The SPEAKER ( Hon. Tony Smith ) took the chair at 12:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
Superannuation (Objective) Bill 2016
Treasury Laws Amendment (Fair and Sustainable Superannuation) Bill 2016
Superannuation (Excess Transfer Balance Tax) Imposition Bill 2016
That is why we are so adamant about not having adverse changes to superannuation, that’s why we aren’t going to increase taxes on superannuation …
Well we do want to encourage everyone Dale to be saving for their retirement and particularly when you are drawing down on that when you are retired we don’t want to tax you like Chris Bowen does.
It’s the Labor Party who wants to tax superannuation, not the Liberal Party, particularly the incomes of superannuants and I think that’s a fairly stark contrast that’s emerging.
That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes:
(1) the Budget is under threat due to this Government’s poor economic leadership, which is hitting the pay packets of Australians and risking our triple-A credit rating;
(2) the Opposition has been leading the debate on reforming superannuation tax concessions for over a year;
(3) while the Government’s superannuation package goes some way to reforming these concessions, they could go further;
(4) the Opposition has outlined a clear position for sustainable and fairer super tax concessions that includes:
(a) lowering the High Income Superannuation Contribution threshold to $200,000;
(b) lowering the annual non-concessional contributions cap to $75,000;
(c) opposing the introduction of catch-up concessional contributions; and
(d) opposing the changes to tax deductibility for personal superannuation contributions; and
(5) the Opposition’s position on the super package would improve the budget by $1.4 billion over the forward estimates and $18.9 billion over the medium-term".
The reality is Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s …
Members of the Cabinet must publicly support all Government decisions made in the Cabinet, even if they do not agree with them.
… a deliberate and intentional disregard of workplace laws.
… despite significant penalties being handed down, repeated and deliberate contraventions of workplace laws continue to be a common feature at worksites.
Cabinet ministers cannot dissociate themselves from, or repudiate the decisions of their cabinet colleagues unless they resign from the cabinet.
The distrust between Rudd and Shorten was intense and enduring. The Gillard camp was contemptuous of Shorten, considering him weak and duplicitous. Neither side trusted him and neither side revised its view.
That the Member be no longer heard.
The House divided [14:44]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)
That the member be no longer heard.
The House divided. [14:48]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)
That the question be now put.
The House divided. [14:50]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)
The House divided. [14:52]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)
The Government's latest failures on the National Broadband Network.
The Government's investment is capped at $29.5 billion, with the balance of the project to be funded by the private sector.
No. The equity cap that is in place is $29.5 billion, and our planning is for nbn to source the remaining funding requirements by raising debt from external markets … We believe and are confident that that will be able to be achieved.
Well, the Commonwealth has indicated that our cap on equity contributions will be $29.5 billion. NBN will have to borrow money beyond that, but 29.5 billion is the Commonwealth cap.
It is expected that nbn will continue to be funded with Commonwealth equity up to $29.5 billion.
Equity funding is capped at $29.5 billion.
A government loan on commercial terms represents the most cost effective way to raise the debt and secure funding to complete the rollout of this important national infrastructure project.
Public funding of $29.5 billion will be required for a coalition NBN.
Labor currently claims funding of $44.1 billion will be required to complete its NBN.
There is no free lunch. If capital is tied up in the NBN then it has to be paid for either by taxpayers or consumers or both. Less funding is needed under the Commonwealth plan.
Our goal is to ensure that all Australians have very fast broadband by 2016 and that everybody can access at least 25 megabits per second.
Concerns are mounting that Australia's broadband network will leave an anchor on the country's budget. The new $20 billion loan is an unanticipated commitment from the government. Malcolm Turnbull had previously indicated that the organisation would be able to operate without assistance from the government with only the initial funding.
The end-of-year awards season is almost here but there’s already an odds-on favourite for the title of the most ineffective politician in the land.
Take a bow Mitch Fifield, the Homer Simpson of the Turnbull government.
Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014
The House divided. [16:21]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)
Superannuation (Objective) Bill 2016
The House divided. [16:48]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)
That this bill be now read a third time.
Treasury Laws Amendment (Fair and Sustainable Superannuation) Bill 2016
That this bill be now read a third time.
Superannuation (Excess Transfer Balance Tax) Imposition Bill 2016
That this bill be now read a third time.
Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2016
That this bill be now read a second time.
If there is indeed a silver bullet to solving the issue of radicalisation, it is in the area of social cohesion.
… The threat to Australia's domestic security … comes principally from a small number of people among us who try to justify criminal acts by perverting the meaning of Islam. Crime masquerading as religious dogmatism is still crime, and a fanatic who slaughters the innocent is a murderer, however much he might try to explain his crime in religious terms. People like that have nothing to do with the Islamic faith which they falsely invoke to justify their wicked deeds. As the Grand Mufti of Australia, Ibrahim Abu Mohammad, said on 15 September, their conduct is a betrayal of the Islamic faith:
'These criminals are committing crimes against humanity and sins against God.'
There could be no greater error than for Australians to demonise our Islamic fellow citizens—a community of some 500,000—because of the criminal elements who live among them and prey upon them … the leaders of that community are our partners and key allies in eradicating the problem of those who would lure their young men and women along a path to violence and, ultimately, self-destruction.
That this bill be now read a third time.
Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority Amendment (New Governance Arrangements) Bill 2016
The Australian Government should consider amendments to the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority Act 2008 to establish a Board of governance of seven to nine people to govern the OTA.
The Chair of the Board of governance should be an experienced leader of public hospital organisations, but need not be a clinician.
The skill base of the Board should include community leadership, health promotion expertise, DonateLife Network clinical expertise, transplantation clinical expertise, consumer experience, and communication skills.
The Chair should be nominated by the Australian Government, the deputy Chair nominated by the states and territories, with the balance of members nominated collectively by the Council of Australian Health Governments Health Council (CHC) members.
The members should be appointed for a term of four years by the Australian Government Minister, with staggered appointments at the commencement of Board of governance operations.
… when we preserve an organ, it is put onto ice and kept at 4C until the person arrives for the transplant.
What we want to do is warm profusion, so instead of chilling the kidney down, we would put it on a pump system to keep it at 37C and ticking over with oxygenated blood.
That this bill be now read a third time.
Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016
The reality is Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s and we're seeing that today …
Where I see extremism, I will call it out.
We are a pretty resilient lot so you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s all done and dusted and that apart from those who lost loved ones, friends or family, we’ve moved on. The fact is that recovery doesn’t quite work that way. It hits people differently and there is no such thing as a timeline for when grieving or trauma ends.
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
And he pushed,
And they flew.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mrs Wicks ) took the chair at 16:00.
Our heritage buildings and places tell the story of New South Wales and that is something that we have a responsibility to safeguard and maintained for generations to come. The Lysicrates Monument represents the rich cultural history and heritage that has shaped our city, our state and our nation. There is also vital work to be done maintaining and preserving heritage assets like the Pyrmont Bridge.
… that a strong, stable and competitive financial sector is essential for the ongoing prosperity of the Australian community. Importantly, we do not see enhanced safety as necessarily requiring a trade-off with competition. Rather, the two are complementary since only sound financial institutions will be able to support their customers – both existing and new – through good times and bad.
… the kind of people I myself represent in Parliament—salary earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers, and so on. These are, in the political and economic sense, the middle class. They are for the most part unorganized and unselfconscious. They are envied by those whose social benefits are largely obtained by taxing them. They are not rich enough to have individual power. They are taken for granted by each political party in turn. They are not sufficiently lacking in individualism to be organised for what in these days we call 'pressure politics'. And yet, as I have said, they are the backbone of the nation.
… what really happens to us will depend on how many people we have who are of the great and sober and dynamic middle-class—the strivers, the planners, the ambitious ones. We shall destroy them at our peril.
It is of the essence of competitive enterprise that … the road to advancement in any business should be open to all. This system we wish to protect. Privately imposed restraints which are against the public interest or submit the small trader to oppressive limitations should be eliminated.
The current law in itself is badly crafted, but further it has been interpreted by the courts as largely unworkable. So having an effective misuse-of-market-power test rather than an ineffective one can only be pro competition and I think pro innovation, in a way I will illustrate.
… whatever other way you want to look at it, the key provision we would want to use if the major banks were to seek to remove important new competitors is section 46.
But, with all that is going on that we hope will occur in banking with new technology, the change to section 46 cannot come too soon, because at the moment we could not deal with that form of exclusionary behaviour. But, with the new Harper 46, we can.
Conduct that is predatory in economic terms and anti-competitive may not be captured by s 46 simply because the predator does not have substantial market power when it sets out on its course to deter or injure competitors … Section 46 is ill drawn to deal with claims of predatory pricing under these conditions.
There seems a lack of very robust competition in banking. The Australian banks are very profitable and there is nothing wrong with that. We like our Australian companies to be as profitable as possible …
We are not seeing as much robust competition as we would like.
… ‘access to justice’ is complicated and gets tangled up with questions of legal aid and also issues about how it might be made easier …
I can't see any reason why anyone in the [union] movement would fear having the same penalties that apply to company directors. If you're a crook, you're a crook.
There is an absolute obligation on the union movement to clean up its house. There is an obligation on the unions to put their house in order.
I was always on that side of the debate which said that unions are public bodies so they are accountable to members for their management…
In my participation in public life for more than a quarter of a century, and my close observation of political leaders, including seven Prime Ministers, I have concluded that it is not the grand rhetorical gestures, the proclamation of aspirations, or even the implementation of proposals and policies that mark the true measure of a leader, but the response to the unexpected, the unwanted, and the unanticipated events that arise. In other words, it is the management of crises, not the projection of aspirations, which is the true mark of leadership.
In respect of the Gosnells Community Legal Centre (GCLC) recently losing its Emergency Relief grant funding to the Australian Red Cross, (a) on what basis was (i) GCLC's application for grant funding declined, and (ii) the Australian Red Cross' (ARC's) application to provide Emergency Relief in the Armadale region accepted, (b) is the Minister aware that the ARC is operating its Emergency Relief service for the Armadale region out of the GCLC premises, and (c) when funding was allocated to the ARC, was his department aware that the ARC did not have a premises in the Armadale region from which to provide Emergency Relief; if so, was this a factor in allocating this grant funding; if not, can he indicate whether this information would have altered the outcome of the application process.
(a) (i) (i) In 2014, the Department of Social Services conducted an open competitive funding round for the delivery of Emergency Relief services.
Providers were selected through a rigorous, consistent and audited process and selections were based on ensuring high quality services to the community and value for money.
The Australian Red Cross was deemed successful and approved to provide Emergency Relief services in the SA4 south west region which includes Armadale.
Further information about the 2014 funding round and features of highly rated applications can be found at https://www.dss.gov.au/grants/emergency-relief.
(b) The physical location of the provider is operational in nature and is a business decision
for the provider.
The Australian Red Cross is a respected and large community service provider with a significant footprint across Australia, including the Armadale region. This means they are well suited to provide services across a large service area like the SA4 south west region.
The Australian Red Cross, as well as other Emergency Relief providers is encouraged to work collaboratively with other organisations to ensure there is a 'joined up' or integrated service system response to the needs of their community.
(c) As applications for funding are commercial in confidence, I am not able to provide advice about individual applications.
Further information about the Selection Criteria can be found in the Emergency Relief Application Pack at https://www.dss.gov.au/grants/emergency-relief.
At any stage since September 2013 has the Minister's department (a) investigated any options to privatise the Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC), if so, what was the outcome, (b) provided advice to the Government regarding the possible privatisation of the ASC, and (c) considered the impact of a possible privatisation of the ASC on its employees.
The Government has no plans to privatise ASC and has not asked for, nor has it ever considered any proposal to privatise ASC since its election in September 2013.
Also, as provided in the response to Question Number 40, the Department of Finance (Finance) conducted a strategic review of ASC Pty Ltd (ASC) to consider future options for ASC to best meet the Government's shipbuilding requirements.
The strategic review was conducted as part of the normal course of the Minister's shareholder oversight role to ensure that the assets Finance manages on behalf of all Australians continue to support broader Government policy objectives. This is consistent with the Commonwealth Government Business Enterprise Governance and Oversight Guidelines .
On 11 October 2016, the Government announced the way forward for ASC informed by the recommendations of the Strategic Review.
At any stage since September 2013 has the Minister's department (a) investigated a possible restructure of the Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC), if so, what was the outcome, (b) provided advice to the Government on a possible restructure of the ASC, and (c) considered the impact of a possible restructure of the ASC on its employees.
The Government commissioned a strategic review of ASC Pty Ltd (ASC) in mid-2015. The strategic review considered future options for ASC, its mandate, corporate and capital structures as well as its governance arrangements. The strategic review was conducted by the Department of Finance and its external business, accounting and legal advisers, in consultation with the Department of Defence. ASC also provided assistance and valuable input into the strategic review.
On 11 October 2016, informed by the recommendations of the strategic review, the Government announced that it will structurally separate ASC into three individual Government-owned companies to deliver a more flexible approach to managing the investment required in shipbuilding infrastructure.
The impact of a restructure of ASC on its employees was considered as part of the strategic review. Employees' terms and conditions will not be directly affected by the structural changes to ASC.
In respect of the $19,052 contract to Cre8ive Australasia (CN3381965) for promotions:(a) what service was provided, or material produced, under this contract?(b) what policy area did this relate to?
(a) The contract related to the procurement of graphic design, production, printing and videography and photography services for the National Centre for Longitudinal Data (NCLD) and its longitudinal data conference. The material produced included NCLD pull-up banners, an NCLD overview flyer, longitudinal study fact sheets and videography and photography services.
(b) The NCLD is part of my Department's Policy Office. The NCLD funds and manages four national longitudinal studies: The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey; the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children; the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children; and the Longitudinal Study of Humanitarian Migrants.