common sense in the digital age, we are abolishing fringe benefits tax on all portable electronic devices used for work, like mobile phones, laptops and tablets.
We need to keep up with developments in the new digital economy. Accordingly, the government is investing $255 million to make your dealings with the Tax Office, Centrelink, Medicare and other government agencies easier, simpler and faster.
Farmers and regional communities
In many ways farmers are the most resilient of all Australians and they are also our best environmentalists.
They have to deal with the varied conditions of a big land, fierce global trade and ever-increasing competition.
At the moment, we have parts of our country that remain in drought. As such, we are committing over $300 million to help them get through these tough times.
Equally important, as part of our economic plan, we need to start preparing for the droughts beyond today.
So all farmers will get an immediate tax deduction for new investment in water facilities, and a three-year depreciation allowance for all capital expenditure on fodder storage assets.
In addition, all farmers will be able to fully deduct the cost of new fencing from their tax bill. This initiative will help to improve productivity and environmental management of the land.
Over the next few weeks, after further discussion with farmers, we will be releasing more details about our plans to strengthen agricultural production across Australia.
Investing in the future
This is a budget that unleashes our nation’s potential.
An extraordinary area of untapped promise is Australia’s north. This is an exciting frontier for economic development that is filled with abundant resources and talented people.
Its tropical climate is shared with two-thirds of the world’s population, and of course it is closer to our key trading markets than any other part of our country.
But the north needs new infrastructure to get things moving. We need to build in order to grow.
I announce tonight a new $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, which is the first major step in our plan for our great north.
We will partner with the private sector and governments of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland to provide large concessional loans for the construction of ports, pipelines, electricity and water infrastructure that will open our northern frontier for business.
This commitment to building a bigger nation adds to the record $50 billion in transport infrastructure we announced in last year’s budget—infrastructure that is now, as I speak, under construction.
Through this new investment, we are laying down strong foundations to get Australia ready for its economic future.
Families and child care
Madam Speaker, a nation that lives as a family must help to strengthen and support all of its families.
Next year, we will spend $38 billion to support families, which includes more than $7 billion on child care.
Australian parents work hard to juggle the demands of modern life.
It is a difficult balancing act, I know.
Just weeks after coming to government in 2013, I initiated a Productivity Commission inquiry into child care. Since that time, we have consulted widely and as a result we are allocating an additional $3.5 billion to reform the childcare system.
We want to give parents a choice about work, and by investing this money we are responding to the demands of 165,000 parents who want to work more but are prevented from doing so by the current costly and complex scheme.
Our reforms will make the system simpler, and ensure child care is more affordable, accessible and flexible.
Assisting job seekers
Madam Speaker, this government knows there are many Australians who want a job and just cannot get one. As part of our economic plan, we are doing more to help.
The level of youth unemployment in Australia is too high.
So, tonight, I announce this government will invest more than $330 million to help young and disadvantaged Australians get their start.
This will include a new $212 million Youth Transition to Work program that will fund community workers, who are on the ground in high youth unemployment areas.
Furthermore, there will be an additional $106 million of intensive support trials for job seekers of all ages, who are facing the most significant barriers to employment.
We are also improving the national work experience program, so that 6,000 people can get genuine work experience in a real workplace.
Whether you are young or old and no matter where you live, we want all Australians to have the opportunity to get a job and to stay in a job.
This budget will have a $1.2 billion national wage subsidy pool to target long-term unemployment. Following consultations across the community, we are reshaping the pool, including the Restart program for older workers, to ensure that the subsidies are available when and where they are most needed.
A better retirement
Madam Speaker, I want to reassure all Australian workers that they can have confidence in their retirement plans under this government.
There will be no new taxes on superannuation under this government.
And the age pension will continue to increase, twice a year, this year and every year at the highest available indexation rate.
The age pension is our budget’s biggest item of expenditure, $44 billion a year. That is more than 10 per cent of all government spending.
The age pension is a critically important safety net for many Australians.
That is why as our population ages, we need to ensure the pension is sustainable and affordable.
So from 1 January 2017, we will make changes that benefit pensioners with fewer assets beyond the family home. But we will also tighten eligibility for those pensioners with higher levels of assets.
Importantly, anyone who currently has a pensioner concession card will continue to receive a concession card that provides the same benefits, such as subsidised utilities and transport, bulk-billing and cheaper PBS prescription medicines.
These measures are all intended to provide security and certainty for older Australians in the years ahead.
A stronger health system
Madam Speaker, we are building a stronger and more sustainable health system.
The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme has, for over 60 years, given Australians affordable and reliable access to a wide range of drugs.
In this budget, the government continues its commitment to new listings on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme at a total cost of $1.6 billion.
To give you one example, around 1,000 people will now benefit each year from subsidised access to better treatments for certain types of melanoma. Some of these treatments have until now cost up to $131,000 per course of therapy. Now they are accessible to all Australians.
It is however not enough to subsidise existing drugs.
We need to find the next generation of treatments and cures.
Last year, I announced the creation of the Medical Research Future Fund, which will become the biggest medical research endowment fund in the world. Starting this year, and over the next four years, the government will distribute $400 million from this fund to help our best and brightest medical researchers develop the drugs and cures for the future.
Keeping Australians safe
Madam Speaker, the highest responsibility of any government, any government, is the safety and security of its citizens.
When it comes to national security there can be no shortcuts.
This year, we will commit a further $1.2 billion to make Australia safe and secure. This builds on the $1 billion of extra funding we committed last year.
This is an essential investment for our nation and it is working.
As we know from events as recent as last weekend, the more work we do, the more likely we can prevent tragic incidents from happening in our community.
The threat of terrorism is rising and ever evolving and our response must be swift and uncompromising.
We must have the best counterterrorism capabilities available.
Tonight the government is committing an extra $450 million for our intelligence capabilities to ensure that we have the very best equipment and skills necessary to keep our communities safe.
Overseas, our military personnel are leading the fight against terrorism.
The government is providing $750 million for military operations this year, including our efforts to disrupt, degrade and ultimately destroy D’aesh in Iraq.
To help pay for this, our tough stand on border protection is delivering a dividend.
Our border protection policies have stopped the boats and they have saved lives. As a result, we are saving more than $500 million from closing unnecessary detention centres and we are saving on the costs of processing new boat arrivals.
Levelling the playing field
Fairness is essential to the integrity of our taxation system.
So I say to all Australians, rather than introducing new taxes on you, we simply want people or companies who are avoiding paying their tax to pay their fair share.
As a result of tax office investigations we have identified 30 large multinational companies that may have diverted profits away from Australia to avoid paying their fair share of tax in Australia.
Everyday Australians rightly believe that, if a dollar of profit is earned here, you should pay tax here.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case for some multinationals. Many have the capacity to aggressively minimise their tax.
What that means is that families and small businesses are forced to carry more than their fair share of the tax burden.
Tonight I am releasing the details of a new tax integrity multinational anti-avoidance law. This will stop multinationals using complex schemes to escape paying their tax.
Under this new law, when we catch companies cheating, they will have to pay back double what they owe plus interest.
In addition, it is unfair that overseas based businesses selling services into Australia may not charge GST when local businesses have to charge GST.
A local business that employs Australians, pays rent in Australia, pays tax in Australia and helps build our economy is disadvantaged by the current system.
We will level the playing field for Australian businesses by mandating that foreign businesses supplying digital products and services into Australia are subject to the GST.
Tonight I am also tabling the draft legislation in that regard.
Everything we spend in this budget is being paid for by prudent savings in other areas.
We do not want to increase taxes on Australians, but we do want everyone to pay their fair share of tax along the way.
In this budget, we are amending the zone tax offset so that it is only available to those who have genuinely moved to specified remote areas—specifically excluding fly in, fly out—and that saves $325 million.
We are limiting fringe benefits tax entitlements on overly generous meal and entertainment expenses, capping them at $5,000 a year per person, saving $295 million.
And anyone on a working holiday in Australia will have to pay tax from their first dollar earned, rather than enjoying a tax-free threshold of nearly $20,000. This will save the budget $540 million.
And the need for fairness and a level playing field applies in other areas.
We are making changes to strengthen Australia’s foreign investment framework by introducing a new fee regime on those foreigners who want to invest and that will deliver better enforcement and stricter penalties if the break the law. This will deliver $735 million of revenue to the budget.
These integrity measures protect those people who are doing the right thing.
They promote trust.
And they are all part of responsible budgeting.
Fiscal
As I said last year, the debt and deficit mess that we inherited was not of our making, but we have taken positive action that is delivering results to fix it.
Australia’s budget position is getting stronger each and every year—from a $48 billion deficit we inherited to $35 billion next year, down to a $7 billion deficit in another three years’ time.
And over the same period, we are reducing the size of government as a share of the economy.
Of course, there is more work to be done on budget repair. Every nation must live within its means, and Australia is no different.
But we cannot tax our way to prosperity. And we must continue to look for sensible savings.
When we invest taxpayer money, we must do so with great care. It is your money that we are spending, and we have to be careful with every single dollar that you contribute.
Despite the iron ore price having halved, we are still on a clear and credible path back to surplus and gross debt in a decade will be over $110 billion lower than that which we inherited.
Conclusion
This budget is responsible, measured and fair.
We are creating opportunities for job seekers, young and old.
We are caring for our most vulnerable.
And we are keeping the country safe and secure.
This is a budget for small business people who want to innovate and grow.
This is a budget for young people wanting to get a foot in the door.
This is a budget for parents juggling the complexities of modern life.
This is a budget as much for the miners of the Pilbara as it is for the farmers in the Mallee. It is as much for a family in Brisbane as it is for a start-up business in Adelaide.
This is a budget that helps build a stronger, safer and more prosperous Australia.
I truly believe in my heart that our nation’s best days are ahead of us. So now is the time for all Australians to get out there and have a go.
I commend the budget bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
DOCUMENTS
Budget Documents 2015-16
Presentation
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (20:00): For the information of honourable members, I present the following documents in connection with the budget of 2015-16:
Budget Strategy and Outlook
Budget Measures
Australia's Federal Relations
Agency Resourcing
Ordered that the documents be made parliamentary papers.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Partnership for Regional Growth
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (20:00): I present the following ministerial statement: Partnership for Regional Growth 2015-16, 12 May 2015.
Debate adjourned.
BILLS
Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2015-2016
First Reading
Message from the Governor-General transmitting particulars of proposed expenditure and recommending appropriation announced.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr McCormack.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (20:02): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Madam Speaker, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2015-2016, along with Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016, which was introduced earlier, and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2015 2016, are the budget appropriation bills for the 2015-16 financial year.
This bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just over $15 billion for 2015-2016.
I now outline the significant items provided for in this bill.
First, the Department of Communications would receive just under $7.4 billion to continue its investment in the National Broadband Network in 2015-2016.
Second, the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development would receive just under $3 billion. This includes a provision for a Commonwealth concessional loan of up to $2 billion to accelerate the delivery of stage 2 of the WestConnex project in Sydney; $250 million would also be provided for concessional loans to the Australian Capital Territory government in respect to loose fill asbestos remediation program.
Third, the Department of Defence would receive just under $2.9 billion in capital funding to support capabilities. Funding would be used for the Approved Major Capital Investment Program, and for existing investment commitments.
The bill also provides the debit limit, formerly known as the general drawing rights limit, for the nation-building funds; the Building Australia Fund, the Education Investment Fund, the Health and Hospitals Fund, the general purpose financial assistance payments and the national partnership payments. As legislation is to be introduced to close the funds, the estimated expenditure in 2015-16 represents the wind-up of projects already committed. No new projects will commence.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedules to the bill and the portfolio budget statements tabled in the parliament.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016
First Reading
Message from the Governor-General transmitting particulars of proposed expenditure and recommending appropriation announced.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr McCormack.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (20:05): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016 is to provide funding for the operations of:
the Department of the Senate;
the Department of the House of Representatives;
the Department of Parliamentary Services; and
the Parliamentary Budget Office.
This bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just over $233 million. Just over $28 million would be provided for the enhancement of cybersecurity.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule to the bill and the portfolio budget statements for the parliamentary departments.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2014-2015
First Reading
Message from the Governor-General transmitting particulars of proposed expenditure and recommending appropriation announced.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr McCormack.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (20:07): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Today, the government introduces the supplementary additional estimates appropriations bills. These bills are:
Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2014-2015; and
Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2014-2015.
These bills underpin the government's expenditure decisions.
Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2014-2015 seeks approval for additional appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just under $377 million for 2014-2015.
I now outline the significant items provided for in this bill.
First, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection would receive just under $248 million in 2014-15 to fund resettlement activities and costs associated with delays in processing illegal maritime arrivals.
Second, the Department of Social Services would receive just under $48 million. This includes funding to allow the government to make payments under the Zero Real Interest Loans program for loan offers accepted late in 2013-14 and loan offers expected to be accepted in 2014-15.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule to the bill and the portfolio supplementary additional estimates statements tabled in the parliament.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2014-2015
First Reading
Message from the Governor-General transmitting particulars of proposed expenditure and recommending appropriation announced.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr McCormack.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (20:09): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2014-2015, along with Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2014-2015, which I introduced earlier, are the supplementary additional estimates appropriation bills for this financial year.
This bill seeks further approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just under $423 million for 2014-2015.
The majority of proposed funding in the bill relates to the Department of Defence. This bill would provide the Department of Defence with just under $412 million, reflecting funding for supplementation for foreign exchange movements and the net effect of the reallocation of funds between running costs and capital.
The bill would also provide the Department of Social Services with $10 million to continue the development of My Aged Care gateway, which provides a single entry point to access information on ageing and aged care, including to locate and access aged-care services.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedules to the bill and the portfolio supplementary additional estimates statements tabled in the parliament.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
House adjourned at 20:11
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: Sir John Monash Centre, Australian National Memorial Villers-Bretonneux, France.
Mr Champion: to move:
That this House:
(1) notes that National Palliative Care Week (NPCW) runs from 24 to 30 May 2015; and
(2) encourages all Australians to use NPCW as a conversation starter, to get together with those close to them, celebrate life and talk about death, in particular the end of life decisions such as:
(a) how they want to be cared for;
(b) what values are important to them;
(c) what types of medical assistance they want to receive;
(d) whether they wish to be buried or cremated;
(e) where they want to pass away;
(f) whether they have appointed a power of attorney; and
(g) writing an advanced care plan.
Mr Palmer: to present a Bill for an Act to prevent the disclosure of information by public officials in circumstances that may lead to the imposition of the death penalty in foreign countries, and for related purposes.
Ms Parke: to move:
That the House:
(1) notes:
(a) the execution in Indonesia by firing squad on 29 April 2015 of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, along with their fellow prisoners, Rodrigo Gularte, Silvester Nwolise, Okwuduli Oyatanze, Raheem Salami, Martin Anderson and Zainal Abidin, and expresses condolences to their families;
(b) the bipartisan commitment in Australia to see an end to the death penalty worldwide;
(c) that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that the death penalty is not a more effective deterrent than long term imprisonment;
(d) that the international trend is clearly away from the practice of the death penalty—in 1977 only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty, now 140 nations have banned the practice; and
(e) that Australia has the opportunity to influence further progress towards the worldwide abolition of the death penalty in its relationship with key regional and global partners; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) strengthen its efforts to advocate for an end to the death penalty wherever it still occurs; and
(b) ensure that Australia’s international cooperation is structured to avoid to the extent possible, the potential that such cooperation could lead to a person receiving the death penalty.
Ms T. M. Butler: to move:
That this House:
(1) acknowledges that:
(a) 11 to 17 May is National Volunteer Week (NVW);
(b) the theme for NVW this year is ‘Give Happy Live Happy’; and
(c) the six million plus Australian volunteers give happiness to others each year; and
(2) thanks volunteers for their tireless effort and dedication to our community and the enormous contribution they make to our economy and others in the community.
Mr Zappia: to move:
That this House:
(1) notes that both Commonwealth and state governments have historically shared responsibility for the delivery of services to remote Indigenous communities;
(2) condemns the Government for cutting $500 million from Indigenous programs in the 2014-15 budget;
(3) notes that contrary to previous assurances by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, there has been an impact on frontline services;
(4) acknowledges the disastrous effect these cuts will have on people living in remote Indigenous communities; and
(5) calls on the Government to restore the funding, and prevent the loss of frontline services.
Ms L. M. Chesters: to move:
That this House:
(1) notes with concern the importation to Australia of goods that:
(a) breach Australia’s anti-dumping regime; and
(b) do not comply with Australian standards;
(2) further notes the:
(a) injurious effect that the importation of such products has on Australian businesses and Australian jobs;
(b) risk to consumers of using substandard products and goods; and
(c) lack of inspection and compliance enforcement of imported products; and
(3) calls on the Government to:
(a) continue to monitor the anti-dumping regime and effectiveness of recent changes;
(b) strengthen the inspection and compliance enforcement regime for imported goods;
(c) review penalties for importers who breach their Australian legal obligations and if necessary increase the penalties where they are found to be insufficient, to act as a deterrent; and
(d) hold an urgent meeting of the International Trade Remedies Forum to address these and related issues.
Ms MacTiernan: to move:
That this House:
(1) recognises that the Australian and Western Australian governments have caused significant distress to the Indigenous peoples by failing to carry out proper community consultation on the withdrawal of Municipal and Essential Services (MES) funding and the proposed forced closure of Aboriginal communities; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) reveal the full details of the agreements made with the states to terminate MES funding for remote Indigenous communities; and
(b) outline what strategies it has put in place to ensure that its policy will not result in Aboriginal Australians again being forced off their land.
QUESTIONS IN WRITING
G20 Volunteer Program
(Question No. 264)
Dr Leigh asked the Prime Minister in writing, on 26 August 2014:
(1) How many applicants responded to the call for Expressions of Interest for the G20 Volunteer Program announced in April 2014, and of these, how many were of a suitable calibre to progress to the second round short-list of potential volunteers.
(2) What, if any, (a) stipends, (b) reimbursements, or (c) entitlements will be offered to the volunteers who are successful in being selected for the program (for example, meal allowances, transport and parking costs, accommodation).
(3) What is the expected duration of daily volunteer shifts during the G20 summit.
(4) What are the (a) minimum, and (b) maximum number of hours that an individual volunteer will be permitted to work on any given day of the G20 summit.
Mr Abbott: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(1) 1215 applicants responded to 2the call for Expressions of Interest for the G20 Volunteer programme. 65% were shortlisted. This short-listing process was based on a number of factors including skills and availability. The Government appreciates the efforts of all these people volunteering for the G20 and those who expressed an interest in volunteering.
(2) (a) Nil. (b) Nil. (c) Volunteers received one catered meal per five and eight hour shift. Tea, coffee and water were available for consumption. Each volunteer received a Translink go card for travel on Translink services. The Translink go card was activated for G20 Volunteers' first rostered shift until their last rostered shift on 17 November 2014. Free parking was provided for G20 Volunteers at three locations: Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, Rocklea and Airport.
(3) Between six and eight hours. The Prime Minister visited the volunteers during the summit and thanked them for their friendly and high quality contribution to the G20. A number of world leaders remarked to the Prime Minister how well the G20 was run, with volunteers a pivotal part of this success.
(4) (a) Four hours. (b) Eight hours. Only in extenuating circumstances will a volunteer be requested to work additional hours.
Prime Ministerial Visit to China
(Question No. 401)
Mr Conroy asked the Prime Minister in writing, on 3 September 2014:
In respect of the business delegation to China in April 2014, (a) what was the total cost of travel and hospitality, (b) who was in attendance, and (c) who paid.
Mr Abbott: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
Two business delegations travelled to China in April 2014: a 700-strong delegation to attend the inaugural Australia Week in China, and a smaller delegation which accompanied the Prime Minister on his official visit to China. The answers below relate to this smaller delegation. Queries about the Australia Week in China delegation should be directed to the Minister for Trade and Investment.
(a) Delegates paid for their travel and accommodation, including flights to and from and within China.
(b) 36 business representatives, five state premiers and the Chief Minister of the ACT accompanied the Prime Minister to China as part of the business delegation. I refer you to the response to Senate Question on Notice No. 885 which lists the delegation members.
(c) The delegates paid for their travel and accommodation. Some hospitality costs were covered.
The Prime Minister's trade mission to North Asia in April 2014 was a success. The Korea Free Trade Agreement was signed, negotiations with Japan on a Free Trade Agreement were concluded. In China, leading Australian CEOs and Chairmen participated in the first ever Australia-China week. The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, announced in November, will add billions to the economy, create jobs and drive higher living standards for Australians.
Prime Minister and Cabinet: Overseas Travel
(Question No. 432)
Mr Conroy asked the Prime Minister 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 Abbott: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) On election, the Government implemented new controls on the approval of officials' overseas air travel; consequently, expenditure has been less than for the former government over a comparable period.
(b) The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (the Department) does not record travel data in a way that would readily allow such data to be identified. To attempt to provide this level of detail would involve an unreasonable diversion of departmental resources.
(c) For significant international events and conferences such as the 13th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the 58th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, and the Five Eyes Chief Information Officer Forum.
Freedom of Information
(Question No. 691)
Mr Fitzgibbon asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 9 February 2015:
(1) In respect of my Freedom of Information (FOI) request (2014/15-23), (a) why did his Chief of Staff (i) accept, in a telephone conversation with his department on 4 November 2014 (see email file note sent from Catherine Smith to Lauren Johnson and others at 9.09 am on 5 November 2014), transfer of my request to his office only to order his department not to proceed with the transfer two days later, and (ii) order his department not to proceed with the transfer, contrary to his obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (see email from Di Hallam to his department at 1.25 pm on 6 November 2014), (b) when did he first become aware of the decision not to proceed with the transfer, and did his Chief of Staff discuss this decision with him first, (c) is he trying to avoid scrutiny of his claim that the House Hansard for 20 October 2014 was altered without his authority and knowledge; if so, why, and (d) why did he provide conflicting information to me on the transfer and attempt to conceal his Chief of Staff's order not to proceed with the transfer.
(2) In respect of Senator Heffernan's remarks that he had 'just spoken with the minister's office' (Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, Estimates , 20 November 2014, page 81) about my request, (a) does he realise that disclosing personal information to Senator Heffernan concerning my request may not be consistent with the Privacy Act 1988 , and (b) in processing FOI requests, does he give consideration to the identity of an applicant and/or their motives; if so, (i) why, and (ii) is he handling my request in the way that he is because I am an Opposition Shadow Minister.
Mr Joyce: The Minister for Agriculture has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:
(1) (a) to (d) The department's initial handling and processing of Mr Fitzgibbon's FOI request has been discussed extensively by the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee at Additional Estimates Hearings for 2014-15 held on 23 February 2015 and 5 March 2015. The department has acknowledged a number of errors were made in the handling of the FOI request lodged by Mr Fitzgibbon's office on 29 October 2014. I am advised an independent review of the department's FOI processes is underway.
(2) (a) to (b) I am advised FOI requests received in my office have been handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
Immigration and Border Protection
(Question No. 692)
Mr Kelvin Thomson asked the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, in writing, on 9 February 2015:
(1) How many immigration detention centres does Australia have, and where is each one located.
(2) How many people are currently in (a) each detention centre, and (b) community detention.
(3) Of those currently in a detention centre, what is the (a) longest period, and (b) average length, of time spent in detention.
(4) What is the total cost per annum of administering the detention centres.
(5) What action is the Government taking to resolve cases of people in detention to have them released into the community, or returned to their country of origin.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(1) This information is available online at www.immi.gov.au
(2)(a) This information is available online at www.immi.gov.au
(2) (b) This information is available online at www.immi.gov.au
(3) As at 31 January 2015;
(a) the longest period in detention was 2 875 days. This individual has a criminal history and had his visa cancelled under section 501 of the Migration Act on character grounds.
(b) the average time in detention was 442 days
Figures based on DIBP systems data
(4) The total cost of administering onshore immigration detention facilities for the 2010-11 financial year to 2013-14 financial year is outlined below in Table 1:
Table 2: Total cost of administering onshore immigration detention facilities for the 2010-11 financial year to 2013-14 financial year.
|
2010-11 |
2011-2012 |
2012-2013 |
2013-14 |
|
$(m) |
$(m) |
$(m) |
$(m) |
Total Cost* |
743.19 |
1,033.76 |
1,324.06 |
1,277.29 |
*Costs are exclusive of Capital and Depreciation.
Includes departmental and administered costs.
(5) The department engages with individuals in immigration detention to ensure that cases are assessed comprehensively, managed to a consistent standard, conducted in a fair manner and subject to rigorous ongoing review. This is achieved through the case management service, which was introduced in 2005 in response to external review of the department's management of people in detention and is fully implemented across the immigration detention network.
The case management service is a principal risk mitigator, ensuring continued oversight of individual cases to:
minimise length of time in detention, where reasonably possible, by assisting detainees to progress their immigration status to an outcome - this may include granting of a visa, temporary release into the community or departure from Australia;
confirm and review appropriateness of the detention placement – this may include referral for a bridging visa or residence determination (community detention) by way of ministerial intervention, if circumstances meet appropriate guidelines; and
identify and seek to manage issues that may impede case progression and/ or resolution, including any barriers to visa grant or removal.
Where the case of a detainee is finally determined and no relevant visa options exist, or where a detainee indicates interest in voluntary return to their country of origin, the department will facilitate the return or removal, including engagement with the International Organization for Migration if appropriate.
Immigration and Border Protection
(Question No. 707)
Mr Kelvin Thomson asked the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, in writing, on 9 February 2015:
(1) Is he aware of statistics concerning migration to Australia released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in December 2014, and reported by Sarah Whyte in 'Indian citizens head immigration queue for Australia' ( The Sydney Morning Herald , 6 December 2014).
(2) Is it a fact that 62,700 people whose temporary visas had expired or been cancelled are living illegally in Australia; if not, what is the correct figure.
(3) Does his department have sufficient resources to locate and deport visa over-stayers; if so, what action is it taking to do so.
(4) Is he aware that in October 2014 the Fair Work Ombudsman estimated that over 20,000 workers in Australia on a 457 visa had 'gone missing'; if so, what action has his department taken to locate these missing temporary entrants, and what success has it had.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(1) Yes.
(2) Australia's unlawful non-citizen (UNC) population is the total number of people at a given point in time who are still in Australia after their temporary visa has expired or been cancelled. The figure 62,700 was correct as at 30 June 2013.
(3) The department uses a wide range of tools to address visa overstayers in Australia, including exercising a range of legislative powers with detention and removal from Australia as final enforcement action. The department prioritises compliance activities according to risk, with particular focus on criminality, threats to the protection of the Australian community or repeated non-compliance with visa conditions.
The department responds to those who pose a risk to the Australian community or the integrity of Australia's migration programme as a matter of priority, including long-term overstayers.
The establishment of the Australian Border Force provides an opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of compliance outcomes in relation to overstayers.
(4) The claim that the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) "estimated that over 20,000 workers in Australia on a 457 visa had 'gone missing'" is not accurate. This inaccurate claim was made by the Transport Workers' Union based on extrapolating figures from a monthly referral report from the FWO to the department obtained under freedom of information laws. In the report, the FWO referred to the department 243 subclass 457 sponsors employing a total of 338 visa holders for further investigation on the basis that the visa holders were no longer employed by the sponsor.
There are a number of legitimate reasons why a visa holder may not be with their original sponsor which do not necessarily indicate wrong-doing on the part of the sponsor or visa holder.
Serana (WA) Pty Ltd
(Question No. 711)
Ms MacTiernan asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 10 February 2015:
In respect of the raid on the Serana (WA) Pty Ltd premises on 11 December 2013, (a) how many officers attended the raid, (b) how many officers were sent to Western Australia from other states for the raid, and (c) how many Western Australian based officers attended the raid.
Mr Joyce: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) There were nine (9) departmental officers in attendance when the search warrant was executed.
(b) There were three (3) departmental officers from states other than Western Australia in attendance.
(c) There were six (6) departmental officers from Western Australia in attendance.
Serana (WA) Pty Ltd
(Question No. 712)
Ms MacTiernan asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 10 February 2015:
In respect of the investigation into Serana (WA) Pty Ltd (Serana), (a) on what date did the investigation, which resulted in the raid on the Serana premises on 11 December 2013, commence, and (b) how many return flights from the eastern states to Western Australia were made over the course of the investigation.
Mr Joyce: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) Tracing of the movement of bovine serum product and management of biosecurity risk was initiated on 7 May 2013.
The department's criminal investigation concerning contravention of the Quarantine Act 1908 commenced on 15 August 2013
(b) As at 19 February 2015 there have been 22 return flights to various locations for the Serana investigation. Nine (9) have been return flights, to and from Western Australia.
Serana (WA) Pty Ltd
(Question No. 713)
Ms MacTiernan asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 10 February 2015:
Is the investigation into Serana (WA) Pty Ltd ongoing given the company is no longer operating.
Mr Joyce: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
There are two components to the department's action: management of the biosecurity risk, and the criminal investigation into potential contravention of Australian quarantine laws. The criminal investigation involves a number of business entities and people and is ongoing.
Serana (WA) Pty Ltd
(Question No. 714)
Ms MacTiernan asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 11 february 2015:
In respect of his answer to question in writing No. 492 (House Hansard, 9 February 2015, pages 165-6), (a) why did it take two months to test the labelled and unlabelled serum to determine its provenance, and (b) given his department's concern that the serum was likely to pose a threat to Australia's biosecurity, why was independent verification of the provenance not a priority.
Mr Joyce: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
The Commonwealth Ombudsman has completed an investigation into the Department of Agriculture's (the department) actions relating to Serana. The Deputy Ombudsman found that the department acted appropriately.
All other matters relating to the department's investigation into bovine serum imports are the subject of an ongoing investigation.
Serana (WA) Pty Ltd
(Question No. 715)
Ms MacTiernan asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 11 February 2015:
In respect of his answer to question in writing No. 497 (House Hansard, 9 February 2015, page 166) in which it was said that Mr Andrew Baxter was a Regional Investigations Manager within the Central East Region, (a) why was he given responsibility for an investigation into a Western Australian company operating in Western Australia, (b) prior to launching the raid on Serana (WA) Pty Ltd on 11 December 2014, what discussion did Mr Baxter have with Western Australian officers who had recently completed a successful audit at the Bunbury laboratory, and (c) why were officers flown over from the eastern states to undertake the raid, rather than using local officers.
Mr Joyce: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) Mr Baxter had responsibility for the department's criminal investigation which concerns a number of business entities and people across Australia.
(b) The Department of Agriculture officer who conducted the audit was not spoken to prior to the execution of the warrant. The department's criminal investigation concerns breaches of the Quarantine Act 1908. The audits relate to Serana (WA) Pty Ltd being recorded as an Export Listed Establishment. These audits and the department's certification of the non-prescribed goods being exported by Serana (WA) Pty Ltd are a government requirement of the overseas importing country. The audit outcomes do not have any bearing on the department's criminal investigation.
(c) The search warrant involved officers from Sydney, Canberra, and Perth due to the requirement for specialist skills and specific case knowledge.
Serana (WA) Pty Ltd
(Question No. 716)
Ms MacTiernan asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 11 February 2015:
In respect of his answer to question in writing No. 499 (House Hansard, 9 February 2015, pages 166-7) highlighting that parts (1) and (2) of that question sought information about knowledge of his Ministerial office, not knowledge of his department, (a) how many representations have been made to his office regarding the handling of the Serana (WA) Pty Ltd investigation by his department, and (b) on what date was the first representation made to his office.
Mr Joyce: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) The department doesn't maintain records about representations made to the Minister.
(b) The department doesn't maintain records about representations made to the Minister.
Nauru Regional Processing Centre
(Question No. 722)
Mr Zappia asked the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, in writing, on 23 February 2015:
Has Mr Philip Moss concluded his inquiry into child abuse at the Nauru detention centre; if so, when will his report be made public.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
Mr Philip Moss has concluded his Review into recent allegations relating to conditions and circumstances at the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru.
The public report was published on the Department of Immigration and Border Protection website on 20 March and can be accessed at http://www.immi.gov.au/about/dept-info/nauru.htm.
Coal Seam Gas
(Question No. 723)
Ms Hall asked the Minister for Industry and Science, in writing, on 23 February 2105:
(1) Is the Government monitoring the seismic testing that is taking place on the coast of the electoral division of Shortland as a precursor to coal seam gas extraction.
(2) Is a study being undertaken by the Government on the impact of seismic testing on fish, sea grass and other marine life; if so, could he release the results; if not, why not.
Mr Ian Macfarlane: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(1) Australia's offshore oil and gas exploration and production activities are subject to the stringent protections provided under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 (the OPGGS Act) and associated Regulations. The legislation and regulations provides a robust regulatory framework for ensuring safety, well integrity and environmental protection. The regulator for offshore petroleum activities in Commonwealth waters is the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environment Management Authority (NOPSEMA).
The Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Environment) Regulations 2009 (the Environment Regulations) require titleholders to consult with all relevant stakeholders and then submit an environment plan to NOPSEMA prior to undertaking an activity. This includes seismic activities.
No activity can commence until an environment plan has been accepted by NOPSEMA.
To date, no environment plan has been submitted to NOPSEMA in respect of seismic testing in Commonwealth waters off New South Wales.
(2) As an independent statutory authority, NOPSEMA is funded through levies and fees paid by industry. As such, its legislated function is restricted to the regulation of offshore petroleum activities and it is the responsibility of the titleholder to utilise scientific evidence and academic studies relating to the impacts of their activities within their environment plans. NOPSEMA also has an obligation to ensure that it is aware of, and takes into account, studies relating to the fields it regulates.
Studies have been undertaken by the NSW Department of Primary Industries, WA Department of Fisheries and the CSIRO relating to the possible impacts of seismic testing on the environment and these studies, as well as other published and refereed studies. These feed into NOPSEMA's assessment processes to ensure the impacts of offshore petroleum activities are reduced to as low as reasonably practicable.
Australia's Foreign Investment Policy
(Question No. 724)
Mr Zappia asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 23 February 2015:
In respect of the Government's announcement on 11 February 2015 that the screening threshold for foreign land will be reduced, will this measure apply equally to purchases from countries that have a free trade agreement with Australia.
Mr Joyce: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
As outlined in Australia's Foreign Investment Policy (2015), consistent with Australia's free trade agreement commitments, the cumulative $15 million threshold will apply to all privately-owned investors except those from the United States, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore and Thailand.
Privately-owned investors from these countries are subject to the following (non-cumulative) investment thresholds:
Singaporean and Thai investors will require prior approval if acquiring a substantial interest in a primary production business valued above $50 million; and
United States, New Zealand and Chilean investors will require prior approval if acquiring a substantial interest in a primary production business valued above $1 094 million.
All foreign government investors must notify the Government and get prior approval to acquire an interest in land, regardless of the value of the investment.
Immigration and Border Protection
(Question No. 726)
Dr Leigh asked the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, in writing, on 24 February 2015:
For what purpose did his department sign contract CN2857782 with Woolcott Research for $28,380.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
This information is available at AusTender (www.tenders.gov.au).
Wildlife Conservation: Dingoes
(Question No. 727)
Mr Kelvin Thomson asked the Minister for the Environment, in writing, on 25 February 2015:
Given the increasing body of research that indicates the critical role played by dingoes in suppressing feral cats and foxes, can he indicate when he will list (a) the dingo as a threatened species, or (b) critical populations/habitats of dingoes, and/or (c) develop a national dingo conservation strategy, to help protect this Australian predator and mitigate threatening processes.
Mr Hunt: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
The Australian Government accepts that the dingo is a native species and is aware of the research on the ecological benefits of having apex predators such as the dingo.
The Australian Government provides considerable support for broader habitat protection which may assist the dingo. Many of the 70 threatened ecological communities listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), such as the Arnhem Plateau Sandstone Shrubland Complex in the Northern Territory, provide habitat for the dingo. The National and World Heritage listed Fraser Island also provides habitat for the dingo.
I am also conscious of the complexities around the status of the dingo as both a native species and as an agricultural pest in different state and territory jurisdictions across Australia. Farmers and graziers have legitimate concerns that wild dogs prey on their livestock.
To list the dingo or any populations of the dingo as a threatened species under the EPBC Act it must be nominated, prioritised for assessment, and assessed by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee. The dingo was nominated for listing as a threatened species under the EPBC Act in 2010 and considered again in 2011 and 2012. However, it was not prioritised for assessment due to the lack of data on population numbers and geographic distribution that would provide for its consideration relative to the listing criteria. The Committee found that it presents a complex range of issues, relating particularly to definition of the species' bounds, cultural and ecological significance, interbreeding with wild dogs, and contested management and legislative requirements at regional, state and national levels. This information is publically available on the Department's website.
The listing of critical habitat under the EPBC Act only applies to species that are listed as threatened and the dingo is not currently listed under the EPBC Act.
Anyone is able to develop and implement a national conservation plan for the dingo. The EPBC Act provides for me to make and implement a Wildlife Conservation Plan, with which Commonwealth agencies must take all reasonable steps to act in accordance with. However the Act only allows me to develop such a plan for an Australian marine or migratory species, a cetacean occurring in the Australian Whale Sanctuary, or a species that is listed as conservation dependant under the Act. As the dingo is not listed as conservation dependant under the EPBC Act, the Australian Government is not in a position to develop a Wildlife Conservation Plan for this species.
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
(Question No. 728)
Mr Kelvin Thomson asked the Minister for the Environment, in writing, on 25 February 2015:
Given the listing under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 of 'Land Clearance' as a key threatening process, can he indicate when he will move to list under the Act, recognised endemic Threatened Ecological Communities currently listed under New South Wales (NSW) law, thereby conveying Commonwealth protection given the NSW Government plans to seriously weaken vegetation clearance laws in that state.
Mr Hunt: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
Nominations and assessments of threatened ecological communities are carried out in line with the requirements of the EPBC Act. This includes an annual nomination and priority assessment process and advice to me regarding listing of each ecological community assessed by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (the Committee).
Since the start of the EPBC Act, the Commonwealth has made steady progress on establishing and protecting a national list of the most threatened ecological communities in Australia. There are now 70 threatened ecological communities listed under the EPBC Act across all states. I have made 7 of these listing decisions in the past year.
Because the Committee often takes a broad approach to the definition of a nationally significant ecological community, they often encompass more than one state-listed equivalent. Therefore, the 70 nationally listed ecological communities cover close to 200 state or territory recognised ecological communities or regional ecosystems.
The Commonwealth is moving steadily towards protection of threatened ecological communities currently on state lists, including those listed by New South Wales. For example, in early March 2015 I agreed to list two threatened ecological communities under the EPBC Act, Cooks River/Castlereagh Ironbark Forest of the Sydney Basin Bioregion in the critically endangered category and Castlereagh Scribbly Gum and Agnes Banks Woodlands of the Sydney Basin Bioregion as endangered. These align with three NSW listed ecological communities.
Brand Electorate: General Practitioner Bulk Billing
(Question No. 730)
Mr Gray asked the Minister for Health, in writing, on 26 February 2015:
Since August 2013, what proportion (as a percentage) of general practitioner services in the electoral division of Brand were bulk billed each quarter.
Ms Ley: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
Brand Electorate - GP Bulk Billing Rate
Non-referred (GP) Attendances (excl Practice Nurse) |
|
Quarter |
% Bulk-Billed |
September 2013 |
83.5% |
December 2013 |
84.2% |
March 2014 |
84.6% |
June 2014 |
86.0% |
September 2014 |
85.8% |
December 2014 |
86.3% |
Brand Electorate: Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme Subsidies
(Question No. 731)
Mr Gray asked the Minister for Health, in writing, on 26 February 2015:
Since August 2013, how many prescriptions in the electoral division of Brand were subsidised each quarter under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for (a) concessional patients, and (b) non-concessional or general patients.
Ms Ley: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
Quarter |
Concessional |
General |
Grand Total |
2013-14_Q1 |
288,799 |
41,926 |
330,725 |
2013-14_Q2 |
317,798 |
48,940 |
366,738 |
2013-14_Q3 |
261,955 |
30,183 |
292,138 |
2013-14_Q4 |
292,936 |
32,301 |
325,237 |
2014-15_Q1 |
305,222 |
37,512 |
342,734 |
2014-15_Q2 |
325,608 |
40,073 |
365,681 |
This data is derived from patients postcodes within the Brand Electorate. This data is by 'date of supply', which will differ from data availability on a 'date of processing' basis, through the Department of Human Services.
Age Pension
(Question No. 736)
Mr Gray asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 26 February 2015:
What is the Government doing to minimise the impact of its changes to the Age Pension in 2014-15, on the 21,300 pensioners in the electoral division of Brand.
Mr Morrison: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
Pensions will continue to increase twice a year under a Coalition government.
Age pensioners in Brand have received payment increases of $51.80 per fortnight for singles and $78 per fortnight for couples since the Coalition Government was elected.
The latest indexing of the age pension that came into effect on 20th March 2015, gave single age pensioners a $5.90 boost to their fortnightly payments or $153.40 a year. Couples will now receive an extra $8.80 a fortnight or $228.80 a year.
These increases will see the maximum age pension rise to $860.20 a fortnight for single pensioners and $1,296.80 for couples.
These increases are in addition to the boost pensioners received from the abolition of the carbon tax and the government's decision to retain the carbon tax compensation of $14.10 per fortnight for single pensioners and $21.20 for couples.
This means that pensioners in Brand are now $65.90 better off per fortnight for singles and almost $100 better off, with a $99.20 effective increase, for couples since the election.
This would not have been the case under the former government who would have retained the carbon tax.
This exposes Labor's scare campaign that pensions are being cut.
Income tested part-pensioners have received a double boost to their payments as lower deeming rates come into effect in March.
On average, part pensioners will get an extra $3.20 a fortnight or $83.20 a year as a result of this Coalition Government decision.
The March indexation of the pension occurred in line with the Consumer Price Index. If, since the last election, base pensions had only been benchmarked to Male Total Average WeeklyEarnings (MTAWE) then single age pensioners would currently be $22.30 worse off a fortnight and couples $33.60 worse off.
The Coalition Government is pleased to deliver these increases to help pensioners in Brand keep up with the cost of living.
The Coalition Government is committed to ensuring our welfare system looks after those who need it most and that this assistance is sustainable.
Foreign Government Certification Arrangements
(Question No. 738)
Mr Zappia asked the Minister for Agriculture, in writing, on 26 February 2015:
Are there any foreign certification or inspection arrangements other than, and similar to, the foreign government certification arrangements with Thailand, France and Canada; if so, what are they.
Mr Joyce: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
Information on foreign government certification arrangements is available from the department's website at:
http://www.agriculture.gov.au/import/food/inspection-compliance/foreign-government-certification
Community Based Programs and Youth Programs
(Question No. 740)
Mrs Elliot asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 26 February 2015:
In respect of the Government's budgetary cuts to funding for community based and youth programs, (a) how many organisations providing these services in the electoral division of Richmond will have their funding cut, (b) what are the names of these organisations, (c) what programs will be reduced or cut because of these funding cuts, and (d) what total sum of funding will be cut.
Mr Morrison: The answer to the honourable member ' s question is as follows:
(a) There is an element of community based or youth in many of the DSS programmes, however there is not a specific community based or youth programme. Therefore we cannot provide precise information under this descriptor. Furthermore, service areas are mapped in line with the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) not by electorates. The ASGS boundaries are relatively stable (more so than boundaries such as Local Government Areas) and are derived based on a range of factors such as population counts, and social and economic characteristics.
(b) Information on individual grants is updated regularly on the Department's website in accordance with requirements under the Commonwealth Grant Rules and Guidelines. The DSS Grants report can be found at:
https://www.dss.gov.au/about-the-department/overview/grants-funding.
(c) and (d) As there have been several changes to programme and process designs under the New Way of Working, it is not possible to directly compare funding under previous programmes against current grants or programmes.
Community Based Programs and Youth Programs
(Question No. 741)
Mrs Elliot asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 26 February 2015:
In respect of the Government's budgetary cuts to funding for community based and youth programs, (a) can he outline the exact funding cuts to programs delivered by the (i) Byron Youth Service, and (ii) Byron Community Centre, and (b) how will these services now be provided.
Mr Morrison The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(a) In response to your first question:
(i) Byron Youth Service is funded by the Department of Social Services (DSS) under the Strengthening Communities – Community Development and Participation activity (formerly Community Investment Program) to provide youth with the opportunity to develop enterprise projects to assist in the development of their skills and increase community connectedness. The total funding amount is $338,230 over 4 years. The funding commenced on 1 July 2011 and will cease on 30 June 2015. The organisation did not submit an application for this project in the 2014 DSS grants selection process.
(ii) Byron Bay Community Association Inc. operates the Byron Community Centre. The organisation is funded by DSS to deliver Emergency Relief in the Richmond-Tweed SA4 region under the Financial Wellbeing and Capability Activity (formerly the Financial Management Programme). Emergency Relief helps people address immediate basic needs in times of financial crisis. The total funding amount is $166,967 from 1 July 2011 to 31 March 2015. This amount includes bridging funding to enable referrals to new contract organisations which will be providing services in the local area.
(b) Community based and youth programmes in the region will be provided by:
The Northern Rivers Social Development Council is funded to deliver two services that target youth, families and children in the Byron Bay area.
The Reconnect service is funded for $1.25 million from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2016. Reconnect is a community based early intervention programme for young people aged 12 to 18 years who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and their families. It aims to help young people achieve family reconciliation and improve their level of engagement with work, education, training and the community.
The Family and Relationship Service is funded for $344,961 from 1 January 2015 to 30 June 2019. This service has a particular focus on youth and aims to strengthen family relationships, prevent breakdown and ensure the wellbeing and safety of children/youth through the provision of broad-based counselling and education to families.
The following providers have been offered funding to deliver Emergency Relief in the Richmond-Tweed SA4 from 1 March 2015 to 30 June 2017:
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Corporation for Welfare Resource & Housing
Anglicare North Coast
Bunjum Aboriginal Co Op Ltd
Lismore Neighbourhood Centre Inc
Mid Richmond Neighbourhood Centre Incorporated
St Vincent de Paul Society NSW
The Trustee For the Salvation Army (NSW) Property Trust.
Tweed Heads: The Family Centre
(Question No. 743)
Mrs Elliot asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 26 February 2015:
In respect of the Government's budgetary cuts to funding for community based and youth programs, (a) can he outline the exact funding cuts to programs delivered by the Family Centre in Tweed Heads, and (b) how will these services now be provided.
Mr Morrison: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
As Tweed Heads is not one of the 139 identified Priority Service Areas, no services, including The Family Centre, were funded under Children and Parenting Support in Tweed Heads.
The Government is investing around $180 million into Children and Parenting Support services nationwide.
Last year the Government undertook a competitive tender for organisations seeking funding under an $800 million Department of Social Services grants round to support a broad range of vital frontline services that support communities. The Government's first priority is ensuring there are no gaps in critical frontline services during the transition of services to the new funding arrangements.
The Department of Social Services is working with new and existing providers to ensure clients are referred to new services where required, and to identify critical service gaps.
Bridging funding was announced on 30 January 2015, and the Family Centre has accepted bridging funding to the end of June 2015.
Commonwealth Financial Counselling Services
(Question No. 745)
Ms McGowan asked the Minister for Social Services, in writing, on 4 March 2015:
(1) What is the Government's plan post-June 2015 for the delivery of Commonwealth Financial Counselling (CFC) services in the electoral division of Indi given the reduction of staff, trust and networks.
(2) What CFC services arrangements exist in the electoral division of Indi, including the:
(a) total sum of funding,
(b) organisation(s) responsible for delivering the services, and
(c) local government areas that are covered.
(3) How many agencies providing CFC services in the electoral division of Indi followed Government instructions to finalise their staff by 28 February 2015 due to cessation of funding, and how many staff were affected.
(4) How many agencies providing CFC services in the electoral division of Indi took up the four month extension of funding granted in February 2015, and how will the Government communicate the availability of services during this four month extension period to service providers, local government and individuals.
(5) Has the Government extended the catchment area for CFC services in the electoral division of Indi without increasing the funding; if so, what checks and balances for quality control have been implemented to ensure quality service across the catchment.
(6) What criteria will the Government use to measure the outcome of CFC services in the electoral division of Indi, and how will the outcomes be communicated to stakeholders.
Mr Morrison: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(1) The electoral division of Indi is covered by the Statistical Areas (SA4) of Hume (80 per cent of the SA4 is located in the electorate based on population); Melbourne – North East (one per cent of the SA4 is located in the electorate based on population); and Shepparton (one per cent of the SA4 is located in the electorate based on population). Six organisations are funded to deliver Commonwealth Financial Counselling (CFC) and Financial Capability (FC) services to the SA4s of Hume, Melbourne-North East and Shepparton (refer to Question 2(b)).
(2) (a) Funding is allocated at the SA4 level, not on an electorate basis.
(b) Two organisations have been offered funding to deliver CFC and FC services in the Hume SA4: VincentCare Victoria and Family Mediation Centre. Two organisations have been offered funding to deliver CFC and FC services in the Melbourne-North East SA4: The Salvation Army (Victoria) Property Trust and Family Mediation Centre. Two organisations have been offered funding to deliver CFC and FC services in the Shepparton SA4: VincentCare Victoria and The Salvation Army (Victoria) Property Trust.
(c) The Australian Bureau of Statistics website indicates that the SA4 of Hume (primary coverage for the electoral division of Indi) wholly or partly covers the following Local Government Areas (confirmation of these boundaries should be sought through the Australian Bureau of Statistics if required): Wodonga, Indigo, Towong, Benalla, Wangaratta, Alpine, Murrindindi, Mansfield, Strathbogie and Mitchell.
(3) Any decisions relating to staffing are the responsibility of the organisation.
(4) Four organisations providing CFC services in the SA4's of Hume, Melbourne – North East and Shepparton have accepted the four month extension funding to 30 June 2015: Uniting Care Wodonga, Broadmeadows Uniting Care, Kildonan and Primary Care Connect.
The Department of Social Services is working closely with organisations to ensure a smooth transition to the new grant arrangements. The priority is ensuring that access to critical community services is not interrupted while new services are being established.
Under the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines, the Department is required to publish on its website information on individual grants, no later than fourteen working days after the grant agreement for the grant takes effect.
(5) Funding for CFC and FC (former Money Management and Home Advice) services is distributed based on SA4s. The funding distribution methodology considered the current Financial Management Program CFC, Money Management Service and HOME Advice service footprint and apportioned funding to SA4 regions, based on this limited footprint, subject to available funding.
Service providers are required to meet the Financial Wellbeing and Capability Activity programme guidelines and their grant agreement with the Department.
(6) The Department's new approach to programme performance reporting, the DSS Data Exchange shifts the focus of performance measurement from outputs to more meaningful information about service delivery outcomes. Reporting requirements are divided into two parts: a small set of priority requirements that all service providers must report, and a voluntary extended data set that providers can choose to share with the Department in return for relevant and meaningful reports, known as the partnership approach. The voluntary data items in the extended data set relate to a client's needs and circumstances, such as their reason for seeking assistance and referrals in and out.
Importantly, the partnership approach introduces a concept known as SCORE which stands for Standard Client Outcomes Reporting. SCORE allows service providers to measure and assess outcomes using their own self-selected tools, but to report these outcomes to DSS in a way that is consistent and comparable.
There are four different types (components) of outcomes measured through SCORE to help tell the story of what has been achieved, three for individual clients (their circumstances, goals and satisfaction) and one for a group/community:
Client Circumstances SCORE is linked to ten outcome domains where changes are sought for clients (physical health; mental health wellbeing and self-care; personal and family safety; age-appropriate development; community participation and networks; family functioning; managing money; employment education & training; material wellbeing; and housing).
Client Goal SCORE is linked to six goal domains (changed knowledge; changed skills; changed behaviours; changed confidence to make own decisions; changed engagement with relevant support services; changed impact of immediate crisis).
Client Satisfaction SCORE relates to three key domains about a client's perceptions of the responsiveness and value of the service received (the service listened to me and understood my issues; I am happy with the services I have received; I am better able to deal with issues that I sought help with).
Community SCORE is linked to three domains where changes occur for a group or a community (changed knowledge, skills and behaviours for a group of client or community members participating in the service; changed knowledge, skills and practices within organisations that the service works with; or changed community structures and networks to better respond to the needs of targeted clients and communities).
The outcomes data collected through the DSS Data Exchange will be shared back with DSS service providers through self-service reports, to help them understand the pathways of their clients over time. Access to data enables organisations to make informed decisions and deliver better outcomes for their clients. Many service providers have requested Departmental data in the past and the self-service reporting in the DSS Data Exchange represents unprecedented access to information. The Department is currently exploring what data and reports from the DSS Data Exchange could be shared publicly and made available to all stakeholders through www.data.gov.au.
For more information about the DSS Data Exchange please visit www.dss.gov.au/grants/programme-reporting.
Asylum Seekers
(Question No. 749)
Mr Kelvin Thomson asked the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, in writing, on 17 March 2015:
(1) Is it a fact that letters written by Mr Julian Burnside AO QC to asylum seekers detained on Nauru have been returned unopened; if so, why. (2) Have all child detainees on Christmas Island been released into the community as promised by the previous Minister for Immigration; if not, how many remain in detention, and when will they be released.
Mr Dutton: The answer to the honourable member's question is:
All mail sent to the Manus and Nauru Regional Processing Centres is managed by contracted service providers. It is standard operating procedure for service providers to have transferees collect their mail through scheduled appointments. Transferees must collect and open their mail in the presence of a service provider to ensure that no contraband items are taken into the centre. However, in many instances, service providers are unable to facilitate collection of letters because they are either incorrectly addressed, the transferee has departed the RPC or the transferee declines to accept an appointment to collect the letter. Unfortunately, in regards to the letter campaign organised by Mr Julian Burnside, service providers were unable to have most of the letters collected for these reasons. These letters were subsequently returned to Mr Burnside, at his request.
All children who were detained on Christmas Island were transferred to the mainland with their families by December 2014. As at 24 March 2014, one child from this group remains in held detention. There are ongoing issues that require resolution relating to the parents which, at this time, prevent the release of the child into the community.
NBN Co Limited
(Question No. 754)
Mr Clare asked the Minister for Communications, in writing, on 25 March 2015
(1) Is the Government aware that as Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) contracts wind down for the National Broadband Network (NBN), demand is decreasing for workers skilled at the last mile from pillar to home and workers are losing their jobs.
(2) What is the Government doing to help NBN workers who are losing their jobs?
(3) Can he indicate (a) the changing workforce demand arising from the shift to the Multi-Technology Mix (MTM), and (b) what the Government is doing to manage this changing workforce demand.
(4) In respect of the Commonwealth's agreement with Telstra in December 2014 to revise the $100 million Retraining Funding Deed, are there provisions in the revised deed that deal with changing workforce demand arising from the shift to the MTM; if so, (a) what are they, and (b) do they cover copper to optic joiners.
Mr Turnbull: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
(1) NBN Co Limited (NBN Co) has advised that the volume of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) work is planned to continue at a similar rate to the current rollout in the near term. This is due to FTTP allocated areas, as well as Greenfields (new developments) continuing to be rolled out. The short term demand for an FTTP workforce is therefore expected to remain reasonably constant in the near-term.
NBN Co has indicated that, as FTTP volumes decline and the FTTP workforce demand also declines, the volume of fibre‑to‑the‑node (FTTN) and Hybrid-Fibre Coaxial (HFC) build and rehabilitation activities will have increased substantially. To source the upcoming demand, many of the FTTP workers will have the skills that are directly transferable to the new technologies rollout programs, or require minimal cross-skilling to develop these skills e.g. civils works, traffic management, hauling, fibre and copper jointing, aerial lines work and other copper and HFC-related skills.
NBN Co has advised that it has undertaken a study that articulates the skills required to perform activities under the Mixed-Technology Model (MTM) and is collaborating with Industry to ensure there is smooth transition to the MTM environment and industry can support the planned ramp up in network rollout.
(2) NBN Co has indicated that the external workforce demand profile for the MTM is projected to be significantly greater than the current FTTP workforce. It is also expected that the vast majority of the existing workforce will be required for MTM, either being directly reallocated to perform activities requiring similar skills and experience, or developing the necessary skills and capabilities to permit transition to other MTM activities.
(3) Please see response to Question 1
In addition to response in Question 1, NBN Co has advised that it is continuing to work collaboratively with industry to ensure there is sufficient workforce capability and capacity to build, operate and maintain the NBN.
NBN Co is working with the relevant training providers, technical colleges and industry bodies to ensure required skills are clearly articulated and NBN Co training programs deliver a suitably skilled workforce to both build and run the NBN into the future.
(4) In respect of the Commonwealth's agreement with Telstra in December 2014 to revise the Retraining Funding Deed (the Deed), the Deed was revised specifically to take into account the changing workforce demand arising from the shift to the MTM.
Under the revised Deed, all eligible Telstra employees may be retrained. In order to be eligible, Telstra must be satisfied that the employee may otherwise face redundancy as a consequence of the rollout of the NBN. In addition, Telstra's copper/HFC based field workforce are automatically eligible for retraining.