Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Ruddock.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 and the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act 2006 received royal assent on 12 December 2006.
The primary purpose of the two acts was to ensure that Australia has a financial sector that is protected from abuse by those seeking to engage in criminal activity and terrorism.
Following the introduction of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2007 and the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2006 the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills reported on the contents of the bills.
During his speech in reply the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator the Hon. Chris Ellison, responded to those reports and indicated that he would introduce a bill this session to make some technical amendments to the legislation and to implement some of the recommendations of the committees.
The report of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills raised concerns about the application of absolute liability rather than strict liability to some elements of offences under sections 136, 137, 139, 140 and 141 of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006. The minister undertook to amend these sections to replace the application of absolute liability with strict liability. These amendments are made at items 41 to 47 of the bill.
In relation to recommendation 7 of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs the minister undertook to continue to work with industry groups and other stakeholders to resolve certain technical issues and, if necessary, to address these technicalities in the foreshadowed bill. Further consultation was undertaken and no amendments were considered necessary to resolve issues raised by the committee. Affected industry sectors were advised of the government’s view that the common law principles of agency apply throughout the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006.
Further consultation raised technical issues that are addressed in this bill including:
1. Reporting entities will gain additional rights to seek review of decisions made by the AUSTRAC CEO under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006. This includes a right to a merits review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of decisions by the AUSTRAC CEO to appoint an external auditor to carry out a risk management audit under section 161, and decisions by the AUSTRAC CEO to give a remedial direction under section 191.
2. In addition the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 will be amended to remove the general exemption given to decisions under the AML/CTF Act from review under the ADJR Act and replace it with an exemption limited to decisions by the AUSTRAC CEO to apply to the Federal Court for a civil penalty order under section 176 and to the granting of an exemption from, or declaring a modification to, a requirement of the act under section 248. This amendment will ensure greater accountability for decisions by the AUSTRAC CEO under the AML/CTF Act.
3. ASIS is to be made a designated agency thereby granting ASIS officials access to AUSTRAC information to ensure that financial intelligence is available to counter the financing of terrorism. This brings ASIS into line with ASIO which is also a designated agency.
4. Amendments to the secrecy and access provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 are to ensure national security and intelligence agencies which are designated agencies can fulfil their functions under their enabling legislation.
5. Minor amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 will ensure that a person who has an arrangement with a reporting entity to verify customer identity under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 will have access to the electoral roll equivalent to that which is currently provided for the purposes of the Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988.
6. Additional minor technical amendments are made to the Surveillance Devices Act 2004, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 and the Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988.
The amendments made by the bill will assist in ensuring the effective operation of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Edwards) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Ruddock.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Bankruptcy Legislation Amendment (Debt Agreements) Bill 2007 will amend the Bankruptcy Act 1966 to improve the operation of debt agreements under part IX of that act.
Details of most of these amendments were announced on 27 July 2006 following a comprehensive review of the operation of debt agreements conducted by the Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia and the Attorney-General’s Department. In addition to the amendments previously announced, the bill also includes a range of other minor and technical amendments which will improve, streamline and clarify some aspects of the operation of part IX.
Debt agreements are an important feature of the personal insolvency system. They provide debtors with unmanageable debt who can afford to make some payments to creditors with an opportunity to do so. Many debtors want to consider making a debt agreement as it gives them an opportunity to recover a damaged financial reputation and avoid bankruptcy. When a debt agreement works, it will generally provide a higher return to creditors than bankruptcy and can also assist the debtor to manage their finances more effectively in the future.
When debt agreements were introduced, it was envisaged that they could be administered by anyone, including the debtor personally, a relative or friend. However, in practice, the vast majority of agreements are administered by a fee-for-service provider who may or may not provide other services. This has led to calls for greater regulation of that industry to ensure vulnerable debtors are protected and proper standards of practice are met.
The reforms are designed to ensure that debt agreements continue to be a viable means of dealing with unmanageable debt. In particular, they are designed to address key concerns which have led to a lack of confidence on the part of creditors in the effectiveness of the debt agreement system. They are also aimed at addressing the high failure rate which has resulted from a significant number of unsustainable agreements being made where debtors are not properly informed and creditors cannot rely on the quality or accuracy of information given to them.
The amendments will introduce a registration system for debt agreement administrators. Registration will be based on the applicant’s demonstrated ability to perform the duties of a debt agreement administrator. These duties will include obligations to ensure the debtor is informed about other options and has been through a proper process to determine that the offer to creditors is sustainable over the life of the agreement. The administrator will also be required to form a reasonable basis for believing that the debtor has fully and truly disclosed his or her affairs to creditors. These obligations are designed to ensure that debtors consider all options and that creditors are fully informed when deciding whether to accept the debtor’s proposal.
The requirement to be registered will apply only to a debt agreement administrator who administers more than five agreements at any time. This will ensure that debtors retain the option of administering the agreement personally or getting another person to do it on their behalf.
The Inspector-General in Bankruptcy will make decisions on registration and will then have an ongoing role in monitoring the conduct and performance of registered administrators. The inspector-general will be able to deregister administrators who do not comply with their obligations. There will be mandatory qualifications as a prerequisite to registration to ensure that minimum standards of knowledge apply across the industry.
The amendments will require administrators to be paid proportionately over the life of a debt agreement rather than in priority to creditors. They will provide an incentive for administrators to see that agreements are completed and encourage them to focus on proposals that are likely to succeed, rather than those that are likely to be accepted by creditors.
A debt agreement should be seen as a simple, one-off offer to creditors which represents the best offer the debtor can make. Creditors then decide whether to accept or reject that offer based on the debtor’s capacity to pay. A debt agreement should be viewed as a collective agreement with all creditors rather than a series of agreements with each individual creditor. Therefore, the amendments will require creditors to receive payments under the agreement proportionately in relation to the amount of their debts. This will overcome current problems which result in offers being developed based on expectations of individual creditors rather than on what the debtor can afford to pay. It should also open up debt agreements to many debtors who could afford to make payments which are greater than creditors would receive in bankruptcy and in circumstances in which the debtor is unable to negotiate effectively with individual creditors.
The amendments will also provide that a debtor’s proposal can be accepted by a majority in value of creditors who vote so that the decision is made by those creditors holding the majority of the commercial interest. The current requirement for a special majority of more than half in number and at least three-quarters in value unfairly skews the voting power in favour of a small number of larger creditors.
The amendments will also introduce more effective mechanisms for dealing with default by the debtor. The administrator will be required to notify creditors when the debtor has been in default for three months and an agreement will be terminated automatically where the debtor has made no payments for six months or the agreement is not completed within six months of the agreed term. This will ensure defaults are actively managed by administrators and allow creditors to make timely decisions about varying or terminating agreements where the debtor is not complying.
Finally, the bill includes a number of amendments which will clarify and streamline the operation of the act in a number of areas, including replacing administrators who are deregistered, uncertainty about which debts are covered by an agreement, the treatment of secured creditors and the investigative powers of the inspector-general.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Edwards) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Ruddock.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Bankruptcy (Estate Charges) Amendment Bill 2007 will amend the Bankruptcy (Estate Charges) Act 1997 to impose the realisations charge and interest charge on moneys paid pursuant to debt agreements under part IX of the Bankruptcy Act 1966.
The realisations charge and interest charge are currently payable by trustees in relation to bankrupt estates and personal insolvency agreements under the Bankruptcy Act. These charges offset the cost of regulating insolvency practitioners. The charges are not currently payable by debt agreement administrators. The cost of regulating the debt agreement system is effectively subsidised by revenue from these charges received in bankruptcies and personal insolvency agreements.
The government no longer considers that cross-subsidisation is appropriate given that debt agreements make up a significant proportion of personal insolvency activity in Australia. In addition, amendments to be made by the Bankruptcy Legislation Amendment (Debt Agreements) Bill 2007 will introduce a new regulatory framework for debt agreement administrators. The government’s cost recovery policy requires the beneficiaries of that service, in this case creditors, to meet the costs of providing that service.
The amendments will not increase revenue from the charges as the rate of the realisations charge will be reduced for all types of personal insolvency administrations. In practice, it is largely the same creditors who are paying the realisations charge in bankruptcies and personal insolvency agreements who cover the cost of regulating debt agreement administrators. Applying the charge to debt agreements will broadly result in the same creditors paying the same amount of money but over a larger range of administrations.
The amendments to be made by this bill will bring debt agreements into line with other forms of personal insolvency administration.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Edwards) adjourned.
I move:
Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1) 2007
The customs tariff proposal that I have just tabled contains an alteration to the Customs Tariff Act 1995, effective from 1 January 2007.
The Customs Tariff Amendment (2007 Harmonized System Changes) Act 2006 implemented approximately 1,200 amendments to the customs tariff. These amendments incorporated changes that resulted from the third review, by the World Customs Organisation, of the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System that forms the basis of Australia’s customs tariff.
As part of that review, the text of the new subheading 3821.00.10 referred to ‘Prepared culture media for the development or maintenance of viruses and the like’ and applied a duty rate of five per cent to these goods. However, existing arrangements in the Australian customs tariff provided for a rate of customs duty of free for these culture media.
Customs Tariff Notice No. 1 (2006) was published in a special Commonwealth Gazette on 15 December 2006 giving notice that a customs tariff alteration would be proposed in the parliament to alter the text of this subheading to remove the reference to culture media for viruses.
The effect of this alteration is that the rate of customs duty of free will continue to apply to prepared culture media for the development or maintenance of viruses.
I commend the proposal.
Debate (on motion by Mr Edwards) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Andrews.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Migration Amendment (Maritime Crew) Bill 2007 amends the Migration Act to create a new class of temporary visa to be known as a maritime crew visa.
These statutory reforms are needed to strengthen the integrity of Australia’s borders. Maritime crew wishing to enter Australia in the service of non-military ships will in future have to apply for the new maritime crew visa while they are outside Australia. The application process for the new visa will enable crew to be appropriately security cleared before they enter Australia.
Under current arrangements, the crew of non-military ships are granted special purpose visas by operation of law, a process that does not permit security checks to be conducted before the crew of these ships are allowed to enter Australia.
While an application process before grant of a maritime crew visa will be new to foreign sea crew seeking to enter Australia, much of the procedure involved after the grant of the visa will be familiar to crew and those involved in the shipping industry in Australia.
To ensure this is the case, the government has been working with the shipping industry so that the transition to the new visa will be as seamless as possible for those working in the industry.
As with most other visas, the detail governing the new maritime crew visa will be set out in the Migration Regulations. In constructing the regulations for maritime crew visas, care will be taken to minimise the impact and cost to the industry after the new maritime crew visa regime commences.
The visa application process will be available electronically and there will be no charge for the visa. Shipping agents will be able to apply on behalf of members of crew.
The amendments made by the bill will provide that the maritime crew visa is authority to travel to and enter Australia only by sea. This will ensure that persons who enter Australia holding a maritime crew visa can be processed at seaports where there will be sufficient time, for example, to confirm that crew members are actually in the service of the ship. These sorts of checks would not be possible at an airport where large numbers of passengers must be processed in a short period of time.
Due to the nature of the maritime crew visa, the government has provided sufficient flexibility in the visa arrangements to enable holders of maritime crew visas to be granted certain other kinds of visas to suit the purpose of their stay in Australia.
This recognises the fact that some crew members will need to fly to Australia to join their ship here. It also takes account of the fact that maritime crew visa holders may wish to spend time in Australia for other purposes, such as holidaying.
It is anticipated that transit visas and electronic travel authorities are two such visas which will be specified by legislative instrument as able to coexist with maritime crew visas.
To reinforce that a maritime crew visa is only authority to travel to Australia by sea, the amendments will make it an offence for an airline operator to bring a maritime crew visa holder to Australia by air.
However, the bill also provides airline operators with a defence where, at the time of boarding the aircraft, the noncitizen held another visa that permitted travel to Australia by air.
Finally, the amendments in the bill provide for a maritime crew visa to be ceased by declaration where it is considered undesirable for a person or class of persons to travel to, enter or remain in Australia, for example, when a master reports a crew member as having deserted the vessel. This replicates the current arrangements for ceasing a special purpose visa under subsection 39(9) of the act.
The bill also includes an express power to revoke such a declaration to allow for situations where additional information may come to light about a person’s suitability to travel to or remain in Australia.
To ensure that a noncitizen does not have to reapply for a maritime crew visa where a declaration is revoked, the bill provides that the effect of revocation is that the declaration is taken to have never been made.
Consequently, it has been necessary for the bill to also include a provision to protect the Commonwealth from any civil claims if a noncitizen is detained in the period between a declaration ceasing their visa and the revocation of that declaration.
In conclusion, the creation of a new maritime crew visa will ensure that the necessary security checks are applied to crew entering Australia by non-military ship in order to strengthen the integrity of Australia’s borders.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Edwards) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr McGauran.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Australian government has provided $48.5 million over four years to establish an Indigenous television content service—National Indigenous TV Ltd (NITV).
When launched later this year, the NITV will be distributed via Imparja’s satellite narrowcast service, channel 31, and will be retransmitted initially throughout 147 remote Indigenous communities.
This will, for the first time, give Indigenous communities a dedicated Indigenous television service. This will build on the successful Imparja service which currently provides a number of hours of Indigenous programming each day.
This bill makes amendments to both the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and the Copyright Act 1968 to facilitate the introduction of NITV.
The current section 212 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 specifically exempts from most of the legal and regulatory obligations contained in the act, any services that are merely unaltered retransmissions of the signals from a commercial, national or community broadcaster.
However, there is no similar exemption for retransmissions of signals from narrowcasters. This means that retransmission of NITV programming from its satellite distribution channel, Channel 31, will not be covered by exemptions in section 212.
The bill amends the BSA to extend the exemption in section 212 to persons who retransmit NITV programming. The amendment applies to NITV programming only, as this programming is unlike any other, addressing the broadcasting needs of a sector of Australian society not currently well catered for.
Other providers, such as pay TV broadcasters, may also agree to carry NITV programming and the bill removes any disincentive to them doing so. However, the exemption provided in section 212 does not prevent an action being taken for infringement of copyright where retransmission occurs by someone other than a self-help provider.
Accordingly, the bill will also amend part VC of the Copyright Act to extend the statutory licence scheme for the retransmission of free-to-air broadcasts in that provision to apply it to retransmission of NITV programming.
I commend this bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Edwards) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Dutton.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill amends various taxation and superannuation laws to implement a range of changes and improvements to Australia’s taxation system.
Schedule 1 amends the tax secrecy and disclosure law to allow the Commissioner of Taxation to disclose certain taxpayer information to officers in the Project Wickenby task force. It also allows this disclosure of information for similar task forces that may be established in the future. Project Wickenby is a multi-agency task force addressing tax avoidance and evasion involving the use of offshore entities. The amendments will enable agencies to better share information to aid concerted law enforcement, without compromising the general protection of taxpayer privacy.
As part of the 2006-07 budget, I announced that the ATO’s responsiveness to superannuation guarantee inquiries would be improved.
Schedule 2 to this bill amends the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 to allow the Commissioner of Taxation to provide information to an employee in response to a complaint that an employer has not complied with its superannuation guarantee obligations. For example, this will allow employees to obtain more information on the progress of their inquiries about the nonpayment of superannuation guarantee contributions.
These changes are aligned with the findings and recommendations of both the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry, and the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation and Financial Services.
Schedule 3 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 and other taxation acts to extend the employee share scheme concessions to certain stapled securities. The amendments relate to stapled securities consisting of an ordinary share and another security that is attached or stapled to the share, provided the stapled security is listed for quotation on the official list of the Australian Securities Exchange. It also extends related capital gains tax and other relevant provisions.
Currently, when an employer does not have any unstapled ordinary shares on issue, it is difficult to provide employees with access to the employee share scheme concessions. This is because the components of a stapled security must be treated separately for certain taxation purposes—the share under the employee share scheme provisions, and the other security, such as a unit in a trust, under the fringe benefits tax provisions.
Full details of the measures in this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Edwards) adjourned.
Debate resumed from 14 February, on motion by Mr Pyne:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I rise to speak on the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007. This bill proposes to introduce new compulsory reporting arrangements with requirements for aged-care providers to report suspected and alleged sexual abuse and serious physical assault of residents. It will require providers to ensure there are internal processes in place for the reporting, by staff, of all incidents of suspected or alleged sexual or serious physical assault and that the identity of staff who report is protected and that staff who report are not unfairly treated as a result of making a report. It will give the Department of Health and Ageing greater capacity to investigate complaints and to require aged-care providers to correct failures to meet their responsibilities. A new Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance within the department will be responsible for this.
The bill also proposes to replace the current Commissioner for Complaints with a new Aged Care Commissioner to provide an independent mechanism to hear complaints about how the department has responded to complaints and about the conduct of the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency and its assessors. The Aged Care Commissioner will also have the capacity to initiate its own reviews.
Labor will be supporting this bill. This bill highlights the need for better protection of older Australians who are placed in aged-care facilities. In the last couple of weeks I have been contacted by two constituents who have raised serious concerns in relation to two aged-care facilities in my electorate. I know that many members will have been touched by similar examples of poor treatment of vulnerable people in aged-care facilities.
In the first instance a constituent has, quite rightly, expressed anger and frustration at the treatment her elderly father has received. This gentleman has moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease and requires total care. He cannot communicate and is restricted to a wheelchair. His condition requires that he be restrained by a seatbelt so he does not slip from his wheelchair. On Sunday, 28 January this year his family received a telephone call stating that this elderly man had fallen from his commode chair. The injuries sustained to his face were severe and required stitches. After being transported by ambulance to Belmont Hospital, the man and his distressed wife were forced to endure a nine-hour wait before he received medical treatment. For the duration of his time at the hospital his incontinence pad was not changed. He became dehydrated. He was not treated with the due concern and respect all elderly Australians should receive as a matter of course.
Unfortunately for this particular family, other concerns for this older Australian remain a matter of daily concern. The wife of this gentleman is obliged to visit her husband at the aged-care facility twice a day to ensure he is fed and receives an appropriate level of fluids. The stress and burden of this daily routine are untenable. The family reports that staff shortages at this aged-care facility are such that patients, including my constituent’s father, are not out of their beds before 11 am. Often patients are still in their beds at lunchtime and sometimes they are returned to their beds in the early afternoon.
My constituent is also devastated to visit her father only to find him frequently unshaven and unwashed. She reports that on occasion she has found him still seated in his wheelchair with pools of urine under his chair. My constituent feels that, unless a family member is present, it is ‘in the lap of the gods’ as to whether her father gets fed or not. She expresses outrage that she has seen many other patients being totally ignored at meal times.
Another constituent has contacted me this week in relation to similar concerns involving a different aged-care facility. Again the concerns relate to her father, an 81-year-old man who has encountered an indifferent and struggling aged-care system. This gentleman took up residence in a facility in August 2006. On 5 October 2006 he was admitted to the Newcastle Mater Misericordiae Hospital suffering from bedsores, which were so severe he remained hospitalised for approximately 15 weeks. My constituent claims that her father was clearly an at-risk patient, susceptible to bedsores. She claims that the severity of his lesions is indicative of poor patient management. Three weeks ago this elderly man was discharged from the Mater and returned to the aged-care facility. Incredibly, staff were unable to catheterise him and the procedure had to be undertaken at John Hunter Hospital.
On 5 February 2007, my constituent was contacted by the director of nursing and informed that her father was unwell. She was assured her father was being cared for and told not to worry. My constituent felt uncomfortable with this and immediately visited her father. She found him alone and in a weakened state. On insisting her father receive immediate medical attention, she was told a doctor had been called. Ultimately an ambulance was required and her father was taken, under lights and sirens, to John Hunter Hospital, where a severe urinary and blood infection was diagnosed. My constituent is refusing to return her father to this aged-care facility and will instead be placing him at another facility, probably some distance away from her home. My constituent is gravely concerned that staff shortages, staff inexperience and poor quality care combined to place her father at risk during his time in residence at this aged-care facility.
Access to quality aged-care services should be an inalienable right of all elderly Australians. The failure of the system to provide appropriate services can be resolved if we commit ourselves to demanding the very best for older Australians. We need to set a benchmark of accessibility and excellence that is not corrupted by income or postcode. We need to ensure that once in an aged-care facility each and every older Australian is accorded respect and the right to personal safety, appropriate medical intervention and the right to protest if their treatment is anything less than satisfactory.
The Health Services Union has detailed horror stories in relation to substandard aged care. HSU National Secretary Craig Thomson has reported that one facility was found by government inspectors to be so short of care staff that there had been no time to document or analyse problems among residents, including incontinence, skin tears, pressure sores and scabies outbreaks. In 2004, the Health Services Union reported almost 1,000 complaints had been made about aged-care facilities in the previous financial year, which were an indicator of the scale of the problems in the industry.
Training staff is imperative to securing quality care. Stakeholders in the aged-care sector consistently affirm that staffing numbers and the level of training afforded to staff are sound indicators as to the quality of a service. To attract committed and competent aged-care staff it is essential to provide them with sufficient training and remuneration. By training staff in the knowledge and awareness of elder abuse, we are empowering not only them but their patients. By recognising the special skills needed to manage and develop rapport with elderly clients, we also empower staff to report any issues that may negatively affect clients. The HSU reports:
Widespread staff shortages are severely affecting the care of elderly residents in aged care with clear evidence they do not get adequate treatment or therapy and face a much greater risk of violence and assault.
The HSU outlined details and examples of serious issues and concerns relating to employment in the aged-care sector in a submission to the 2004 Senate inquiry into aged care. The issues canvassed included: employers escaping proper scrutiny by making major changes to staff numbers, care plans and records in the days before an inspection takes place by the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency; inadequate care in facilities without sufficient staff, with residents more likely to be injured or assaulted, not given the proper care or therapy, left in bed until after lunch or showered at 5 am; increasing assaults, with staff regularly left alone with little or no training to care for more than 50 residents; care staff forced to spend most of their shifts cleaning and doing laundry; nurses and care staff avoiding the industry because of the terrible pay and conditions; and employers taking advantage of a lack of regulation of the industry to cut spending on staffing and care levels.
While Labor welcomes the government’s announcement of $1.5 billion in funding for aged care over five years, there is no denying that this sector has been in crisis for many years. The government’s failure to resolve critical and longstanding problems in the sector is reprehensible. Its ability to ignore the pleas of stakeholders over an extended period of time underscores its absolute lack of compassion and foresight at a time when Australia faces an ageing population base. Let us make this very clear: the current aged-care funding mess was created by the Howard government in 1997. When then Minister Bronwyn Bishop planned to introduce a bond for all residents in aged care, the voter backlash saw the government back down. As a result we have a system filled with problems and shortfalls that have never been properly resolved.
In 10 years the Howard government has failed to cultivate a reputable and proficient aged-care sector. Instead we have witnessed a serious decline in the numbers of aged-care beds available. We have heard horror stories outlining the degradation and humiliation of sundry elderly Australians in the very environments that are supposed to nurture and support them. When Labor left office in 1996 there was a surplus of 800 aged-care beds. Today we face a shortage of 5,000. That represents 5,000 men and women whose needs are not being met. It also represents many more families who are struggling to care for people they love and respect. While the measures announced in the government’s package will go some way to alleviating the distress and frustration that surrounds aged care in Australia, it will not resolve all the issues and will not alleviate all the concerns that abound in the community.
I would also like to briefly raise the distressing situation of placing young people in nursing homes. The Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance reports:
... over 6,500 young people across Australia are forced to live in nursing homes because they have nowhere else to go ...
We need to recognise that the placement of young Australians with acquired disabilities and high or complex support needs is inappropriate and further compromises the service delivery within an aged-care facility. The vision of the national alliance is to see:
A well resourced long term care and support system that enables young disabled Australians with high or complex support needs to have age appropriate accommodation and support service options, including access to their communities, where and when required.
Finally, without addressing the issues of minimum staffing levels and minimum training levels and without ensuring the rigorous scrutiny of aged-care facilities, the problems I have addressed today will only continue.
There are a number of issues that I would like to raise in this second reading debate on the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007. I will obviously support the legislation. The changes that were proposed last year are very worthy and build on what I see as a good attempt by the government to come to grips with aged-care issues. I know we can always do better, and that is the dilemma that governments have and the demand that people make, but I believe that in my time in this place the various ministers—Ministers Andrews through Julie Bishop and now Santoro—have attempted in the main to address the issues that are out there. This piece of legislation, particularly in securing the safety of our older Australians, is to be commended.
As members of parliament we have probably all seen circumstances in aged-care homes where the reporting of various incidents and complaints from residents or relatives of residents have left a little bit to be desired. Many people, particularly the relatives of residents, even though there has been a process in place—and I have been involved in the process a number of times and I thank the people in the department who have been involved in the process—from time to time feel as though the process has not served them terribly well. In some cases that may well be because of a fear of reporting alleged incidents through the complaints arrangements, or it may well be that the relatives feel there might be some form of retribution.
Some people feel from time to time that, when an inspection of an aged-care facility is asked for because people feel there might be some problems of cleanliness or whatever, there are warning signals sent out and then the aged-care facility is in tiptop shape when the inspection comes along. I am not saying that happens terribly often, but I think this legislation will assist to overcome some of those issues—hopefully in a much more transparent arrangement—so that residents who have genuine concerns about their future have a process in place, because it is a very trying time for many people to see their parents becoming older and having to be placed in an aged-care residence, particularly in high care. The Aged Care Commissioner that is mentioned in this bill and the various complaints arrangements and how they will be carried out I think are to be commended.
There are a number of other aged-care issues that I would like to raise while I have the opportunity—and I am pleased to see that the Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing is now in the chamber, because I know he has had an interest in the particular issue that I am about to raise: young people in nursing homes. I know the Australian government and the state governments have been engaged in a process looking at this issue concerning young people who have had accidents and are disabled to a certain extent being placed, in the main, in old people’s homes. I think we all recognise that is not appropriate accommodation. That is not a criticism of aged-care facilities. It is just that they are not the appropriate form of accommodation for young people who are likely to live for many decades. Obviously, there are a whole range of other issues that revolve around the needs of those young people in terms of their social outlets as well as their physical and care needs. I would encourage the government, particularly the new minister, to proceed as fast as they possibly can because there are 6,000 people out there who need some form of care and are classified as young people in nursing homes.
I know there is the normal banter between the states and Commonwealth as to what can be done over the funding arrangements, the red tape and the bureaucracy that has been put in place, but I think we have got to look a little bit past that and try to engage with these young people who really do require accommodation better than what we have been providing for them and their lifetime needs. I do not issue any criticism of anybody in relation to this. I think we are all aware of it and governments are attempting to come to grips with it. But I would urge some degree of pace and some degree of additional funding as well, because the funding packages that have been put out in recent years for discussion at the state and Commonwealth level have clearly been inadequate. They are a start to fixing the problem, but we will require much more, bearing in mind that, if specialist facilities are put in place for young people who are currently housed in nursing homes, that actually frees up a bed for an older person who may be waiting for accommodation in an aged-care facility.
Another of the issues that I want to raise concerns our smaller communities, and I know that the assistant minister, who is in the chamber, and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, who is at the table, are well aware of this issue—and I do not want to be too complimentary of the government as I might be struck down with some disorder! I refer to the multipurpose service arrangements issue. I have raised it before but I think it is worth raising it again, because consideration of the multipurpose service arrangements that have been put in place is an ongoing process. I again congratulate a former member for New England, Ian Sinclair, who did a lot of work on the process at the time to come up with a resolution to the problem of old people who were not sick being housed in small country hospitals. Obviously, there was a funding dilemma: if they were in a hospital the state should pay but if they were not sick they really should not have been in a hospital.
The way of overcoming that problem—through the Sinclair report, and an aged-care specialist in my region, Paul Cook, was involved in that particular report as well and I congratulate him and the others involved—was in fact to put in place what are called multipurpose services, or MPS. I think that is a dreadful name and that the services should be renamed, because I do not think it actually describes what they do. For those who do not know, the system is a combination of health services as we know them—hospital services—and aged-care services in smaller communities. The health side of the MPS is funded by the states, as are the hospitals, and the aged-care arrangements—the actual beds—are funded by the Commonwealth. This is a really good example of how you can actually achieve a very good outcome for smaller communities and do it so that there is some degree of cost-effectiveness: if the Commonwealth and the states concentrate their minds on the end result. I refer back to the young people in nursing homes issue; both the state and Commonwealth governments should be congratulated on that particular issue.
I will always remember a lady from a little place called Emmaville. Emmaville is not the biggest town in my electorate; I think there are only five, six or seven hundred people there, although it is within a surrounding rural area. Their hospital, which was called the Vegetable Creek hospital, was going to be closed down by the state government some years back because it was an old facility. Members of that community, particularly some ladies including one called Ellie Seagrave, did not want their hospital closed down because in a sense it was their health provider, their hospital, and also because many of the older people in the hospital were not sick but were using the hospital as an aged-care facility. Ellie Seagrave—or She Who Must Be Obeyed, as many people in the area referred to her—took on the state government at the time. It was at the particular time that the Sinclair report was being discussed and, to cut a long story short, Emmaville became one of the first MPSs. It has been an extraordinary success.
I went back to Emmaville about two years ago, I had a little meeting there and Ellie Seagrave said to me: ‘We need more beds. You’re the local member—go and get some more beds’—which one had to comply with of course.
Easier said than done.
Yes, but you can’t say that to Ellie Seagrave. I said, ‘But, Ellie, there are the formulas and everything’—because it had only been open a few years; I might be getting my years mixed up. ‘How many old people over 70 in the region, subregion et cetera has determined the number of aged-care beds in the facility. Why do we need more?’ ‘We’re full,’ she said, ‘and we need more.’ Then she made a statement to me that I will never forget. I had said, ‘Why is there increased demand?’ She said: ‘We’re getting people who were raised in Emmaville and left Emmaville because they were worried about the facilities but who want to come back in their twilight years and live in Emmaville. That is an additional demand and we need more aged-care beds.’
That brought home the point to me that this is an issue beyond health and aged care. Some people are leaving their country communities because they are planning for their twilight years and are worried—in the Emmaville case, at least—that not enough health and aged-care facilities exist in their communities, so they are removing themselves at an earlier time rather than staying. In that sense, even though we see it as an aged care and health funding issue, the MPS is very important for people making decisions about their regional locations—especially those who live in country towns.
Another issue that I would like to raise briefly is pensioners. We have heard a lot of talk over the years about the debt of the nation being reduced, and I congratulate the government on doing that, even though I do not agree with some of the asset sales made to achieve it. With the resources boom and surplus budgets we are awash with money, in a sense. But I constantly see in my electorate—and I am sure others do in their electorates as well—that pensioners and older people who are not in nursing homes but are not working any more are really struggling under the regime that exists at the moment. I make this plea to the government: if there are surpluses and additional funds available, do not forget those people who have made a contribution to the development of this nation and have put us in a position where these surpluses can be generated. I think most of us recognise that the arrangements through indexation that currently exist are not keeping up with the real world of a pensioner. There are other issues as well. If a husband and wife are living at home and one of them dies, there are issues of the cost of keeping up their house—electricity and so on. I think it is time to revisit what we are doing for our older people and pensioners. There is no better time to do that than when there is a surplus that has been partly generated through the circumstances of—
Good management. Say the words: good management.
Did Hansard get that?
It would be nice to hear you say it.
Order! The honourable member for New England will not encourage the minister by way of inviting him to get comments in the Hansard because, as the minister knows, all interjections are out of order, even when a member is sitting in their appropriate place.
It is very pleasing to see an active sign come from the minister. I am not afraid to say the words. In many senses, there has been good economic management, and there has been a resources boom. The minister has woken me up now. There have been a whole range of activities out there, but it is not all about good management; it is also about the secure nation that we have had for many generations that has developed an environment where investment and a whole range of other things can take place. Those older people that I was talking about are part and parcel of that creation. If we do have a set of circumstances where there are good times, then our older people should be included in the equation.
The other issue I will raise briefly is Meals on Wheels. I congratulate the Prime Minister once again on the $1.5 billion announcement of last week. He recognised that a lot of people are staying in their homes longer and that, when they do go into aged-care facilities, the degree of care is much higher—even though it might be for a shorter period—and hence so is the cost of those people going into care. Meals on Wheels is a very important ingredient for some of those people staying in their homes, not only because of the food but also, in my view, because of the spirit of the volunteers. That is probably just as important as the food.
Within Tamworth, for instance, the president of Meals on Wheels, Laurie Beattie, and his committee have been working very hard to establish a new kitchen. I am pleased to say that Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile announced some funding for that in recent weeks, but there is a shortfall and I hope that the government would look favourably at any further application, as I hope the state government would as well. I raise the Meals on Wheels issue because I think it is a very important part of what the Prime Minister addressed in his announcement the other day about how older people will be staying in their homes longer. We are encouraging them to do that and obviously nourishment is a very important part of enabling them to do that. So Meals on Wheels is a critical ingredient in many of our towns.
The last thing that I would like to mention is in some way a criticism. I have raised on a number of occasions in this House the need to look after our older veterans, particularly those who served in the Second World War but did not have what is called ‘qualifying service’. They did not have an angry shot fired at them. The treatment that has been meted out to these people is quite different to that meted out to someone who served overseas where there were angry shots fired and who had ‘qualifying service’. I have argued a number of times in the parliament—and others have as well—that the gold card be extended to those people.
That group of people is dying at the rate of 800 a month. I think it is time that we recognised those veterans. The other day the Minister for Defence talked about encouraging people into the defence forces. We are putting in place a ‘try before you buy’ type of program and a whole range of encouragements. Young people enlist in our defence forces, but we have this very distressing and awful arrangement at the end of some veterans’ lives where they are being treated differently because, even though they may have given up five years of their life to be trained to defend the nation, they have participated in the war in Australia rather than under gunfire or by having bombs dropped on them.
I would like to recognise, very briefly, a man who absolutely fought for this issue, a man called Ken Coulton, who recently passed away in his 90s. Ken fought to be recognised. He was an extraordinary man, but he had in a sense a guilt complex that he had been treated differently to others. He spent five years willing to defend the nation. My father was in the Middle East. If the Japanese had kept coming, my father in the Middle East would have been useless in defending people on Australian shores. The people who did not leave our shores were the ones who would have been here to defend us, and I think they should be recognised in the same way that other veterans who did serve overseas are currently recognised.
In reply—I am pleased to sum up today the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007 on behalf of the Minister for Ageing, Senator Santoro. I would like to thank those people who have spoken on the bill: the members for Gellibrand, McPherson, Moreton, Blaxland, Riverina, Richmond, Canberra, Hindmarsh, Charlton and New England. It has been a very useful debate. The opposition have raised a few issues that I would like to comment on. I am pleased that they are supporting this bill and that they are welcoming the reforms, including the new Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance and the new Aged Care Commissioner.
The opposition have, however, raised a few issues that I would like to touch on in this summing up. The opposition have suggested that there has been too little time to respond to this bill and that the shadow minister has had insufficient time to consider it. I make the point that the bill was introduced in the first week of this sitting to allow maximum time for consideration in this parliamentary sitting and the debate has not been cut short. The opposition have been offered a number of briefings. The shadow minister was briefed last week and has requested a second briefing, which I think is occurring today. The Senate inquiry into this bill will also provide an opportunity for everyone to have input into the bill.
The opposition have also made the audacious claim that there has been too little consultation with industry. Anyone who knows the Minister for Ageing, Senator Santoro, will know how much he likes to consult over and over again with many different people, so the claim that he would not have consulted with industry does not stack up. He has told me how he has personally met with as many people as possible—nurses, managers, the approved providers, residents and their families—and I think one accusation that could not be levelled at the Minister for Ageing is a lack of consultation. The minister and the department have also undertaken ongoing consultation with the Aged Care Advisory Committee which, as the opposition would know, comprises most of the peak industry bodies, consumer groups, and medical and nursing bodies.
The opposition have also said that the principles of the delegated legislation have not been made available. The department has prepared and circulated a very detailed explanatory guide, which is available even on the department’s website, which describes the proposed content of the principles. The shadow minister has been briefed on this and has requested a second briefing, which is occurring today. The department will continue to consult on the proposed content of the principles and, of course, we would welcome any input that the opposition might have into what is a very important and very sensitive issue.
The opposition have also claimed that the government have taken too long to do anything about the sexual and physical abuse of the aged in nursing facilities. Obviously abuse is an extremely difficult and sensitive issue and the government is acting by implementing a very multifaceted response. Police check requirements have already been legislated and the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency is already undertaking increased spot checks. This further part of the package, this bill, implements even more measures to address the issue. They are important and complex measures and the government has very properly taken the time to consult extensively and develop appropriate legislation. It seems passing strange that we would be accused by the opposition of not consulting enough and also of not bringing in the bill fast enough. The opposition cannot have it both ways. We have tried to meet the market in both areas and the bill that we are passing today, the Aged Care Amendment (Security and Protection) Bill 2007, is an excellent response. I congratulate the minister, I congratulate those people who have contributed to the debate and I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Debate resumed from 7 February, on motion by Dr Stone:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Unfortunately, the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 is a bill that is all about mistakes. It tries to rectify old mistakes and on the way it manages to make a whole lot of new mistakes. It is in fact a grab bag of unrelated measures ranging from the straightforward through to the incompetent. In part it makes some minor changes to social security rules to increase consistency, particularly in respect of recipients of CDEP. In part it deals with the recovery of debts in cases where financial case management has resulted in overpayments. This is fair enough in principle, although there are considerable concerns in relation to implementation.
In part it enables the government to proceed with its plan to open the marketplace for publicly funded vocational rehabilitation services—in fact, a tender process has already begun. Once again we note the remarkable arrogance in the Howard government’s attitude, an arrogance we are used to. And here is another example: the arrogance of opening up the tender before the bill has passed. It is that kind of arrogance that the Howard government exudes after 11 years in office. The principle that rehabilitation services should compete in the market is not necessarily a problem in itself, but the process and lack of safeguards to protect Australians who are at risk is very worrying indeed.
So these measures have a range of impacts. Some measures fix old mistakes. Some measures create new mistakes. But one measure that is completely unjustifiable, that has absolutely no merit, is that which fraudulently claims to be a Welfare to Work measure, and that is a measure to restrict access to the pensioner education supplement. This is the Howard government’s approach to moving people from welfare to work—just put people on lower payments, stop them from getting the training they need and then tell them to get a job; and, if they do, then take back most of what they earn. The Howard government has never explained how reducing access to education and training helps people get a job, and there would be a reason for that: it is not capable of explanation.
Let me be absolutely clear. Labor supports welfare reform that helps people move from welfare to work. Labor is by definition the party of work and the party of working Australians. We believe work is in the best interests of the individual and in the best interests of the community. Communities are healthier, more cohesive and more prosperous when members of the community are gainfully employed and socially engaged. Individuals have a greater sense of self-esteem if they are contributing to their community. Work is one of those essential things which, like family and friends, give us meaning in our lives. So Labor would be very pleased to support an approach to welfare reform that actually tackled the reasons why people were not working and provided practical solutions to increased participation in work. Real welfare reform would provide more reward for effort and support training opportunities for the jobless. After all, a person can only get a job in our society if they have the skills an employer needs. Instead of having this skills based approach, the Howard government’s welfare changes have reduced the financial rewards from work and make it harder for people to get the education or training that they need to get a job.
There is nothing wrong with applying mutual obligation to people who can work. That is exactly what Australians expect. If you get a benefit you should do something in return. But why not harness mutual obligation so that it serves more than a philosophical purpose? Why not help everyone to get more out of mutual obligation? For some people the best form of mutual obligation is the requirement to find a job. Other people start further behind. Some people have an extremely limited education and, correspondingly, limited job prospects in today’s economy. For them mutual obligation should require that in exchange for income support they get themselves in a position where they have the skills an employer needs, and then they should be required to get a job.
This seems such an obvious policy and yet the Howard government simply refuses to implement it. Labor have made it perfectly clear that we share the Australian expectation that people who can work should work, and people who genuinely cannot work should be cared for. Some people, obviously because of caring responsibilities or a disability, may not be able to work at all or may only be able to work part time. It is part of the Australian culture of a fair go that we recognise people’s capacities and care for those who are in this situation. We all know that many people with a disability want to work but find it extraordinarily hard to find an employer who will actually give them a go and take them on. Indeed, the Howard government has done very little to change these negative attitudes towards the disabled in our community.
The truth is that many parents are not working because they cannot get child care, or child care is so expensive that after they have paid for it they may end up worse off than if they were looking after their kids at home. Many people who want to work, particularly mothers whose partners are working, face such high effective marginal tax rates that they would be working more to fill John Howard’s coffers than to provide for their own families.
Most people who are not employed have extremely limited education and training. They lack the skills employers need. Most jobs nowadays require a post-school qualification and, despite Australia having a very low rate of official unemployment, there are still vast numbers of people—around 2.3 million Australians—who want to work or want to work more hours than they currently do. With Australia in such desperate need of more skilled workers and with people being so much better off working than on welfare, it is economically irresponsible and socially dangerous for the Howard government to stop jobless Australians from getting education and training. Instead of actually investing in jobless Australians so that they can build a career for themselves and support the economy, the Howard government is just hoping that the resources boom will provide a permanent source of jobs and prosperity. Skilled migration certainly will not be enough. Too many developed economies are competing for skilled migrants as they combat the diminishing labour supply resulting from the ageing of their populations.
This bill, particularly the clauses related to the pensioner education supplement, continues the Howard government’s failed approach to workforce participation and welfare reform. We would welcome this government introducing a bill that delivers real welfare reform. We know that Australia needs to increase participation and we know that people are better off working than on welfare. We would welcome a bill that delivers real welfare reform but this bill is not it. I will outline the reasons why Labor opposes this bill.
When a person receives Newstart allowance or youth allowance, they will generally have to engage in activity in return for the income support. In some cases they may be required to attend a vocational rehabilitation service. Currently this service is provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service, but the Howard government has been working towards making rehabilitation services contestable so that private providers can tender for contracts. As a matter of principle, this has not been strongly justified by the government. Labor is yet to be convinced that increasing competition is in itself going to improve rehabilitation services rather than just increase duplication and bureaucracy while reducing oversight.
The people who use these services are often very much in need. Labor’s priority is to ensure that the people who need these services get the best possible services, whether these services are provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service or by another provider. However, this bill does not contain that guarantee; indeed, quite the opposite applies. Because many private providers are not compliant with the provisions of the Disability Services Act, the Secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations may allow services to be provided by some providers who do not have a certificate of compliance. This has caused considerable concern amongst advocates of people with a disability and mental health advocates, who are concerned that providers may not have the necessary expertise to deal with clients with complex mental health issues.
Another, perhaps greater, concern amongst advocates of people with a disability and mental health advocates is the removal of the requirement that individual rehabilitation programs be approved by the secretary under the Disability Services Act. Currently this approval is delegated to the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service. Clearly, it is inadequate to remove this safeguard in the context of contestability without putting equivalent, alternative safeguards in place. Mr John Mendoza, of the Mental Health Council of Australia, who would be well known to many members of this House because of his passionate advocacy of the cause of those who have a mental illness in our society, has said:
These measures take us in the opposite direction to the international evidence on what works for the employment of people with mental illness.
The Council is concerned that the Government’s proposed changes will impact on the ability of people with mental health problems to gain meaningful employment.
Mr Mendoza went on to say that the government must provide assurances that specific rehabilitation programs are developed for mental health consumers. Unfortunately, the Howard government is not interested in listening to Mr Mendoza’s call, let alone acting on it, and an assurance from the Howard government, as we well know, is not actually worth all that much. Similarly, there is a concern that there is no guarantee that vocational rehabilitation services will be accessible to clients with a range of disabilities. There are also concerns over whether people who have to participate in rehabilitation in order to meet the requirements of their activity agreement have adequate appeal mechanisms if they believe the rehabilitation program is not appropriate for their needs.
The bill reduces parliamentary scrutiny of any guidelines associated with the provision of vocational rehabilitation services. It appears that the government is seeking to avoid any possibility of disallowance that could delay the commencement of these services. With unseemly arrogance, the Howard government, through its Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, has already commenced a purchasing process in relation to these services to commence on 1 July 2007. Yet again the Howard government is treating this parliament with contempt.
There is also some concern that the advice in the explanatory memorandum is that the guidelines relevant to this issue will be subject to disallowance under the Legislative Instruments Act while the amendment procedure is temporarily suspended. However, Labor has received advice that this position is legally unclear. My colleague Senator Wong has written to the Minister for Workforce Participation seeking clarification of this issue, particularly an assurance that the guidelines are subject to disallowance and will remain subject to disallowance during the period of the suspension provided for in this bill.
The Minister for Workforce Participation, when summing up, may seek to clarify this matter for the House. The principle that overpayment should be recovered is of course a sensible one and Labor supports it. Naturally, if someone gets a payment to which they are not entitled, it is unfair on others and harms the integrity of the social security system, so it is fair that such overpayments be repaid. Across the spectrum of government payments there are provisions for the government to recover overpayments that are made. So Labor supports this aspect of the bill. However, there is a major difference between government payments and financial case management. Other payments exist in legislation. They exist as entitlements for people in particular circumstances. Financial case management, on the other hand, is entirely discretionary. Financial case management is in fact a by-product of the Howard government’s extreme compliance regime—a regime that even conservative commentators, such as Andrew Bolt, have described as too harsh.
This regime provides that people who commit certain breaches will lose all their income support for eight weeks. In some cases, this can be for three minor breaches, such as in the case of the pregnant woman in rural New South Wales who was unable to attend a scheduled interview because of morning sickness. It was her third infraction and she lost her payments. In other cases, this penalty applies after just one breach. Looking at the area where this bill and the Howard government’s extreme approach to industrial relations collide, if you are sacked unfairly in a company of fewer than 100, we know you have no ability to argue that you have been dismissed unfairly under the Howard government’s laws. Yet the current compliance regime provides that if you are sacked for what your employer calls misconduct, even if in truth you have been sacked unfairly, you will not get income support for eight weeks. That, of course, is what happens when you combine industrial relations laws with welfare changes.
If this penalty has been applied to you and you have lost your income support for eight weeks, you may be eligible for assistance through financial case management. If the Howard government considers you to be exceptionally vulnerable, exceptionally at risk—that is, to take an example, if you require medication or have vulnerable dependants—you may be able to get some or all of your essential expenses covered. Centrelink may cover costs such as food, rent and utilities, or a charity may do this on Centrelink’s behalf. Generally, these payments are much lower than the income support would have been. But, despite the fact that a great many people are losing their payments for eight weeks under the Howard government’s laws, there is no provision in law for financial case management. It is entirely discretionary.
We know from the last round of Senate estimates that, up to 30 September last year, in the first three months of this regime, 1,921 people had been subject to the eight-week non-payment penalty, but only 120 of those had received financial case management, much fewer than one in 10. While it is entirely reasonable to recover an overpayment—for example, if there was undeclared income or if the income support is restored—there is a serious lack of transparency as to what the entitlement actually was and therefore the extent of any overpayment. The lack of transparency is potentially as bad for taxpayers as it is for income support recipients. There seems to be no real reason why financial case management could not exist in legislation and its entitlements and payments be subject to review and appeal. We call on the government to improve the transparency and fairness so that everyone concerned, the income support recipients, the taxpayers and the administrators, knows where they stand.
Pensioners who study or train in an approved course can access the pensioner education supplement; recipients of allowances such as Newstart or youth allowance cannot. Under the Welfare to Work changes, people who move from the disability support pension or parenting payment to Newstart or youth allowance were supposed to retain their pensioner education supplement until they completed their course of study. This bill breaks that promise.
In relation to the vocational rehabilitation services aspect of the bill, I said that a Howard government assurance was not worth very much. Here, in relation to this issue, we see that proposition proved for us. The bill changes the arrangements for the transitional group of disability support pension recipients—that is, those who were granted disability support pension after the May 2005 Welfare to Work announcement and before the July 2006 implementation date. If they are transferred from the disability support pension to Newstart or youth allowance after a second or subsequent post 1 July 2006 review, they will lose their eligibility for the pensioner education supplement and effectively not be considered part of the transitional group. They will only be able to continue to access the pensioner education supplement if they no longer qualify for a disability support pension as a result of their first disability support review after 1 July 2006. Why would that be the case? Frankly, I have no idea.
Part of the rationale for a compliance system, which I discussed a moment ago, is to limit welfare fraud. But what limits are there on the fraud of the Howard government, which talks of the need to move people from welfare to work and then lays roadblocks along that very path? Labor have consistently argued that restricting the pensioner education supplement to stop Welfare to Work candidates from getting it is short-sighted and against the national interest of meeting skills shortages. Labor take quite a different approach from the government. We believe that those who are jobless and lack skills should be encouraged to gain the skills they need to get a job.
When the bill gets to the consideration in detail stage, I will be moving an amendment that highlights our opposition to this absurd measure. For clarity, I foreshadow that when we reach consideration in detail Labor will have a series of very detailed amendments to this bill, which I will move at that time. As the Leader of the Opposition has said and said again, Australia needs an education revolution. We need to increase participation, and all the evidence shows that if you invest in education and training you increase participation. It is with these concerns, and a genuine commitment to increasing workforce participation, that Labor opposes this bill.
The spokesperson for the Australian Labor Party has decried our Welfare to Work program, which is full of encouragement and incentive to help people who want to work find work. What is being said here today is completely the opposite of what I am finding on the ground in my electorate. I am finding that there is a positive outlook and great results occurring in the community. Despite the gloom and doom expressed by the Australian Labor Party from day one when Welfare to Work was first introduced, it is working extremely well on the ground.
The Australian Labor Party has on four occasions attempted to block reforms to give people with disabilities a fair opportunity in life. In 2002 the Family and Community Services Legislation Amendment (Disability Reform) Bill 2002 was introduced but was blocked in the Senate. In 2002 the Family and Community Services Legislation Amendment (Disability Reform) Bill (No. 2) 2002 was blocked in the Senate. In 2002 the Family and Community Services Legislation Amendment (Disability Reform) Bill (No. 2) 2002 [No. 2] was introduced and again blocked in the Senate by the Australian Labor Party.
When the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 was introduced the Australian Labor Party spokesperson in the Senate, Senator Wong, said:
More recently, the Howard Government has embarked upon its so-called Welfare to Work changes—
I can detect the cynicism in the words—
However, the policy’s design actually does a lot of damage to that worthy cause—full, as it is, of anomalies and absurdities that must be tackled.
She continued:
But these changes simply apply new activity requirements to particular groups, and dump people onto lower welfare payments. Some people who would have received the Parenting Payment or the Disability Support Pension will instead get the dole—essentially shuffling people onto different Centrelink databases.
She went on to say:
… do we honestly think that getting people to apply for jobs that they are not qualified for will solve the problems …
Nothing could be further from the truth than the expressions of the Australian Labor Party spokesperson in the Senate as she tried to denigrate a most worthy and uplifting program.
One of the reasons why the government needs to take this initiative is the ever-increasing number of disability support pension recipients over the last 15 years. In June 1990 there were 316,700-odd recipients and in June 2005 there were 706,800. So there was more than a doubling in the number of recipients in that 15-year period. Are people getting sicker or more disabled or are their fewer capable teachers in our schools? I believe there is none of that. I think that, with the administrative processes they have adopted, our welfare agencies find it easier to declare people permanently disabled, park them on a disability pension and leave them there. The problem is solved from the administrator’s point of view, but the personal and human problems remain. There are a quarter of a million people parked on a permanent pension with no opportunities, no encouragement and no prospect of making a constructive contribution to our society.
When introducing the minor amendments to this legislation—the Labor Party consider the amendments to be major and they are going to block the bill in the Senate and make speeches about how terrible it all is—the minister said:
The Welfare to Work changes commenced on 1 July 2006. They are the most significant changes to the Australian social security system for at least 50 years. The smooth implementation across policy agencies and service providers is a commendable achievement. While it is still early days since implementation, the most recent labour force data indicate extremely encouraging trends towards the reform’s key goals—namely, increased workforce participation and strong employment rates.
That is what I too have found. The minister did not exaggerate in her comments about the progress of this legislation. To find out what is really happening on the ground—unlike the theoretical approach adopted by some of the social advocates in the Australian Labor Party—I asked one of the providers in my area to give me some notes for this speech today. I thought there would be some balance and some problems and that I would raise them in the House, but what came back to me was an enlightening resume of what has occurred over the last nine months that this program has been in place. One of the groups contracted to conduct Welfare to Work program activities in north-western Sydney is a not-for-profit group called North West Personnel, which is headed by Christine Leddy. Christine Leddy is an outstanding person who runs these programs and has a huge and exceptional track record. What she said was so good and so illustrative of what is actually happening on the ground that I want to read it to the House. The Labor Party need to get a shot of realism in their approach. Just like their argument on Iraq, they are up in the clouds and off with the pixies—there is no realism in what they are saying. I will read, warts and all and without change, what Christine Leddy has written:
North West Personnel works with people with disabilities. They have four sites at Fairfield, Campbelltown, Penrith and Baulkham Hills. These sites cover large areas, not just the suburbs themselves. North West Personnel is working closely with Centrelink and the services that are provided for people to get back into work. The Welfare to Work programme is working very well for North West Personnel, who have worked with over 600 job seekers since 1st July 2006.
Initially, North West Personnel thought there would be a problem working with Centrelink and people that did not want to participate in the program. This has not been a problem at all as Centrelink has been working closely with North West Personnel and these people. They bring the job seeker into the office, talk to them about why they don’t want to find employment, counsel them, motivate them to want to find employment again and then reconnect them with North West Personnel, who get them on the path to finding employment. The model is great and is working very well.
Since 1st July 2006 there has been over 600 people in the program and out of this, 40 people are employed already. This may seem like a small number but when you consider that in July, August and September there was not much involvement due to the programme starting up, the numbers have mainly come since October. In the initial phase of the programme the ideal began, staff were be built up and people needed to become informed about the Welfare to Work program.
The last 8 months have been an educational process for North West Personnel staff especially in how to motivate people who have been unemployed for several years to be work seekers and overcome the barriers, fears and disabilities that have stopped them finding jobs in the past. These could include people who have a disability, a muscle disorder, depression, complications with limitations to where they can work such as asthma, old age and a rang of other medical conditions.
Christine Leddy of North West Personnel is a great advocate for Welfare to Work and its success on the ground. She continues:
North West Personnel work with people using a one of one approach (individual approach) where each person has their own case manager, has constant meetings and face to face contact and overall a lot of support through the process. This is making the most difference to both the job seeker and North West Personnel staff. Comments from job seekers have been “Thank goodness we’re in a service where we’re getting the help that we need” and North West Personnel is committed to giving the help needed and to the process of Welfare to Work.
Now that North West Personnel has worked hard initially they are starting to get more people into the program through referrals from people who have become employed through the program.
So not only are people being referred by Centrelink; now there is starting to be a ‘rolling stone’ effect, as people who have been successfully through the program are encouraging others to join up and participate in it. This is not just in downtown Castle Hill; this is right across Western Sydney, in some of the areas that, under the Australian Labor Party, had horrible records of unemployment. There were absolutely disgusting records of unemployment in areas claimed by the Labor Party to be its heartland. But look at the changes brought about since we have had a change of government and a change of membership in some of those electorates. Christine Leddy goes on:
The Fairfield office has had the most number of referrals out of the four offices. They have had 215 people come in through Centrelink to find employment. Due to the Welfare to Work programme it is possible for North West Personnel to employ people who talk multiple languages instead of using an interpreter. At the Fairfield office there are 8 staff. Of these two speak Arabic, two Vietnamese, two Cambodian, one Chinese and one Italian.
How imaginative and creative is that? She goes on:
The Welfare to work programme has allowed North West Personnel to employ the right people to help these others find work.
North West Personnel case workers have approximately 25 job seekers per consultant as compared to large job network companies who have on average more then 100 job seekers per consultant.
Perhaps that is part of the reason for their success in moving people through quickly and into work. Christine Leddy goes on:
There have not been very many single parents coming through the programme yet but understand that the numbers will escalate some time this year. People on parenting payments that have disabilities will be able to find employment through North West Personnel.
As well as providing motivation and support to job seekers North West Personnel provide these for employers. Employers need reassurance when dealing with older people and with people with disabilities. Employers need to be reassured that the Welfare to Work programme does work and encourage to “give it a go.” They need to be told that the employee may be older, have a disability or not be able to work on a full time basis but they can work part time.
Employers working with North West Personnel are given a lot of support, encouragement and back up. There is not much financial help for employers at the moment and this may not necessarily help but there is a small incentive given. Employers that work with North West Personnel generally employ several people at a time wanting to help more then a single person.
Today I was informed that North West Personnel’s “capped program”—the one that they had just for people with disabilities they were awarded a 4.5/5 star rating by the Department of Employment and Workplace relations based on KPI’s. This programme is the same programme that they are using for their “un-capped programme” of Welfare to Work which now includes people with disabilities going from welfare back to work. This is the same programme but for a “different stream” of people.
North West Personnel wants people to know that there are options available to help them go from Welfare to Work and if they follow the program North West Personnel has in place then they don’t lose their Centrelink benefits while they are searching for employment.
North West Personnel says that Welfare to work has been a great success to them. It has not been successful for every agency using the programme. They have a lot of success as they have a lot of referrals from other people who they have helped since July 2006.
… … …
North West Personnel is now saying “Give us more clients and job seekers—we will help you.” Now that North West Personnel know that they can help people they are very excited about it. They understand that they won’t get everyone off the welfare program but helping many people to go from the welfare program into the workforce.
I conclude my remarks by congratulating the government on a program that, despite the knocking by the Australian Labor Party, is a most excellent and innovative program.
The Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 rectifies a number of mistakes and in the process makes some grave new errors. I think it is a reflection of a government that is tired and has lost its way. I will explain that remark by reference to the policy contained in this legislation, the pensioner education supplement. I want to concentrate my remarks today on that supplement.
There are parts of this legislation that we support because they rectify past mistakes, and it is certainly worth doing that. But the fact is that a most remarkable, callous, even brutal, measure has managed to pass through the federal cabinet, obviously with barely a whisper. Indeed, the second reading speech, which runs for all of six paragraphs, shows us the contempt with which the government is treating this parliament. Through this legislation the government seeks to deny disability support pensioners who are in the transitional phase, as the government implements its Welfare to Work measures, access to the pensioner education supplement. You would think that the second reading speech at least would provide a defence or an explanation as to what the government is doing. There is no mention of it. There is no mention of any kind of rationale for this policy of denying a group of disability support pensioners access to the pensioner education supplement. So I thought we should have a look at the explanatory memorandum. That does make reference to it:
Items 21 and 28 make it clear that people who claim DSP between 11 May 2005 and 30 June 2006 who were qualified for the pensioner education supplement and who move to newstart or youth allowance, will only be able to continue to access the pensioner education supplement, if they no longer qualified for DSP as a result of their first DSP review after 1 July 2006
As clear as mud! But at the heart of this policy is a callous decision made by the Howard cabinet to deny the pensioner education supplement to a category of disability support pensioners. We ask: why? Why would you do that? Is this just a gratuitous measure, or would it save the Commonwealth a lot of money? If it would in fact save the Commonwealth a lot of money it would be worth considering whether there are net benefits. At least there would be some benefit in saving the Commonwealth money. But I had a look for the financial impact not only of this measure relating to the pensioner education supplement but of the various other measures that are provided for in this legislation, and the explanatory memorandum does explain the financial impact. It says:
The financial impact of the Bill is minimal.
So why do it? Why didn’t anyone in the cabinet room say to the Prime Minister, as the chair of the cabinet: ‘Why are we doing this? There are no financial implications for the Commonwealth that are worth mentioning, that are even worth attaching a dollar amount to, and yet we’re going to do it—we’re going to take away the pensioner education supplement for a category of disability support pensioners.’
That is what I mean when I talk about the arrogance of this government and the fact that it has passed its use-by date. It should have been the case that at least a couple of cabinet ministers would have read the submission properly, would have read the intent of it and would have raised that simple question: ‘Prime Minister, why are we doing this? If it’s not really going to save the Commonwealth any money, why are we denying the pensioner education supplement to a category of disability support pensioners?’ Obviously the question was never asked. If it had been, surely they would at least have gone to the effort in a six-paragraph second reading speech to explain it. They do not.
Let me make this clear: Labor supports encouraging and assisting people to move from welfare to work. Labor supports the principle of self-reliance, of being able to get a job and hold down a job, which contributes to the self-esteem of Australians. We support individual freedom and self-reliance. With that in mind, we have argued consistently in opposition for meaningful measures to assist that transition from welfare to work. We support reward for effort. We also support the concept of mutual obligation.
The government pretends to the Australian people that the concept of mutual obligation is all its own, as if it were never a principle that guided the policy development of previous Labor governments. But it did. It was a Labor government that activity tested the unemployment benefit, that said to the unemployed: ‘If the Commonwealth is to give financial support to the unemployed then there is an obligation on the unemployed to do something in return—most particularly, to search for a job actively and meaningfully.’ In so many areas Labor applied that principle of mutual obligation. So there is nothing new in that principle. But you do need to support people so they are able to satisfy their end of the bargain—that is, to genuinely seek to move from welfare to work.
The truth of the matter is that those Australians who remain unemployed, and especially those who have been unemployed for a long period of time, have deficiencies, if you like, that are preventing them from successfully entering the labour market. The deficiencies that many of them suffer are related to their education levels and the skills that they possess or, more particularly, that they do not possess. Most jobs nowadays require a post-school qualification. In this parliament over the past four or five years there has been a vigorous debate between the coalition and Labor on the value of an education. The Prime Minister has said repeatedly that one of the great mistakes of the 1970s and 1980s was Labor’s obsession with lifting the proportion of young people who completed high school. Well, Labor did have an obsession with lifting the proportion of young people completing high school and was able to carry that obsession through to actual results.
In 1982, 36 per cent of young Australians went on to their last year of high school. That is called the year 12 retention rate. By 1996 that figure had more than doubled to around 75 per cent. Over the 13-year period of the previous Labor government, policies were consciously put in place designed to lift the proportion of young people going on to their final year of high school and completing it. The Prime Minister says that was a grave mistake. He is on the record as saying he does not know why Labor was so obsessed with lifting the proportion of young people finishing high school. That proportion has barely increased under the coalition government. And that is not an accident because it is active government policy, led by a Prime Minister who does not believe in the value of completing high school.
The problem more recently has been a fall in high school completion rates. When I highlighted this towards the end of last year, the Prime Minister said, ‘What are they going on about? Why are Labor concerned about this?’ Let us have a look at the international evidence. Let us have a look at the most recent report of the OECD, released towards the end of last year—OECD Education at a glance. That report makes it clear that completing high school is now the minimum standard for successful entry and participation in the labour market. That is a very big statement, based on reviewing evidence from all around the world. The new standard to be able to successfully enter and stay in the labour market is the completion of high school.
Not everyone had that opportunity in the past. Not everyone is able to do it now. Many young people do not feel cut out to complete high school. Many young people find that the way classes are arranged and the functioning of a school does not suit them and they cannot cope. That is why it is important that there are a range of different educational opportunities for young people who find it difficult to maintain an interest in years 11 and 12. That is why we have to have alternatives to mainstream high schools. It is an obligation on federal and state governments to ensure that there are alternatives to mainstream high school. My argument, therefore, is that we should be striving for every young person to complete high school or its equivalent through vocational education. Those opportunities do exist in part but there is not a comprehensive program around Australia to ensure that there is an array of alternative education opportunities for people who otherwise cannot cope with mainstream schooling.
That is why I am so angry at this measure. People who are on disability support pensions should be encouraged and supported when they want to improve their level of educational attainment to improve their skill levels. We are dealing here with a category of people who want to enter the labour market, who want to be successful and who are looking for a bit of support. It is not as if this pensioner education supplement gives them thousands and thousands of dollars a year. It is a small amount, yet the Prime Minister and his cabinet have said that they will deny that to a group of disability support pensioners. Why? Because they can and they want to. Labor is calling this government to account for that callous decision.
More than two million Australians, despite the very high levels of employment in this country, want to work or they want to work more hours. There is a lot of capacity there on the part of Australians to enter the labour market or to participate more heavily in it. That capacity will be enhanced if they have the necessary skills, and that is where the pensioner education supplement comes into play. Instead of supporting those people the government is relying heavily on migration. I support, and have always supported, a strong immigration program. Indeed, last year net overseas migration has outstripped natural increase as a source of population growth in this country. I think it is great that we have a strong immigration program. I oppose what the government has done in relation to extending the period of time before a migrant can apply for Australian citizenship from two to four years. I argue that we should be encouraging migrants to make a commitment to this country through a decision to become Australian citizens, not discouraging them through requiring a four-year period before they can apply.
But the truth of the matter is that immigration will not be the cure-all for our shortages of labour in this country. The reason is that in the 21st century there is very intense competition for skilled migrants and indeed for less skilled migrants between countries that are all the subject of population ageing. That includes most of the developed countries of the world. So we will not be able to rely on migration alone to deal with labour and skills shortages. Why not encourage those 2.3 million Australians who either want to work or want to work longer hours? That is what welfare to work should be all about; not just belting people but encouraging them.
This measure relating to the pensioner education supplement is no accident, because it is built on the same philosophy that the government has applied in its so-called Welfare to Work arrangements for sole parents. Let us understand what the government has done to sole parents. It is said that, when their youngest child turns eight, they will lose the sole parent pension and be put onto Newstart, which is $29 a week less. Furthermore, they will lose the pensioner education supplement because that applies to sole parent pension but does not apply to Newstart. In addition, the income-free area under Newstart is smaller than under the sole parent pension. If they do seek work and gain it, then they will lose more cents in the dollar for every dollar they earn compared with the sole parent pension.
So there are a whole range of disincentives put in place by this government in its so-called Welfare to Work measures for sole parents to move from welfare to work. Instead of providing incentives, the government is providing a big stick. The stick gets bigger and the carrot gets smaller. In denying those sole parents the pensioner education supplement, the government is making a conscious decision that it really does not want them, and does not want to encourage them, to develop the skills that are necessary these days to participate in the labour market. Quite a number of sole parents are young girls who have got pregnant at school and have had to leave school to have a baby. Wouldn’t you think the government would then say that there is a really strong imperative to ensure that those young women, after having their babies, are able to resume their education and be supported through the pensioner education supplement? No, the government says, ‘We’re not doing that; we’re going to make sure that you are not eligible for the pensioner education supplement.’
What is a rational response for a sole parent in these circumstances as their youngest child is approaching eight years of age? A rational response is to have another baby. That is the most sensible thing for many young women—not to seek to enter the workforce but to have another baby—because that puts the issue off for another eight years. That way they would not have to confront a cut in their income support payments of $29 a week. They would not have to confront losing much more of every dollar of income earned if they did enter the workforce. They would not have to confront the reality of a smaller income-free area than that which they were able to obtain under the sole parent pension.
That is why Labor describes these measures not as Welfare to Work but as welfare to welfare. The government, through its callous approach to sole parents and to disability support pensioners, is reducing incentives for them to move from welfare to work, and it is essentially because of the brutality of this measure in relation to the sole parent pension that Labor opposes the bill.
I will finish where I began: Labor supports reward for effort. Labor supports self-reliance. Labor supports the self-esteem that goes with getting a job. But, in making those commitments, Labor supports assisting people to move from welfare to work, not whacking them over the head with a big stick, which is what this government is doing—and it should be condemned for its brutality.
As the Minister for Workforce Participation, in concluding her fairly short second reading speech on the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006, said:
The amendments will enhance the smooth operation of the legislation so that job seekers among the targeted disadvantage groups of the Welfare to Work reforms—long-term unemployed people, parents of school age children, mature age Australians and people with disabilities—can continue to be supported and assisted to build their capacity and find work through employment and related services.
When one listens to the contributions made by honourable members opposite, one would think that this government has in some way, shape or form been dilatory in its responsibilities to these people. The reality is that this bill seeks to support the government’s overarching aim to try to ensure that the highest possible proportion of Australian residents who are of working age are, in fact, in the workforce. This bill deals specifically with those of working age who may be perceived to be disadvantaged due to some form of disability or injury. The main provision in the bill is to provide the legislative requirements that will support these people in their desire to return to the workforce.
It really is not in dispute that Australia has a wonderful welfare system that gives support to people in various difficult life situations, but it is important to recognise that the social security safety net ought to be a safety net and not a lifestyle choice. Regrettably, there are some welfare recipients—and I think every honourable member would have heard stories about them—who see the system as being nothing more than that. As a result, the system suffers some level of unnecessary demand which is detrimental to those who genuinely have no other option but to rely on the system, and it also damages Australia’s economy as a whole.
Unfortunately, the welfare system is not and never will be a bottomless pit of money. It is therefore important for the government to make sure that welfare gets through to the needy and not to the greedy. As I said before, it is a safety net and not a lifestyle choice. It is sensible and vital that those who do have some ability to avoid reliance on government handouts are given the support and encouragement to achieve that. The government encourages all Australians to have a job if they are able to. Likewise, fortunately, a significant proportion of those who are unable to work due to injury or disability are eager to get into or return to the workforce to make a contribution to our society, and it is only their condition that currently hampers them.
The bill before the chamber supports those Australians who are keen to get back into the workforce. It is of course in the interest of all Australians to be in the workforce, and it is in the interest of Australians with disabilities who want to get into the workforce to do so. A major aim of the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 is to provide further legislative framework that supports and encourages the philosophy that those of working age who are able to work should do so. From mid last year—that is, from the middle of calendar year 2006—the Australian government’s Welfare to Work program announced and started to deliver an extra $192 million over three years for vocational rehabilitation services directed toward those with injuries and disabilities and also those who have participation requirements or part-time activity test requirements.
In line with the Welfare to Work philosophy, this bill enables the introduction from July 2007 of a contestable vocational rehabilitation services market. In this scenario, rehabilitation services previously handled by the government unit CRS Australia will be administered and delivered by an independent provider. That generally speaking is an excellent idea.
The bill modifies the Disability Services Act 1986 to safeguard support services and assistance for those seeking work. Under the act in its current form there is a requirement for rehabilitation services that are customised for an individual to receive formal approval through the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations or through CRS Australia. This bill introduces a change that widens the powers of the secretary to delegate to help streamline this approvals process.
Besides the changes to the Disability Services Act 1986, this bill also makes certain amendments to the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999. To work successfully, the Welfare to Work changes require modifications to legislation governing the pensioner education supplement and the mobility allowance debt calculation provisions. Other changes include modifications to the way income calculations are done for those who receive payments under a Community Development Employment Project scheme. These changes will reflect increased rates of Newstart and youth allowances which came in from 1 July last year and will also clarify the way income is calculated for couples, one of whom is a CDEP payment recipient.
The bill before the chamber also introduces minor changes such as modified terminologies, allows debts from financial case managements to be deducted from welfare benefits and also clarifies the intended treatment of indexation decisions. The Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 is another valuable tool in encouraging and assisting those who need encouragement and assistance, and I am very pleased to commend it to the House.
The Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 has a number of intended beneficial consequences. I do not seek to criticise the motivation behind the legislation but I do want to put on record a couple of cautionary remarks. The first is a general one in relation to the increasing practice of Commonwealth services to be rendered—in the language of the day—contestable. Whilst in some instances this has proved to be beneficial, in a number of areas it has led to the prime provider becoming essentially a residual service for those who fall outside the capacity of the service providers in the private sector to make money from or, if there is a fee-for-service arrangement, who cannot meet the fee-for-service costs.
This always needs to be watched because the ‘residualisation’, or the shrinking, of the public sector to a role which provides a very frayed safety net to those who are least well off in the community is a challenge that an incoming Labor administration will have to face in a large number of different areas. It will not be easy to address. Even the current administration should give some thought to it and make certain that it does not disadvantage those who are least well off in our community.
The second point I make is that the regime that currently applies to those who receive disability payments has been modified to a degree that excludes a very large number of Australians whom most of us in this House would regard as fitting the requirement for receiving disability payment. I will give an instance of a constituent of mine who faced a real set of difficulties in this regard. I will not give the name of the constituent, but the background facts are well known to the Commonwealth because it was the subject of repeated litigation—I suppose that is the right word—in front of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal and the AAT. It was ultimately resolved in a way which permitted a disability payment, but let me give you the background.
My constituent was a bricklayer and had had no other profession since his youth. He had been increasingly afflicted by rheumatoid arthritis. His hands became crabbed and he basically could not undertake any significant work in his area of professional expertise. He had no educational background that suggested he might have some alternative employment opportunities.
In the ordinary course of events, as his disability increased over time and there was professional medical advice from specialists that his disability would continue to increase such that not only his hands but his whole body would be affected, he would have gone through the normal Welfare to Work system. But in the intervening period he suffered cancer. His cancer was life threatening and led to his having a series of operations and being bedridden. On top of that, he then suffered massive heart attacks. When he applied for a disability pension, it was only the recognised disability—that is, his rheumatoid arthritis—that could be taken into account because none of his treating doctors could honestly say that it was impossible that his cancer would not resolve itself within two years time. Of course, the probabilities of that occurring were very slight. His health had continued to deteriorate, he was in great pain, he was effectively immobilised, he was bedridden and he then suffered heart attacks. In any realistic scenario, he was incapable of work for an indefinite, protracted period. Given that he had reached his late 50s, that he had no education and that his only trade was now denied him because of his rheumatoid arthritis, it seemed the smart thing to do was to enable him to go onto a disability pension.
But there was this long, protracted process where the real disability that he suffered—that is, cancer and a weak heart afflicted by a number of heart attacks—could not be taken into account, so the arguments were simply about the progression of his rheumatoid arthritis. So we had this fairyland, Alice in Wonderland discussion as if my constituent were an otherwise well man suffering rheumatoid arthritis. He was continually, at least for the initial period, being required to turn up for all the interviews and what have you relating to his obligations under the unemployment Newstart arrangements as if he were employable.
Eventually some sanity prevailed and there was a reduction in the number of times he had to fill in these forms—or, rather, his wife filled them in on his behalf because he had become incapable of doing that; he could not do it himself. We had this absurd situation where a man who was facing the prospect of death, fearful that he might not live any time longer at all, bedridden, with no real prospect of resuming work, was denied disability benefit. I imagine that if it has happened in this instance—I was eventually successful in having my constituent permitted to receive disability benefits backdated for a significant period of time—it must have happened many other times to people who are less able to access their parliamentarians or other assistance to remedy the circumstances in which they find themselves. The consequences for such people are quite severe. Firstly, the payments they get are lower when they are not eligible for disability benefits. More importantly, if they lose the capacity to respond to some of the demands that are placed on them in those circumstances, they risk the prospect of being removed entirely from receipt of any benefit.
So I think we have to have a pretty hard look at the way in which the present scheduling arrangements that recognise only certain disabilities—and permit benefits to be paid in respect of only those that will certainly persist for a period greater than two years—and look realistically at the whole person. Everywhere else we talk about approaching human needs in a holistic way, so we ought to approach in the same holistic way the human needs of people who suffer massive disabilities.
It was such a silly situation. His wife really couldn’t understand it. I remember going before the Social Security Appeals Tribunal. Very well meaning members of the tribunal were asking his wife—because he could not turn up; she was advocating for him with my assistance—about his rheumatism, because that was the basis on which they could grant disability benefit. She just couldn’t get it: she couldn’t understand why they were asking questions about his rheumatism. For her his rheumatism had become almost the most minor of her concerns. She was worried about him dying of cancer. She was worried about him lying in bed stricken with pain, with his stomach bloated, and suffering heart attacks. That is what she was worried about. That is why she thought he should get a disability pension.
The tribunal rejected the claim because, even with my assistance, she could not bring herself to focus on the reality that she needed to address this: ‘Imagine that he’s really well. How has his rheumatism developed and how would that prevent him re-entering the workforce?’ Ultimately, it was accepted that his rheumatism had developed to such a degree—and it had; he was incapable of work—that at that age effectively he was incapable of undergoing a retraining regime and that he was simply bedridden. So this imagination that he was an otherwise well person but suffering from an accepted disability, while ignoring the fact that he also suffered from cancer and had been a victim of heart attacks, created an unrealistic framework as to the disposition of his application.
I would urge the government to have a bit of a look at these things. I know that every member of this House, on both sides, had those circumstances been brought to their attention, would have done exactly as I did and tried to find an individual solution for that individual case. I do not think any officer of the Commonwealth who was on the other side of these particular matters acted other than honourably. They did everything they could within the framework of the regulations and the laws to find a solution. Ultimately, a solution was found, but it took a great deal of time and it was difficult. The reason it was difficult was the unrealistic and harsh way in which the framework is established so that it does not look at all the needs of a person in those circumstances and instead looks at the artifice that is the way the regulations are written and are required to be applied.
Those are some of the concerns that I wanted to put on record about this legislation. There was the general concern about the outsourcing of community programs and the risk of residualisation. I concede that, in this area, we will have to suck it and see. The measures will proceed, and I hope that they do achieve the government’s intended effect of making it more convenient for those who have suffered disabilities to find a vocational rehabilitation service of their choice that suits them, but I have some hesitation about the general thrust of the way in which the Commonwealth disposes of core responsibilities these days to the private sector. We need to think through how we make certain that we do not leave great holes in the safety net that those programs are meant to provide because there is no commercial return for certain clients or because those clients do not have the financial resources to pay for services themselves. With those remarks, I am happy to approach this matter in the same manner as the shadow minister.
Having heard the previous Labor speaker but one, I am now absolutely convinced that the federal Labor Party still genuinely believes in socialism. The shadow minister, the member for Rankin, really ought to know better, especially since he has a PhD in economics. In this country, we want to encourage people who are on welfare to get off it. It is not in their interest to stay on welfare and it is not in the national interest of this country. This government certainly takes the preferable policy position of trying to encourage Australians who are able to work to get off welfare and to make a contribution to the economy and to their own lifestyle and self-esteem. If anyone believes that the Labor Party with a new leader is any different to the old Labor Party, I am very sorry to say that they will be terribly disappointed.
Recently, I was asked why I thought the Howard government had had the privilege of being elected on four successive occasions. I thought about it and the two words that came to mind were ‘political courage’. This government has the courage to make decisions. This government has the capacity to make the difficult calls. This government has implemented policy which, quite frankly, has been very unpopular but really has been in the national interest. The shame of it all is that the Labor Party, throughout its decade in opposition, has known deep in its heart that it was taking the wrong position and that the coalition government was taking the right position. It still refused in a very churlish fashion to support the initiatives and policies that the Howard government was implementing.
Nothing was more significant than the decision of the Howard government to introduce sweeping taxation reforms, which included a very contentious GST. But we all know that that was in the national interest, and Queensland Labor Premier Peter Beattie was the very first to sign on the dotted line. The GST now brings in excess of $7 billion into the coffers of the Queensland Labor government. Unfortunately, they are squandering it—
Mr Deputy Speaker Adams, I rise on a point of order. This debate is about the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. The member seems to be talking about taxation matters and the GST. I would ask you to draw his comments back to the provisions of the bill.
The honourable member will address the bill.
I am very much going to address the issues of the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 but, with all due respect to the Labor member opposite, this is another example of a Labor member getting up to interrupt a government speaker on matters that they do not want to hear about. Taxation is very relevant—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I took a point of order, you made a ruling and that is within the forms of the House; it is not a contempt of the House. Any criticism of my action or yours is a reflection—
Order! The member for Ryan may continue on the matter before the House.
It is a great honour to speak in this chamber as the member for Ryan, and I will continue to address issues in this parliament that are of great relevance and significance to the interests of not only this country but also the people of Ryan. When I say those words, they are not something that the opposition should contend.
This is a bill specifically about Welfare to Work, but it contains very relevant matters of taxation and economics—matters that go to the heart of people’s lifestyles. All of that is important, and I take issue with the Chief Opposition Whip for trying to stop me speaking about these issues. I am very enthusiastically going to speak on this bill because it is a courageous bill and it is doing the right thing for this country. I know it is not popular in some circles and, of course, it is not popular with the opposition, but this is a very important bill. The Howard government is about providing welfare to the community and to worthy recipients when they are genuinely in need of it and not about making a blanket welfare policy whereby anyone who wants welfare should automatically get it. We subscribe to the view of a hand-up, not a handout.
This package was introduced in the 2005-2006 budget. The Welfare to Work reforms take Australia’s welfare system into the 21st century. Rather than emphasising passive welfare, the reforms recognise the change in the character and nature of the employment market in Australia. A flexible labour market and low unemployment mean that being employed does not necessarily mean being in full-time work. The rise of shift and part-time work, for example, means that single mothers do not have to stay at home while their children are at school. Disabled Australians, whose disability might prevent them from working full time, can still be an important and productive part of the workforce. It is in their interests and it is also in the interests of the wider Australian community.
This $3.6 billion, four-year package contains initiatives to assist single mothers, disabled Australians and the long-term unemployed to re-enter the workforce. To help parents make the transition to work, $47 million is being invested to implement the new Employment Preparation Service through the Job Network, which is currently helping parents to update their skills and undertake short-term appropriate training. The government has also committed $50 million to encourage employers to take on more people with disabilities, including $29 million for workplace modifications. An additional 102,500 employment assistance and rehabilitation places are provided to help people with disabilities.
In exchange for this investment, sole parents are now expected to look for part-time work once their youngest child turns six. People who cannot work 15 hours per week because of a disability will still be eligible for the disability support pension. However, people who can work 15 hours to 29 hours per week will receive Newstart allowance and be required to seek work of 15 hours per week. All unemployed people applying for income support will be required to make contact with an employment service provider and satisfy activity tests to receive payment.
The Welfare to Work reforms implemented from July 2006 were, of course, very much opposed by the Labor opposition, but I want to echo the sentiments of a very popular and successful American President, Ronald Reagan, who said:
We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.
I commend those sentiments to everybody in this chamber because they are timely and instructive.
We are about encouraging Australians who are in a position to seek employment and in a position to make a contribution to the economy—and to their own self-esteem—to take up those opportunities and options. Since July last year, 172,219 people have been assessed under the reforms to see if they are fit to work and 128,574, or 74.6 per cent, have been referred to job agencies. Of the single parents expected to look for part-time work under the Welfare to Work reforms, 1,580 have found jobs. In total, 3,724 single parents were transferred from the parenting payments category to partial unemployment benefits. The employment rate for sole parents with dependent children rose by three per cent to a record high of 52.3 per cent—well above the 42.8 per cent recorded when the Howard government came to office in 1996.
I also want to touch on Indigenous Australians and how they have benefited. They are one of the most disadvantaged sections of our community and we must do all we can to give them opportunities and options to participate in and benefit from the economic prosperity of this country. Between July and September, 1,482 Indigenous Australians moved from Community Development Employment Projects into paid work, compared with a mere 731 in the same period in 2005—a more than 50 per cent increase. I am sure that every Australian of goodwill will take heart from those figures. I know that the community minded and patriotic Australians in the Ryan electorate who want all Australians to prosper and reach their potential will be absolutely thrilled that such significant progress has been made in the area of Indigenous employment projects.
According to the latest ABS figures, long-term unemployment fell for the 11th consecutive month and in December 2006 it fell to 85,000, its lowest level in more than 20 years. So long-term unemployment under the Howard government remains at 72.5 per cent below the peak of 329,800 recorded in 1993 when the Labor Party was in office.
These reforms are doing a significant amount to change the culture of passive welfare in this country. We need to change the mindset and the thinking in this country so that those people who are able to work take positive steps to seek employment. We are not in the business of recklessly and mindlessly trying to sabotage people’s circumstances. Where they are in a position to work, we encourage them to work. I do not understand why any Australian in a position to make a contribution to the development of this country and its economic prosperity would not want to work. Of course, we are all very different and that is why the government sometimes has to take public policy positions that are in the overall interests of the country.
In the six months since the Welfare to Work regime began, 4,653 people have had payments cut off eight weeks after receiving the three strikes. A strike includes things such as refusing to take up suitable employment, leaving suitable employment with no reasonable excuse, engineering your own dismissal or attending work for mere payment without activity. So there is a very positive sign in those figures.
In the face of these results, along with, as we all know, a 30-year low unemployment rate of 4½ per cent and an increase in the workforce participation rate from 63.5 per cent to 64.8 per cent, it is clear that there is only one party in this country that has the economic skills, the credentials and the experience to govern our nation, and that is of course the Liberal and National parties in coalition, led by Prime Minister Howard. The opposition Labor Party has absolutely no credibility, and I hope very much that the people of Australia will think very seriously about the shocking record of the Labor Party when they were in office and how they took us not just to the cusp of bankruptcy but indeed into bankruptcy, leaving all Australians with a $96 billion debt. As a taxpayer of this country I did not appreciate that and I know that most Australians would not want to confront a collective $96 billion debt, nor their children and grandchildren.
I know that the Labor Party does not like to hear these figures, but $96 billion is a very important figure. We do not want one single Australian to forget that, whether they are sitting on this side of the parliament or the other side, whether they are listening on the radio or they are in the gallery watching and hearing this presentation. We do not want to let them forget the $96 billion figure. In fact, I should remind myself that associated with the $96 billion debt for this government were some $9 billion of interest payments. It just amazes me to think what $9 billion of interest payments could have gone to in terms of services in our country. I am sure that the people of Ryan would have lots of ideas about how to spend $9 billion of taxpayers’ money.
I want to go back to the welfare issue and refer to comments by the Labor senator from South Australia, Senator Wong. Her description of this legislation was that the government’s policies, ideas and initiatives were ‘excessive’. I think that people who work very hard—like the Ryan constituents who day in, day out go to work, pay their taxes, volunteer in the community and make contributions to this country’s development—would find such comments highly inappropriate and indeed very wrong. They work hard, pay their taxes and expect other Australians who are in a position to work to take steps to seek a job and to take up employment. And that lies at the heart of it: they expect Australians who have the capacity to make a contribution to make a contribution.
There is nothing complicated about this. It seems to me that the members opposite, especially those with some claim to economic knowledge and experience and with fancy degrees and PhDs and so forth, should really look at this. Why would any government or any member of this parliament say to an Australian who has the capacity to seek work, ‘No, you shouldn’t seek work. It’s fine. Just receive taxpayers’ money. Don’t worry about seeking work. We will pay you. The hardworking people of the Ryan electorate will happily continue to give you money, so just cruise along, you strapping young blokes living in Byron Bay and going surfing. We do not want to interfere with your lifestyle. Keep on surfing and enjoying the lifestyle that you are enjoying, and the hardworking mums and dads of the Ryan electorate who day in and day out go to work will fund your lifestyle’? Quite frankly, that is unacceptable to me both as a member of this government and as a taxpayer in this country, and it is certainly not acceptable to the overwhelming number of the people of Ryan who continue to have confidence in me as a local member, or to the Howard government.
I should not forget to mention some other very important statistics, which I know that members opposite, including the member for Blaxland, would enjoy hearing. Let me put on the record this figure of $87.1 billion in social security and welfare payments that the Australian taxpayer contributes to their fellow Australians. I have mentioned this figure in parliament before and I want to mention it again because it is very relevant. I certainly will be letting the people of Ryan know about this. This $87.1 billion in social security and welfare payments translates to $4,286 for every man, woman and child in this country. To put it another way, it translates to $2,761 every minute. So, in my 20 minutes here, some $50,000 of taxpayers’ money will have been paid out to Australians receiving social security and welfare benefits. That is relevant because people who receive those benefits should be fully entitled to receive them. Not one single person who receives a benefit who is not entitled to receive it should receive it. But if you are entitled to receive it then this government and Australian taxpayers think that it is absolutely appropriate.
In my concluding remarks, I will say—and I was only getting started; I have so much more to say here—we know that the Labor Party is going to try to hoodwink the good people of Ryan into believing that the Labor Party is the one with the capacity to manage this economy.
I hope you are doing a better job than John Moore did!
I see that the member for Blaxland is listening intently. I hope he reminds his constituents that in this country in 30 years we have not had figures such as the 4½ per cent unemployment that we have now. I think that those 30 years might even stretch to the time when the member for Blaxland’s predecessor was sitting in this parliament as Prime Minister, so he, of all members in this parliament, ought to know better. His predecessor presided over an economy and a nation that had too many people unemployed—a million Australians out of work.
I want to conclude by encouraging all Australians who might not have seen the movie The Pursuit of Happyness to go and see it. Over the break, I had the opportunity with my wife, nephew and niece to see this movie starring Will Smith and his young son. It was very striking because it showed me that people want the opportunity to pursue a job. The circumstances that the movie portrayed were remarkable. It really hit home. I think most Australians would share the values and the ideals of this government—that all Australians who are in a position to work should work because it not only contributes to the economic prosperity of their country and their community but also gives them self-esteem. (Time expired)
I am happy to follow the member for Ryan, who is doing a hell of a lot of a better job than John Moore did when he was the member Ryan. That is my opinion. As Minister for Defence that bloke used to get up and say, ‘The government’s position is well known.’ He had a relaxed attitude to these matters; the fact was that he thought that it was almost beyond him in terms of what he had to do. Michael is working and trying hard. I understand that but, gee, sometimes he goes over the top. Thank you very much for the manner in which you have conducted this debate on what is in itself a relatively narrow bill, the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. You have so widened the debate that I can talk about just about anything!
Certainly, I can talk about my economic experience working in an electorate office: it was for the bloke who ran the joint at the time as Treasurer and then as Prime Minister. I can also reflect on the current Prime Minister when he was the Treasurer, when there were in the order of a million people unemployed as a result of the 1982-83 recession. Malcolm Fraser might have been the Prime Minister, but the Treasurer of the day could not bring himself to tell the truth prior to the election as to what the deficit was going to be in that year. He was asked in the week before the election and he said, ‘Oh, in the order of $4 billion.’ The day before the election, he admitted to about $6 billion. He had had direct advice from the Treasury before he said $4 billion, before he said $6 billion, that it was in the order of $9.6 billion. Uncorrected for inflation over that period of time, it is exactly the interest payment you were talking about. In fact, it is a little bit higher.
I will tell you, as I told the current Treasurer—who has no understanding or does not want to have any understanding of the situation—that you are talking about $96 billion worth of Labor debt as if it were from one single year. In the 1982-83 budget year, the member for Bennelong was responsible for lying to the Australian people about what the deficit was going to be prior to the election and doing it in a deliberate fashion in order to try to save the government. That amount of money, in current dollar terms, is in the order of $42 billion, about half of the $96 billion, and that was only one year’s worth of deficit from the member for Bennelong as Treasurer. There is not one single year in the history of the Commonwealth when a conservative government has brought in a surplus budget. You can go right the way up to when Labor came to power in 1983. Following Phil Lynch, the member for Bennelong was the Treasurer for very many years. He was the Treasurer when they did a whole range of things. There was money under beds and all sorts of problems—
The speaker has received quite a bit of latitude and might return to the bill.
I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker; I would have to say that you are wrong in that regard.
No, I am not. You are reflecting upon the chair.
No, I am contesting what you are saying.
You should do that via a motion.
I do not have to do that via a motion, I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker.
You will return to the bill.
I will return to the bill in the same manner that the member for—
You will return to the bill.
I will return to the bill in the same manner that the member—
You will return to the bill or receive the consequences.
I will return to the bill in the same manner that the member for Ryan did and he—
You will return to the bill.
All right. This is unusual conduct. As a member of the Speaker’s panel, I understand the dimensions of speaking to a bill. With regard to these vocational services and what is being done, the point is that it is what any government does as part of its economic role in running the country. The point is very clear. While the member made the point that so much money had been wasted, the reality is that there is a context for everything that we do.
In this vocational context, there is a simple line that you can put underneath it. All of the debate that I have heard here, both from the member for Ryan and from others on the government side, has a single point and focus, which is to back up what the government intend to do in this area and to make themselves seem as hard as possible. The line coming back from any person concerned about the impact on those people who do not deserve it, in relation to disability services or vocational rehabilitation, is to say, ‘O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome!’ Because the target here is not just those people who should not be on disability services or should not be up for vocational rehabilitation; it is about everybody who is on social welfare who is not entitled to be.
The member for Ryan quite rightly said, in terms of the government’s approach to this, that $87 billion worth of expenditure on social welfare and other services is a hell of a lot of money. He used the example of very healthy people running around in board shorts, who should be working and all the rest of it, and argued that the Hawke-Keating government did nothing in relation to this. From Rickard Road in Bankstown, when I was working for the Treasurer of the time, I did my bit in making sure that the crackdown in relation to disability services and vocational rehabilitation under a Labor government was as strong as it could be. The reason I did that was that I actually listened to the people in our electorate who said that there were people who were exploiting the system. There was an absolute recognition that, unless you targeted the money that was available for disability services and pension services generally to the people who were entitled to it, you were doing down the people who needed help.
There are always people in the Australian community, from the top to the bottom, who are willing to exploit the system. There are always people willing to go over the top, people willing to extract something from Commonwealth services, people willing to do whatever they can. There is a history of such cases. We have seen barristers and others decide not to do what they were supposed to do and pay the relevant taxes they had to pay. We have seen it with company collapses. There are a whole range of cases where enormous amounts of money have been taken from the Commonwealth—money that the Commonwealth could have used for good purposes. But one thing that is very hard for some people to understand is that that can happen at the bottom of the pile as well.
When the former member for Batman, Brian Howe, was Minister for Social Security, he conducted a major study under Professor Bettina Cass into the social security system in Australia. A part of that study related to disability services and vocational education and the problem of people who might be able to work not doing so. I directly took these points up with Mr Howe in Canberra. His initial response was quite simple—that, in this area, all I was telling him was purely anecdotal and could not be given any weight.
The reality is that action was taken by the Treasurer, the former member for Blaxland, Paul Keating, to clean up the disability services area and crack down on people taking the dole who should not have it. The example the member for Ryan used was boardriders on the North Coast without jobs. It demonstrates that if you actually listen to the word on the street, to what people are saying, people who use their eyes and ears, you can affect government policy to have a good outcome for all the people who need targeted assistance. When we first brought in the special teams on the North Coast, we had between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of people who were on benefits totally knocked off benefits. They were getting benefits and they should not have been. The money saved went to people who should have received it.
Some people said: ‘That’s because it’s the North Coast. They’ve got the beaches and all of that stuff.’ When those teams were directed to the Central Coast, 30 to 35 per cent of people on benefits were knocked off benefits. In areas where you would expect there to be a problem, it was wiped out. In Bankstown and other major metropolitan areas of Sydney, there were substantial numbers of people who had been rorting their benefits who lost them—and they should have. If they were working a day job or a night job and taking a Commonwealth benefit as well, they were defrauding the people of the Commonwealth of Australia and doing down the people who really needed the benefit.
If you look at the particulars of this bill, who are they really directed at? The people on disability services and the numbers in Australia are legion. There are a whole range of expectations around this, but the fundamental mistake to make is to assume that most of the people on disability are there simply because they want to be there, because they want to get out of work or because it is an easy way to avoid it and they are bludging off everyone else, and that you could crack down on them in enormous numbers. There is always that potential. Our government took direct action. Treasurer Keating took action because of the position he was in, and he also understood what I said and what his constituents said. He recognised that you can only help those people most in need who are dependent upon social welfare payments—the age pension or other pensions, benefits and entitlements allowable—if you crack down hard on rorters. That is the duty of any Commonwealth government. But part of the problem is actually cracking through what is in people’s heads to start with in order to understand the dimensions of the problem and then deal with it properly.
There is another element here as well. This is where I go to the point about the hard hearts and cruel men of Rome. The person I am about to speak about is dead. That person, Mervyn Dassouki, was a branch member of mine. Merv was a Muslim who had come from overseas and who married a lady from Yugoslavia. He arrived on a Friday and started working on the Monday at Kirby’s in Revesby, just over in the electorate of Banks. Merv was there for 28 years as an active employee in the tooling and machining area. Merv was a guy who worked really hard. Merv had a problem with his heart and he was hospitalised as a result. He went onto benefits for some time and was about to go back to work. He was working in his backyard, he was up a tree doing some pruning, and he fell out of the tree. He ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
It was impossible for him to go back to work. He had to have assistance with his breathing. He had multiple complications as a result of it. He was angry with himself and angry with the world. He was someone who had given so much, and wanted to continue to do so, who ended up in a position where he not only had to receive but also could not properly control his life anymore. He suffered enormous pain, until 10 years after the accident he finally succumbed to his multiple difficulties. That is at the core of my response in terms of the ‘You hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome.’
There is no desire on the part of the government as a whole, because they are using it in propagandistic terms, to really look at this and ask: are there people who are really in need? There are a lot of people in that circumstance. The vast proportion of people who are on disability pensions did not choose to be there in the first place. They are people who were working—who were part of our effective workforce, paying their taxes and contributing—and who then had an accident. Merv did not draw down a pension because he did not need to.
And it happened to one Colin Jacobsen from the electorate next to mine. He is a bloke born in Panania and otherwise known as Col Joye from Col Joye and the Joy Boys. He fell out of a tree at his house in Hunters Hill. Col was well off, although that changed in the period after his fall, until he brought himself back. It took a tremendous amount of work to get himself back into performing, because of the dimensions of what he suffered. That is another case of someone who has given a lifetime of work and effort. He was lucky enough to be able to come back.
A third example—this lady is dead as well—is Eileen McCarthy. She had enormous courage. She was actively working. It shows how simple it is and what needs to be kept in mind when we are dealing with a bill that looks like it is simply a way for the government to kick people receiving disability services—and kick them hard. But there is an implication here. It is the same as the line between sanity and madness: you never know when it can happen to you. Whether you are a deputy speaker, a member speaking in this House or someone who is working here, no-one can tell when they might end up on the receiving end and be in need of disability services.
That happened to Eileen McCarthy. She walked out the back door of her house in Greenacre. It had two steps to the ground. She missed the step and went off the side. She landed on her heels and a jolt went straight up her spine. It was four or five hours before her husband and children came home. She had remained there in that state; initially she was unconscious. She was in terrible circumstances when I went to see her in the Coast Hospital. She was initially quadriplegic but came back to being paraplegic because she had one arm and one leg that worked. She was left with one arm that was virtually useless and she had continuing problems with one leg. She was in hospital trying to rehabilitate for over five months. Through dint of her own courage she got back to a position where she could drive a car again and she was looking to go back to work. This was someone who did not want to be on disability services—the kind of case that is real. The complications from the injuries she suffered ended up killing her as well. These two people, Merv Dassouki and Eileen McCarthy, were amongst the hardest workers I have known. For them the short step between normality and disability was just a whisper.
I have a brother, Sean, who was quadriplegic but came back to being paraplegic. After 15 weeks he was deaf, dumb and blind and, as far as we knew, he had no mental function. They wanted to turn off his support mechanisms about two hours after he had gone into the hospital. Sean came back from that. He is still paraplegic; he cannot walk properly. He was born in 1960. At 17 his life was dramatically transformed. Sean cannot go into the normal workforce. He has done voluntary work but he is in such a condition that he is unable to do that. Sean went from hospital to the Koorabel rehabilitation centre. I was working at school. After work I spent most of the rest of the night with him for the 12 months that he was in there learning how to walk and how to function again. I saw the disabled people in Koorabel trying to come back—like the people who have the education services that are being targeted by this bill. I saw the trauma for them and for their families. There is an enormous cost for the community but there is also an enormous cost for those people—people who had otherwise led normal lives until they slipped, with a simple step, into a parallel universe that is dark and difficult and nasty. Unless you really understand it, you cannot run disability services in Australia and you certainly cannot run education programs. But worse than Koorabel was the double storey building up the hill from Koorabel that housed people who were in large part brain dead as a result of motor car or motorcycle accidents—people who had survived the accident and were being kept alive but would spend the rest of their lives in a vegetative state or something similar.
There are disabled people who work their way back because of the better interventions that we now have. But the government would have us believe that the vast majority of disabled people are con merchants and con artists who want to do everyone down and that the campaign it will seek to run against them this year is fully merited. This bill is the spearhead of that campaign and it is the spearhead of the denigration of anyone with a disability.
I think of Merv Dassouki, Eileen McCarthy and my brother’s situation. I know real people who did real work, took one step the wrong way and ended up with their lives entirely destroyed. If you adopt the approach of being hard hearts—cruel men of Rome—and encompass these people in that campaign as well, you should be condemned from now to eternity. It is right and proper to weed out the people who want to bludge on the social security system and defraud the Commonwealth—and we did that when we were in government. I will not cop a piece of the argument by the member for Ryan and others that we were not hard in relation to this, because I was a deliberate and central part of doing so. (Time expired)
Today I want to speak frankly about welfare dependency and the policies that we need to get more Indigenous Australians into jobs and into business. We all know what welfare dependency does: it takes away people’s dignity and it certainly takes away their sense of purpose. This is the case in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. So any government that cares about people will do all it can to foster people’s capacity to participate in work and to gain purpose through work. There are many issues for any Commonwealth government to address, but first of all I want to touch on some facts. On average, Indigenous Australians are more than three times more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to be out of work. And it is not just about location, because Indigenous people living in the poorest neighbourhoods of our cities are still more likely to be unemployed than their non-Indigenous neighbours.
A study last year by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research highlighted this point using 2001 census results. It found that:
… the Elizabeth area of North Adelaide had one of the nation’s highest urban unemployment rates for non-Indigenous people at 21 per cent. Among Indigenous residents of Elizabeth, however, the unemployment rate was 34 per cent. In Macquarie Fields in Sydney, non-Indigenous unemployment was 11 per cent compared to 30 per cent for Indigenous residents. In Brisbane, Inala recorded a very high level of non-Indigenous unemployment at 19 per cent, yet the Indigenous unemployment rate of the suburb was 35 per cent.
The study also found that the rate of upward mobility amongst Indigenous people in our cities had not improved. The ingredients of poor education, poverty, racism and being socially marginalised pose significant barriers to Indigenous young people in our cities. The situation is, however, worse in remote areas, where, according to ABS labour force data, unemployment continues to get worse in real and relative terms.
Of course, it is never good enough to just focus on the problems. I certainly do not intend to get swept up in the history or culture wars debates about remote communities. What I want to do today and to continue to do in this portfolio is talk about personal regard and responsibility, why it is important and what else is needed for Indigenous Australians to become economic equals.
Labor certainly has the policy mind to understand the way that social order, education, economic participation, health and culture are linked. We also know that, when it comes to Indigenous welfare and employment, we cannot afford to take an apologist approach. We cannot and we will not be making policy that makes white people feel good, whether they are white people from the bureaucracy or the left or the right of politics. What we want to do is develop policy that works. It will be an approach based on experience and looking at what is achieving results, not an ideological approach—pragmatic and local, certainly not a Canberra blueprint. Sometimes, I have no doubt, it will need to be unconventional.
We will take a fair approach to welfare that hinges on personal responsibility as much as it hinges on investment in an individual’s capability. I certainly agree with Noel Pearson when he says that too often the approach in welfare is to make excuses and absolve people from personal responsibility. But, equally, Labor will not be indulging in the ‘blame the victim’ chorus of social conservatives. We are talking about Indigenous empowerment, not victimhood; responsibility, not excuses. Professor Larissa Behrendt from the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning in Sydney has said:
It was paternalism that condemned generations of our people to poverty and welfare dependency.
Half of the Indigenous population is under 25 years of age. Population growth is even higher in remote areas, particularly in the Top End of Australia. Labor wants to do one thing in particular, and that is to encourage our Indigenous young people who have gone off the track to stop and choose the path that will win them social and economic power, self-esteem and respect through education and work. We know, from the high-quality research done by the likes of the Dusseldorp Skill Forum, that the best way to keep our young people on track is to keep them engaged in education and training. If young people—and this of course is true for Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people—leave school early they are going to require considerable investment in mentoring, possibly wage subsidies, on-the-job training and specific efforts to get them back into education. All of these things are required to come together to defeat the destructive habits and low expectations that unfortunately typify people who leave school early. As I say, that is true in both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
Governments also have a responsibility to make sure that the disincentives in our social security and tax systems are addressed, as is the way in which they intersect with the CDEP system for Indigenous Australians. We want to encourage the decision to study and to work, not the reverse. That means looking at all of these major payment systems, whether it is social security, CDEP or the tax system, to make sure that they encourage people to work and that they do not have serious disincentives that discourage people.
We know it is also true that many Indigenous Australians carry out work while on CDEP payments that in any white community would actually be properly paid for—work such as long day care, driving a school bus, natural resource management, rubbish collection, and the list goes on. These issues need to be brought into the equation to address the serious levels of unemployment.
Last year, Senator Penny Wong, Labor’s shadow minister for workforce participation, released a discussion paper which she called ‘Reward for effort’, which explains how Labor will bring obligation and opportunity together. We intend to put the ‘mutual’ back into mutual obligation by making sure that people who have participation requirements also have training or study opportunities for them to get ahead, and to foster their independence. We intend to back it up with measures designed to give financial backing to those who will benefit from an investment in their skills.
But of course these ingredients for reform are not going to be enough for remote regions where labour markets are limited. In many remote parts of Australia, there simply are not the jobs. In some places, we know, there are jobs, and I will touch on some very good examples of that in a minute. Unfortunately many of the Indigenous people in these regions do not have the skills to take on those jobs. It is also the case, as I have just mentioned, that there are a number of jobs being undertaken by CDEP recipients which, in other communities, would be properly paid for.
We are all very aware in Australia that our current prosperity has been forged on the back of a minerals boom. That is happening literally in the backyards of many Indigenous Australians. Sixty per cent of mines in Australia neighbour an Indigenous community. Recently, a Rio Tinto report into the Pilbara region found that in 2004-05 the Pilbara produced $12.9 billion worth of exports, of which $53 million went back into the Pilbara. That is less than half of one per cent that went back to local government and local people.
It is true, I think, that all governments over the last few decades have been sporadic spenders, whether it is on employment support, regional development—you name it. It is as if governments of all persuasions have been administering an emergency relief budget rather than governing for the future. I want to quote one of Labor’s recently elected Indigenous members of parliament, Ben Wyatt, from the Western Australian state parliament:
If we continue down the path that all governments have gone in respect to Indigenous affairs, in respect of our regions, we are, in effect, accepting the ultimate demise of our regions and simply applying a palliative economic drug to ease the pain on the way to the economic grave.
He also argued:
... bringing to remote Aboriginal communities the real market forces of job search after years and years of palliative economics will bring ... nothing but disaster.
Like him, I do not think there is any point in throwing money at Job Network in remote areas if there are no jobs to fill or if people do not have the skills to fill them.
Labor accepts the argument of National Indigenous Council members that government can act as an enabler of the goal of getting Indigenous people into work. In September last year NIC member Wesley Aird said, ‘Economic development is not happening fast enough.’ Another NIC member and the Chairman of Indigenous Business Australia, Joseph Elu, stated that he was tired of the lip-service being paid to economic development by business and the government. He said:
There’s all sorts of things like ‘We will endeavour to employ indigenous people in the mining sector, blah, blah,’ but there’s no actual targets.
A couple of months later there were threats of mass resignation from National Indigenous Council members over this issue. So I think all of these commentators would agree that we must go beyond the palliative economics of the past that have become the norm for these Indigenous regions. It does seem that the current government has an ideological allergy to stimulating economic growth in remote Indigenous regions. It seems content to leave these regions to free market forces—a neglect that is just not tenable.
What we really need to do is look at some of the ideas that are being put forward in a very positive way. Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine have advocated the idea of regional economies that have a partially mobile, transient workforce. Part of the workforce would be employed in enterprise and service delivery in the home region while others in the workforce would seek employment elsewhere and return regularly, investing back into that region. The Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, land councils and forums like the Kimberley Appropriate Economics Roundtable have done excellent work on untapped potential in remote regions. This potential encompasses the arts, tourism, land and sea management, carbon trading, construction, and the pastoral and mining industries. Just last Friday the economist Jon Altman submitted to the Senate inquiry into Australia’s Indigenous visual arts and crafts sector that, with the right support, the Indigenous arts industry could grow three times in size. Right now there are an estimated 45,000 Indigenous artists throughout Australia.
One of the issues that is very topical at the moment is carbon trading, but I wonder how many people know that some of Australia’s pioneers in this field are an Indigenous mob in western Arnhem Land. The potential for greenhouse gas abatement contracts is immense for traditional owners with large tracts of land and skills in resource management.
Another very important issue is the promise of native title in terms of jobs and economic development. Unfortunately, this promise has not been delivered to our Indigenous people because native title representative bodies have not been adequately resourced to do so. This is despite repeated calls from both industry, particularly the mining industry, and the National Native Title Council. Recent research from Griffith University showed that half of the agreements analysed were either ‘basket cases that should never have been entered into’ or had delivered pitiful returns. So more than a decade of native title law has been a major disappointment to many Indigenous Australians. Their dividends from the minerals boom have been few and far between. Noel Pearson commented on this issue in the latest Weekend Australian. He wrote:
... the present situation is that the terms upon which mining takes place in Australia wreak more burden than benefit to indigenous peoples, most of whom live in the dust of development.
He continued:
... the federal Government has continued to legislate to weaken the indigenous position ... They are now proposing another round of amendments that further threaten the capacity of indigenous people to deal with developers.
We saw that legislation debated in the parliament this week. It is very clear to Labor that this government is not committed to Indigenous Australians getting jobs, getting their businesses going, making sure that they can take advantage of all the opportunities that exist both in the cities and in remote and regional Australia. In particular, the government seems to have locked the promise of native title in a bureaucratic void.
Indigenous Australians want to be able to improve their standard of living through economic development and work. I intend to embark shortly on a study tour of successful Indigenous projects and enterprises happening in urban, regional and remote areas around Australia. A number of these projects are about Indigenous Australians getting their businesses working and getting Indigenous people into employment. It is happening, and if we get the opportunity, we intend to make that success the basis for our action in government. We will be guided by what works. Our whole approach in Indigenous affairs will be to see what works, to scale up the projects that are working and to encourage them, and to do the things that are the responsibility of the federal government by making sure the social security and tax systems do not get in the way of Indigenous people’s desire to work and by providing the skills and training that people need to get the jobs they so urgently desire.
The main provisions of the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 and the premise upon which it is based can only be described as flawed. The Minister for Workforce Participation, in her second reading speech in December last year, was more than willing to gloss over many of the, quite frankly, mixed bag of changes that will take place as a result of the passage of this legislation. Once again, while presenting a picture of choice, the Howard government is actually eroding opportunity. That is what choice really means to this government: an erosion of opportunity. Choice is presented as the Holy Grail and nirvana by members opposite but, when you start examining the details and the various changes and what they mean for individuals, you realise that the introduction of the Howard government vision of choice generally means that some people will end up with less. Labor’s concern over the content of this bill and our genuine commitment to increasing workforce participation are why we oppose this bill and have moved the amendment that is before the House.
Moving people from welfare to work is a worthy objective which I, for one, and no doubt every member of this House, support. Employment provides people with the opportunity not only to build a stronger financial and economic platform for themselves and their families but also to strengthen their self-esteem and their social networks as an individual. Communities also benefit when members are gainfully employed and socially engaged. They are just matters of commonsense. Labor is strongly committed to welfare reform but has a deep concern about the approach being adopted by the Howard government. Simply moving someone from one form of welfare to a lower form of welfare in order to provide some twisted version of an incentive to find employment is an approach wrapped in an ideology governed by theoretical constructs that does not give recognition to the difficulties people face in securing employment.
The Minister for Workforce Participation in her second reading speech focused on the introduction of competition and the contestability of the provision of vocational rehabilitation services. Currently, someone in receipt of Newstart allowance or a youth allowance who is required to engage in activities in return for income support may be required to attend vocational rehabilitation services. Presently, this service is provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service. Under the amendments in this bill those services will become contestable and consequently will be able to be provided by private sector providers. It is important that a change like this is done properly and that appropriate safeguards are introduced into the system so that contestability does not result in further disadvantage to those who are already finding it difficult to find employment. For example, many private rehabilitation service providers are not compliant with the Disability Services Act, but under these provisions the Secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations may allow some services to be provided by providers who do not hold compliance certificates. There is concern that there is no guarantee that vocational rehabilitation services will be available, ready and accessible to clients with a range of disabilities. This has the potential to further marginalise people trying to access the workforce who most need those services.
The minister was noticeably silent on the changes proposed to the pensioner education supplement. Given that she failed to mention this change in her second reading speech, I can only assume that this rates among what she describes as ‘minor and technical amendments’ and consequently she felt there was no need to provide an explanation of the rationale for this, which actually amounts to another broken promise. The pensioner education supplement is an important allowance for pensioners who study or train in an approved course. Under the government’s Welfare to Work changes, people who move from the disability support pension to Newstart or to youth allowance are supposed to retain the supplement until they complete their course of study. The amendments in this bill are aimed at nothing more than restricting access to the supplement and consequently reducing the pool available for people to up-skill in order to prepare for work. I regularly have people contact me in absolute frustration at the fact that they cannot even get a little bit of financial assistance to undertake training that they consider so necessary to gain employment in the fields that they choose.
These are generally individuals who want to upgrade their skills and get back into the workforce, but there is always another hurdle that is put in front of them as they try to make themselves more employable. They are often unable to afford the courses that they need to undertake, because their income support payments will simply not support such education. While the minister may consider this a minor difficulty, it is yet another example of this government’s unwillingness to invest in people and in skills development and education so that individuals are equipped to meet the demands of the modern-day employer.
We all know that if you do not have the skills you do not get the job. All this government is doing with these arrangements is making getting a job that much more difficult. Following the passage of this bill I expect I will hear from more frustrated people seeking a little financial support, but by that stage they will be effectively locked out and marginalised from the labour market.
There is no doubt in my mind that the government’s approach of getting people into the labour market and back into employment is not working. As I commented earlier, this government’s approach is driven by a theoretical construct of the labour market that does not reflect reality. Common sense will tell you that, in order to get people to act in a particular way, there needs to be an incentive. Simply running around chanting ‘welfare to work’ and ‘mutual obligation’ will not produce an increase in employment. Those who are classed as hard to employ need more assistance than that provided by cutting their payments in an effort to force them to find employment to provide for their families. That is using the incentive of starvation to force people into work. I think the approach has to be a little more structured than that, certainly when you consider that many of those trying to access the workforce are single mothers, who need the infrastructure support of child care for their children in the form of before and after school care. These people need real assistance; they do not need to have their allowances cut and have that used as the stick to force them to work. That is what the government’s legislation does. Consider also those who have left school early and need assistance with training to get a job. Their readiness for employment will depend on what constructive assistance they can get to make them job ready and attractive to a contemporary employer.
In January this year, the Productivity Commission released a report which highlighted the changing nature of the Australian labour market and the importance of education in lifting male workforce participation rates. The Productivity Commission reported that there had been a fourfold increase in the rate of male disengagement from the labour force. It is clear from the evidence that men who are not working or who are looking for work typically lack work skills that are relevant in the new economy or they have a disability. This begs the question: how can the government believe that lowering welfare payments, reducing access to the pensioner education supplement and opening up vocational rehabilitation to non-compliant private providers without adequate protection access for the disabled is going to help people back into work when all the evidence points to the importance of providing skills? The answer, of course, is that what the government is doing is not going to help them back into the workforce; it is simply going to ensure that people are moved from one form of welfare onto a lower form of welfare.
Labor believes in all Australians reaching their potential, because that is what is good for the individual, good for the economy and good for the community. That is why we need a suite of policies that will properly help people to gain the skills necessary to enter the workforce. Furthermore, Australia’s ageing population is one of the greatest economic problems we face, and it is going to be more important than ever that we get as many people working as possible. With an ageing population, it is important for people to not only access skills but be reskilled to be able to participate in the modern-day workforce. Therefore, this is not a matter of simply saying that the only way to assist people is to use an economic stick to hit them over the head with, when they are unable to compete in the workforce because of their lack of developed skills. That is the issue we need to address.
When considering the impact of Welfare to Work changes and debating the merits of various policies to increase workforce participation, it is necessary to examine the labour force statistics. It is not possible to examine labour force statistics without commenting on the government’s interpretation of those statistics and the myths that it is trying to perpetuate as a consequence. While job creation is more than welcome, this government is making an effort to perpetrate the biggest con job of them all—the biggest con job that it has tried in the 10 years of its office.
Many have commented that the unemployment figures mask the reality of many individual and community based issues that we as local members experience. That is true. I do not have a problem with the technical definitions of employment and unemployment or with the methodology used to determine the labour force statistics; I do have a problem with the government using these statistics to conclude that Australia has already reached full employment. To conclude that Australia has reached full employment on the basis that the national unemployment rate has dropped below five percent is clearly misleading.
Bear in mind that the statistics consider people to be employed if they work as little as one paid hour per week. On that logic, if everybody between the ages of 15 and 65 participating in the labour force worked for only one hour per week then we would have a zero rate of unemployment. That is clearly ridiculous, but it is the statistic that this government relies upon to say that we have reached full employment. It is notional and, through its generality, it masks the impact that it has throughout various sectors of the community. It is not a real statistic to be looked at if one paid hour per week justifies someone not being considered unemployed. If people take comfort in those figures, they are living in cuckoo land. If the whole nation were working one paid hour per week, we would have a zero rate of unemployment. For all sorts of reasons, not everyone can be employed at any one point in time—and we know that.
As I mentioned earlier, the government is attempting to pull the wool over our eyes when it comes to unemployment. Currently we have the Treasurer, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and others continuing to tell us that the unemployment rate is a product of the introduction of Work Choices. That is a ridiculous suggestion. The current rate of unemployment is not as a result of Work Choices; it stems from the resources boom, and members opposite quite clearly know that. We heard that yesterday in question time when the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations indicated that the government does not create jobs; businesses do. If the government really believes that, why is it trying to walk on both sides of the street and attempting to attribute employment growth to Work Choices? The government has been doing that day in, day out with every dorothy dixer that is thrown up to the minister by members opposite. It is attributing any adjustment to unemployment solely to the introduction of Work Choices, and yet yesterday the same minister admitted that the government does not create jobs; businesses do. This is just another example of this government taking credit for all the good news but trying to blame someone—indeed anyone—for the bad news.
The other myth that this government is attempting to perpetrate is that, because the unemployment rate is low, everything is rosy for those who work and for those looking for work. A national unemployment rate of less than five per cent means that there are plenty of opportunities. When I look around various electorates, and at mine in particular, and look at skills that are being sourced by employers, I know that there are very strong pockets of disadvantage. I am sure the seat of Werriwa is not alone in this, and I am sure it is not only members on this side of the House who have that experience. Significantly higher levels of unemployment are masked when considering the national aggregate and averages, and that is without looking at levels of youth unemployment. We need to address these communities within our various electorates to come up with a real solution.
I cannot support the government’s position in this legislation. It is simply seeking to move people from one form of welfare to a lower form of welfare. It is based on a philosophy of using the stick over the back of the head, and quite frankly it is not doing anything to look at the skills necessary for people to adjust— (Time expired)
I am pleased to rise in this House to speak to what I believe is yet another misguided piece of welfare legislation proposed by this government, the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. This legislation will further restrict the availability of the pensioner education supplement for some welfare recipients and enable the recovery of debts incurred through financial case management. It will also make some changes to the way in which income is assessed for certain CDEP recipients. Finally, it will allow for the government to put rehabilitation services out to tender—a process this government has arrogantly already begun before this legislation has passed through this place.
Welfare to Work is an issue that I am extremely passionate about. Many of you in this place know that I have spoken about it many times, both here in the chamber and in my community. This bill shows that after 11 long years those opposite are still focused on punishing welfare recipients, particularly those on the disability support pension. This bill shows yet again that this government just does not understand the needs of people with disabilities and their carers. The government’s focus seems to be more about putting additional obstacles in the way of disabled people and moving them from one welfare queue to another.
Labor believes that those in our community who can work should work. Those people with disabilities should be cared for and assisted by government to reach their full potential in life, including in the workplace. But this government has not put in place any steps to assist these people with a good, solid transition from welfare to work. Rather than punishing people, we should be training them. After all, a person can only get a job if their skills are in demand. Sadly, many people with a disability are being denied the opportunity to get the skills that employers require.
The Welfare to Work package of bills that we saw come through this place in recent times has had a huge impact on the lives of people with a disability in my electorate. When the last raft of changes came into effect mid last year, my electorate office received many calls from people with disabilities who are on DSP, or from their carers. I can recount a particular case, one of many. In this instance it is the case of a young disabled man who wants to work. He works part-time in the hospitality industry, and he wanted to work more hours. For him work does not provide just an income. For him and many others similar to him, work provides an enhanced sense of self-worth, independence, social inclusion and social acceptance. Despite all of the obstacles and extraordinary challenges he faces in his life, he simply wants to get on with the job. For his elderly mother, her son’s work provides some hope for his quality of life into the future, long after she is unable to continue as his primary carer, long after her passing.
This fine young man was offered more hours at his workplace. He wanted to work, so he accepted the additional hours. He then went off his payment because he did not want to be a burden on the government purse. After some months, however, he and his employer found that he just could not cope with those extra hours. It was simply too much for him. He had to reapply for his DSP but he found that he now came under the new Welfare to Work rules. His activity test dropped to 15 hours per week. He is faced with spending the rest of his life, virtually, on the dole. Won’t that be great for his self-esteem in the long term! How will his special needs be catered for on the dole? The short answer is that they will not be. At that point he came to our office. After the involvement of my office and the actions of local Centrelink managers, we managed to have him ‘grandfathered’ under the old provisions. We managed to prevent him from being disadvantaged by this government’s draconian Welfare to Work legislation and by that terrible transition from the old system—you would be virtually forgotten by this government under that system now—and the new system. Sadly, we could not save others in a similar way from the disastrous impacts of those laws.
Many of the provisions in this bill, I believe, are equally misguided. Whilst I fully support the ability of the government to recover welfare overpayments—of course I do—a review and appeal mechanism must be in place. I believe that the government has deliberately omitted review and appeal procedures for debts incurred under financial case management. We have often heard over the past few months the Prime Minister say in this place, ‘What do you expect us to do—let these debts go?’ Of course we do not. But we also believe in a fair, proper and transparent process.
My electorate office deals with more complaints and more inquiries about Centrelink than any other government agency. I am sure many members’ offices are very similar to mine in that regard. As part of the advocacy services that we supply, we organise appeals on behalf of Centrelink customers. We have a pretty good success rate in relative terms. Time and again I have seen debts that have been raised against welfare recipients waived or reduced by thousands of dollars because, upon proper review, it has been found that the person complied with all Centrelink requirements and acted in good faith. The mistake was not theirs and they should not have been punished for it.
But don’t take my word for that: when the Australian National Audit Office completed a review of Centrelink cases last year, they found that in 30 per cent of cases Centrelink had in fact made an error. Almost one in three people walking into their local Centrelink office may have mistakes made in their cases. Through this bill, those opposite want to deny them any right of review and appeal if their overpayment is the result of the financial case management system. This is an outrage.
I want to also put on the record right now that I defend the overwhelming majority of workers in Centrelink. It is not an easy workplace when you consider their workload level, the heavy burden of duty that they carry, the continuous changes that they have to keep up to date with and the stress of dealing with customers in some cases. I am not having a go at Centrelink workers. As for those who make a mistake, we all make mistakes, including me. My point is that Centrelink is a government agency working under government direction. I am pretty safe and secure in saying that many Centrelink workers sometimes do not like the job they have to carry out, but they are there to do it.
I want to now talk about the provisions in the bill relating to the outsourcing of rehabilitation services. I have no objection to these services being provided by the private sector, providing that service levels are not diminished. I find three elements of these provisions most disturbing. The first is that it will be the Secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations who will approve private sector providers. I would like to know what level of expertise the secretary has in assessing the rehabilitation of people with a disability. Will this authority be delegated, and, if so, to whom? My second concern is that private providers will be allowed to operate for up to 12 months without being accredited under the Disability Services Act. In other words, for the first 12 months they will be able to operate under this legislation with no accreditation. To ensure that appropriate levels of care are delivered, we must have accreditation from the first day. You cannot be half pregnant; you are either accredited or not accredited. I cannot understand how you can have a system in which accreditation comes in a year after the system has begun. That is a basically stupid policy, and that has not been clearly understood. I do not understand how you can logically defend it or why you would.
Another concern in this area is the arrogance this government has shown in beginning the tendering process with the private providers before this bill has passed through the parliament. It shows contempt of the highest order for the democratic processes of this place. The next thing we know debate will be removed entirely. What is the point of debate if the government have already begun the process? It proves to me how much arrogance has crept into this government if they believe this is how they can behave.
Finally, I want to touch on the changes to the pensioner education supplement contained in this bill. We on this side of the chamber have argued consistently that we should be doing more to provide welfare recipients with training opportunities. Our position could not be further removed from that of those opposite. Labor recognises that the best path to a job is to have the skills that employers demand. We should not be restricting these training opportunities, and that is exactly what this bill will do. Not only will it restrict people from undertaking further training; it will prevent them from continuing training that they have already commenced. That is crazy. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to go out there and talk to people with disabilities and fully understand that they would love to have a different life to the one they have. In so many cases, all they ask is for a fair go, some support and the training and encouragement to be put in place to see what they are capable of doing.
People receiving the pensioner education supplement already face significant barriers to entering the workforce. Preventing them from completing training adds another obstacle on their path to prosperity, self-worth and social acceptance. I do not know what the government hopes to achieve from these provisions in the bill, apart from saving a few dollars in the short term. That is a pretty pathetic motive. The long-term costs to the people forced to abandon their training, the local communities in which those people live and the nation as a whole will certainly outweigh any short-term gain. I strongly believe that this government needs to re-examine its whole attitude to Welfare to Work. Disabled people and other pensioners need a hand up to get into the workforce. They need encouragement, support and training. They do not need to be backhanded by a government which, after more than a decade, has not delivered one initiative, in my view, to adequately improve the lot of disabled people.
I will conclude my remarks with an observation. Over the years of this government, I believe that people with disabilities have been derided and held in contempt by a lot of the comments that have been made in this parliament—particularly by the Treasurer, but by others as well. They have said things like: ‘Get off your butts. You’ve all got bad backs and you’re malingerers. Get out there and do something and stop being such a huge cost to us the taxpayers holding the taxpayers’ purse.’ That is so confronting and so insulting.
At the end of the day, what have we seen? We saw Welfare to Work legislation come through this parliament that basically excluded the 780,000 people who happened to be on the DSP at the time. The people the government complained about have been removed from the equation. We then had the disastrous transition period, which I referred to when I spoke of the case of the young man in my electorate who was a DSP recipient under the old system. He did everything in his power to work full-time but could not. When he had to re-apply for the DSP, he came under a whole new set of tests. It was quite unfair and put him in a terrible position. Thank heavens we were able to save him from that. I hate to think how many others are out there who were not able to be saved in a similar way. Now we have this legislation coming in affecting the people who are on the DSP today. I say that that is three strikes for this government—a failure in three cases on Welfare to Work. All they have to do is go out and talk to people in the community to understand that their approach is so wrong. We are so far removed from that approach. The divide between us and the government on this issue could not be wider.
It is a delight to follow the member for Canberra on this issue. She is a very passionate advocate for people with disabilities. I rise to speak on the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006. This bill is part of the Welfare to Work measures which commenced on 1 July 2006. It is in essence a bill seeking to fix up mistakes, but it also introduces a whole new set of difficulties to a system which is already too complex for people to navigate. The main components of the bill are the opening-up of vocational rehabilitation services to contestability—a tender process which, despite the bill being debated only today, has already started. You have to be galled by the arrogance of the government on that. There are some real issues with the process, but I also have concerns about the lack of safeguards to protect some of our most vulnerable job seekers and I will detail that later in my contribution to this debate.
The bill also restricts access to the pensioner education scheme, which the government claims is a Welfare to Work measure. The government has never been able to explain how removing the ability of people to afford education and training assists them into work. Unfortunately, that has been the government’s approach to welfare reform and moving people from welfare to work: place them on lower payments, despite the significant financial barriers they already face; stop them getting the training and assistance they need; and tell them to get off their butts and get a job.
The Welfare to Work changes have been in place for some six months now. Many agencies who work with the most disadvantaged in our community continue to have concerns about them. The harshest impact of the reforms has started to bite and the eight-week breaching regime is, in many cases, causing significant financial distress. The impacts are being felt most significantly by people with disabilities, but sole parents are also waking up to the harsh reality of the Howard government’s welfare reforms. No-one contests that the best way you can help people out of poverty is to get them into the workforce. No-one contests that if you are in receipt of government payments then there is an expectation that you will be obliged to do all you can to find work. But the government has never been able to explain how reducing people’s income and access to education and training helps them get a job.
We will be opposing this bill in its current form. The key areas of concern are the removal of the entitlement to the pensioner education supplement for certain groups of social security recipients and the introduction, without adequate checks and balances, of contestability to vocational rehabilitation services. We also have issues with financial case management.
A demonstration of the harshness and unfairness of Welfare to Work is exposed in this bill, which strips the pensioner education supplement from some of the most vulnerable Australians. Under the Welfare to Work changes, people who moved from the disability support pension or parenting payments to Newstart or youth allowance were supposed to retain the pensioner education supplement until they completed their current course of study. This makes sense, as all the research shows that education and training are among the best ways of helping people re-enter the labour market. However, this is exactly what the Howard government is taking away from Australians who need it most. Education and training are often the bridge to employment. We should be encouraging, not preventing, access to programs like the pensioner education supplement.
The Australian Federation of Disability Organisations, in its submission to the inquiry of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education into this bill, highlights that the pensioner education supplement is a stepping stone to employment for people with a disability—a stepping stone that this bill proposes to remove for some social security recipients. The bill would see a person who came onto the DSP in the transition period of Welfare to Work, between May 2005 and July 2006, lose their access to the pensioner education supplement if they were reviewed off the DSP after 1 July 2006. The amendment would result in people who continue to be eligible for the DSP after their first review but who become ineligible at a subsequent review not only moving to a lower payment but also losing their pensioner education supplement.
This element of the bill drew further fire from ACOSS, the Australian Council of Social Service, in the Senate inquiry. ACOSS uses the example of a person with disabilities on the disability support pension who has just commenced a three-year full-time course when their payment is first reviewed, say in July 2007:
In this example, the person disadvantaged by the policy is the one with the more substantial barriers to work, since they retain the pension at their first review.
This is clearly unfair and works against the very people who need assistance. I know that the pensioner education supplement is highly valued by people on a disability support pension. I have had countless people in my office who are on such a pension, who are struggling to re-enter the workforce and who would like to see the pensioner education supplement expanded. This bill will greatly disadvantage many of those who need to access the pensioner education supplement but who will have it removed from them.
Catholic Social Services Australia summed up the effects of this provision well when it noted that for people who are turned down for the disability support pension after their first review there will be:
… a high cost in economic, productivity, social and human terms. Many individuals in difficult circumstances who have invested considerable time and effort in furthering their employment prospects are likely to be forced to jettison half-completed courses—courses commenced and continued in good faith in the expectation that the Commonwealth’s Pensioner Education Supplement would be available for the duration of the course.
How incredibly short-sighted!
The other area that we are concerned about is the contestability of vocational rehabilitation services. We have accepted contestability as a principle for vocational rehabilitation services, but we are really concerned about the way in which this government is going about it. As I said, we are here in this place debating the bill and the tender is already out there. We have not even passed this legislation to say that vocational rehabilitation services can go to contestability, yet the government is already out there with the tender.
It is very arrogant.
It is extraordinarily arrogant. I do not know why we bother to have a parliament if the government assumes that, despite the Senate and despite the House of Representatives, every piece of legislation is going to go through completely unamended. It is disgraceful.
Currently, rehabilitation services are provided by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service; however, as with other areas of social security, the Howard government has been working towards making rehabilitation services contestable so that private providers can tender for contracts. As I said, they have already started that tender process for vocational rehabilitation services.
There are some real concerns about opening this sector up for contestability. One of the issues is that vocational rehabilitation is a specialist service, particularly for people who have mental health issues or significant disabilities or who have been injured at work. Not only does it require specialist, skilled people who have occupational therapy, physiotherapy or social work skills and qualifications but also it requires people who really understand the sorts of experiences people have gone through when they are confronted by those issues—whether they have injured themselves and are trying to return to work, whether they have developed mental health issues or have a chronic disability that continues to cause issues throughout their life. I am concerned that the government is not providing any guarantees about the quality or the standard of services for people who would be going out of the Commonwealth rehabilitation system.
Many of us have seen, when areas are opened up to contestability, agencies enter the market voraciously, sometimes getting things wrong and sometimes not doing a great job. Most of the Job Network providers and employment agencies that we have across the country do a really good job, but some of them do not and, when we open this service up for contestability, significant protections need to be in place for people with disabilities and/or mental health challenges who want to return to or find work.
Unfortunately, this bill does not provide those safeguards and it does not provide those guarantees. Nor does it actually recognise that these are really specialist services. This is not just about going out there for job seekers who are at a certain level. This is about providing really tough job-seeking assistance, and it does require people who have good skills and good qualifications who really understand the experiences of people with disabilities and mental health challenges and those needing rehabilitation and assistance to enter the workforce. I am not convinced that the government understands that. Nor am I convinced that the government has built any safeguards into the system of contestability in order to protect people in the system.
The other area of concern in this bill is the issue of financial case management. You have to remember that financial case management does not have any basis in legislation. Financial case management basically is a by-product of the Howard government’s extreme welfare compliance regime, a regime that even many right-wing commentators have noted is excessively harsh. The regime provides that people who commit certain breaches within the social security system will lose their income—all of their income—for eight weeks. If the penalty is applied to you, you may be eligible for assistance through financial case management. This means that Centrelink or one of its contract providers will actually cover your costs and will pay for your food, rent and utilities in certain circumstances. But there is absolutely no basis in legislation for saying that, if it is not deemed that you can get access to financial case management, you have a capacity to appeal that. This bill puts in place a mechanism by which, if, by the end of financial case management, overpayments have occurred, those overpayments can be claimed back—and you have no capacity, if you are in those circumstances, to appeal. There is no appeal mechanism and no complaints mechanism that you can apply if an overpayment is being sought from you under the financial case management system.
I think that should be of concern to many people in terms of procedural fairness. Many people working in politicians’ or solicitors’ offices find that a lot of people in the social services system are incurring a Centrelink debt and their capacity to negotiate their way through the system to decide whether they can appeal is really quite difficult. Unfortunately, within this bill there are no protections and no complaint mechanisms for those people who may find themselves subject to a claim to have their payments reduced because an overpayment was made under financial case management.
I am extremely concerned by the lack of balance in the current welfare system. Labor supported and introduced the notion of reciprocal obligation into the welfare system. But our version was just that: we asked that people in receipt of social security payments did everything they could to find work and that they actively demonstrated it. In return we said that there were certain things that people could expect—access to training, proactive assistance in finding work and becoming job ready, and high-quality service providers in the local area that they were able to work with in an innovative way to find work.
We recognised that there were some people, particularly those with chronic conditions, mature age workers and sole parents, who had specific difficulties and faced unique barriers to entering the workforce. We recognised that there were people who started well behind the eight balance—those whose lack of education or a lack of a nurturing and supportive upbringing, or in many instances even a home, made their job prospects very limited.
As a former social worker I have worked with many young people whose literacy and numeracy skills were completely inadequate for them to even contemplate entering the workforce. Their capacity to hold a conversation with anybody and to speak to anybody in an appropriate way without causing great offence was extremely limited. The thought of these young people being able to get solid, full-time work without a significant amount of work on them beforehand was completely ridiculous.
We recognised that those with caring responsibilities and people with disabilities may not have the capacity for full-time work. We recognised that there needed to be some flexibility in the system to accommodate individual circumstances.
The government, in my view, have forgotten what the notion of reciprocal or mutual obligation means. They have forgotten their end of the partnership, their end of the bargain, with job seekers. The system now lacks the balance necessary: you need both incentives and penalties to assist job seekers into work; there need to be obligations placed on employment agencies about the way in which they deal with unemployed people; and the government needs to take an active role in removing systemic barriers for job seekers.
The Howard government’s reforms have been all about punishing people, not helping them. I would have been happy to support welfare reforms that provided reward for effort, increased training opportunities and worked out practical solutions to some of the reasons why people are not participating in the workforce. Instead, the Howard government decided to reduce financial rewards for work and made it harder for people to get the education or training they need to get a job. I have yet to meet someone with a disability who is not desperate to get work. Most find it extremely hard to find an employer to take them on. There is little that this government has done to change employer attitudes. I meet many women with children who are itching to get back into the workforce but they cannot afford the childcare fees. Or they do the sums and find they would be worse off after getting work not only because of childcare fees but also because of effective marginal tax rates that mean they are working to fill John Howard’s coffers, not to provide for their families.
This bill, in particular the restriction of the pensioner education supplement, is a continuation of the Howard government’s failed approach to welfare reform. We on this side of the House know that it is dangerous and foolhardy to sit back and somehow think that the resources boom will be the driver of permanent jobs and prosperity for all time to come. We know that it will not. To drive the next wave of prosperity, we need an education revolution, to borrow the words of the Leader of the Opposition. All the evidence shows that the best way to help people out of poverty, to help them into jobs and to increase participation and prosperity is for governments to invest in education and training. This government has done just the opposite, and this bill is just a continuation of the failed and flawed Welfare to Work reforms that the government has been driving.
I ask the House to bear with my voice or lack thereof, although I think I will be able to get my message across very ably.
It is a demonstration of great courage, member for Shortland.
I come to this debate on the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 from a different position to many other members of this House. I suspect that I am the only member who has worked in vocational rehabilitation services and I did so for in excess of 10 years. A large part of my contribution to this debate will deal with the issue of contestability and what that means to the people affected by the change in the delivery of vocational rehabilitation services.
The bill before us deals with four main policy areas. One is vocational rehabilitation services, to which I have already foreshadowed I will be making a lengthy contribution. The bill removes the entitlement to the pensioner education supplement for certain groups of people receiving payments through Centrelink. The bill also enables the recovery of financial case management debts and makes changes to the income test arrangements for certain CDEP recipients.
I will commence my detailed contribution by addressing the issue of the removal from PES recipients of the entitlement to the pensioner education supplement. The government is making a grave error in choosing to remove eligibility to receive this supplement from people who are in receipt of the disability support pension. Under the bill, people who claimed a disability support pension between 11 May 2005 and 30 June 2006 and who qualified for the PES, the pensioner education supplement, will only be able to continue to access the PES if they no longer qualify for DSP as a result of the first DSP review after 1 July 2006. This is very short-sighted. The government should be doing everything in its power to ensure that people with disabilities undertake some training so that they can move off the disability support pension. The government is making it harder for people in receipt of disability support pension to move off it.
Much of this government’s approach to welfare reform has been motivated by the fact it wants to get people off benefits rather than see them get work. Every day we see the government direct the sharp end of all its legislation to the most disadvantaged in the community. If the government truly were interested in seeing people on DSP enter the workforce and earn a wage, it would help them by maintaining their entitlement to the pensioner education supplement.
I turn to the provisions of the legislation that deal with financial case management debts and the recovery of those debts. Financial case management is only necessary because the government has brought in a very harsh breaching regime. I have shared with this House the concerns of some of the constituents whom I represent. Only last week I raised the issue of two women who have been threatened with breaching. One woman has a cross against her name already. She is 60 years old and was unable to get to an interview because she did not have transport. So now she has one cross against her name. She has been warned by Centrelink that she has to be very careful because next time she will be breached. This happens to a lot of people in the community. The more vulnerable the person, the more likely they are to be breached. Financial case management has been put in place to support those people who have no money to pay for their food, rent, gas, electricity or water bills.
I do not believe that anybody should obtain money fraudulently. But if, after a reassessment, Centrelink staff determine that a person could have looked after themselves—their parents may have given them some money or some assistance and it is as black and white as that—Centrelink can recover the financial assistance they have given to that person. For a country like Australia to have in place such a harsh regime, to my way of thinking, is unforgivable. We should be a caring nation. We should be helping those people who are more vulnerable than others are and we should have proper safety nets in place. This amendment bill raises real concerns. I have already seen firsthand how people within the electorate that I represent have been affected by this harsh Welfare to Work regime.
Welfare to Work is supposed to be about assisting a person receiving a Centrelink payment with moving into the workforce. The way this government is implementing it is all stick and very little carrot. To get the absolute best outcome, a person needs to be nurtured through the process. The more vulnerable a person, the greater the assistance they need. I feel that this government is letting people down in that area.
I would like to turn to the issue of contestability in relation to vocational rehabilitation services. But, before I move to the issues affecting people using the vocational rehabilitation service, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the introduction of contestability. Once the Commonwealth Employment Service closed, that led to the Job Network that operates throughout Australia, offering services similar to the CES. There are some very good Job Network providers in all of our communities but there are also some very marginal and very ordinary Job Network providers who are interested mainly in obtaining money for providing their services and tend to forget the reason that they are there.
Last Thursday I raised in this House my concerns for a 55-year-old woman who had been asked to jump through hoops just to satisfy the Job Network provider requirements. I have had many other people contact me about problems they have with Job Network providers. I even had a constituent who advised me that they had been penalised because they had previously been to see me. They came to see their member of parliament because they were not happy about the way the Job Network provider they had been assigned to was operating, and they were threatened with repercussions. They had to undertake a program because the Job Network provider did not feel that it was right for somebody to go and see their member of parliament if they had a problem with that Job Network provider.
The Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service provide a very specialised service to people with disabilities. They have a wide range of clients from a wide range of areas, with a wide range of skills, education and disabilities. There are people with very severe injuries—head injuries, spinal injuries, back injuries—intellectual disabilities and psychiatric problems. These are all people who need very specialised assistance to find employment. The CRS employ a variety of caseworkers and occupational therapists, who do physical assessments of clients and workplace assessments, and who provide return-to-work programs. There are psychologists, social workers, job trainers and physiotherapists. They provide the services that people with disabilities need to get back to work. And of course I should not forget rehabilitation counsellors, seeing as I was once employed as a rehabilitation counsellor with the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service.
I would have to say that the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service is not perfect, but it certainly offers the greatest hope anywhere in Australia to people with disabilities for getting back into the workforce. I think the changes foreshadowed in this legislation will lead to a poorer service for people looking to attract vocational rehabilitation. Once you bring into play contestability, as outlined in this legislation, you will not be comparing apples with oranges. Vocational service organisations will have fewer skills and less expertise. They will have to pay their workers less. These services will be able to undercut the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service, which pays for the professionals they employ, professionals who can assess objectively the needs of their clients.
It will put in place a very bureaucratic structure and there will be a decline in service. It will be a similar situation to the one that exists with the Job Network providers, with a variable quality of service. If a person with a disability is lucky enough to be referred to the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service, they will get the creme de la creme service; if they are referred to service X down the road, which does not have anyone with proper qualifications, they will end up being put into a job that they are not suited to.
Part of the challenge of getting a person with a disability back into the workforce is being able to choose a job that fits their physical and intellectual capacities. A poorly trained person may say that a person with a back injury could work for eight hours standing all day as a console operator. That is setting that person up for failure. Maybe there might be a person who can do that, but you really need to have the workplace designed around the needs of that person. You need to ensure that that person will have the right sort of support.
With the introduction of the model of contestability set out in this legislation we will have the revolving door syndrome. People will be put into jobs that they are not suitably qualified for—either physically or vocationally. They will go along to the workplace and may work there for a week or two weeks. The vocational rehabilitation service will receive a payment for placing that person but two weeks later the person will be unemployed once again. People with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable groups in our community when it comes to looking for work. If the person assessing their needs is not properly qualified, that is setting up the disabled person for failure. I find that absolutely unacceptable. I do not think this House should support a model that will allow that to happen.
Workers compensation in most states uses a variety of rehabilitation services. They have very different clientele from the type of people who go through CRS. The expertise needed is very different. When you are dealing with the group of people most disadvantaged by disability, I would argue very strongly for ensuring that we provide the proper vocational services. A few years back, the government set up the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service for privatisation—they were going to sell it off. Instead of selling it off, they are giving it away. They are undermining the service by setting up a model similar to the model that exists with the Job Network.
I implore the government to revisit its approach to welfare reform. I support welfare reform. There is no-one in this House more supportive of people with a disability being given a go, being given the opportunity to get a job, than me. I understand all the issues that surround it. I know that every time a person with a disability tries to enter the workforce and fails, it is the most enormous setback for them. They are being put back—behind where they were when they were placed in that job. The more times they fail, the more it affects their self-esteem and the less likely they are to succeed in entering the workforce.
This government is a harsh government. It is not prepared to really look at the issues. All it is concerned about is trying to marginalise those people who need the government’s assistance. I cannot support the contestability provisions as set out in this bill. Let’s face it—contestability is just another word for privatisation. I cannot support the removal of the pensioner education supplement as detailed in this legislation. The recovery of financial case management debts, except in cases where fraud can be proved, is something the government needs to think about long and hard. The only reason we need this financial case management is that the government has in place such a harsh regime, which has affected so many Australians. Rather than support this bill, I think the government should take it back to the drawing board and amend it to make it reasonable.
I thank the member for Shortland. I am glad her voice held out.
And what a voice it was!
Rasping.
Rasping, but it made the point—and that is what this exercise is all about. The member for Shortland has done a very good job in explaining to those who might be listening to this debate on the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 our concerns with this legislation. They should be left in no doubt about those concerns. I am going to apologise in advance for spinning off, in my contribution, the speeches made by two of my colleagues. The first is the speech made by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Ms Gillard. The second is the speech made this morning by the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs, Ms Macklin. I want to pick up on some of the issues they raised. The deputy leader, in her contribution, said that this bill:
... is a bill that is all about mistakes. It tries to rectify old mistakes and on the way it manages to make a whole lot of new mistakes. It is ... a grab bag of unrelated measures, ranging from the straightforward to the incompetent. In part it makes some minor changes to social security rules to increase consistency, particularly in respect of CDEP.
It is on CDEP that I want to concentrate my remarks. Others have spoken in detail about what I would describe as the asinine stupidity of the Welfare to Work measure of trying to restrict access to the pensioner education supplement. The measure speaks for itself. The deputy leader made this very obvious point:
This is the Howard government’s approach to moving people from welfare to work—just put people on lower payments, stop them from getting the training they need and then tell them to get a job; and, if they do, then take back most of what they earn.
That is an apt description of where the government’s Welfare to Work policies are at now. Then the deputy leader made a very strong case explaining how Labor supports welfare reform, particularly reform that helps people move from Welfare to Work. She made the obvious point that Labor is, by definition, the party of work and the party of working Australians.
We have heard much, and continue to hear much, from this government about the issue of mutual obligation. That is interesting in itself but it ignores the reality that the concept of mutual or reciprocal obligation in the context of welfare reform was introduced by the Hawke and Keating governments. I well recall the introduction of that concept in dealing with those who were unemployed—their obligations to attend training and to look for work. I well recall the outcry that we received from some sections of the community about having the temerity to require unemployed people to undertake some activity in order to get a benefit from the Commonwealth.
We make no apology for supporting the concept of mutual obligation, but we say the government has no ownership of it and ought not pretend that it does. It ought not pretend that somehow or other its championing of mutual obligation is precedent setting—in fact, quite the reverse. The idea was developed initially by the Labor Party when it was last in government. The government ought to be at least gracious enough to acknowledge that fact. It ought to acknowledge that the reforms introduced by the Labor Party, in my view at least—I am sure the government would disagree—were far more understanding of the need for people on benefits to get into training and to get a job, than are the reforms of the government, as observed by the deputy leader.
For some people, as the deputy leader said, the best form of mutual obligation is a requirement to get a job. But then she made what I thought was a very significant observation—that is, other people start further behind. Some people have an extremely limited education and correspondingly limited job prospects in today’s economy. For them, mutual obligation should require that, in exchange for income support, they get the skills an employer needs and then they should be required to get a job. I think that statement is a very good summary of the reality.
But I would go further. It is all very well for us to talk about individuals getting themselves into a position where they have the skills an employer needs. The difficulty many Australians have is that they are not in that position. They are not in a position to acquire the skills an employer needs, for a range of reasons. One may be the nature of the labour market in which they find themselves. One may be where they live and their access to education and training opportunities sufficient to give them the skills that an employer might require. What I would be saying—and I strongly support the view that people who can work should work—is that we need to understand the reasons why in many instances people find they cannot get work or are out of work. Whilst bland statements about trying to get people in work are useful in some respects, we need to understand that macro-statements of that type, if they are to have any impact, need to comprehend the particular circumstances in which individuals and communities find themselves. If we want people to get a job we need to understand where they live, who they are, what their life experience has been, what their educational opportunities have been and are currently, and the likelihood of them getting a job with the skill sets that they have at present.
There are many Australians, even in this period of very low unemployment and supreme skill shortages, who are either unable to access the education that they require to get into the labour market or unable to access the skill sets that they require through vocational education and training to get themselves into the labour market. That is not acknowledged by the government and it needs to be. There are many other reasons why people are unable to gain employment. It may be due to their family circumstances; it may be that they have responsibility for caring for individuals or family members.
When I talk about the responsibilities that individuals have I make it very clear that mutual obligation, reciprocal obligation—whatever you want to call it—is a two-way street. We have an obligation as a government to provide the safety net that people need if they are in crisis or unemployed. The unemployed have an obligation to seek employment and, where available, to get into training that will give them an opportunity to gain employment. But governments have an obligation to ensure that they are in that position. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that people have access to the education that they require. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that people have access to the vocational education and training opportunities that they require. Unfortunately and sadly this has not been the case.
I wish to build on that by referring to the contribution by the shadow minister, Ms Macklin. She made the point that, on average, Indigenous Australians were over three times more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to be out of work. She made the further point that it is not just a location or a poverty issue, because Indigenous people living in the poorest neighbourhoods of cities are still more likely to be unemployed than their non-Indigenous neighbours. She referred to a report by CAEPR. She then said she wanted to talk about personal regard and responsibility, why it is important, and what else is needed for Indigenous Australians to become economic equals. It was a very prescient request to look at what is required to ensure that Indigenous Australians become equals in this regard.
It is not my intention to repeat all of what the shadow minister said, but she made this point, which I think is illuminating. Half of the Indigenous population is under 25 years old and population growth is even higher in remote communities, particularly in the Top End, which includes all of the Indigenous communities I work with in the seat of Lingiari. This is true right across the Top End of Australia and indeed in Central Australia. In the top part of South Australia in the Pitjantjatjara lands population growth is quite high and there is a very young population with high fertility rates. We need to understand that those people require particular attention. In many of those communities, people’s only access to employment is through the Community Development Employment Projects, CDEP. This government has made changes to CDEP which I have spoken about previously and which I have grave concerns about.
The shadow minister talked about the need for us to think laterally about regional economies and job creation. She referred to Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine, who have advocated the idea of regional economies that have a partially mobile transient work force, part of which would be employed in enterprise and service delivery to the home region and others would seek employment elsewhere and return regularly, investing back in that region. This is not a new model. Indeed, there have been employment enterprises set up in Central Australia, designed to provide work teams to travel across Central Australia to carry out building functions for road maintenance, of the type which have been spoken about by Messrs Pearson and Mundine. So this is not new. It is happening right now but can be expanded further. It relies on a number of things: knowledge of government because they have a responsibility to ensure that to get people into work teams the situation in which they live must be addressed. Unfortunately, as I have said many times in this place, that is not the experience of Indigenous Australians in this country at the moment.
Referring back to the issue of mutual obligation, I have said here before—it warrants saying again—that CDEP was an initiative which came from Indigenous people themselves as far back as the early 1970s. It is seen as the Indigenous equivalent of Work for the Dole, which it predated by almost 25 years. It needs to be understood that its purpose was to alleviate the deleterious effect of unemployment benefits on Aboriginal people. The Indigenous people themselves understood the impact of welfare dependency in remote communities and said to government, ‘We want you to provide us with a capacity to ensure that people in our communities who are getting a benefit from government for being unemployed work for that benefit.’ They understood then, as they understand now, the impact of welfare dependency not only on their young people but on the communities generally.
When we talk about the need for welfare reform and when we pillory Aboriginal people, as often happens in this place, we need to understand that initiatives that were taken by Aboriginal people predated initiatives which are now being taken by governments. The acknowledgement of welfare dependency, which has been echoed by people like Noel Pearson, Warren Mundine and many others, has been talked about by Aboriginal people across Australia for at least a generation. And now we find that governments have been unable to address the particular needs of those individuals and communities. So to get people to work, you need to comprehend where they are, who they are and what their particular situation is. To illustrate the remote communities of Northern Australia where there is chronically high unemployment, let me give you some data about the community of Wadeye.
Less than one-fifth of the adults in the region around Wadeye are employed and the vast majority are tied to the Community Development Employment Projects, CDEPs. Eighty-two per cent of Aboriginal income is attributable to welfare sources, 90 per cent if CDEP is included. That is very significant. We know that Aboriginal people occupy less than half of the 130 jobs outside CDEP—at least they did when this data was collected in the region. We also discover that in 2003 only half of the region’s school-age population were enrolled in school and only half of those enrolled attended classes, and then it was on a mostly irregular basis. There is a correlation there. The issue which I have raised in this parliament on an ongoing basis is the need for our community, the community of Australia, to understand what is happening in these places. Because of policies of successive governments, we do not have the educational outcomes that we require in these communities. Resources which would make it easier for them to get a job are not being addressed to the poverty which these people suffer. If you are not healthy and happy, it is going to be very hard to be educated.
In the context of this community, there are 144 habitable homes with an occupancy rate of 16 people or more. So, just to meet the demand in 2023, you will require another 122 dwellings. We have chronic overcrowding. This is a community with the highest incidence of rheumatic heart disease in the world, so it is not a healthy community by any stretch of the imagination. It has high welfare dependency, high dependency on CDEP and low levels of educational attainment, yet the government is introducing reforms which do not address the fundamental issues here. The fundamental issues are: how you address those underlying issues of poverty, how you provide the infrastructure that is required to give people a safe and healthy living environment, how you provide the nutrition that will get the kids to school in the first place, and how you build schools that will maintain the interest of those young people and provide them with the skills they require to get access to employment or access to training opportunities.
Let it be said, in support of the views being expressed by Messrs Mundine and Pearson, that the people who work in these communities are potentially very mobile. There will be no difficulty at all in attracting them to work in other places provided they can return home on a regular basis. This is not hard. What is hard is getting governments to understand that they have an obligation—the obligation which I referred to earlier. It is all very well to say to the individual, ‘You have an obligation to work or do some other activity to receive a benefit,’ but at the same time governments have to make sure that they have the capacity to get that work or do what they have to do to get the benefit. To do that they need to provide the investment that these communities require so that these individuals can participate actively in a workforce, like any other Australian. Only then will we be able to say that these people are getting equal treatment. It is all very well to be disparaging about the living conditions in which they find themselves, but we need to work with these people, with these communities, to ensure that when we introduce policies such as these they do not hurt and harm them; they help them. Unfortunately, the welfare reform policies which have been introduced by this government hurt people, and I think the government should be condemned for it.
I rise to oppose the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Vocational Rehabilitation Services) Bill 2006 that has been proposed by the government, subject to amendments moved by the shadow minister. I would like to pay tribute to the comments made by the member for Lingiari. He represents an extraordinarily large electorate, an electorate with particular problems in areas of not only disability but also impoverishment. The government would do well to listen to some of the matters he has raised in this debate today.
I want to be on the record as opposing the bill but indicating to the government via this chamber that Labor does not oppose in principle the idea that the provision of this service could be contestable; however, this should be guided by considerations of the public interest and on the condition that appropriate safeguards and quality control mechanisms are in place. The framework being applied by the government here though does not meet these requirements. In particular, the loss of parliamentary oversight of these safeguards is unacceptable.
Since the election of this government in 1996 we have seen a gradual trend away from public accountability in services such as this. We have seen the government contract out services that provide support and succour for people in need. The problem with many of the decisions made by government in this area is that they have not in any way attended to the concerns of the most vulnerable in our community. Labor is strongly committed to welfare reform—that has been said time and again in this debate and in earlier debates on bills such as this—but is very concerned about the Howard government’s punitive approach, exemplified by its Welfare to Work changes. Most of this bill represents a continuation of these changes. It is short on detail and will have many unfortunate consequences for welfare recipients, which has been a feature of the government’s Welfare to Work legislation as a whole.
When people receive Newstart or youth allowance, most have to engage in activity in return for the income support. If needed, some may be required to attend vocational rehabilitation services. At present this service is provided exclusively by the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service. The Howard government has been working towards making rehabilitation services contestable, allowing private providers to tender for contracts. In principle this is supported across the welfare sector but opposed by others, including unions. However, because many private providers are not compliant with provisions of the Disability Services Act, the secretary of DEWR may allow services to be provided by some providers who do not have a certificate of compliance.
There are other areas of the bill to which I want to refer. But, as I have said, Labor does not support this bill in the main, because it does not provide the reforms that are required. It is too punitive. Pensioners who study or train in an approved course can access the pension education supplement; however, recipients of allowances such as Newstart or youth allowance cannot. Under the welfare reform changes, people who move from disability support pension or parenting payment to Newstart or youth allowance were supposed to be able to retain the PES until they completed their current course of study. However, this bill clarifies that people who claimed DSP between 11 May 2005 and 30 June 2006 who qualified for the PES and who moved to an allowance will only be able to continue to access the PES if they no longer qualify for DSP as a result of their first DSP review after 1 July 2006.
The removal of PES for specified recipients reduces support for education for these groups. This is contrary to the government’s indication in 2005 that PES recipients would retain this entitlement for the remainder of their course notwithstanding the welfare changes. Labor has always argued that restricting the PES so that Welfare to Work candidates cannot access it is short-sighted and will do nothing to alleviate skills shortages. The sector agrees that this is a retrograde step and argues that this is inconsistent with the government’s previous commitments. Labor therefore proposes to extend the pension education supplement to all Welfare to Work candidates.
The Welfare to Work changes include changes to compliance such that certain breaches incur a penalty of eight weeks nonpayment of income support. Some people who face this penalty may be able to access financial case management in certain restrictive circumstances. These arrangements are entirely discretionary and are not guaranteed in legislation. While the breaches may be contested through the appeals process, decisions regarding financial case management cannot. This is another fundamental weakness of this legislation. So, as I have indicated to the House, Labor is not opposed to the principles of the idea—
Order! It being 2.00 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.
I inform the House that the Minister for Small Business and Tourism will be absent from question time today. She is in Sydney on official business. The Minister for Trade will answer questions on her behalf.
My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Minister, will the government release in Senate estimates hearings today the full statistical details of the protected award conditions removed from Australian workplace agreements?
I thank the member for her question. I note that in 1996 the unemployment rate in her electorate was 9.7 per cent; today it is 5.6 per cent. That is good news. When it comes to individual agreements, we believe they are between the employer and the employee, and that is the way it should stay.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister inform the House about plans for a new United States communication facility in Western Australia and the contribution this will make to the Australia-United States alliance and the economy of the town of Geraldton in my electorate? Is he aware of any alternative views?
I thank the honourable member for O’Connor for his question. As a Western Australian member, I know he will be particularly interested that the government has agreed to host at Geraldton a ground station for a United States military communication system, which is known as a Mobile User Objective System. It will be hosted on the same basis as all other Australia-US joint facilities and operate on the basis of our full knowledge and our full concurrence. These arrangements apply at Pine Gap and the joint geological and geophysical research stations, which are both near Alice Springs, as well as at the naval communications station, the Harold E Holt communication station at Exmouth, where the US also has access.
These facilities in the new Mobile User Objective System are fundamental in underpinning and giving practical effect to the United States alliance. The government is strongly committed to the alliance as the key guarantee to our nation’s security.
I would have assumed that the Labor Party would welcome this initiative, but this morning, when Labor spokesmen were asked about it, their response was silence. Labor spokesmen did not come out and embrace this initiative as we would have expected. The Labor environment spokesman, the member for Kingsford Smith, was asked on five occasions at a press conference this morning whether he supported this facility. On five occasions the member for Kingsford Smith refused to answer. Indeed, it is interesting that the member for Perth, the member for Lilley, the member for Lalor—who, after all, is the deputy leader of the Labor Party—and the member for Grayndler all refused to answer a question and give endorsement to this proposal.
Labor members are always happy to give their views on anything and they have been urged by the Leader of the Opposition to do what he used to do—that is, just talk endlessly in the media. One journalist said to the member for Kingsford Smith: ‘But you’ve sung songs before about your opposition to US bases on Australian soil. Have your views changed since then?’ He said:
My views are clear and they’ve been clear since I have come to the parliament. I am here as a member of the Labor party to talk Labor policy.
But never an endorsement of this joint facility, never an endorsement of these bases.
Let us be absolutely frank about this: the member for Kingsford Smith was always a supporter of the closure of American bases in Australia—always. There he was at Alice Springs in the 1980s with fellow travellers demanding that Pine Gap be closed, close all the joint facilities. A great man of principle—‘US forces give the nod, it’s a setback for your country’—
Mr Hardgrave interjecting
Order! The member for Moreton!
The simple fact is that the Labor Party thinks that the United States should be defeated in Iraq, it thinks that these joint facilities are really not acceptable in Australia, and yet the Leader of the Opposition tries to pretend that he is a supporter of the US alliance. It is typical of Labor under the Leader of the Opposition: it plays all ends against the middle.
My question is again to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. I refer the minister to his last answer, in which he said employment agreements were a matter for employers and employees. Why then does the government require AWAs to be lodged at the Office of the Employment Advocate?
They are lodged to ensure that they comply with the law. The protections we have put in place in the legislation are there to protect employees. I make this point: the Deputy Leader of the Opposition wants to see every AWA. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition and her union mates want to have a look at every employment agreement between the employer and the employee. That is exactly the way they do it. Greg Combet belled the cat this week when he said that the agreements they were opposed to are not only AWAs but also non-union agreements. The trade union movement wants to be there for every negotiation between an employer and an employee.
We believe in freedom of choice. We believe in the opportunity for the individual to control their own destiny. We believe that individuals have the capacity to negotiate on their own behalf in a whole range of areas: buying a house, buying a car, entering into an employment contract and even raising children. We believe that individuals have the capacity to undertake those sorts of responsibilities, and we do not believe the union movement should have a role in every workplace agreement.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Defence. Given that the government is negotiating with the United States for a joint communications facility at Geraldton, Western Australia, what is the purpose of the facility? Are there any alternative policies?
I thank the member for Kalgoorlie for his question and for his very strong support for Defence facilities in Western Australia. I can confirm that for some two years now the Australian government has been negotiating with the United States an agreement that will see a number of ground based satellite communications systems placed in appropriate locations in Australia.
The first one, which has not yet been finally agreed but which we expect to conclude in the next few months, is for an unmanned ground based facility at Geraldton, which will be a satellite communications system for the United States military and its allies. For reasons I would expect the House to appreciate, I will not go into the specific details, but the facility will support not only the operation of the United States military and its allies but also Australian troops.
As the Minister for Foreign Affairs said, it will be conducted with the full knowledge and concurrence of the Australian government—in other words, we will be fully aware of the information that goes through that ground based system. We are also negotiating for a number of other ground based facilities which will have a non-military use. The United States-Australia alliance is extremely important. It is not just about friendship; it is also about our capability: military capability, intelligence sharing, the interoperability between our two militaries and, of course, the security of Australia’s people, interests and values.
I was asked about alternative views. The Australian National University conducts a survey every federal election and it asks the candidates seeking to be elected to the federal parliament their views on a number of issues. It is interesting that amongst its questions in 2004 the Australian National University asked: ‘Is the United States a threat to Australia’s security?’ It is rather extraordinary that anyone would think of the need to ask such a question; nonetheless, the ANU asked people standing for election to the federal parliament whether they thought that the United States, Australia’s key ally, is a threat to Australia’s security. I was staggered to read that 22 per cent of candidates, or one in four, standing for election for the Australian Labor Party believed that the United States is a threat to Australia’s security.
Mr Burke interjecting
That means that, as we on this side look to that side, we know that every fourth person on average believes the United States is a threat to the security of Australia. The foreign minister reminded us that this morning the member for Kingsford Smith was one of five Labor Party frontbenchers asked whether they support the unmanned ground based military facility for Geraldton. I noticed that the member for Kingsford Smith was asked not once or twice but five times whether he supported it. He was asked whether he had sung about it. Well he has sung about it, but he has also written about it. I went to the library and obtained a book entitled Peter Garrett: Political Blues. When choosing books I—
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order that goes to standing order 104.
The member will resume his seat. I think the minister is entirely in order. The minister is answering the question.
Having examined the front of the book, I then went to the back—
How old is it?
Order! The member for Melbourne Ports!
because I thought it important to have a precis of the book. It said:
In Political Blues he—
that is, Peter Garrett—
confronts us with the issues on which it is time for us to make a stand.
Mr Danby interjecting
Order! The member for Melbourne Ports is warned!
So the member for Kingsford Smith felt so strongly about these issues that he did not write a letter, he did not produce a pamphlet, he wrote a book—
Mr Burke interjecting
The member for Watson is also warned!
He wrote a book called Peter Garrettquite an imaginative title—about the things upon which it is now time to take a stand.
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The minister was asked about the facility at Geraldton, not when he was a member of the Labor Party. Can you bring him back to the question?
The member will resume his seat. If the member wishes to take a point of order, he will come straight to the point of order and not debate it. I call the minister, but given that he has already given a lengthy answer he might bring his answer to a conclusion.
I turn to page 95 in the book where, in relation to US facilities in Australia, the member for Kingsford Smith says:
I look forward to the day when the eviction notices are formally presented to the American Secretary of State by the elected leader of the Australian people.
In fact, he also criticised the US Secretary of the Navy because he “believes in winning wars”. So the alternative government of Australia has one in four people in its ranks who believe the United States is a threat to the security of Australia, it has five frontbenchers who will not support a US base facility—to support our troops as much as its own—and it also has a frontbencher who is looking forward to the day when the leader of Australia ‘evicts the United States and its facilities from this country’. It is time that the Labor Party stood up for Australia, the Australia-US alliance and Australia’s best interest.
My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Isn’t it a fact that the only reason the minister will not use his power to direct the OEA to provide statistical information—not personal details, but statistical information—on what is happening to wages and conditions under the government’s AWAs is that the government does not want Australians to know the truth? Minister, how can you justify this cover-up?
No.
My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on the progress of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in relation to matters arising from the Jackson inquiry?
I thank the honourable member for Greenway for her question. I think all members of the House would welcome the fact that the James Hardie company has now recognised its liability to those suffering from asbestos related diseases and that shareholders have now approved financial arrangements which should enable the company to meet its just liabilities—which it should never have sought to avoid when it entered into a very complicated arrangement to remove itself to the Netherlands. I can inform the House that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has now commenced civil action against the company and a number of former and current directors and executives.
These proceedings should not affect the compensation arrangements in any respect whatsoever, but the proceedings which have been taken by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission seek pecuniary penalties of up to a maximum of $200,000 per breach and the regulator is asking the court to consider banning individuals from acting as company directors in the future. Of course, these are just proceedings at this point—and, under our legal system, anybody is entitled to the presumption of innocence—but I want to remind the House that the government has been very clear about the necessity to bring to justice anybody who may have been in breach of the Corporations Act. Indeed, that is the reason why the government gave $7.5 million to fund this investigation and it is why the government passed the James Hardie (Investigations and Proceedings) Act 2004 so that evidence could go to ASIC from the Jackson inquiry. It is as a consequence of those measures that these proceedings have now been taken.
Members will recall that it was proposed by the New South Wales government that it would give a release to the directors of James Hardie so that they would not be required to face proceedings of this kind. Members of the House will recall me raising that matter in this House and the Commonwealth opposing it. Fortunately, we were successful in preventing the New South Wales government from doing any such thing. If it had done any such thing, these proceedings could not have been brought. In fact, I got a letter from the CFMEU state secretary for New South Wales, Mr Andrew Ferguson—who is well known to people in this House—as recently as yesterday, asking me what the Commonwealth government was doing about this investigation. It is clear what the Commonwealth was doing about it. I should mention in passing that, if the Commonwealth had not been on the job, the New South Wales government would have given releases to prevent these actions from being taken. I think Mr Andrew Ferguson would be very pleased that the Commonwealth government was on the job, preventing the New South Wales Labor government from doing what it then proposed.
I also mention in passing that federal Labor was proposing as recently as a few months ago a new tax break for James Hardie—a company-specific tax break for James Hardie—to give it an improved financial position to meet its just liabilities. That was being proposed by the member for Hunter with amendments in this House. This company never deserved a company-specific tax break. This company should have been, and now has been, brought to its just liabilities—without any tax privileges as were proposed by the federal Labor Party. These proceedings have now been brought—without any releases as were proposed by the New South Wales Labor government. That was an ask from James Hardie, a piece of brinkmanship which it tried to pull on, just as it tried to pull on the removal of the liability by a complicated relocation to the Netherlands. As this government has made clear all along, we believe those that may have breached their corporate law obligations should be brought to court, and these proceedings will do that.
My question is to the Treasurer. Why hasn’t the Treasurer’s department modelled the potential impacts of climate change on the Australian economy?
Because numerous reports have been done on it by the Department of the Environment and Heritage, the Australian Greenhouse Office, the CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Bureau of Meteorology. The Treasury, of course, has not constructed a model in relation to climate change, but as part of its role in advising the government it has undertaken extensive qualitative analysis of all the global literature in relation to this matter, including the UK government’s Stern review and the IPCC assessments. The Stern review uses an integrated assessment model to make projections of the global impact of climate change. As far as the Treasury is aware, no country has developed a model of national consequences. All of the models that have been developed are in relation to global consequences. The Stern review itself says:
Making such estimates is a formidable task … It is also a computationally demanding exercise, with the result that such models must make drastic, often heroic, simplifications along all stages of the climate-change chain. What is more, large uncertainties are associated with each element in the cycle.
That does not mean that it is not worth doing, and I think the Stern report was worth doing, although, as I have previously informed the House—
Ah!
The member for Grayndler has had one of those enlightened moments. As I have previously informed the House, it was well worth doing, although the Treasury, as it has given evidence in relation to the matter, had serious disagreements with the way in which it was done. I think I would be correct in saying the UK treasury itself had some serious disagreements with the Stern inquiry. But that does not mean it was not worth doing; it most definitely was worth doing. The assessments that the Treasury have done in relation to that in fact profited from that. If somebody were to go on from that and say that the government has not done any work, they would be seriously wrong.
I cannot leave this question without observing that the member for Kingsford Smith called a press conference on this very issue today. After making a rather long introductory statement, he was asked this question:
Peter, you’re well known for your views on the US alliance. How do you feel about a new base in Western Australia near Geraldton?
What’s this got to do with the question?
You may well say, ‘What’s this got to do with the question?’ because here was the answer:
I’m astonished the Treasurer hasn’t had his eye on the ball for climate change.
That was very relevant! The next question was:
Putting climate change aside, do you have concerns about a new US communications base at Geraldton?
Answer: I am here to remind Australians the Howard government has taken its hands off the wheel in relation to climate change.
Question: Mr Garrett, have you shed your previous views on US bases on Australian soil?
Answer: Appropriate shadows will respond to that question.
Question: Why don’t you tell us what you think about this US base?
Answer: I want to tell you what I think about climate change today.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Standing order 104 has obviously been breached.
I am listening carefully to the Treasurer. It would appear that he is quoting from an interview that had something to do with climate change, which I think was the point of the question. I call the Treasurer, but, given the time, I hope he is drawing his answer to a conclusion.
I am nearly to the end. I have gone through the four denials and I am up to the fifth. Let me give you the last one:
Question: But you sang songs before about your opposition to US bases on Australian soil. Have your views changed?
Answer: My views are clear and have been clear since I came into the parliament. I am here as a member of the Labor Party to talk about Labor policy.
Let me make this observation: whereas the Labor Party cannot bring itself to have a position on this base at Geraldton, they do not have much trouble in getting a position on Hugo Chavez and Venezuela. They are much more interested in the latter than the former.
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister inform the House of the government’s stance on supporting the democratic government in Iraq. Would the minister advise the House whether there are any other views.
First let me tell the honourable member—and I am sure he does not need any reassurance of this—that the Australian government stands by the brave people of Iraq.
Mr Price interjecting
Between 10 million and 12 million Iraqis defied terrorists on three occasions to go and vote to reclaim their own future—
Mr Price interjecting
The member for Chifley is warned!
We are certainly committed to those people; not to the terrorists and the insurgents and the militias, but to the vast majority of the Iraqi people who obviously want a more peaceful life and certainly have voted for a more democratic life than they had under Saddam Hussein. We are making a good contribution in a number of different ways in Iraq.
The honourable member asked whether there are any other positions. My observation of the Leader of the Opposition over the years when he was the spokesman on foreign affairs is that the Leader of the Opposition has never held a strong position for more than a few days at a time. He will only hold a position for as long as it is popular, and when that ceases to be popular he will move to another position. He is all things to all people. That is my observation. He is getting a good run of course from the media at the moment, but once he comes under scrutiny I think that that will be exposed.
Let us just take the whole issue that this question is about: the troops in Iraq. In November 2003 the Leader of the Opposition wrote to the Prime Minister and said:
Now that regime change has occurred in Baghdad—
which privately I think he may have been pleased about, but Labor was opposed to—
it is the Opposition’s view that it is now the responsibility of all people of goodwill, both in this country—
Australia—
and beyond, to put their shoulder to the wheel in an effort to build a new Iraq.
So the Leader of the Opposition thought we should get in there, we had a responsibility and we should help secure Iraq and a future for the people of Iraq. Good; I agreed with that. In 2004, only a few months later, when the opposition starts running some campaign about ‘troops out by Christmas’, he said, ‘Our objective is to have troops out by Christmas.’ So a few months earlier he was in favour of getting in there and helping; it gets to, I think it was, May 2004 and it is ‘troops out’.
What is the position today of the Leader of the Opposition on this issue? He was asked on Meet the Press on Channel 10 on Sunday: would troops be out by Christmas? Having been in favour of that position in 2004, we have got to 2007 and his answer is:
Of course not ... if I become PM I’d establish early contact ... with the Administration—
that is the US administration—
and talk about how that was best done. I don’t intend to leave our ally immediately in the lurch ...
What is all this about? When you forensically dig into the position of the Leader of the Opposition, this is Labor’s position: Labor believes we should pull out the 500 troops in the Overwatch Battle Group in Dhi Qar Province, but only if there is somebody else who can be found to fill the gap. So that is ‘troops out’, and the Leader of the Opposition can tell all the people in Australia who are in favour of ‘troops out’ that he is in favour of ‘troops out’. What doesn’t he tell those people? He doesn’t tell those people that not only does he believe the security detachment should remain in Baghdad—which is reasonable; I am not making an argument about that—but he also believes that the 200 or so sailors on HMAS Toowoomba should remain in Iraqi waters protecting oil platforms. He believes that the 140 Australians who support the C130s in and around Iraq should remain. He believes that the P3C aircraft and the 170 who go with them should all remain.
The Leader of the Opposition’s position—far from being clear, as some people are trying to claim—is that, of the 1,400 people we have in Iraq, Labor might take out 500 of them if somebody can be found to fill the gap and the other 900 would all remain in Iraq. And Labor’s position—repeated yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition—is also, very interestingly, that the Americans should get out of Iraq—in defeat, in ignominy.
So what is the position of the Leader of the Opposition? The answer is: his position, as usual, is every position. If you are in favour of sticking up for the Iraqis, the Leader of the Opposition has a policy for you. If you are opposed to it, the Leader of the Opposition has a policy for you. If you want troops in Iraq, yes, he can deliver that; if you don’t, yes, he can deliver that. If you support the Americans, yes, he can do that. If you support the insurgents and the terrorists and so on, yes, he can deliver that as well. This country deserves a Leader of the Opposition with a bit of strength, a bit of commitment. Here we have a Leader of the Opposition who vacillates and, in a populist crusade, tries to find a position that will suit absolutely everybody.
My question is to the Treasurer and acting leader of the Liberal Party. I refer the Treasurer to a report by Glenn Milne on Monday, 12 February, in the Australian where Mr Milne wrote:
No wonder Peter Costello is telling anyone who’ll listen, behind the back of his hand, that it might not be such a bad thing if the economy hits a few bumps to put voter apprehension back into the election mix ...
Given that the Treasurer’s parents taught him to always tell the truth, can he confirm there is any truth to Mr Milne’s report or any other reports about what he is up to at the moment?
Well, Mr Speaker, I suppose that is the best he can do!
Mr Swan interjecting
Not bad, he says! Here we are, in the second week of this sitting, he bowls up, he hasn’t asked us a question about jobs or interest rates or infrastructure or tax—
Mr Swan interjecting
The member for Lilley has asked his question.
and that’s the best he can bowl up. Well, of him, I can only think of one description: some mothers do have ’em! And we are very glad your mother did, if I may say so—
Mr Swan interjecting
The member for Lilley is warned!
and we would like you to stay precisely where you are. In relation to the economy, this is not an economy which runs itself. This is a $1 trillion economy, and during the period in which I have been the Treasurer of this country—
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order under standing order 104.
The Treasurer is entirely in order. I say to the member that if he continues to take frivolous points of order I will take further action.
During the period I have been Treasurer there has been a great deal of risk in the Australian economy. We had to take the Australian economy through the Asian financial crisis, the US recession, September 11, war, SARS and the worst drought in 100 years. And all of the way as we took it through all of those risks—and one of those risks is very much on the board at the moment: the drought which Australia is suffering from—this government had to do the heavy lifting.
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The Treasurer was asked whether the Milne report was right.
Order! The member for Wills will resume his seat. The member for Wills knows that if he is to take a point of order he should get straight to his point of order; he does not debate it. I have been listening closely to the Treasurer; he is entirely in order. I will take action if there continue to be frivolous points of order.
I am asked about risk in the Australian economy and the point I am making is that there is a lot of risk in the Australian economy. There is so much risk in the Australian economy—
Mr Albanese interjecting
The member for Grayndler is warned!
that the Australian economy has to be managed. Let me let the House into another secret: there is so much risk in the Australian economy that Australia cannot afford the member for Lilley as the Treasurer. There is so much risk in the Australian economy that we cannot have a nouveau for Prime Minister.
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The Treasurer was asked—
The member for Melbourne will come to his point of order.
whether or not he made a particular statement; he has refused to answer the question.
Order! The member for Melbourne will resume his seat. The Treasurer is entirely in order. I warn the member for Melbourne! The member for Melbourne was asked to come to his point of order. He did not come to his point of order. He was trying to debate the Treasurer.
Mr Speaker, can you please explain on what basis you have given that warning. I raised a specific point of order.
The member for Melbourne will resume his seat.
Mr Tanner interjecting
Order! The member for Melbourne will remove himself from the House under standing order 94(a).
The member for Melbourne then left the chamber.
There is a lot of risk in the Australian economy. It is true that the Australian economy has weathered that risk a lot better under coalition management than it did 10 years ago. But if anybody in Australia thinks that you can walk people in to manage the Australian economy on the basis that they once ran a cabinet office in Queensland or on the basis that they were once an ALP state secretary in Queensland, they are wrong. Economic management is much too important to be left to the Labor Party.
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order.
Has the Treasurer completed his answer.
Yes.
The Treasurer has completed his answer.
Can you get the Treasurer to answer the question?
The member for Lilley does not have the call.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister inform the House how public hospitals are performing under the Australian health care agreements? Are the state public hospitals performing as well as the Australian public has a right to expect? Are there any alternative policies and what is the government’s response?
I thank the member for Bonner for his question. I can inform him that over the life of the current health care agreements the Commonwealth will provide $42 billion to the states for public hospital services, which is a 17 per cent real increase over the previous agreements. That $42 billion includes $8 billion for public hospitals in Queensland, which is a 21 per cent real increase. The Commonwealth has increased its funding. Let us give credit where it is due: the states have also increased their funding. In fact, the states have increased their funding more. The Leader of the Opposition likes to attack the blame game but one thing the blame game has done is that it has shamed the states into finally spending what they need to spend on their public hospitals. Thanks to this increased spending there are now 54,000 public hospital beds in this country. There are now 2,400 more public hospital beds than in 2004.
The Leader of the Opposition might think we are living under the jackboot heel of Howard’s ‘Brutopia’ but at least we have got more hospital beds, thanks to the policies of the Howard government. The Leader of the Opposition said the other day:
Remember I worked in Queensland from ’88 really until ’96 ... purely on schools, hospitals, water, environment, land rights, law and order—that was the bread and butter of my daily life ...
He is turning his back now because he does not like to be reminded of the silly things he has said. He said:
The thing about state governments is that ... people legitimately demand performance ...
I thought: how was this golden age of Christian socialism in Queensland? I discover that when the Leader of the Opposition was the de facto Premier of Queensland, three operating theatres at the Princess Alexandra Hospital were closed in August 1994 and three operating theatres at Royal Brisbane Hospital were closed in November 1994. Between 1989 and 1995 ‘Premier Rudd’, as he thinks of himself, closed 2,200 hospital beds in Queensland.
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I ask the minister to refer to members by their proper title.
The member raises a valid point of order.
Mr McGauran interjecting
Order! The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry!
Mr Pyne interjecting
The member for Sturt is warned! I call the minister and remind him that he will refer to members by their title or their seat.
These days the Leader of the Opposition says that his greatest hero is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or it might have been Keir Hardy, depending upon which journalist he is talking to. In those days the Leader of the Opposition was known as ‘Dr Death’ because he closed 2,200 hospital beds in Queensland.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order, going to standing order 64.
I make the point that, if the member would like that withdrawn, I will ask for it to be withdrawn.
Yes, it certainly should be withdrawn, Mr Speaker, obviously.
If the member finds it offensive, then the minister will withdraw that last accusation.
I am a little confused. I simply referred to the Queensland public’s terminology. They called the Leader of the Opposition ‘Dr Death’ because of his record in Queensland public hospitals. If the Leader of the Opposition has an objection, he should raise it and he should let the flunkies sit down and stop fighting this fight for him.
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! If members want to hold up their question time, they will keep interjecting! I call the member for Dawson.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order, that term that the minister used was commonly used in the media and in the public arena in Queensland. He is quoting from the press of the day.
That is not a point of order.
Opposition members interjecting—
Order!
Mr Snowdon interjecting
The member for Lingiari will remove himself under standing order 94(a).
The member for Lingiari then left the chamber—
Mr Speaker, on the point of order, three members on this side have been warned for moving points of order, two members have been excluded and you allow this behaviour. He must withdraw it. He must withdraw that statement and withdraw it immediately without reservation.
Order! The member will resume his seat and he will not reflect on the chair!
Mr Speaker, on the point of order, if the Leader of the Opposition asks me to withdraw because he finds it offensive, I will withdraw, but I am not going to withdraw for this one.
I say to the Manager of Opposition Business, I heard clearly what the minister said. If the Leader of the Opposition objects to that expression, he will ask for it to be withdrawn.
To the point of order, are you suggesting, Mr Speaker, that anyone would not find that offensive?
If the Manager of Opposition Business wants to ask me a question, he will do so after question time.
Could anyone not find that offensive? It is offensive; it should be withdrawn.
I have listened carefully and the Leader of the Opposition has not asked for it to be withdrawn. Therefore he has not found it unparliamentary. I call the minister.
Mr Speaker, you indicated directly to me as Manager of Opposition Business that if there was an objection it would be withdrawn. If you check the Hansard you will see that that is what was said.
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker, I know of no precedent where you, having asked the minister to withdraw, allowed him to refuse and did nothing about it. It has never happened before in all the time I have been in the parliament and I do not know how you can stand for it.
I remind the member for Fraser that I said if the Leader of the Opposition found it offensive I would ask the minister to withdraw.
Mr Speaker, that is neither what you said nor what the standing orders require. You said—
The member will not reflect on the chair!
With respect, I am reminding you but I am not reflecting. You said: ‘If the member finds it offensive I will ask the minister to withdraw.’ You asked him to withdraw and he refused.
The member will resume his seat.
Mr McMullan interjecting
The member is well aware that the time to ask questions of the Speaker is after question time. I said that if the Leader of the Opposition found that expression offensive I would ask for it to be withdrawn. The Leader of the Opposition has not asked for it to be withdrawn.
Mr Speaker, I refer you to standing order 89:
A Member must not use offensive words against:
(a) either House of the Parliament or a Member of the Parliament;
Standing order 90—I am getting straight to the point of order—says:
All imputations of improper motives to a Member and all personal reflections on other Members shall be considered highly disorderly.
Standing order 91 goes to what action you should—
I am well aware of the standing orders! As the Manager of Opposition Business is well aware, the occupant of the chair is the determinant of the interpretation of the standing orders. In the specific instance, I have ruled that if the Leader of the Opposition finds that expression offensive he may ask for it to be withdrawn. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: does the Leader of the Opposition wish to have that withdrawn?
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Under standing order 90, I find the minister’s description of the Leader of the Opposition offensive and I ask that you have him withdraw it.
The member will resume his seat. I have just sought the opinion of the person in question, the Leader of the Opposition. He has not asked for it to be withdrawn. I call the minister.
Point of order, Mr Speaker.
I have ruled on that point of order. I call the minister.
I simply make the point that after the Leader of the Opposition’s record in Queensland, there is a clear message to the Australian people: do not let this man wreck Medicare like he wrecked the Queensland public hospital system.
My question is to the Treasurer. Why did the Treasurer fail to deny Mr Milne’s statement and his destabilising activities in the government?
I comprehensively answered this question before, and I will do it again. If the question is, ‘Do I think there is risk in the Australian economy?’ then the answer is yes. I will say that to the House and I will say that to the people of Australia, as I just have. There is risk in the Australian economy, and let me repeat: there is so much risk in the Australian economy that you cannot trust the Labor Party to run it. You are going to hear me say that hundreds if not thousands of times between now and the next election.
Ms Macklin interjecting
The member for Jagajaga is warned!
We are stronger now that we do not carry $96 billion worth of debt. We are stronger now that we have had nine surplus budgets. We are stronger now that we have established the Future Fund. We are stronger now that we have reformed the tax system. We are stronger now that we have Work Choices. Are we strong enough to withstand a Labor government? No way!
Mrs Mirabella interjecting
Order! The member for Indi!
Why don’t you warn her?
The member for Cowan!
Mr Edwards interjecting
The member for Cowan is warned!
Mr Edwards interjecting
The member for Cowan will remove himself under standing order 94(a).
The member for Cowan then left the chamber.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Trade. Would the minister update the House on the impressive international trading performance of the coal industry in Australia and its importance to communities in every state? Are there any threats to this industry, especially in Gladstone and the Central Queensland coalfields?
I see you care a lot about jobs for coalminers!
Government members interjecting—
Well, he’s laughing!
I thank the honourable member for Hinkler, who has a deep and abiding interest in the jobs of coal workers. The coal industry is particularly important to his electorate, as it is to many other electorates around Australia. Queensland alone exported $14 billion worth of coal last year. That is a very significant contribution to the Queensland economy. I mentioned a couple of days ago that one in eight of Australia’s export dollars comes from coal—and in Queensland that figure is very much higher; perhaps as much as one in four—and so we rely very much as a nation on the coal industry for our wealth and for our growth and for the progress and development, particularly of much of regional Australia. Our clean coal is making a significant contribution also into reducing greenhouse emissions and, if it were to be replaced by coal from China or other parts of the world, the problems that the world would face in relation to greenhouse issues would be much greater.
In this context it is almost unthinkable that there could be threats to the future of this industry. It is almost unthinkable that there would be people who would want to close that industry down, and yet Senator Bob Brown has made it absolutely clear that in his view the coalmining industry should be phased out in three years and all the coal fired power stations also closed down in that time. But today he has gone even further to compare Australia’s coalmining industry with heroin dealers. Senator Brown said that Australia is like a heroin dealer feeding the habit of the world’s dependence on coal. For Senator Brown to compare Australia’s 30,000 workers in the coal industry with heroin dealers I think reaches an absolutely new low. That is a disgrace. Let him go to the people of Gladstone and tell them that he is likening them to heroin dealers.
As I said before, we could just dismiss that as being the whacky comments of the Greens, but of course we know that Labor is vigorously pursuing a preference deal with the Greens. They badly want to be on the same truck and on the same platform with the Greens when it comes to the next election. The honourable member for Kingsford Smith well and truly let the cat out of the bag when he said that the expansion of the coal industry, as we have seen in the Hunter Valley over the past decade, is a thing of the past and dismissed coal jobs as merely ‘hypothetical’.
That is even causing some alarm, we read, in the Labor Party. Senator Evans, the opposition resources and energy spokesman, apparently told the shadow ministry earlier this week that they should be aware of repeating the Latham blunder on the forestry industry, and another Labor member is bemoaning how badly the member for Kingsford Smith’s comments have gone down in the Hunter Valley. I do not know who the unnamed member was, but I am sure the member for Hunter would be very concerned about the comments of the member for Kingsford Smith in relation to the coal industry. The reality is we have got the Greens demanding an end to this industry, calling coalminers the equivalent of heroin traffickers, and we have got the Labor Party actively pursuing their preference deal at the next election. This kind of behaviour is a serious threat to the coal industry, an industry which has served this country very substantially. It is high time Labor disassociated itself from these bids to win over the Greens to endeavour to establish a preference deal with a party with this kind of attitude to one of Australia’s great industries.
My question is to the Minister for Defence and refers to the proposed new joint facility that both he and the foreign minister mentioned earlier in question time. Why hasn’t the minister followed convention by offering the relevant opposition spokesman a briefing on the proposed Geraldton facility? Why, in his earlier answer, did he fail to mention that, as Labor’s defence spokesman, I made it absolutely clear on national radio just before question time that Labor fully supports both existing and proposed joint facilities? Minister, why are you playing party politics with Australia’s national security?
I thank the member for Hunter for his question and welcome him to the Defence portfolio.
Mr Crean interjecting
Order! The member for Hotham is warned!
I have not ever suggested or even implied that the member for Hunter would be in the 25 per cent of Labor MPs who think the US is a threat to Australia’s security. The member for Banks, to his credit, whilst not being involved in the Defence portfolio particularly but having a keen interest in the Australia-US alliance, took the initiative to ask me a question about this. Had the member for Hunter been carefully listening to the answer, he would know that I had said that the final negotiations are not yet concluded.
Mr Swan interjecting
Order! The member for Lilley has already been warned!
When the memorandum of understanding is finally signed and agreed by the United States of America, of course he will be welcome to complete disclosure. But, if in the meantime he would like even more information than I have made available to the member for Banks, we would be most pleased for him to receive it. I must say I do welcome—although it appears to have taken in the vicinity of some six or seven hours—the Labor Party’s support for a US facility based in Australia.
Mr Speaker, I will deal with that later by way of a personal explanation. I seek leave to table the transcript in which I made it quite clear, some hours ago, that Labor fully supports the facilities.
Leave granted.
My question is addressed to the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. Would the minister inform the House how the Australian government is investing in clean coal as a part of its comprehensive climate change strategy? Is the minister aware of any alternative plans?
I thank the member for McMillan for the question. His commitment to the coal industry and to clean coal is well known, and the benefits of our investment in clean coal technology will be felt particularly in his electorate.
The Australian government have committed $2 billion to climate change mitigation, and we are getting results. We are going to meet our Kyoto target. By 2010 there will be 87 million fewer tonnes of carbon in our atmosphere. That is equivalent to the total emissions of the entire transport sector. This is being achieved by investment in a range of projects, in renewables, but above all we are focused on clean coal. Why is that? Because coal is the world’s most abundant energy source. It dominates the energy sources of the world’s most active and growing economies—China and India. They are 70 per cent dependent on coal; they need coal, they have coal and we have to help them clean it up. We are helping them do that. We have invested more than $410 million in projects and technologies to clean up coal, including the world’s single largest carbon capture and storage project. We are working with China through the AP6 and through the bilateral relationship, because, unless China can get the energy it needs and have the technology to enable it to reduce its emissions, all of us know that, no matter what we do here, no matter what hardships we endure, they will have no effect on global warming. Cooperation on clean coal technology is vital to our future.
But what are the alternative views? We have the Greens policy. Senator Bob Brown proposes that we shut down the Australian coal industry. The member for Kingsford Smith has said that the expansion of the coal industry in the Hunter Valley is a thing of the past. When he is asked, ‘What is the impact of your climate change policies on jobs going to be?’ he says, ‘That’s a hypothetical question.’ When he’s asked by a reporter who, out of sheer frustration while trying to get a response, says, ‘Does this mean we’ll have to pay more for our energy?’ the member for Kingsford Smith says, ‘I don’t know what “pay more” means.’ It is not just on US bases that he is coy: he will not answer a question on anything.
I have looked carefully to see where the precedents are for the policies of the opposition for this big 60 per cent unilateral cut in emissions. What are they looking at? What are the examples? What is the history? There have been two groups of countries which have had enormous reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Take Russia. Russia’s emissions dropped 25 per cent between 1990 and 2004. Why was that? Total economic collapse, inflation of more than 11,700 per cent, a halving of GDP, and by 2004 they were still 15 per cent below 1990 GDP in real terms. So that is one example. If you want to cut greenhouse gases dramatically, slam your economy into the ground, impoverish your country, shut down your industry.
That may be the example that the member for Kingsford Smith is looking at. But there could be another, because Labor looks not just to Hugo Chavez for political inspiration but also to Margaret Thatcher. In 2004 Britain’s emissions were down by 15 per cent. How did Britain achieve this? I will tell you. They shut down the coal industry. The member for Hunter should listen to this because his constituents include many descendants and relatives of British coalminers. In 1990 Britain produced 100 million tonnes of coal. This year it will produce 20 million tonnes of coal. There were 280,000 workers in the British coal industry in 1990; today there are 10,000. Now Britain is importing coal itself. Which of the two choices does the member for Kingsford Smith favour? Does he want to be Bob Brown in government or play Margaret Thatcher to the coal workers of Australia? Either way, it is a grim prospect for our greatest export industry.
My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Didn’t the minister yesterday tell the House that, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, state government expenditure on dental services decreased from $374 million to $327 million between 2000 and 2004? Didn’t the minister wrongly use the out-of-date projected figures when the most recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data in this report shows the real figure is an increase from $374 million to $503 million? Why has the minister again blamed the states and why has he misled the House?
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member has accused the minister of misleading the House. That is a substantive issue and should be so dealt with.
I was listening carefully to the member for Gellibrand. Had she used the expression deliberately, yes, it would certainly have been out of order.
I am amazed that the member for Gellibrand is defending the performance of the states on public dental health. The member for Gellibrand has been the first to claim that—
Ms Roxon interjecting
Order! The member for Gellibrand has asked her question.
there are 650,000 people on public dental waiting lists in Australia—
Ms Roxon interjecting
Order! The member for Gellibrand is warned!
and now she wants to defend that performance. She wants to defend the performance of the state governments, which have put 650,000 people on public dental waiting lists.
Mr Kelvin Thomson interjecting
Order! The member for Wills is warned!
The answer I gave was based on the advice I was given. It was the best advice I had at the time.
I seek leave to present the document, which can be found in the Parliamentary Library, in case his staff need it.
Leave granted.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister confirm the importance of regular holidays for the health of ordinary Australian workers, particularly those in my electorate? Can the minister provide details of how the health of workers, and money which could be spent on courses to improve their health, has been jeopardised? Can he describe how this has happened and any justification that has been given? What is the government’s response?
I thank the member for Mackellar for her question. I certainly accept that regular rest and recreation is very important for health, particularly for the health of workers. For more than 50 years, thousands of workers had healthy holidays at Unions NSW’s holiday retreat of Currawong in Pittwater, in the electorate of Mackellar. Not any more. Unions NSW have just sold Currawong—to a developer, no less. But they did not sell it for $30 million as one bidder offered. They did not sell it for $25 million as the Macquarie Bank offered. They ended up selling it for $15 million in one of the most mysterious deals of recent times.
This is certainly going to damage the health of workers because the courses on occupational health and safety previously run at Currawong cannot continue. I looked at the ACTU website today and it says the sale of Currawong means that they are ‘therefore unable to guarantee at this stage that residential courses will go ahead’. I discovered from Piers Akerman’s article in the Daily Telegraph today that the entity advising Unions NSW, through a complicated corporate structure, was also the entity that was purchasing the site. There is a clear conflict of interest in this sale that is going to damage the health of workers in New South Wales.
The same person who co-controls the entity advising Unions NSW also co-owns the purchaser of the site. This gentleman, Mr Alan Linz, had been a fellow director of Unions NSW boss John Robertson of a company called Getonboard, whose directors also included New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa and New South Wales Labor secretary Mark Arbib. There is a clear case of insider dealing here.
I ask this House, I ask the people of New South Wales and I ask the honest unionists of New South Wales: where are the missing millions? Why did Unions NSW sell this property for $15 million less than they could have had? This deal has ‘scam’ written all over it. I call on the New South Wales Police Fraud Squad to investigate the links between Mr Linz and senior Unions NSW figures and I particularly call on the New South Wales Fraud Squad to investigate why one of the companies controlling the advising company was registered in the British Virgin Islands—
Mr Speaker, on a point of order, if the minister truly thinks that some criminal activity has been undertaken, he should be reporting it to the police, not to the parliament.
I am listening carefully to the minister. He was asked a question about the health of workers and I believe he is certainly in order. I also point out that the minister may wish to do what the member for Gellibrand requested.
You can be quite confident that I will be doing just that, Mr Speaker, because I am concerned about scams which damage the health of the workers of New South Wales, and the Leader of the Opposition, who likes to give unctuous lectures to people about standards, needs to explain why Unions NSW entered into an arrangement that involves a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, no less—one of the world’s most notorious tax havens—involving people whose ownership of it is a deep, dark secret because of that registration. Who are the shareholders here? Who are the beneficiaries here? What is the relationship between senior Labor Party officials in New South Wales in this deal? And where did that $15 million go? We deserve some answers.
My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Is the Acting Prime Minister aware that in the last 48 hours at least six of his cabinet colleagues used ‘blame the states’ as an excuse for effective action in response to dental health, disability support, Indigenous policing, schools, roads and journalists’ protection? When will the government accept that Australians are sick of that blame game?
I thank the member for his question. Twenty million Australians expect their national government to govern this nation in the national interest, and if there are circumstances not in the national interest in this country which need to be identified then they expect us to identify them.
Ms Vamvakinou interjecting
Order! The member for Calwell is warned!
Just as this government has shouldered the responsibility for the last 11 years of fixing up the mess that the Labor Party left us after being in office for 13 years—and while we have a bunch of state Labor governments dragging the nation down—we will continue to identify their fallacies and what they are doing in their policies. The Labor Party, led by the new Leader of the Opposition, can squark all they like about the ‘blame game’. The reality is that Australians want this country run properly, whether it is at a federal level or at a state level or at a local government level. They expect the dollars that we are deploying on their behalf to be spent wisely—
Mr Brendan O’Connor interjecting
The member for Gorton is warned!
and they expect the country to be run properly. We have continued, over the last 11 years—
Mr Ripoll interjecting
And so is the member for Oxley!
in the face of opposition at every turn from the Australian Labor Party, to fix up the mess that they left us. If the state Labor governments continue to leave a mess behind them, we will continue to talk about it because, at the end of the day, we are expected to run this country in the national interest.
So, if the member for Fraser wants to ask questions about why ministers continue to blame state governments when they are wrong and it is their area of responsibility, we are going to continue to do that. We will hold the Labor Party to account for the mess that they left this country in 11 years ago and the hard work that we have had to do to fix it up. We will hold to account the state Labor governments in Australia, who continue to drag this country down when the rest of the country is trying to move forward. So, in answer to the member’s question, we will continue to identify bad policy and bad decisions whenever they stick their heads up.
Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Mr Speaker, I know we have had a lot of water in northern Australia, particularly in Far North Queensland. I know that in recognition of the drought you have taken all the water out of the ornamental lakes around this building. What I do not know is what measures your department has taken with regard to measures to save water around the building, particularly the lawns. Secondly, would you ascertain for me why there is a need to water the top of the building. I believe it is part of the construction of the building.
I thank the member for McMillan for his question—a very important question in this time of drought. The Department of Parliamentary Services has taken quite a range of measures to reduce water consumption in this building and I believe that we have reduced it by some 35 per cent since water restrictions came in. I will give the member more details later rather than answer his question at length now. But, in relation to the second part of his question, he is right: as part of the design of the building there is a membrane beneath the grass on top of the building which needs to be kept damp, otherwise it runs the risk of cracking. If that were to happen, water would come through the roof into the building when it rained. So for that reason, as the honourable member has correctly identified, the design requires that we continue to keep the lawn on top of the building watered as much as we reasonably can without using too much water.
I refer to your ruling today regarding my request as Manager of Opposition Business that an offensive remark be withdrawn. I draw your attention to the Hansard of 22 June 2006, page 72, where the former Leader of the Opposition stated:
You are better at vilifying refugees, Phil.
The next entry is yours, saying, ‘Order!’ then the Leader of the House rising to his feet saying:
I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker. If I may say so, that was a grubby remark and it should be withdrawn. It is offensive and it should be withdrawn.
You then stated:
The Leader of the House will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition has been asked to withdraw that remark. The Leader of the Opposition will stand up and withdraw it.
The former Leader of the Opposition did just that, Mr Speaker, and the House went on in an orderly fashion.
Mr Speaker, I also draw your attention to the Hansard on 8 August 2006, which does not even record what the interjection was—it just says, ‘Opposition members interjecting’. Again, the Leader of the House rose to his feet and said:
Mr Speaker, I heard the Leader of the Opposition use very offensive language against the minister for workplace relations and, under the standing orders which he claims to uphold, he should withdraw it.
You called the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition responded ‘so that you know exactly what I said’. You then intervened and said:
The Leader of the Opposition will withdraw.
That then occurred, Mr Speaker. That is precisely what happened on the floor of this chamber today—precisely.
I think the member might come to his question and not debate it.
I would ask that you examine the precedents that have occurred in the past, including your own rulings, Mr Speaker. Have a look at the tape and examine what occurred today and report back to the House as to what the standards will be in future if we are going to have the sort of orderly debate that I think the people of Australia expect and deserve from this House.
I take the question as a serious question that the Manager of Opposition Business has raised. I would make the point that the occupier of the chair is always asked to rule on an issue like that in the context of what was said. On this particular occasion I asked the Leader of the Opposition if he found the words offensive and he indicated that he did not. However, I am happy to discuss the matter further with the opposition—but I will not revisit the particular instance of today.
Yesterday you tabled a response to a report of the Procedure Committee, Media coverage of House proceedings. As you are not a member of the executive, can I ask whether or not you would have any objection if that response were listed in the Main Committee for debate and consideration by all honourable members?
That is a matter for the Leader of the House, but I personally would not object.
I believe that the Main Committee is there to facilitate discussion of things that are of interest to members and, if that would please the Chief Opposition Whip, the government will certainly facilitate it.
I thank the Leader of the House. It seems that the Chief Opposition Whip has got his response.
I want to raise a similar matter to that raised by the Manager of Opposition Business. I will not repeat all of the points he made, which I agree with, but I am concerned about the implications and I ask you to consider this when you are in those further considerations. What we had today was a defence that this was a statement in public circulation in Queensland and it was eventually realised that it had to be withdrawn only if the Leader of the Opposition objected. The equivalent of that, Mr Speaker, is that if we in this parliament were to call the Prime Minister a ‘lying rodent’, which was in public circulation in Queensland, you would say that it only had to be withdrawn if the Prime Minister himself objected. That is a very dangerous road down which you have started us, Mr Speaker.
First of all, clearly that is unparliamentary and I suggest that it might help—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! I would point out that to use such an expression would be considered to be unparliamentary. But I remind the member for Fraser that if he looks at page 499 of the Practice that it states quite clearly that it is not only the words that are used but the context in which they are used.
Further to your comments concerning disorderly conduct in the House and the requirement for members to conduct themselves with some decorum, you have drawn to our attention page 499 of Practice. I also draw to your attention page 500 of Practice, which I think is at the core of the difficulties in the House today. It says:
In the Chamber and the Main Committee Members may not be referred to by name, but by the name of their electoral division, or by the title of their parliamentary or ministerial office.
Importantly, Practice then goes on to say:
The purpose of this rule is to make debate less personal and avoid the direct confrontation of Members addressing one another as ‘you’.
Further, it goes on to say:
A degree of formality helps the House remain more dignified and tolerant when political views clash and passions may be inflamed.
In the light of today’s proceedings and your comments a minute ago, I request that you reflect over the break on page 500 of Practice and your requirements under the standing orders to intervene when you think it is appropriate, not just when a member thinks a comment has been made which is disorderly, so as to maintain decorum and proper conduct in this House, having regard to page 500 of Practice.
I thank the member for Batman and the spirit in which he raises that point. It might assist if I say to the Leader of the Opposition: would he like that expression withdrawn? Would the Leader of the Opposition like that expression withdrawn?
Mr Speaker, with all due respect, the whole point of my question to you, the question from the member for Fraser and the question from the member for Batman is that this is about your role as Speaker and upholding the standing orders. It is inappropriate now for you to ask the Leader of the Opposition in such a fashion. I would ask that you reflect on the ruling and report back to the House next Monday.
Order! The member for Grayndler has made his point. I have raised the point. I am happy to consider this matter further. I have given the opportunity again to the Leader of the Opposition and he has chosen not to take it. I will not take it any further.
Mr Speaker, my simple request is that you uphold the standing orders.
Mr Speaker, on that same matter could I bring your attention to standing order 92(b) which says:
When the Speaker’s attention is drawn to the conduct of a Member, the Speaker shall determine whether or not it is offensive or disorderly.
I thank the member for Swan. I think we have probably canvassed this issue sufficiently.
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
I do indeed.
Please proceed.
During question time today the Treasurer accused me of moving an amendment to tax law which would have extended a tax break to the James Hardie company. The amendment I moved would have extended a tax break not to the James Hardie company but to the compensation fund designed to compensate victims of the James Hardie company. It was the Treasurer who extended a tax break to the James Hardie company.
Order! The member will not debate the issue.
My question goes to standing order 89. My question to you is: if a form of words is commonly used in public discussion or in a national newspaper and the member to whom those words apply in the public arena makes no objection to their usage, do they then become offensive when they are used by a member of the House?
I make the same point that I made earlier. If the member for Dawson refers back to page 499 of the House of Representatives Practice it is quite clear that it is a question of adjudicating not just on the words that are used but on the context in which they are used.
Mr Speaker—
Honourable member for Wills, I think we have probably canvassed this enough. I have responded to the member for Dawson. We are not having a debate.
The member for Dawson has raised the issue of expressions in common usage. When I referred to her as ‘Calamity De-Anne’, I was sat down—
The member for Wills will resume his seat.
without any requirement for her to raise it or take objection to it. We are simply asking for the same standards to be applied.
If the member for Wills wishes to reflect on the chair I will deal with him.
You will be pleased to know the question does not relate to our former discussion but rather to an event that took place yesterday. I wonder, Mr Speaker, whether you would contact Professor Peetz and offer him the facility that exists in the chamber under the resolution adopted on 27 August 1997 which is the right of reply of persons referred to in the House. Professor Peetz was subjected to a pretty scurrilous attack by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations—this has also occurred in the other place. I would suggest that it might be in order if you were to contact him and make the facility available to him.
I think the member for Fremantle would be aware that, if the individual wishes to contact me, I will refer it to the Privileges Committee and seek advice as to how we might approach it. I think the first step has to come from the individual concerned, not from the occupier of the chair.
A document is tabled as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the
That the House take note of the following document:Native Title and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land Account—Parliamentary Joint Committee—Report—Operation of Native Title Representative Bodies—Government response.
Debate (on motion by Mr Albanese) adjourned.
I present documents on the following subjects, being petitions which are not in accordance with the standing and sessional orders of the House.
Global warning—from the member for Warringah—56 Petitioners
Opposition to human cloning—from the member for Lowe—141 Petitioners
Safer pedestrian crossing near schools and pre-schools—from the member for Sturt—506 Petitioners
Repairs to the Lourdes Hospital Hydrotherapy pool in Dubbo—from the member for Parkes—2814 Petitioners
I move:
That the House, at its rising, adjourn until Monday, 26 February, at 12.30 pm, unless the Speaker or, in the event of the Speaker being unavailable, the Deputy Speaker fixes an alternative day or hour for the meeting.
Question agreed to.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Grayndler proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The Government’s failure to develop a comprehensive plan to secure Australia’s future, including a failure to properly plan to secure Australia’s precious water resources.
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—
This is a government that is out of ideas, out of touch and out of time. This is a government with no plan for the future. Labor are advancing a positive agenda. Our positive agenda is to secure Australia’s long-term future. Our positive agenda is for long-term prosperity without throwing out the fair go. Our positive agenda is to restore the balance in workplace relations. Our positive agenda is to secure Australia’s future by having an education revolution—investing in the skills of our people. Our positive agenda is to tackle climate change and the water crisis and to fix the infrastructure deficit that is holding back productivity. Labor’s positive agenda has an exit strategy for Iraq—our agenda for bringing our troops home.
What we have seen today is a national disgrace, an agenda from the government that has been prepared to divide the nation and is now prepared to divide the parliament. It is a completely negative strategy of personal attacks because the government does not have a vision, because it is out of time. The first fortnight of Parliament has seen two issues dominate: the linked issue of climate change and water and, of course, the war in Iraq. On both, the government has found itself exposed. It is exposed because it has no plan for the future. There have been two stuff-ups by the Prime Minister. On one, climate change, the Prime Minister responded that he did not hear. On the other, accusing the US Democratic Party of being al-Qaeda’s party of choice, the Prime Minister said he did not say it.
The response to every issue from this government is all about political management. They move into political spin mode. They do not look forward. They do not address the issues. This government will do anything to protect their short-term political interests because they are not concerned with the long-term national interests. This government simply is not up to the challenges of the new century. We know that the Prime Minister is a clever politician. We also know that he has changed. He is prepared to manipulate in order to achieve his ends. He is prepared to say anything and do anything.
It has been quite interesting today. The day the Prime Minister is not in the parliament—to distance himself from the muckraking that we saw—there has been question after question from those on the opposite side of the House, putting aside the standards in terms of the rulings of the House. It was a grubby strategy of personal attacks. We can expect more in the year to come. But it is clear that the Australian people are better than that. The Australian people are looking at and are interested in the issues. They know they have a Prime Minister who this morning committed the government to a war without end. There is no exit strategy, just digging further into the quagmire. Another 100 Iraqi civilians will die today to add to the 61,000—on very conservative estimates—who have died so far in Iraq. And, yet, we have a Prime Minister in denial, a Prime Minister who time after time refuses to state what his exit strategy is, a Prime Minister who refuses to take up the challenge of the Leader of the Opposition to have a televised debate on these issues and a Prime Minister who has simply lost his judgement. The attack on Senator Barack Obama was one thing; to extend it that little step further, just as the Leader of the House did today—always one step too far—to embrace the whole of the US Democratic Party, was an extraordinary intervention from a Prime Minister who is out of time.
For all the twists, they try not to answer the question of the day. The fact is the Australian Labor Party opposed the Iraq war from day one. We argued that it was wrong. Yet here we have the Prime Minister, in the face of public opinion and the opinions of global leaders, the Baker-Hamilton report, Democrats and Republicans, as the only public figure in the world who is talking up Iraq. The President of the United States is not doing that at the moment. In the debate that is going on in the US House of Representatives and Senate as we speak, that is not occurring. But this is a Prime Minister in denial, and not just about Iraq. He is in denial about Australia’s performance on greenhouse gases.
On day one of the parliament last week, the Prime Minister let his guard down and conceded, once again, that he was a climate change sceptic, that he was sceptical about the link between climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. Under the government’s existing and planned programs, the government’s own figures show that Australia’s emissions are expected to increase by 27 per cent by 2020. But, then again, if you do not regard emissions leading to climate change as a problem, you do not have to do anything about it. What you do have to do, though, is spin. You have to engage in short-term political strategy—because they are sceptics.
The Treasurer has not mentioned climate change in his 11 budget speeches. He confirmed today no Treasury modelling whatsoever. The Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, we know, said the remarkable Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, was ‘just entertainment, that’s all it is’. We know that the tourism minister’s solution to climate change is to put shadecloth over the Great Barrier Reef rather than do something to reduce emissions. It would be funny if it were not so serious. The government is trying to say, when it is convenient, that it is acknowledging climate change. We know that that is not the case.
They are trying to run two arguments at the same time. Under the radar, some of them are also saying, ‘We acknowledge climate change is real but if we do anything, we’ll trash the economy.’ The Minister for the Environment and Water Resources referred to the 60 per cent reduction figure by 2050 and asked, ‘Who else believes in that?’ I will tell you who else believes in that: the scientists who wrote the IPCC report believe it. The Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change believes it. It is in the Stern report. There is an international consensus that that is what is required. And Labor is up to the challenge.
The Stern report warns that, unless the world begins to act now, global economic output could be cut by up to 20 per cent. The business roundtable said that deep cuts, a 60 per cent reduction by 2050, can be delivered while GDP grows strongly. In fact they suggested that GDP would grow by 0.2 per cent less every year if we did not take action to do that. They also found that 250,000 more jobs would be created if we acted sooner rather than later. This is not from the Labor Party. For those opposite who might dismiss it, this is from Westpac, Origin, Insurance Australia Group, BP, Visy and Swiss Re. This government is so out of touch.
Paul Anthony, the chief executive of AGL, nailed why the delays over 11 long years are so bad for the economy. He pointed out on Lateline Business the other night that the real problem was that you needed to be in the first-move advantage position—that, as the world moves to a carbon constrained economy, as there is a developing emissions trading system in Europe, the United States and other countries, you will give the advantage to everyone else if they go first and you hold back while they are taking action. In the solar energy industry, for example, 10 per cent of the world’s solar power was created in Australia in 1996, and now it is two per cent. It is an outrage.
But we know that their political strategy to provide cover for their lack of action on climate change is water. The Prime Minister gave it up in the Sun-Herald on Sunday when he said you can take action—compartmentalise water—without doing anything on climate change. If you do not have a solution on climate change you do not have a solution on water. You need practical action on water while dealing with the long-term action that is needed on climate change. That is why Labor has consistently called for a single water minister—that has finally happened—and a single water agency at the Commonwealth level. We have called for water efficiency measures and for overallocation to be dealt with. We have called for the use of market based instruments and to have a target of returning 1,500 gigalitres to the Murray and a target of recycling 30 per cent of waste water by 2015.
But we have seen inaction from the government. We heard the Prime Minister’s speech on 25 January. It is a pity that as much effort did not go into planning the finance, funding, time lines and governance arrangements as went into the writing of that political speech. We know now that the proposal did not go to cabinet. It is extraordinary that a $10 billion plan did not go to cabinet. Senator Minchin dismissed it with, ‘That’s $1 billion a year, which is less than half a per cent of Commonwealth government expenditure, so let’s keep it in perspective.’ That was the finance minister’s response. At the same time, a gift to the Queen of a $300,000 royal carriage did require cabinet approval. That says a lot about how serious the government is. More planning went into the gift of a jewel-encrusted gold carriage for the Queen than went into addressing the fundamental water problems in the Murray-Darling Basin.
We know that the Prime Minister’s water plan was only created on 8 January. We know that Treasury was not involved until mid January, only a week or so before the announcement. Last night at Senate estimates David Tune, the executive director of the Fiscal Group at Treasury, stated: ‘On Monday the 15th, I had a conversation with the people over in PM&C. We were invited to join them in a meeting the following day to cast our eye over the work.’ The Secretary of the Department of Finance and Administration said a couple of days ago at Senate estimates that he got to look at it three days before the speech and was asked to ‘run an eye lightly over the one-page of costings’. Treasury and Finance have both conceded there was no modelling.
Let us think about the scene. It is the night before the big announcement on 25 January. There are no costings and the cabinet has not been consulted—the acting Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, did not know about it throughout most of January. He is briefed on the morning of 25 January. The states and territories have not been consulted. The National Farmers Federation has not been consulted. The people in rural and regional Australia have not been consulted and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission has been left out of the loop—and it produced a week later a nine-page critique that went through all the outstanding issues of the document.
Let us be clear about what the government had been saying publicly before then. On 5 November the premiers were given two days notice to turn up to a summit on Melbourne Cup day. At the time, the Prime Minister said he would work in collaboration—work together—with the states. Soon after that, on 5 December, the minister for the environment—the minister opposite—and the minister for agriculture signed off the government’s official policy response to a Senate report on a rural water usage inquiry that was chaired by Senator Heffernan. The report states that the way forward on rural water was to use the existing state based planning structures and the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement. That was on 5 December. On 7 December, the last sitting day of 2006, the government introduced the Murray Darling-Basin Amendment Bill 2006, which contained important amendments to streamline the existing operations of the existing commission.
It is no wonder that, three weeks after the Prime Minister’s speech, the opposition has still been refused a proper briefing by the Prime Minister’s office. The government is still confused over whether it is a plan for the Murray-Darling Basin or a national water plan. Talking on Stateline in South Australia, the Prime Minister said, ‘There is a $10 billion investment of new money by the Commonwealth to fix the basic problems of the Murray-Darling Basin.’
Then, in parliament, the Prime Minister says: ‘No, that’s not the case. It was always envisaged to be a national plan.’ Then yesterday, in response to a question from the member for New England, he went back to saying it was about the Murray-Darling Basin. We know that there is also confusion over water allocation. On 28 January the minister opposite said, ‘There might be an area where you buy out a farm or close down a channel because it’s inefficient.’ But he is now meekly saying that purchasing water entitlements would only be a last resort. The agriculture minister does not agree with purchasing overallocations at all. We asked him in the parliament last week. It is quite clear that this is a hastily cobbled together plan. (Time expired)
For more than 100 years the management of our greatest surface water and ground water system, the Murray-Darling Basin, has been managed—or should I say mismanaged—by four states. This is a relic of Federation—the federal compact. Back in the 1890s, far-sighted political leaders, particularly those from South Australia—as we know, people from downstream always have a particular perspective on water matters—pleaded for there to be federal management of the river. At the Constitutional Convention in 1898, Sir Josiah Symon, pleading with the New South Welshman and the Victorians, said: ‘Surely, in the name of all that is federal, the Murray should be controlled by the federal jurisdiction.’ Sir George Reid, the portly Premier of New South Wales, rose to his feet, roaring with laughter, and said: ‘Why, throw yourself on our charity as you have always done. We’ll treat you generously.’ And there it was. Nothing was done for more than 100 years.
Wherever you went in the Murray-Darling Basin you saw the signs of overallocation, mismanagement and states managing water on the basis that any drop that crossed the border was a drop wasted. We have lived through that; we have seen that. Wherever you went, people would say, ‘If only they’d got it right at Federation,’ or ‘If we were writing the Constitution afresh, we’d put this all under Commonwealth control.’ Everybody said that, but only the Prime Minister, John Howard, was prepared to take the step to take this dysfunctional anomaly from our constitutional past out of the too-hard basket, put it on the table for action and say, ‘The time has come to get these rivers right, to get these massive groundwater systems right, to get the overallocation corrected and to ensure that our irrigation is the most efficient in the world,’ and put the money on the table to enable us to do that. That is the national water plan.
Of course, the plan does not extend simply to the Murray-Darling Basin. Naturally the bulk of the money will be spent there, because that is where at least 80 per cent of our irrigated agriculture is found and that is where the bulk of our water problems are found, but the $6 billion part of this program for irrigation efficiency will be available right across Australia. So this funding will be available for irrigation areas in Western Australia, in Queensland and in Tasmania. There have been great steps taken, I might say, in irrigation areas outside the basin. I particularly commend the work of the Harvey Irrigation Area, south of Perth.
This is a national plan, a visionary plan. It has been welcomed by every side of politics. The member for Kingsford Smith even went so far in his enthusiasm as to say it was Labor Party policy. I invited him to show me the Labor Party policy document that called for the Commonwealth to take over the Murray-Darling Basin. I have not seen it yet. I do not think it exists.
In his dreams.
Exactly. He was dreaming about that. But every premier has given support to the plan. We will have some discussions, no doubt, about finetuning aspects here and there, but there is a recognition that this is a great idea whose time has come and which was only waiting for a Prime Minister who had the courage to make it happen. That Prime Minister is the very man that the member for Grayndler derided in his 15-minute speech, the first 11 minutes of which said nothing at all about water, notwithstanding that the MPI is devoted, so it is claimed, to the mismanagement of water resources.
As the member for Grayndler knows, the management of water resources in Australia historically has been in the hands of the states. That applies whether it is urban water or rural water. We are not playing the blame game here. It is a simple fact: water has been managed by the states, just like urban bus routes have been managed by the states. It has been on their side of the ledger. In the Murray-Darling Basin, that management was plainly dysfunctional, not because people were maligned or misguided but because they had competing interests. The four states had competing interests. It was a case of four states in the same bed—in the same riverbed perhaps—but with very different dreams.
The South Australians were right in 1898. The far-sighted founders of our Constitution were right: this is a matter for federal control. Thanks to this government, thanks to this Prime Minister—and we are hoping that the states will combine together as they are indicating they will—for the first time we will have the River Murray and the Darling and all of their tributaries as one integrated system. When we do that we will address the overallocation and we will deliver the security our irrigators need.
It is vitally important to remember something that the opposition always forget about water in this country. They think of the River Murray as though it were a bathtub. They say: ‘There’s not enough water in the bathtub, so we should put a bit more in. We need 1,000 gigalitres more here and 1,500 gigalitres there. Put it back in.’ They fail to recognise that the rivers of Australia are very volatile. We have inherited a complex ecology. Our country is very flat. Our rivers are very slow and they are incredibly variable. The Darling River varies 10,000 to one between its highest flow and its lowest flow. Some of our most famous rivers, viewed from other countries, would be regarded as nothing more than ephemeral streams.
We have to understand the hydrology of Australia when we manage it. We have regulated our rivers. We have built great dams. We have created an environment where farmers can irrigate, where permanent crops can be planted. Prior to these great storages and irrigation systems, you could not have permanent horticulture in Australia because you did not know whether you were going to have a flood or no water at all—‘droughts and flooding rains’; that is what our hydrology is about. Understanding that is key, and that is why the plan here will not simply secure more water for the environment but will underpin the security of irrigation.
By reducing overallocation, buying water back, making irrigation more efficient and thereby securing more water for the environment, not only do we make irrigation more resilient and more efficient—because an irrigation system that is piped, particularly if it is pressurised, is vastly more productive than one that is fed simply through gravity-driven open channels—but we will have a massive reserve of water, an environmental reserve of water, which will be used to water the natural wetlands, the red gum forests along the river and the many other iconic environmental sites that have been neglected as the river has been regulated.
The plan will make more water available for the environment in the years when water is around; but also, when there is no water at all, when there is a desperate drought, we will be able to underpin and support the security of irrigators. The volatility of Australian hydrology means that there is a complementarity between the need of the irrigator to have water security in the driest of dry times and the need of the environment to have additional water when there is a lot of water around. Understanding that complementarity, that volatility, in Australian hydrology is key to the plan that is presented, because it will mean that we will have a better watered environment, an environment that has the water that it needs, but we will also have a more secure irrigation sector.
Many people on the Left, the Greens and the left of the Labor Party, hate irrigated agriculture. They hate it almost as much as they hate the coal industry. They do not want to grow anything in Australia; they say we should import our food. Around the world today the menace of water scarcity has never been greater. Large parts of the world—northern China, the North China Plain in particular, and northern India—are going through periods of extraordinary water scarcity. And it is not just a function of drought or even climate change. Modern pumps have enabled millions of farmers to pump groundwater to unsustainable levels so that the groundwater is exhausted. In the North China Plain alone, World Bank hydrologists estimate that within 15 years the groundwater resources, which currently supply 75 per cent of irrigation water in that vast district, will be exhausted. The world will have a lot less food production in the decades ahead. We cannot afford in Australia to walk away from agriculture. We have to have a more efficient agricultural sector; we have to grow more food. We have to recognise that this left-wing idea that we can abandon irrigation, abandon agriculture and import our food from somewhere else is a fantasy and flies in the face of the major changes that are occurring in the world today.
The Australian government has presented this visionary 10-point plan for water reform and water management in Australia. It is the most important statement about the future of water any government has ever made in our country’s history. It has been widely praised; I will not read all the glowing editorials and the praise from the conservationists, the water experts, the irrigators and the state premiers. This has been an outstanding effort. And what did the Leader of the Opposition say? He said:
I’m adopting a positive bipartisan approach to this ...
The national water crisis in this country should be placed above politics ...
Well, he obviously was not talking to the member for Grayndler, or the member for Grayndler was not listening to him. But let us consider the position of the Leader of the Opposition. He has demanded—with a furrowed brow and earnest look through those academic spectacles—that he be told whether the plan will be available outside of the Murray-Darling Basin. ‘We need to know this,’ the Leader of the Opposition said. If the Leader of the Opposition was as attentive to his homework as he seeks to make us believe he is he would have known—because the Prime Minister made it quite plain in his speech and in all the materials produced at the time—that this money is available across Australia, and he cited a number of irrigation districts outside of the Murray-Darling Basin which would be eligible.
The Leader of the Opposition went on to say, ‘We need to know what the governance arrangements are,’ and he said this after he had met with the premiers. This was a very curious question to ask because the premiers had just met with the Prime Minister. I was at that meeting and we had given the premiers a very detailed two-page statement setting out our proposals for all of the roles and responsibilities between the Commonwealth, the Murray-Darling Basin authority and the state governments. It is all set out, and this is a public document. The premiers had that; they knew exactly what we were proposing. So one has to ask: did they give it to the Leader of the Opposition? Of course it was available on the internet; he could have downloaded it himself. But did the premiers give it to him or not? Or, if they did, did he not read it? So we have this professed concern about the water plan from an opposition that is not even prepared to read it.
I have to say that while the challenges of our rivers and groundwater systems and rural Australia are obviously the most challenging because that is where most of our water is used, the water in our cities has been at crisis point for many years. Urban water is probably the most frustrating part of the whole water challenge in Australia because it is completely fixable. At the end of the day, the irrigator at Mildura depends on what the heavens deliver for his irrigation water, but our cities can recycle, they can desalinate, they can manage their water in so many ways. Each and every one of our big cities can have all the water that they need. It is simply a matter of investing—making the decisions and investing.
And we have in the Leader of the Opposition a man who should stand in the hall of fame—or, should I say, the hall of infamy—of water neglect in Australia because when he was the right-hand man of Premier Wayne Goss in Queensland they chose not to build the Wolffdene dam in 1989. When they chose not to build the Wolffdene dam they ensured that Brisbane would be short of water. They looked down on the Nationals, they looked down on Joh and they said, ‘We’re smarter; we’re smart young men—we’ve been to university.’ But Joh knew that Brisbane needed more water; he knew it needed a dam. They stopped the dam and then did nothing else. When people in Brisbane complain about the water restrictions and wonder why they are building so much infrastructure in such a great panic, it is because of the neglect of the Leader of the Opposition. (Time expired)
It is great to follow so much rhetoric about this water plan! Let us have a look at what this water plan is. I do not think it is much more than a water grants scheme to win an election. It has come along a bit less than a year out from the election because they realised nothing had been done, no vision had been put down after 10 years of failure. So they decided they had better have a fair bit of money over 10 years—a big figure; a billion a year—in a grants scheme to buy back some water, to knock off some irrigators and to try to make irrigation a bit more effective and efficient. I see that half the water will stay with the irrigators who can save a certain amount and the other half will no doubt go to environmental flows. But there is no detail on how they are going to achieve this. We all know that if the first six properties in an irrigation scheme sold their water back to the system and there was no more water going up there, the question then is: who is going to look after the ones on the other end? Who is going to maintain the long pipes, the improved water system? There is a lot of complexity in these issues and there has been a lot of time for this government to rectify the problems.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the matter. Australia’s water resources are indeed very precious and vital to the agricultural industry and, more importantly, to local communities. We need clean water to survive. It is clear that the government has failed on water as an issue. There have been promises, a lot of rhetoric like we had today from the barrister, and grand announcements—yet we still see no firm outcomes on the issue of securing Australia’s precious water resources. After 10 years we should be able to see some outcomes. The Howard government has been dragging its heels on this matter for 10 years. For example, the recent activity of the government has centred on the plan to take over the Murray-Darling Basin. Today we have heard the rhetoric that this $10 billion is to go over all states and all irrigation. It is all about irrigation schemes, I understand. That is what it seems to be now. As it goes on, more and more words come out.
Most people in Australia would think that $10 billion is quite a lot of money. One of the most important issues that we face today did not even go through the cabinet—$10 billion. They did not worry about putting it through the cabinet; the Prime Minister did it up in his office. Prime Minister, you have given the job to manage the issue to a lawyer from Sydney who is a millionaire so I guess to him $10 billion is just pocket money. That suggests that you have not really taken the issue seriously. Or is it that you have suddenly realised that this is a serious issue and because you have done nothing about that you are now running scared? I believe that is what is happening to this government—they are now running a bit scared. Water has become an issue and there is an election coming up so they need a grants program to satisfy the rural seats. That is what this is all about—a grants program to satisfy the rural seats.
Even the head of the government’s task force preparing the water plan agreed that the government had done no modelling of any impact on employment, no assessment of the numbers of people who might have to exit the industry and no costing of the purchase of entitlements. So we do not know what it is going to cost, there is no marketing material and no modelling has been done. Nothing has been done.
Unfortunately, because of the lack of leadership on this issue it is the people on the ground who will suffer. It will be workers in the agricultural industry and people owning farms and properties who will get cut on this. It is the farmers, the agricultural sector and the communities that will suffer because the Prime Minister has given the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources some pocket money to play with. He will play with that and try to win a few Liberal votes out of his party room for when he bids for the leadership of the Liberal Party. It is grant money to the millionaire from Sydney to help him when he stands for the leadership of his party in the future.
Around Australia dams are at their lowest capacity in living memory. Farmers in particular are being hit. It is really tough out there. Farmers are unable to plant new crops and unable to plant new areas. Even if the rain comes there will not be too much water flowing. Others have had to cut back on farming as they have had less water to go into their traditional crops.
What about benchmarks and what definitions do we have? I can remember doing a water report some years ago. We were trying to come to grips with what benchmarks and definitions you need for environmental flows and healthy rivers. What do you need for water policy? I agree with the minister at the table when he said that the rivers of Australia are very different from those in other parts of the world. They do go up and down from great floods to very dry trickles. There are dry holes from time to time. We have to remember that we need to have definitions and we need to have benchmarks and by now we should know where we are going and what we are trying to achieve. I do not think that we do know.
The government has spoken about sustainability for irrigators and non-viable, inefficient irrigators but has not provided any definitions of these. I remember the Farmers Federation was concerned enough to raise this issue. I can remember a report we did here in a House committee some years ago. The Farmers Federation in evidence said:
I do not think we can actually say what a healthy river is. We are all looking for a definition of a healthy working river. We have asked our scientists and our research corporations to give us the parameters of a healthy working river … We are looking for that answer.
I do not think there is an answer yet. I would have thought that this government would have had an answer by now, after 10 years.
Small towns are also suffering across Australia. Local government infrastructure, including water and sewerage infrastructure, is becoming older and in need of repair. Over the last 10 years the proportion of local government’s share in tax revenue has decreased from 1.2 per cent to just 0.7 per cent. In real terms that means they are now $1 billion worse off. Funding to local government is now linked to the CPI, and not governed by a growth arrangement, and that means that any increase in funding does not reflect the increased costs to local government. So the infrastructure in this area is also in urgent need of being renewed to save water. So while farmers wait for certainty in irrigation, local government is faced with a crisis of infrastructure funding and the community will no doubt bear the brunt of government’s inaction in this matter.
There is some positive work going on in the area of water. When I look at my own state, the Tasmanian government recently released a discussion paper on reform of the Tasmanian water and sewerage sector with an aim to make the sector more sustainable through structural, regulatory and other reforms. It really is a good contrast to what the state government has done in Tasmania and what this federal government has put on the table.
The plan in Tasmania is to involve all stakeholders in the process. Submissions to this plan close next week. The Tasmanian Department of Treasury and Finance is involved—in fact representatives of that department are chairing the steering committees in this process. The task force is comprised of the Treasurer, who is the chair, the Minister for Primary Industries and Water and the Minister for Environment and Planning. So the federal government should see that everybody is at the table in this scheme. The Tasmanian cabinet made the decision and are aware of the details of the project, and the Tasmanian people have the opportunity for input. With the involvement of those with a responsibility for finance, I believe that the outcome will be okay. At least the departments responsible and the responsible ministers will be aware of what is happening. (Time expired)
I noted the speech by the member for Grayndler. While it purported to mainly refer to the Murray-Darling Basin, the member for Grayndler spent a great deal of time on Iraq and climate change. I might just make a couple of comments in passing on those two issues. On Iraq, of course, aren’t we all wise with 20/20 hindsight. It is quite incredible. I remember clearly the time when Saddam Hussein was accused of having weapons of mass destruction. Not only did the United Nations think so but Mr Butler, who was then the United Nations weapons inspector, thought so, all the intelligence information indicated it, and the Leader of the Opposition thought so. But of course now, when things are a little bit different, we have a different view and we are trying to rewrite history. If we have a close look at it, everyone can have 20/20 vision in hindsight.
On the issue of climate change, there seems to me at present to be a scare campaign being run by the Labor Party trying to link climate change to drought. There is no discernible link between climate change and drought, but the reason they are mounting this campaign is very clear: one of the biggest concerns that we have in Australia at present is based in our cities. Because state governments have not done the planning over the years, all of our major cities have water shortages, with level 4 and level 5 water restrictions. So it is easy to plant the seed into someone’s mind that this is all about climate change where, in fact, there is no link between drought and climate change.
Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth—and it has been since long before Europeans came here. I think we have to start to understand the natural management of this country. That is the reason that I think there is a lot of wisdom in having one authority run the Murray-Darling system. There is also a lot of work that must be done to make sure that that system is run efficiently and correctly. Probably in the short term we might get some of that wrong, but in the long term we have to make sure that we get it right.
Most members here would know that I was the Minister for Water Resources in New South Wales for five years. I was on the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council for five years. I would have to say that in its first 10 years the Murray-Darling council did a lot of very good work. John Kerin was the chairman of the Murray-Darling council when I was the minister in New South Wales, and I think he did an admirable job.
The emphasis in those days was on salinity and drainage because the quality of the water going to Adelaide was of concern, particularly to Adelaide. I think Adelaide threatened to sue other states—that is what started the Murray-Darling council. There was a concern because natural flows of salt were going into the river. If you go back and read your history, which I do not think many people do in this place, it would show that the early explorers commented on salty water in the Murray River. There were natural flows of salt going into the river, so the Murray-Darling council decided to attack those issues.
Also, I think you will find that the Murray-Darling council did a lot of work on drainage, because we know that putting water on the land, particularly arid land, causes problems with salinity. To their credit, the rice growers in the irrigation areas did a lot of laser levelling to make sure they used less water in the growing of their crops. When I started as the minister in New South Wales, most of the horticultural crops were flood irrigated. I believe you will not find a horticultural crop today that is flood irrigated. They have all gone to microjet and drip irrigation. Some of that is because of policy change, I would say. There is no doubt that in those days in New South Wales all of the irrigation areas were controlled by the Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission. I used to call them the ‘feudal kingdom’ because they owned everything. They told producers what they could do. They told grape growers how many grapes they could grow, how many waterings they could do and how many hectares they could have. That was all deregulated, which allowed more efficiencies and more efficient use of water. So many of these things have been taking place.
The Living Murray scheme, which the then leader of The Nationals introduced, again tried to bring back some of the flows into the river. When I started as minister in New South Wales, the policy, as the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources said, was that no water would reach the sea—the same as the Colorado River in America. I was the first to introduce environmental flows. So we need to manage these things correctly.
Let’s put it in perspective. Not only is the Murray-Darling Basin home to 80 per cent of Australia’s irrigated agriculture; it is the home to 60 per cent of Australia’s agriculture. Some of that is dryland farming, obviously, but it is the home to a lot of the agriculture that we have in this country. So it is very important that we address these issues.
In New South Wales in particular—and I spoke to other states—we knew we were losing a lot of water in the transmission along our channels. I think the estimate at the time was 30 per cent. The Mulwala Canal, which is the main canal running down to the lower Murray—a very big canal which was built with horses and scoops—runs across country where you intercept sand and gravel. Where you find those sand and gravel beds, of course the water soaks through very quickly. There is no doubt that if you can seal those channels you are going to save a lot of water. I did not have the money to do it. This Prime Minister has had the vision to put forward some money that can seal those leaky channels.
We also knew about the Great Artesian Basin, which is an enormous resource to Australia and has filled over millions of years. Because we found some natural upwellings and decided we would drill bores and get that water, it has all been flowing away. We are losing it. It only moves at about four millimetres a year underground, so it is something that you have to protect. We started capping those bores. More money to cap those is a very big step in the right direction.
New South Wales was the worst offender on licences. I was the minister in New South Wales. Licences were handed out like confetti during the 1950s in New South Wales with no regard to what water might be used, because there was not a lot of irrigation in those days. Even when I was minister, we used to call many of the licences ‘sleepers’ and ‘dozers’ because they had not been developed, and there are still many licences that have not been developed today. They are the licences that are likely to be willingly given up to reduce the potential of drawing on the water resources.
I think this is a very big step in the right direction; it is visionary. The amount of money that has been put forward is very substantial and it can do quite a lot to help the water resources in this country, but we have to learn to manage it according to the country. It is a very dry country and we need to read history to ensure that. To help the workings of the House, I will leave my speech at that.
I said the other day that everyone has been emphasising the negative side of this proposal, which is savings on the Murray-Darling. I have no wish to speak about that today. For the nation to continue to see three-quarters of its water resources completely unutilised while in the south-east corner the water resources are overutilised is incredible. It is quite staggering that this could continue. The debate is constantly centred on the negative aspect of the Murray-Darling instead of the positive aspects in Northern Australia.
Let me repeat: simply taking seven per cent of the Gulf run-off—I am not talking about the north-east run-off or the north west of Australia’s run-off; I am just talking about the Gulf run-off—will irrigate five per cent of the Gulf and mid-west, which is some two million hectares. There will be no substantial change to what you see if you fly over the Gulf in an aeroplane. There will be a few threads of green and a few pods of green. I would like to see a lot more of that.
We produce 9,000 litres per hectare of ethanol off sugar cane at 75c a litre, and that is not using the bagasse. There is a further return on the bagasse for electricity of another $2,000 million. But put those together and there is $16,000 million a year of income sitting out there for virtually no commercial outlay by individuals and no outlay much by government either. The Minister for the Environment and Water Resources has very generously and sensibly said that he will most certainly be looking at proposals in North Queensland, and we hope that those proposals will be taken forward.
There is report after report. Newsweek magazine from the United States says the first solution for CO is ethanol. On page 136 of Al Gore’s book, the first solution for CO is ethanol. George Bush’s first solution in his state of the union speech was ethanol. Where can we produce that ethanol with a tremendous benefit? Every hectare of sugar cane takes 72 tonnes of CO out of the atmosphere, but through ethanol it only puts back 13 tonnes of CO. So there are enormous benefits in the reduction of CO through what we are proposing here.
Heaven only knows, but Mr Theodore said: ‘I’ve had it up to here with this. I’m going down to take over Canberra and I’ll get some water development in Northern Australia,’ and he did. Unfortunately he ran into the Depression and the rest is history. Mr Menzies, Mr McEwen and Mr Bjelke-Petersen got as far Burdekin Falls, but that was all. It is only 50 or 60 kilometres from the coast. It is not really the development of any of these huge resources that we have in Australia.
We plead with the minister and with the government. They have raised the hope of Australians. They have created an environment of excitement and opportunity for the future for Australia. It is said again and again in writing the history of Australia that the three great achievements of this nation—funnily enough, unanimously—are the wheat stabilisation scheme, the Holden motorcar and the Snowy Mountains scheme. We have a chance to repeat the Snowy Mountains scheme but with no cost to government. Please, why is this not happening? We plead with the government of Australia. The minister has been good enough to come in for all of these debates, and we thank him once again for that. We will get an intelligent perspective, which we will not get unless he is here.
Let us be very specific: what are we talking about? I would have thought that if we are talking about savings then we are talking about underground poly piping, which makes enormous savings as far as irrigation goes. But I am not interested in the savings; I am interested in using the great resources which God has given this nation and using them effectively, which we are not doing at the present moment.
Order! The discussion is now concluded.
I present the report from the Publications Committee. Copies of the report are being placed on the table.
Report—by leave—adopted.
Order! It being almost 4.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
I rise tonight to talk about veterans’ health issues and, in particular, some evidence that came out regarding some of these issues at Senate estimates last night. The issue of veterans’ mental health is a very serious issue. From statistics that have become available from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, we know it is a growing issue, as the problems do not actually manifest themselves until quite some time after the event. They can have lasting implications for the families of veterans as well as for the individual veterans themselves. Those problems can be long lasting, having implications for the families and the veterans for years and years to come. Last night there was a discussion regarding the issue of statistics in this area. In fact, Senator Hurley raised a number of figures which had come out of a recent article in the Australian. I want to go to that article in a second, but I must admit I was surprised by the response of the department. Ken Douglas, its general manager of service delivery, said:
I can’t confirm your figure. It is not a figure that sticks in my mind.
The departmental secretary, Mark Sullivan, whom I have a lot of time for, did say a number of things, including:
We don’t go checking newspaper articles for facts every time they appear. They write all sorts of things.
The concern that I have about that is that this was an article in the major national newspaper, the Australian, that went through some of the figures in relation to PTSD, so I am really surprised that the department did not come to estimates last night briefed on that article, aware of that article. Although I take the point from the departmental head’s expressed position that he in fact may not have been fully aware of the detail, I would be very surprised if the minister had not sought a briefing on the figures and I would be very surprised if the department had not examined the article. I am therefore a bit disappointed that they were not able to come along to estimates last night and actually speak about the figures themselves.
I would like to go to that article now and read from it to make a few points clear about what is certainly out there in the public arena as to the PTSD situation. It says:
ONE in four Australian soldiers who served in Vietnam has made a successful claim for posttraumatic stress disorder. Documents from the Veterans Affairs Department, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, reveal 15,000 successful claims for PTSD out of the 60,000 defence personnel who served in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.
They also reveal that, more than 60 years since the end World War II, a legacy of PTSD is still emerging, with more than 726 successful claims by Australia’s oldest veterans between 2004 and last year.
The documents show Veterans Affairs has accepted 3069 claims for PTSD between 2004 and last year from Australian military who served overseas, including 1637 successful claims from Vietnam Veterans.
It goes on to say:
More than 2760 Australian veterans of overseas service have successfully claimed PTSD in the past three years.
The ADF has been operating at a punishing tempo in recent years with nearly 3000 soldiers currently overseas. The offshore deployment reached a peak of 5000 during the East Timor crisis in May last year.
… … …
Australia’s leading PTSD expert, Alexander McFarlane, said “significantly more” claims would emerge because of Australia’s high tempo of military operations.
Professor McFarlane—head of the University of Adelaide’s Centre of Military and Veterans Health and a senior adviser in psychiatry to the ADF—said PTSD could emerge long after the events that caused the harm.
“There is often a long tail to the disorder—I have patients only manifesting in later age,” he said.
“Someone can function extraordinarily well in combat and break down some years later.”
There is no doubt there are serious issues in terms of these statistics and in terms of the future. Also, I point to the question of what is now happening overseas. I will quote from another article, this one in the Daily Telegraph, headed ‘Secret casualties of Aussie war on terror’. It says:
THE cost of the war on terror can be revealed, with documents showing at least 236 Australians who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan being granted disability pensions.
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs has secretly accepted liability for a range of mental and physical injuries that have emerged after leaving the battlefield, including hearing loss, post-traumatic stress disorder, back problems and alcoholism.
The 236 disability pensioners dwarfs the “official” Australian Defence Force casualty count of just 20 in Iraq—plus two deaths—and 11 in Afghanistan.
… … …
Department documents show medical pensions have been granted for mental and physical injuries to 109 individuals who have seen service in the Iraq conflict. A further 171 people who served in Afghanistan as part of the international coalition have also received medical pensions. As 44 of these disability pensioners have served in both conflicts, the total comes to 236.
… … …
These veterans have been assessed as having permanent injuries that pass the 10 per cent threshold for incapacity required to access a fortnightly disability pension under the Veterans Entitlements Act.
The fact is that these figures show that the sorts of issues that we are dealing with as a result of overseas deployments are a growing problem that we have to be very much aware of. (Time expired)
I rise to inform the House that Gemco Players Community Theatre, in Emerald, in my electorate of La Trobe, has received a grant of $440,000 under the Australian government’s Regional Partnerships program towards a $940,000 expansion of its facilities. First of all, I would like to thank and congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile; the Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, Jim Lloyd; and also the Special Minister of State, Gary Nairn, who is in the chamber, for their fantastic administration of this program.
This project is 20 years in the making and is testament to the spirit of the Gemco community. Since it was founded by Mr David Greenaway in Emerald over a quarter of a century ago and had its beginnings in the Emerald Community House, Gemco has needed more space. This need grew in the mid-1990s and the Tecoma Uniting Church donated its old Methodist church. The youth group grew from 10 to 80 youths in a matter of weeks.
Gemco’s plan to expand its performance space began to gather momentum when the late Sir Rupert Hamer, the long-serving Victorian Premier and champion of the arts, became a patron of the project in the late 1990s. Sir Rupert became involved after he learned of Gemco’s herculean efforts, one scorching Boxing Day, in filling two semitrailers parked on Collins Street with seats discarded from the Melbourne Town Hall. As the story goes, by the time the trucks had arrived back in Emerald, everyone was so spent by the efforts of loading them that they had not the strength to unload them. Thankfully, divine intervention ensued, as an Assembly of God congregation, which was having a barbecue nearby—perhaps the only teetotal barbecue in the hills that day—came to Gemco’s aid. Sir Rupert urged Gemco to secure its site in Emerald. Without his counsel, today the site would probably be a car park. It is a shame he is not alive to see the project realised.
In 1999, Gemco came perilously close to not realising its ambitions. Funding had been arranged through the council for a large development, tenders had been received under budget, but funding was withdrawn at the last minute. After this disappointment, it took Gemco six months to regroup. I understand that the resolve of the current secretary, Chris Toyama, was vital in keeping Gemco’s hopes alive. True to form, when all seemed lost, the Gemco community rallied once more. A new expansion was designed free of charge by architect Mal Nichols, whose daughter Casey was in Gemco’s youth group at the time. A young engineer named Chris Rozycki, the husband of Bridie Briggs, a youth group leader, also donated his time and expertise. In 2004 Belinda Smullen and Tara Rankin, assisted by Cathlin Gemmell, delivered a compelling presentation to the Cardinia Shire Council which convinced it to commit $250,000 to the project. I congratulate Cardinia Shire on their commitment to this project.
The federal government’s contribution of $440,000, which I announced in November last year, enabled Gemco to secure a funding commitment of an additional $200,000 from the Victorian state government. I congratulate the member for Gembrook, Tammy Lobato, for her assistance and also that of former Mayor Bill Ronald and Councillor Graham Lee on the day of our announcement. Gemco’s own fundraising is well on track to meet its $50,000 target. It recently received an anonymous $25,000 donation, and its Australia Day fundraiser raised $4,000. In the spirit of the community’s generosity, the Bendigo Bank at Belgrave has undertaken to fill any shortfall in Gemco’s contribution. That is a fantastic gesture. I again congratulate Bendigo Bank.
Once complete, the existing facility will be equipped to seat 150 people, with an orchestra pit, a foyer, dressing rooms, a bar, a loading bay, an outdoor performance area and on-site parking. It will be a great asset for the local community. Gemco is so delighted that three openings have been planned: the laying of the foundation stone, a roof-raising ceremony and the official opening. And celebrate they should. It is a fantastic achievement. Congratulations to the entire Gemco community, past and present. Again, I also congratulate the township of Emerald and the south-east development centre for assisting with the Regional Partnerships. They have done an amazing job.
Climate change is now fixed in the consciousness of the Australian people. Working together to find the responses to best manage this phenomenon is perhaps the greatest human challenge of our time. Successful outcomes will come from leadership—visionary and responsible leadership that can inspire and unite all sectors and all communities to take on this global struggle together. It will not come from leadership that divides communities, induces fear or encourages the Australian people to feel threatened or powerless in the face of the very real challenges to our sustainability that are already emerging as consequences of climate change. Nor will it come from isolating coal-producing communities through the full onslaught of wedge politics, John Howard style.
I declare some particular personal interest in this issue. Firstly, I represent here the city of Newcastle—a city built on coal. The Port of Newcastle exported $6 billion worth of coal during 2005-06. In the Hunter, 11,000 people are directly employed in coalmining, with estimates of a further 30,000 spin-off jobs. Coal is part of our history, our present and our future.
Secondly, I am from coalmining stock. In fact I am the only member of this parliament whose grandfather, a miners federation man, took part in the great 1929 lockout and the Rothbury riots in the Hunter—the most violent industrial dispute in this nation’s history. When 10,000 coalminers, marching on the locked-out coal fields, were confronted by armed police, the ensuing battle saw one miner shot dead and martial law imposed in peacetime Australia. I understand the coalmining heritage, the courage and camaraderie of miners, and the strength and resolve of mining communities which are forever used to the challenges of coalmining. I give a warning to our Prime Minister: underestimate the miners of the Hunter or their unions at your peril. Beware of inflaming coalmining communities, for they are not easily fooled by ruthless government scaremongering. They easily recognise the self-interest of those who would exploit coalminers.
They prefer a different way. Mining communities and their unions have always been aroused by social responsibility. The fairness and equity route to prosperity has always been their creed, not fear and self-interest. They understand that taking climate change action and coalmining are not incompatible endeavours. They know that it is not a case of one or the other. You cannot turn off coal like a tap and you cannot halt global climate change by closing down coalmining in the Hunter. It would be far better to work hand in hand to find the best and fairest solutions. Prime Minister, they will keep mining coal and stoking the economic boom that you have squandered, but they sure wish that you had been doing your job as well as they have been doing theirs. Get off their backs and get out of the way, because it is time for better leadership in this country.
Thirdly, just like the people of Newcastle, the Hunter and Australia, I love this planet too. A recent Hunter Valley Research Foundation survey found that people in my region believe that climate change is real and that it will have a direct impact on their lives in the next 20 years. But, crucially, they also responded that they believe that we, each and every one of us, can have an impact on slowing climate change. That is why the Hunter community, its workers, miners, unions, industry and research institutions are already working together to find solutions to climate change and a sustainable energy future.
The University of Newcastle, a national leader in clean coal research, is working with the help of the Newcastle Port Corporation to investigate CO abatement through chemical looping. The university’s Priority Research Centre for Energy is researching ways to reduce or even eliminate CO emission from coal power generation through oxyfuel technologies, more efficient combustors and heat exchangers. CSIRO’s Energy Technology Division, based in Newcastle, is working in conjunction with the Centre for Low Emission Technology on coal gasification, gas cleaning, processing and separation technologies, and carbon sequestration. The CSIRO Energy Centre at Steel River, the nation’s flagship, is a showcase of energy efficiency and also of vital work into renewable energy at the National Solar Energy Centre in Newcastle.
Prime Minister, we acknowledge that we are all a part of the problem that is climate change, but at least the people of Newcastle and the Hunter are trying to be part of the solutions. I call on the Prime Minister, Australia’s greatest climate change sceptic, to stop the fearmongering and become part of our region’s solution, starting with approval of our Solar Cities bid—a project which would see a further $15 million invested in renewable energy projects in our region. As we would say in the Hunter: put up or shut up!
I rise this afternoon in the adjournment debate to place on the public record a concern that was prompted during a recent advertising campaign by one of the major supermarket chains. While I was watching television, I saw an advertisement encouraging people to spend something like $80 or more and receive a voucher for 10c a litre off the price of petrol. Immediately I thought, ‘Whose pocket is this consumer saving actually coming from?’ Not long after I saw this advertisement, I received a very disturbing letter from a constituent of mine who is a dairy farmer. This letter explained to me that, if something were not done soon about the farm gate price of milk, many dairy farmers would have to consider leaving the industry.
I took my investigation a little further and discovered that since 1998—that is, two years prior to deregulation in 2000, at which point farm gate prices fell further—farm gate milk prices to the dairy farmer have risen 2.7c a litre from 29.4c a litre to 32.1c a litre. However, the average retail price of milk to consumers at the supermarket over that same period in our three major capital cities—Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane—has risen 28c a litre from an average $1.23 in 1998 to $1.51. These figures were sourced from the Parliamentary Library and their source was Australian Commodity Statistics. Perhaps it is the dairy farmers and other primary producers who are really funding the fuel voucher campaigns being used by the large supermarket chains.
It is unquestionable that the drought is having a severe impact on many agricultural industries across Australia, but in the dairy industry, where they have longer term supply contracts with processors, the cost of inputs such as feed for the herds rises considerably during a time of extended drought. While I acknowledge that some processors have assisted in providing small increases in per-litre prices to dairy farmers, more needs to be done to help these dairy farmers during this time of drought.
The major supermarket chains at the end of last year said that a basket of essential foods like bread, milk and meat would be dearer as a result of the impact of the drought on their supplies. This may be the case for many agricultural commodities, such as beef and wheat. Farmers perhaps have been getting higher prices for wheat. Undeniably, drought induced shortages have put up the price that the farmer receives for wheat. It is the same with beef and lamb. However, the tighter supply coming from the dairy industry is not resulting in better prices to dairy farmers, as my figures reflect.
I want to get behind the campaign by the Queensland Dairyfarmers Organisation and call on the ACCC to monitor the price of milk, because quite clearly the differential of 28c a litre between the retail price in 1998 and the retail price now is money that is ending up in the supermarket chains’ profit bottom line. Consumers should not be misled that the increased prices of essential goods because of drought are going back to the farmer. The farmers need every cent to stay afloat. Having the ACCC monitor the prices of these products and where the profits are going will mean consumers will be able to rest easy that the increased prices that families are paying for those basic commodities are in fact going back to farmers and that the major supermarket chains are not taking as profits the higher prices they allege they have to charge as a result of the drought. (Time expired)
Last year I made a speech in this House outlining my critique of the manner in which the published opinion polls were being reported. I believe subsequent events have borne out the validity of that analysis. This afternoon I want to add a further chapter to the ongoing debate about what the polls tell us. This is not to comment on the recent boost in support for the opposition in the polls—that is much too recent to give any confidence as the basis of analysis. All those polls tell us is that the next election is likely to be close and that the opposition has a chance. Rather, I want to look at an apparently unnoticed long-term trend which has developed over the full 2½ years of this term.
Since the beginning of 2005 there has been a long-term trend decline in public approval of the Prime Minister. Even though reporting has suggested continuing strength in the standing of the Prime Minister, the facts point to the opposite conclusion. I have had a graph produced, which I am unable to incorporate in Hansard but the trend line of which is crystal clear to any observer. Since the beginning of 2005, which was the first real polling after the 2004 election, the Prime Minister’s approval rating has fallen steadily and his disapproval rating has risen steadily. In that January 2005 poll, the Prime Minister’s net approval rating in Newspoll was 30 per cent: 60 per cent positive and 30 per cent negative—a net 30 per cent. By January 2006, it had fallen to a net 11 per cent—51 per cent positive and 40 per cent negative. In the most recent poll, the Prime Minister’s net approval rating was zero—44 per cent positive and 44 per cent negative.
Why has this trend been hidden? First, because it has been slow and gradual rather than sharp and sudden. It has not been the sort of change that would feature in a fortnightly commentary. Second, it has been disguised by two years of internal instability in my party which propped up the coalition’s vote and deflected attention from this long-term trend decline. Third, commentators are so beguiled by the Prime Minister’s undoubted and deserved status as a wily old politician that they have not noticed that the public mood has been shifting. Perhaps there is a fourth factor. The skill with which the Prime Minister dominates his own party and outmanoeuvred his deputy, Peter Costello, last year might well have reinforced his image of wiliness and enduring success as a leader, despite the emerging evidence of his decline.
The explanation of the decline is more speculative. The numbers tell us what is happening but not necessarily why. On the basis of experience and observation, let me venture to suggest some of the reasons. Firstly, the industrial relations changes were so extreme they shocked a lot of so-called Howard battlers who have gradually become disillusioned with the Prime Minister’s intransigence on this matter. Secondly, a new cohort of voters has gone onto the rolls, to whom the Prime Minister seems out of touch and out of date, particularly on issues like climate change. Thirdly, the war in Iraq has directly alienated some voters and indirectly affected others by changing their perception of the Prime Minister’s management of national security. Fourthly, there has been the regular drumbeat of interest rate rises since the election against the promise at that election that this would not happen. Fifthly, after more than 10 years, some of the old tricks like blaming the states and blaming the Keating government for everything are beginning to wear thin.
I appreciate that others might have better and different explanations—as I say, the polls tell us what is happening but they do not tell us why. We can all speculate about why that might be but I think those five factors are in there. Whatever the reasons, none of this changes the fact that incumbent federal governments are very difficult to defeat, particularly during a resources boom. All one can say is that the aura of invincibility has decisively fallen away from the Prime Minister. He is still a clever politician; he will still be hard to beat. But if we were to get proper analysis of poll trends they should tell objective observers that the Prime Minister is not the asset to the Liberal Party he once was.
There has been some attempt to have some sort of discussion about what is in the best interests of Australia and what plans each respective major party has for Australia. The member for Grayndler in his matter of public importance was very disappointing. The opposition, as its basic guiding principle, should have to contribute to the democratic processes of this parliament and politics in this country by doing the hard work, the hard yakka. It should understand the issues and concerns of the diverse communities we have in Australia and be able to put that hard work into practice and come up with alternative policies.
The Labor Party claim—without backing it up—that this government does not have a plan about securing Australia’s future. The plan that this government has pursued is a plan for growth and financial and economic independence and jobs for Australians and Australian families. Under this government we have seen real wages growth of 16 per cent. What was it under 13 years of Labor: 0.2 per cent. We have seen over two million new jobs created. We have seen unemployment rates of 4.5 per cent. We have seen investment in important infrastructure—$1.2 billion in Roads to Recovery in the first four years and another $1.23 billion in 2005 for another four years to local councils.
There has been an investment of $10.7 billion over four years—a 35 per cent increase—in our government schools. Why? Because this government understands. The two political parties—the Liberal Party and the National Party—understand that they are vested with responsibility to build on the infrastructure that is required by this growing nation and by the various diverse communities so that families and individuals can continue to enjoy economic prosperity and have jobs. Why? Because that is the proven path to independence—not being reliant on the welfare system and being at the beck and call of others but having genuine independence and freedom.
The Labor Party want to talk about water. Let us have a look at the Labor Party’s policy. Again, there is nothing. They have promised nothing. They have said—and I quote from the ALP website:
Collectively, we must work to eliminate the bureaucratic stumbling blocks that have resulted in little or no real progress on water reform.
I think we would all agree on that—that is a nice motherhood statement. They go on:
We must be engaged in investigating real solutions ...
The time to engage has been the last 11 years in opposition. The opposition should engage now in some real policy solutions and provide some answers. This government has tackled that very important disappointing aspect in the community. Everyone knows that the management of water across the various states has failed. There is universal agreement on that, and this government has come up with a $10 billion plan to fix once and for all the problems facing our water infrastructure.
And what do the Labor Party choose to do? They choose to keep ignoring the fact that they have no policy, no alternative. Give us the policy to have some real choice later on in the year so that the Australian people can decide who has a vision. You cannot have a vision with spin. You cannot have a vision with criticism. You have to have ideas and you have got to have people in your party from a diverse background who can provide that experience and those ideas. But what do we see? All we see are stunts from members of the Labor Party. They cannot even orchestrate a media stunt. Very recently we saw the member for Grayndler, together with another member of the opposition, inaccurately select a couple of farmers who did not disagree with their policies and who rejected the connection of climate change and drought. They cannot even get the stunt right, so how can they get the substance right? They cannot. They are so incompetent and so fixated on criticising this government without providing any alternatives themselves. We have seen political vision over the decades. We saw it in Victoria from the Bolte government when they built dams and had plans for the improvement of dams. (Time expired)
On Sunday I will be attending Fair Day, a part of the Mardi Gras festival, and planting a heart at Victoria Park under the theme ‘All love is equal’. The Mardi Gras festival is a celebration for the gay and lesbian community in Sydney. It is also important to recognise that discrimination continues to occur against the gay and lesbian community in a range of areas including the recognition of their relationships.
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I want to make a statement today about the Community Development Employment Projects program run by the Redfern Aboriginal Corporation. I met with local residents in Redfern recently, and they have grave concerns about the proposed changes to the CDEP program in Redfern. This program has been in existence since 1977. Since that time it has seen many changes and has also assisted many Indigenous people to move from welfare into work. Associated with the program are a textiles business, a removalist business and a cleaning business. They are all run by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal people and are part of the vibrant community in Redfern.
Two groups of people depend on these services: the participants in the program, who are getting real work experience in real jobs doing important work, and the beneficiaries of the program. It is impossible to imagine how some of the poorer residents in Redfern would ever be able to afford to move without the removalist services offered by the Redfern CDEP. I am seriously concerned that both of these groups will miss out with the changes proposed to the CDEP which will see the RAC in Redfern close. A community meeting held recently universally expressed dismay about the CDEP program in Redfern closing. The Redfern Aboriginal Corporation would not be able to run without the CDEP funding that subsidises the wages of the people working in their associated businesses.
It is also a little difficult to imagine the minister’s justification. Interestingly, Kevin Andrews put out a press release on 20 October 2006 saying how fantastic the CDEP program was and then not much more than a week later, on 6 November, he said that he was going to trash it, cut it completely, in urban areas. His rationale is that, if you work in an urban area, it is easy to get a job. An Aboriginal person who says they live on the Block in Redfern and wants a job serving customers in David Jones perhaps has a couple of barriers to overcome before they are treated in the same way as any other potential employee turning up for the job. The fact that there is employment in urban areas does not mean that many of the people applying for those jobs will not face the same difficulties, racism and discrimination that they would in the areas that the Deputy Speaker represents. I urge the government to reverse its decision to cut the CDEP in urban areas and particularly to restore funding to the RAC. (Time expired)
I would like to put on the record today my sincere thanks to two different organisations in my electorate who hosted wonderful citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day. This is the third year that the Currumbin-Palm Beach RSL have hosted the largest citizenship ceremony on the Gold Coast. This year 94 new citizens attended the wonderful ceremony that was also supported by veterans in my community, by the light horsemen in the community and by our pipe band. It was a wonderful ceremony. It was also supported by Selwyn Apanui, a representative of our Indigenous community, and Andrew Gee, a wonderful bush poet, who brought the house down with his poetry on the day. It was an extremely hot day, but I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed the morning. I would like to personally thank Bill Thompson, the Deputy Chairman of the Currumbin-Palm Beach RSL, and his team for the wonderful ceremony they put on in recognising the newest Australian citizens on the Gold Coast. They came from places like Kazakhstan, Zambia, Peru, Japan and Russia. It was a wonderful celebration on Australia Day welcoming our new citizens.
The next ceremony, in the evening, was hosted by the Lions Club of Mudgeeraba and was different altogether. It was an Aussie barbecue where we welcomed 27 new Australian citizens to the Gold Coast and indeed to our way of life on the Gold Coast. They came from places like Zimbabwe, Poland, South Africa, Canada and Japan. I want to pay tribute to the MC, Lion Ken Phillips, and his team for cooking a great barbecue—sausages and all the Aussie tucker that we had on that day. Those new Australian citizens got a great welcome into the Mudgeeraba community. I certainly felt very privileged to be the presiding officer and to be very much part of the ceremony welcoming these new Aussies into our Australian family.
I think Australia Day is a wonderful day to celebrate a citizenship ceremony. It brings special significance to those people taking out their citizenship on Australia Day. It means a lot to them. They certainly participated very well with the bush dancing at the Mudgeeraba community hall that night. I must admit after two very large ceremonies I was pretty worn out myself, but I was delighted to be the presiding officer and certainly make those people feel very welcome as part of our community.
Last week in the House I raised concerns that some constituents have with Job Network providers. Today I would like to raise concerns of a constituent who has had enormous problems with Centrelink. This constituent had a very serious car accident. He was awarded compensation. Governments of all colours have always enforced a preclusion period, and I acknowledge that. But what I would like to point out to the House is the lack of compassion, the lack of sympathy and the inability of Centrelink to move on issues like this.
As I mentioned, this guy had a serious car accident and suffered severe physical injuries, but subsequently he has had two brain haemorrhages and he has the preclusion period. As a consequence of the head injuries, he has suffered severe depression. He has blackouts. He collapses. With the money he received in compensation he bought himself a house and thought he had set himself up properly for the future. Now, with the exacerbation of his physical condition, he has no money and he has only paid off part of his mortgage. He has an elderly father who is assisting him. That is the only way he is keeping going. He is unable to even access a health care card.
We have been working to try to waive the preclusion period. Unfortunately we have been experiencing a lot of difficulties. This is because of the inflexibility of the system and the failure of the system to take into account the extenuating circumstances. He cannot get his medication under the current system, and he suffers really severe disabilities—he has slurred speech and memory difficulties. I have to say that I was absolutely disgusted when I heard what Centrelink’s advice was to him. They told him to sell his house. This man is extremely vulnerable. There was one thing I mentioned earlier that was not quite correct. He is not my constituent. He is a constituent of the member for Dobell. He went to see the member for Dobell and got no satisfaction. But I am not going to turn him away. I am going to help him.
At all times whilst I have been the member for Paterson I have been very proud to represent the people of Williamtown RAAF base—the best RAAF base in Australia; our defence people are the best in the world. I have had some discussions with some very concerned defence people and their families. Their concerns surround an individual called Mohammed Dawood—a person who is a trained terrorist. He was trained by the Kosovo Liberation Army and further trained by the al-Qaeda movement and associates. This person in Australia goes by another name and that name is David Hicks. But to my defence people it is Mohammed Dawood. This is a man who purposely took up arms to train against coalition forces—a man whose intent was to kill fellow Australians who have been engaged in those theatres of operation where Mohammed Dawood had trained and taken activity.
I read the papers and my constituents read the papers, and they hear about some summer camp misadventure of a nine-year-old fellow called David Hicks who was on a journey of life and stepped outside of the normal bounds—it was not really his fault. Our defence people take a totally different view when someone wants to take up arms against them. Nothing hurts more than when a fellow Australian wants to take up arms against our defence people. Nothing hurts even more than that when people in Australia and the media report how innocent this person is.
We do not know if he fired upon coalition forces. We do not know that yet. We do not know in fact whether his gun sights were aimed at our fellow Australians in the Defence Force. But I think that what needs to be stated, restated and reinforced is that this person made a deliberate decision prior to 9-11 to become a terrorist. This is the person who, after fellow Australians were killed in the 9-11 bombing, kept going. He knew what he was getting into. The people in my defence forces want no mercy shown. They want a quick and speedy resolution to the trial process. They do not want him brought home scot-free. They want him to be held fully accountable for his actions against coalition forces made up of Australian troops.
I will stand by my troops and my fellow Australians each and every step of the way. I will represent their interests. I say: bring David Hicks—better known as Mohammed Dawood—to a speedy trial and allow the full force of the law to continue. But this idea of bringing him home and slapping him on the wrist and setting him free is not—(Time expired)
I want to raise today the issue of rotavirus, an extremely unpleasant, awful and preventable illness which infects many children under five, often more than once. To give you an idea of what an infection with rotavirus will mean for a family, usually their very small child aged under five will suffer from symptoms such as fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach cramps and serious dehydration. The infection usually lasts from three to eight days. For parents, not to mention for the children, this kind of severe illness, particularly for a young child, is extremely distressing, especially when you consider that the highest prevalence of rotavirus is in children aged between six months and two years of age. Any parent who has stayed home to care for a child with rotavirus or had to make a trip to an emergency department will know the disruption and distress that the virus can cause. It is also highly contagious, so you can imagine the havoc caused by rotavirus making its way through a family with three children. Severe cases can and often do lead to hospitalisation. It is estimated that rotavirus causes 10,000 hospitalisations per annum on top of 22,000 emergency department visits and 115,000 GP visits.
But all of this is now preventable through the use of a new oral vaccine which could be administered to children at two and four months. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee has now recommended the rotavirus vaccine for inclusion in the national immunisation program. The PBAC clearly considers that the rotavirus vaccine would be an important addition to the national immunisation program as it would result in not only reduced GP visits, emergency department visits and hospitalisations but also reduced time that parents have to take out of the workforce to look after their sick children with rotavirus. In other words, this vaccine would have not only massive health benefits for young children but also productivity benefits in the community.
Given the cost savings of this vaccine, the health benefits to children and the peace of mind it would give parents, I do have to ask why the government has not yet decided to fund this vaccine. How is the Howard government going to explain this delay to parents? I am particularly concerned if cabinet does not make the decision quickly, because it needs to do so ASAP. We will soon be in the middle of the flu season and their delay will cause thousands of unnecessary hours of misery; many children ending up in hospital; a very high cost to the community; of course, extreme distress for those children; and many hours of pain and anguish for worried parents which could be avoided.
It is about time the government took this decision. All of the steps have been taken. We can prevent this pretty awful disease for young children and we can do so easily with a vaccine which has now gone through all of the hoops. The government should stop delaying, make this decision and ensure we make this vaccine, which costs hundreds of dollars if parents have to pay for it themselves, available before the flu season hits. (Time expired)
I am delighted to take this opportunity to inform the people of Tooradin, Blind Bight, Warneet and Cannons Creek in my electorate that a new pharmacy has been approved for Tooradin. This is an act of grace and an outcome which has been brought about through the working decision of the Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott, and I want to express my thanks to him and his staff and to everybody involved. In particular, what this means for the people of Blind Bight, Cannons Creek, Warneet and Tooradin is that in an area which has not had access to a pharmacy previously, they will have a pharmacy on site. We already have a pharmacist and local resident, Nancy Green, who has been working consistently for a long period now to have this pharmacy put in place and to win the licence for it. That has been a difficult process because we have had to work to create a circumstance where it was acceptable according to the existing rules. We have succeeded.
This is a fantastic small set of communities. It is a rural area with four small communities, in real need of medical and allied health facilities. The pharmacy is not just valuable in itself. It also opens the opportunity to bring a doctor to Tooradin, which will serve Tooradin, Blind Bight, Cannons Creek and Warneet, or the coastal villages. That is a tremendously positive outcome. More than that, it is the result of a concerted set of actions—actions that I am delighted to have been able to have played a small part in. I have worked with Nancy Green, the pharmacist, and her husband, Phillip Green; with Councillor Colin Butler, who is the local representative in that area as a councillor of the City of Casey and also the mayor of the City of Casey. I want to pay tribute to his work. I have also worked with Tony Abbott and his office. I particularly thank Lyn Strachan, my office manager, who has made this a daily cause on which she has worked throughout that time. We are doing our best to work with Tooradin not just for a pharmacy but also for a doctor. So it is about meeting the health needs of that community and the other three small towns in the area. It is all part of providing a long-term future for the coastal villages.
The next step is to work for a marine life centre, which will help with the economic future of these towns. It will be great for the young kids of the area, as they look at the environment and the things that they can do. It will be tremendously important for the long-term identity in future of the coastal villages. It will be an important economic contribution and it will build on the work of having a new pharmacy and, hopefully soon, a doctor for the coastal villages. (Time expired)
At the behest of the government, on Tuesday the standing orders were changed. Because the debate was gagged I was unable to speak in the debate. As Deputy Chairman of the Procedure Committee, I think it is important I place on record my view of what the government did, particularly in reducing the time allotted for the debate on matters of public importance from two hours to one hour. The Chief Opposition Whip pointed out in the adjournment debate on Tuesday that the Procedure Committee had considered the submission made to it to reduce the time allotted for matters of public importance and the Procedure Committee had rejected the idea. The reason is that historically the Procedure Committee has always looked after backbenchers, and preserved the time allotted to backbenchers to speak. Indeed, it has expanded the time that backbenchers have to speak.
Some statistics were placed before the parliament by the Manager of Opposition Business, the member for Grayndler, that showed that last year there were 50 MPIs and 13 lasted more than 60 minutes but, of those, six MPIs went past 60 minutes by only a minute and a half. So the situation was not being abused by backbenchers. It was not being abused by the Independents.
It does not take much to realise the motive behind what the government is doing: this is an attack particularly on the Independents in cutting back their opportunity to speak in the parliament in an election year. It is an attack, I suspect, that has emanated in particular from some National Party members of the parliament who are paranoid about Independents taking over their seats at the next election, and this is something that I think the government was quite wrong in picking up. The opposition has committed to overturning that. An MPI is a pretty benign debate that takes place on a regular basis, and we as a parliament should not be winding back the time or the number of members who can participate in an MPI debate. This is something that has been carried since Federation.
This is not the only time the parliament has changed the standing orders. As a member of the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in the last parliament, I took on the member for Mackellar and ensured the exclusion of the press from a committee hearing because I had particular concerns, and I relied on the standing orders in that regard. What did the member for Mackellar do? She ran off to the Leader of the House and, in effect, cabinet agreed to change the standing orders and no longer allow individual members to exclude the press in terms of deliberations in questioning. That is what happens when this government does not like something it can be exposed on: it changes it. (Time expired)
Once again the Australian Labor Party is using the people and industries of Central Queensland as political pawns by interfering in the democratic preselection process. The ALP talks about democracy but simply cannot walk the walk. It has been widely reported that the Leader of the Opposition has jumped into the middle of the party’s preselection process for the new electorate of Flynn, which took place last year and was overturned in recent days. The original candidate, Jennifer Algie, was installed by Labor Party headquarters after a tumultuous and controversial preselection. As I understand it, what happens with the ALP in Queensland now is that the people at the branch level vote, but head office has an equal number of votes; therefore, if head office or headquarters—however it is referred to—votes as a bloc, the preselection is overturned. That happened in Flynn, and has twice happened in Hinkler.
Many people were not happy with Ms Algie’s nomination—after all, she had been a failed state candidate and did not even live in the Flynn electorate. Nevertheless, she had the unwavering support of the party apparatchiks if not the party’s grassroots. But, lo and behold, on the back of falling unemployment rates and unease about Labor’s schizophrenic policy on coal, Ms Algie has disappeared, abdicated her position. The speculation started: why did she walk away from her nomination? Who decreed it? Who would replace her? Would the grassroots ever have their say on who will represent the party in that area of Queensland? All was revealed last week when the opposition leader anointed her successor in the form of Gladstone solicitor Chris Trevor.
Not Maxine McKew?
No, not Maxine McKew, but that is a possibility. Mr Trevor has good form: his scare tactic campaign performed well for Labor at the last state election, and I believe he is scooting around Gladstone in a four wheel drive with a billboard on his vehicle. It is little wonder that the opposition leader rang Mr Trevor and urged him to seek preselection. I know that Labor is hoping that Flynn preselection will have a fairytale ending but, forgetting about the cinderellas of the story, the rank and file members are very much out of the picture. The biggest cinderella of them all, and quite unfairly so, is Daniel Rochford, who has sought preselection twice in the past 12 months and has been rejected on each occasion by factional interests. All he could muster for his own defence was: ‘It is not for me or any other member of the Labor Party to comment on internal Labor affairs.’ But Dave Burns, a former councillor, said, ‘What a slap in the face this is for Labor supporters in Gladstone.’ The question has got to be asked: what has Labor got against Daniel Rochford? (Time expired)
I rise today to pay tribute to a great man, Lindsay King, who, sadly, passed away last week. His passing has been mourned by the Cranbourne community. Lindsay was categorised as the doyen of tourism in the City of Casey for the past 10 years. He wore many hats. He was a town crier for the City of Casey since 1994. It was a role that he took on with great pride and great gusto. Many people remember seeing Lindsay around the township dressed as town crier. He was involved with the organisation of Australia Day celebrations, the MRA Cranbourne GP run and the Tooradin fisherman’s cottage project. He was a very keen amateur historian and he also developed a passion for Cranbourne’s history, and particularly its early pioneers.
He was a member of the Cranbourne Historical Society and a former president of the Cranbourne and District Residents Association. Lindsay continually worked to improve his community and lift Cranbourne’s profile as a tourism destination. This was a fellow who made a community like Cranbourne tick over. He was a tremendously proud and passionate Australian—proud about Cranbourne and proud about our history. I recall Lindsay coming into my office, when it was based in Dandenong, talking with great excitement, zest and enthusiasm about the meteorite display project. There is a meteorites display in Cranbourne and he was seeking to relocate it to a place that he thought was more fitting.
He wanted to promote Cranbourne, to teach our young about Cranbourne’s history and its importance. His involvement in the community was such that he was seen as ‘Mr Cranbourne’. In fact, Dale Maggs, who helped to organise the Cranbourne GP run, has called for a statue to be erected of Lindsay in the Cranbourne township. But there is something that is there that will mark Lindsay’s passing, and that is a floral clock. It came about as a consequence of a discussion between Councillor Kevin Bradford and Lindsay and has been proceeded with. I know that Councillor Bradford is going to be recommending that a plaque to Lindsay and his late wife, Jean, be erected there to mark his contribution to the community.
As I said, I knew Lindsay for about five years. What struck me was his great passion and love for Cranbourne, its history and the community. When we lose people like Lindsay, they cannot be replaced. In thinking about and reflecting on him and his contribution, Cranbourne has lost a great identity, and he will be very sorely missed.
I wish to draw attention to the ever-developing and growing arts community on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Honourable members would be aware that there is a significant number of artists in the region, including painters, sculptors, sketchers, dancers, actors and musicians, through to film makers, film lovers and creative writers. They represent a group of people who are helping to advance the creative elements that help to make up the intricate and fascinating living thing that is the human being. All members of the human race are born with an appreciation of creativity. While some may struggle to master this trait, those who do develop such skills find it both challenging and satisfying. Of course, there is much personal gratification to be gained from creating something in one of the arts fields.
I was fortunate enough during the Christmas break to be able to attend the launch of the WARM 07 festival. ‘WARM’ stands for ‘Writers, Artists and Readers Month’. The promotional material for WARM 07 notes that it ‘is a literary festival to nurture, showcase and celebrate talent, particularly on the Sunshine Coast’. WARM 07 will be a series of events that will be held throughout June 2007 that will celebrate the power of the written word and of creative writing itself—an art about which American journalist and feminist Gloria Steinem once said: ‘Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.’
The event will complement two other existing events on the Sunshine Coast—the Noosa Long Weekend, which I understand actually lasts for one week; and the Voices of the Coast Festival, which brings together poets, writers and performers with a range of creative events dedicated to the written word. It caters for both adults and children, although it has been particularly successful in promoting the joys of writing to young people. The WARM 07 festival complements these two writers events. It will include an awards function and gala dinner, a publishing conference held at the University of the Sunshine Coast, various writing workshops, as well as book readings, author breakfasts and lunches, exhibitions, stage performances of various theatrical works and much more.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the organisers of this new event on the Sunshine Coast. They are helping to encourage the appreciation of and participation in the wonderful, adventurous world of creative writing for older and younger people alike.
The Sunshine Coast is a rapidly growing area. In fact, it is one of the fastest growing areas in the country. We have a lot going for us. It is a wonderful place in which to bring up children, a wonderful place for families and a wonderful place to retire to. The fact that the WARM 07 festival is underway means that we will be able to help bring about an increased appreciation of the arts. An appreciation of the arts is a very important part of human existence. The Sunshine Coast is a wonderful place, and the WARM 07 festival will make this wonderful place an even more wonderful place to live in and also to visit.
Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for members’ statements has concluded.
Debate resumed from 14 February, on motion by Mr Nairn:
That this bill be now read a second time.
upon which Mr Tanner moved by way of amendment:
That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House is of the view that:
Before the debate is resumed on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2006-2007 I remind the Main Committee that it has been agreed that a general debate be allowed covering this bill and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2006-2007.
At a time of economic growth, at a time when there is an unprecedented demand for Australian resources, the Howard government has failed to invest in securing Australia’s long-term economic growth. Instead, what we see is a widening of the current account deficit; a chronic skills shortage across a wide range of occupations; a government that is failing to address the issue of climate change; a government that is full of climate change sceptics, and I suspect one of those is the Prime Minister; and a government that is failing to ensure that there are enough childcare places available to children whose parents have entered the workforce or who are working by choice. There is a chronic shortage of childcare places plus there is an enormous cost associated with it, and that has caused a lot of difficulties for families.
I see the Howard government as a rather arrogant, very old-fashioned, tired government, one that is fairly hypocritical and one that is a constant player of the blame game. I was a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing that brought down the report entitled The blame game, and I think that every day in parliament you will see members of the government standing up and saying, ‘The problem is the state government.’ I am sorry; I do not agree with that. This government is the federal government, it is the Australian government, it is the government that is supposed to lead this country, it is the government that has the overarching responsibility, and when something goes wrong it blames somebody else. That is just not good enough, and I will return to that in a moment.
Firstly, I would like to touch on the fact that this government sees itself as an outstanding performer in the economic area. But all the changes and reforms that have put Australia in the position it is in now were undertaken by the Hawke-Keating government. The Hawke-Keating government totally restructured the economy, and never, ever do you see a government member standing up in the House and acknowledging its contribution to Australia’s outstanding economic performance over the last few years. But without the input and the changes of the Hawke-Keating government this country would not be in the position it is in now.
Secondly, we have the interest rate issue. I have to say that the highest interest rates that Australia ever had—22 per cent—occurred under the current Prime Minister of this country. So when I am talking to people I quite often refer to the Prime Minister as ‘Mr 22 Per Cent’. But the other fallacy that is associated with interest rates is that interest rates today are low, therefore housing is more affordable. I would like to draw the committee’s attention to the fact that there has been a massive jump of 75 per cent in repossession of houses since the 2004 election. What has happened since the 2004 election? A series of interest rate rises.
The Howard government promised that it would keep interest rates low. I know that Australians within my electorate are very upset about the fact that interest rates have continued to go one way—up. The impact that this has had on them has been enormous. Yes, the interest rates are lower, but the loans that they are servicing are much greater, and their level of personal debt is much greater. Because of that, every time there is a tiny hike in interest rates, it has a massive and devastating effect on people with mortgages. Consequently, a tiny spike in the interest rates leads to an increase in repossessions. This is something that the Howard government cannot walk away from: there have been 75 per cent more repossessions since 2004. It shows that the highest level of repossessions in New South Wales occurred last year, when the full impact of the interest rate increases was felt.
I see this as an area where the Howard government has failed to protect Australian families. Our budget should be designed around providing protection for families and around stimulating economic growth. There has been a slump in the sale of houses within my area. On the Central Coast of New South Wales, the two biggest industries are retail and construction. A falling demand for housing will have a devastating impact on the economy in that area.
Along with the current account deficit, the house repossessions and a chronic skills shortage, we have an unprecedented demand for Australia’s minerals. We have an unprecedented demand for anything we can dig out of the ground. But we have a chronic skills shortage in practically every area of occupation in our economy. I seek leave to table this graph showing the rate of repossessions in New South Wales.
Leave granted.
The skills shortage is impacting enormously on the economy, in particular, the economy of the Hunter. I have been involved in committee work throughout Australia, and I have heard time and time again how the skills shortage is impacting on various sectors of our economy. I am currently involved in an inquiry into workforce challenges facing the Australian tourism industry. The evidence that we are receiving highlights the problems associated with the skills shortage.
Unless the government gets serious about addressing these skills shortages, the problem will get worse and it will have a long-term effect on our economy. Of course, eventually, the government will be voted out and then it will be left to the Labor Party to correct the problems caused by the Howard government and to introduce policies like our education policy which seeks to ensure that we have an educated, skilled workforce in Australia. The most important thing that we as a nation can have is a skilled and educated workforce. The gold of the future will be an educated and skilled workforce. Unless we can turn the tide, we will end up in a very different position from where we are at the moment.
Whilst I am talking about the skills shortage, I want to mention the devastating impact that it is having on my electorate. I have raised in the House on a number of occasions the chronic doctor shortage that exists in the Shortland electorate. I have to say that it has only got worse. The Shortland electorate is classified as an area of workforce shortage, which means that doctors can bring an overseas doctor into their practices for a limited period of time. However, Shortland is not identified as an area of need. I do not know what it takes to be identified as an area of need if the Shortland electorate is not.
Between Swansea and Charlestown, virtually no doctor will take new patients. So anyone moving to the area has to travel to Charlestown to see a doctor. There are a couple of other doctors who, when I ring them, will under very special circumstances accept someone. The family practice of Dr Marsh at Windale has been very good and has accepted people as its patients. There are a couple of practices at Jewellstown that will accept people from time to time. But, overwhelmingly, Belmont and Swansea, the two major suburbs in the area of Lake Macquarie in the Shortland electorate, are not accepting new patients. This is quite an old area and a lot of elderly people have settled there. My office has even arranged to take people to the doctor. We have had to arrange for ambulances to pick up elderly people in their homes and take them to Belmont hospital to be treated because of the failure of this government to ensure that there are an adequate number of doctors in the area.
I have an after-hours GP access service that operates at Belmont hospital, and people can and have used that. It is supposed to be for after-hours service, so it is watched fairly carefully. It is an outstanding service, and I congratulate the doctors in the area for the work they have done in making that a great success. The Hunter urban division of GPs have been very innovative in getting that service up and running. The accident and emergency centre at Belmont hospital works overtime. People have to sit there and wait to see a doctor. Why? Because there is no doctor in the community. Members opposite would say, ‘People shouldn’t have to wait in an accident and emergency department.’ But if there are no doctors in the community, what option is there? It is not good enough.
I am disgusted that, despite my numerous contributions to debate on this issue, my contributions to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing in its blame game inquiry, the letters I have written to the minister, and my even raising it in the chamber during the consideration of budgets in detail—going back to when Dr Wooldridge was minister for health—nothing has changed; the problem still exists. But it is a lot worse than it was before. I am absolutely disgusted at the way this issue has been dealt with. I know that in many country areas the situation is even worse, but this is an outer metropolitan area. I have asked how many doctors have been located in the Shortland electorate under the outer metropolitan strategy. None that I can think of have come to the Lake Macquarie area. I have been told that two have. They have obviously gone to the Central Coast part of the electorate. It is not good enough.
I would also like to touch on the issue of dental health. The report of the Standing Committee on Health and Ageing entitled The blame game identified that there was a role for the Commonwealth government to play in providing dental services. Chronic waiting lists have developed since the Howard government removed the Commonwealth dental health scheme. I again urge the government to reintroduce that scheme or a similar one. I suspect that might happen in the lead-up to the next election. I will be very pleased if it does. It means that we will have put enough pressure on the government to do so. Australians expect to be able to see a dentist. Everybody should be able to see a dentist. Poor dental health impacts on a person’s whole body. The blame game identifies very clearly a number of issues that need to be addressed to stop the blame game.
There is one area that I would like to touch on very quickly—that is, Australia’s involvement in Iraq. Many questions have been raised in the House over the last week. I feel that the Howard government and the Prime Minister in particular have adopted an approach that is not in Australia’s interests. The first speech I ever made on Australia’s involvement in Iraq identified the problem of what happens after the war. I say the war is over. What we have now is a civil war, a war that is leading to thousands of people dying each and every day. Nothing is improving. We had a functioning society in Iraq prior to the war commencing. Now we have a hotbed for terrorism. What we have now is a society that has totally broken down. We have not only a Prime Minister who is becoming more tied to US policy but also a Prime Minister who is tying himself very closely to one side of politics in another country. I do not think that is healthy. It really would be in Australia’s interests if the Prime Minister were to distance himself a little from the President of the United States and not be so critical of the Democrats.
Another issue relating to terrorism that I would like to raise concerns David Hicks. I heard the contribution by the member for Paterson during three-minute statements. I have a different view to the member for Paterson. I think it is a disgrace that an Australian citizen is languishing in the most inhumane conditions in another country—an Australian who was not charged with any offence until very recently, an Australian whom the Prime Minister has chosen to ignore. He has chosen to ignore his plight. I think it is time that the Prime Minister made a move to resolve the issue of David Hicks. It is a disgrace for us as a nation that we allowed that to happen to one of our citizens. Other countries have acted. The UK have acted and their citizens have been brought home.
I was going to talk at some great length about climate change. I see that I have run out of time. The government has really failed the Australian people on that issue. I hope that, when we have the budget in May, it will be not just an election budget but one for—(Time expired)
We have seen much discussion on global warming, what we need to do about it and the amount of money that it will cost. We have seen some incredibly alarmist articles and reports. It is almost as though there is a desire for each successive report to outdo the last in terms of prognostications of doom. This has led to more and more extreme calls—calls that would cause our economy significant damage if they were acted upon.
Instead of all of the alarmist hype, we need careful, balanced consideration of the issues. First, let us look at the issue of the debate having been settled and there being no doubt about the anthropogenic aspect to climate change. The IPCC’s summary for policy makers has stated that there is a 90 per cent certainty that there is an anthropogenic component. It sounds good, but it is nowhere near as certain in scientific terms. For instance, I would hate to go over a bridge where there was a 90 per cent certainty that it would take prescribed loads. If you think 90 per cent is beyond doubt, think about the Australian cricket team. The odds of their winning the recent one-day series would have been extremely high, yet not only did they lose the finals, they in fact did not win one finals game.
Consider the issue even within the IPCC. Yuri Izrael, Vice-Chairman of the IPCC, has said there is no proven link between human activity and global warming. Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, an IPCC author and internationally respected climatologist, similarly has doubts. There are many other scientists both within Australia and internationally who also have doubts. In fact, I have spoken with many scientists expressing my doubts on the anthropogenic component. Funnily enough, I am not howled down by them in the same way that many of the true believers outside science do. It is probably because, even though many of them accept anthropogenic global warming, they know the uncertainties and complexities involved.
The IPCC process itself is flawed. Science does not work by consensus; it works on facts. Democracy is not a process relevant to science and scientific laws cannot be repealed by a vote. Look at Michael Mann’s infamous hockey stick. This is the well-known graph of stable temperature over the last thousand years apart from a rapid rise in the 20th century. It was used multiple times in the third IPCC TAR. It is also wrong—some, such as McKitrick and MacIntyre, who analysed Mann’s work, state that it is fraudulently so. The problem was that Mann had to be forced to hand over the data he had used. So much for his belief in peer review.
When the evidence was given to the IPCC on this, the hockey stick was dropped with nary a whisper about the error. Where was the peer review and rigorous checking by the IPCC prior to releasing the third assessment report? After all, it completely contradicted what had been accepted before, such as the medieval warm period when the Vikings settled Greenland and it was hotter than it is now, and the little ice age when fairs were held on the Thames River. Both have been found to be global phenomena. The reason the hockey stick was accepted so easily was that it agreed with the dogma. It would have behoved the IPCC to take the advice of the late Nobel physics laureate, Richard Feynman, who stated:
Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new; it alone can give us certainty.
Feynman went on to say:
If it (the hypothesis) disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is—if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.
You have another highly credentialled internationally famous scientist, Freeman Dyson, who similarly is sceptical and particularly decries the fudge factors used in the computer models predicting future climate. On climate stability we have Tim Flannery stating that the global thermometer has been set on 14 degrees for 10,000 years. This is absolute rubbish, so completely wrong it is embarrassing. Not only does it neglect little ice age and medieval warm periods, but also the cold Dark Ages, the warm Roman period and the Holocene optimum, which was much warmer than temperatures now are. The point with Flannery is that he is a media darling and they are quick to call him a climate expert. The fact is he is a palaeontologist, not a climatologist.
Chris Landsea, a tropical cyclone and hurricane specialist, quit the IPCC in disgust after his work was politicised by the IPCC. Dr Kevin Trenberth, a lead author, stated that his work showed that Katrina was more powerful due to anthropogenic climate change. Landsea protested to the IPCC senior leadership, but nothing was done. Interestingly, so much has been said of Katrina and anthropogenic global warming, but what about the extremely quiet tropical storm season in the North Atlantic last year? It is funny how the facts are so subjectively used by the global warming fraternity.
Let us have a look at the fourth report that came out recently. All we have seen so far is the Summary for policymakers. We have not seen the technical and scientific details—they only become available in May. The reason is that the IPCC wants to carefully go through the scientific reports and the Summary for policymakers to make sure that there are no contradictions. But what if a contradiction is found? The Summary for policymakers has already been released, so the scientific report would have to be altered—perhaps we should say ‘doctored’—to reflect what is in the Summary for policymakers.
On greenhouse gas, how many members actually know what the main contributing greenhouse gas is? Would it surprise them to know that it is water vapour contributing more than 90 per cent of the effect? We have all seen the graphs from ice cores showing correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide in past ages. I have two points: first, correlation does not equal causation; and, second, temperature change leads carbon dioxide concentration changes, not the other way around. In other words, if cause were to be ascribed, it would be more correct to state that temperature changes cause CO concentration changes.
On water vapour, the point that needs to be made is that a major contributor to climate, clouds, are not very well understood. This is acknowledged by the IPCC. There are major variations in the energy balance with IPCC reports, yet the IPCC claims the science is settled.
It has also recently been found that cosmic rays are likely to play a large effect on climate, as they interact in the atmosphere so as to form ‘seeds’ for cloud formation. Yet this is not considered by the IPCC at the moment. Looking at variations of cosmic ray activity and tracking temperature changes over the same period, the correlation is staggering.
The other fact is that the increase in solar activity has had a major effect on temperature. In fact, it has been found that warming is occurring on Pluto, Mars, Jupiter and Triton. The last time I looked, there were no evil greenhouse gas belching industries on those planets, subplanets and moons. This clearly indicates that the sun is a significant factor.
Let us have a look at some other factors. The Arctic is no warmer now than it was in the 1930s. Antarctica in fact has been cooling over 98 per cent of its area. The area that is warming is the Antarctic Peninsula, which is where all the magnificent calving of icebergs is occurring. However, it appears that there is a net ice mass increase in Antarctica—not the reverse—and this also appears to be the case in Greenland and Iceland. On the Arctic, if all of the ice melted in the Arctic, it would make no difference to sea levels, as the ice is floating.
An interesting fact to note is that the majority of warming occurred between 1900 and 1945, not in the last 30 years, as many would have you believe. Have a look at the 20th century. We have had numerous panics—global warming in the early period, then concern about an oncoming ice age, global warming again, an oncoming ice age again and now global warming again. There appears to be far too great a weighting on what is happening here and now and too little on the past.
The fact is that we had a warming trend about 20 years ago—for about 20 years up to 1998. From there, it has essentially stabilised, with temperatures almost constant since the record recorded temperature of 1998. You have no doubt heard of global dimming and atmospheric aerosols having cooled the earth somewhat, preventing even more catastrophic temperature rise. If this were correct, you would expect that the Southern Hemisphere would have warmed more than the Northern Hemisphere, given less industry and hence less aerosols. The problem is that the Northern Hemisphere has warmed more than the Southern Hemisphere.
Something that really annoys me is ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with the consensus position. The issues that they bring up and the science that they quote to support the critical arguments are shouted down by suggesting that they are all in the employ of the evil fossil fuel industry. Yet it could be argued that those in the IPCC et cetera have a vested interest. Research grants can be hard to get and global warming science would not be so well funded if it were found to be not a real problem.
Having said that, I do not like ad hominem attacks on either side. I believe in critical evaluation of the facts. The official spokesman for the Royal Society said:
It is now more crucial than ever that we have a debate which is properly informed by the science. For the people to still be producing information that misleads people about climate change is unhelpful. The next IPCC report should give people the final push that they need to take action and we can’t have people trying to undermine it.
That is a political position and it runs completely contrary to science, which should be about encouraging critical debate and analysis, not shutting it down.
I must say that I cannot recall in my lifetime such a push in science to only have one accepted position. This is more about religion and belief systems and less about facts and analysis. Indeed, when you have Al Gore’s disciples going through the land, preaching about global warming, it is clear that what we are talking about is religion, not science.
Michael Crichton has stated that the last time that he can remember when there was so much pressure for scientists and the population at large to accept a certain view as gospel was the issue of eugenics—and we all know where that led. We must accept a position of open and free debate and exchange of ideas and not go back to the Dark Ages, where only certain dogma was viewed as acceptable. If those that question the IPCC dogma are wrong, prove their arguments and scientific arguments wrong—do not resort to ad hominem attacks.
Given the foregoing, it is clear that Labor’s push on climate change is not only a politically contrived action; it is also damaging and not logical. Let us consider what Labor want. They want us to sign up to Kyoto, despite the Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, who seems to see himself as the expert on everything, recognising that without China things are looking pretty marginal. This was in an interview on Meet the Press, where he was pushing his credentials, particularly as a Sinophile.
Let us consider just how far Labor is pushing a particular solution. First there is Kyoto, which leaves out so many nations. Let us assume that every nation is in the carbon trading scheme, that Kyoto is about everyone. Why is this the way to go? After all, carbon trading simply allows heavy carbon emitting industries to trade away their emissions—somewhat like shifting deck chairs on the Titanic. No, if reduction of carbon is the way to go, we need regulation of carbon emissions, with some transitional arrangements for existing industry but with any new industry having to achieve those standards. This would give the result without attempting to price the emission and essentially, therefore, attempt to pick winners.
The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Science and Innovation is looking at carbon geosequestration. It is becoming more and more evident just what a hornet’s nest carbon trading schemes would be and how difficult it would be to set a price on carbon. This is something that would have to be set from outside. It would not be a market mechanism. And there would need to be a review on an almost continual basis in order to try to keep things in balance. These sorts of measures have been attempted in the past with things like exchange rates. They patently do not work.
Having said the foregoing, and even if we accept anthropogenic global warming, why is carbon dioxide reduction the way to go? We see that carbon reduction will cost an absolute fortune, so why is that the solution? Why are we not looking at other potential control mechanisms? Just off the top of my head I can think of two. One is the injection of aerosols, as in small particulates not underarm spray, into the upper atmosphere. After all, we have heard about aerosols and global dimming. Or what about some sort of shadecloth put in orbit? In that way we could actually tailor the area of the shadecloth and adjust it according to the energy balance. The problem is that we do not really know where the energy balance is, as is evidenced by the IPCC floundering with where we are with the energy balance.
Look at the issue of water. The state governments have neglected building much needed water infrastructure, taking the increase in rainfall in the second half of the 20th century as normal. We have now entered a period where rainfall patterns are more similar to those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and have been caught out. The reason that cities are so short of water is inadequate infrastructure development, not drought. Consider Sydney, where the last dam was built about 40 years ago. They had an increase in rain in the 1970s and 1980s so did not bother with more dams. The population has approximately doubled, and the state government appears surprised at the lack of water. Blaming global warming is so much easier than owning up to their own inadequacies. The lack of planning is the reason that we see knee-jerk, quick, little thought out and inefficient responses. It is time for the state governments to be accountable. Are you listening, John Kobelke?
The more quickly the states realise that water is a national issue and not just a local issue to be played around with in an attempt to politicise it and pointscore from it, the better. The states must sign up to the $10 billion water initiative so that a well-coordinated strategy can be developed. This is a serious issue and it requires serious consideration of all the facts. The issue of global warming needs to be considered and calm action needs to be taken if the science does become settled. However, I believe that Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett are correct in their view of the world, which is that you apply money where it can best be used, not in some area to placate a heavily politicised agenda that is not really about what it purports to be.
I rise today to talk about an organisation in my electorate called Meals Plus. It is not the first time I have spoken about this organisation, because I am particularly proud to serve it. It is a very special group of people that work incredibly hard to serve the needs of one of the most disadvantaged communities in my area—the homeless, particularly homeless men. For the last 15 years Meals Plus has been providing meals from Monday to Friday, breakfast and lunch, in a place that used to be called ‘The Kitchen’. It is a permanent refectory style room in the heart of the Parramatta CBD. It stands just behind the Town Hall, so it is well and truly in the middle of what is the second largest homeless community outside the Sydney CBD. In Parramatta there are as many as 500 people sleeping rough every night. In addition to meals, the ‘plus’ part of its name refers to the range of counselling services and other services that it provides.
The reason I am rising to speak about this extraordinary service today is that it has been advised that it will lose its funding as of 1 July 2007. That means that, as of 1 July, that kitchen will close. For people who live in Parramatta and are aware of the size of the problem, with homeless men in particular, it is unimaginable that this service will not continue. It is very much a part of the Parramatta CBD and it is very much a part of the way our community addresses the rather intractable problem of homeless men.
Meals Plus is funded, like most services to the homeless, under the SAAP agreement. That is in some ways the reason why this problem is occurring. The SAAP agreement is a joint state and federal funded program. It is funded 50 per cent by the state, 50 per cent by federal, although in the last few years the New South Wales government has been funding more than half—about 52 per cent. But it is jointly funded. What that means, of course, as we all know in this modern political world of ours, is that the blame game plays front and centre. It is possible for each side to blame the other, and that is exactly what is happening now.
When the funding was first cut last year, I wrote to the then minister, Mr Cobb, who wrote back saying, ‘We have given the money to the states; it is their problem.’ The state has now come up with 50 per cent of the money. And the current minister, the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mr Brough, has responded to that, saying, ‘Well, we gave the state the money; it is their problem.’ So, again, we have the state now saying, ‘It’s up to the feds to come up with the other 50 per cent,’ and we have the federal government saying: ‘It’s the state’s responsibility. We have given them the money.’
When I first became elected, one of my very smart constituents, whom I will not name in this context—although I am sure she would not mind, and it is a good story—wrote to me regarding a public transport matter about which she cares very deeply and I wrote back saying that it was a state matter. I got a very strong letter back from this woman saying: ‘Governments decide what’s state and federal, not me. It’s not my problem, it’s yours. If you can’t sort it out, go and get another job. Don’t blame me for your structural problems—fix them.’ I took that very much to heart as a way to look at our roles at this time when governments do tend to blame each other.
There can be no question that the one group that should never be left alone to try and negotiate a path through this state-federal divide is the homeless. If we in this House—with more power than virtually anyone else in the country to solve these problems of state-federal divides—cannot do it, how can we possibly expect the most disadvantaged people in this community to find a way through it? This is ridiculous. This is simply governments using the very instruments that they put together to serve these sectors as the excuse for this inaction. The SAAP agreement is not and never can be an excuse for not delivering the services that the community needs. It never can be.
Meals Plus is an extraordinary service. It does an amazing job. It serves meals in ‘The Kitchen’ five days a week, Monday to Friday, breakfast and lunch. Other services in the community have got together and scheduled times for the rest of the meals through the week. So it is possible in Parramatta to have breakfast, lunch, dinner and an evening supper at some place in the Parramatta CBD area served by either Meals Plus or other community groups such as Parramatta Christian Worship and the Times of Refreshing. Stepping Stone and Para Baptist Barbeque takes place in Prince Albert Park on Sunday at lunch. The Pizza Guy provides food on a Saturday night in front of the library. Food From the Heart serves dinner in Prince Albert Park on Thursday. The St Vinnies van does the late night suppers in Prince Albert Park. For every meal of the week one group has taken responsibility. The Greek Orthodox Church and the Hindus are also playing their part. It is an extraordinary place.
Meals Plus has provided a space in which many community organisations have come together and coordinated their efforts. It is an extraordinary success story. It also provides a conduit to other services. In some ways the meals that it serves, as important as they are, are the entry point for people to contact a group of people who can support them in other ways. People who have spent some time with the homeless will know that people become homeless largely because they are isolated. If any of us in this House suddenly found ourselves on the street one night, because of our social networks, our mental and physical health and our sense of wellbeing, we would have a friend who would give us a room to stay in or we would have someone who would invite us over for a meal. We would still have enough sense of our own abilities and confidence and probably enough cash in our pockets to get ourselves out of that. So many of these people really are alone. When their world falls over, when there are major crises in their lives or when they suffer from mental illness, there is nobody else to notice their gradual or sudden decline. Meals Plus is that network.
When a woman with a child turns up to Meals Plus two or three days before pension day, even though she still has a roof over her head there is someone there to notice that she is about to be in trouble and that she is on the edge. There is someone there to pay attention and assist that person not to become homeless. The early intervention program, simply because people notice when others are struggling, cannot be underestimated. If members of this House have friends who are parents of children who have their first mental illness episodes in their late teens, they would have seen their friends trying to make sure that when their children start to fail—when their medication starts to fail, when they start to stay out all night, when they have not had a shower for three days and when they turn up three days in a row in the same clothes—that there is somebody in their children’s lives to notice and pay attention before the problem gets totally out of control. I cannot begin to say how important this organisation is as part of that network.
It also provides an incredible meeting place for those who are already homeless. I, on occasion, go down to Meals Plus. I do not go as often as I would, because many of the clients bring me extra bits of food and I end up with a huge plate of food in front of me, which I then feel guilty about not eating. One cannot really eat eight bits of cake on a Wednesday lunchtime. I recently took some desserts from one of the Lions Clubs down to the Smith Street car park on a Sunday night. I had been to the Prince Alfred Park barbeque on the Sunday. Because of the regularity of it, because of the consistency of it, and the absolute caring and respectful approach of the service providers in this area, there is quite a sense of camaraderie. They know each other. Some of them now share houses together. Meals Plus is also very good at finding long-term accommodation solutions for people who have sometimes been on the street for quite some time. I quite enjoy my visits to these meals these days because I am starting to get to know quite a few of these people as well. Often, even after they have found accommodation and their lives are getting back under control, they drop down every couple of weeks to see their mates and to say hello. It has become an incredibly important social network for people who in a sense have fallen off the edge because they have been alone up until this point.
I cannot stress enough what my community would lose if it lost Meals Plus on 1 July 2007. I cannot imagine it. In some ways, Meals Plus is a victim of its own success. If you walk through Parramatta, you would not realise that there were 500 homeless people, because they have access to washing machines at Meals Plus. Most of the people in our area who do not have a place to live have clean clothes; they have a place to eat; and, if they need urgent accommodation, hotel-style accommodation is provided. Despite the organisation being incredibly strained in its resources, it provides an absolutely phenomenal service.
The other wonderful and quite extraordinary thing it has done—along with DOCS, the Parramatta Mission, the St Vincent de Paul Society, Mission Australia, the Department of Housing, the Office of Community Housing and Parramatta council—is to create an initiative called the Parramatta Homelessness Coalition, which specifically works with men in the Parramatta area. It shows what happens when a strong service sits in the heart of a community. For those who are familiar with working with the homeless, homeless men can be the most intractable. It is the area in which you do not have the joys, I guess, of working with young people who are starting their lives. You are quite often dealing with people who have intractable drug and alcohol problems or mental illness and who will probably be homeless or on the edge of homelessness or living in poverty for most of their lives. This is probably the most difficult area of homelessness in which to work.
As I said before, Parramatta Mission and its Meals Plus service is funded under the SAAP agreement. It is worth talking about that agreement because it has, in many ways, been a successful agreement. It has provided an incredible range of services that are jointly funded by state and federal governments. But the demand is far outstripping the available funds, and that has been the case for some time. An independent analysis said that demand had increased by 15 per cent and that it would require a 15 per cent increase in funding to meet the current need. The anecdotal evidence from organisations in my electorate, including Meals Plus, is that the demand is increasing so fast that current funding levels are already insufficient and will be drastically insufficient within another 12 months. Yet the funding to the SAAP agreement via the Commonwealth and matched by the states has not increased; in fact, it has decreased in real terms.
The current SAAP agreement, which was released on 1 June 2005 and runs from July 2005 to June 2010, provided no increase in core program funding in real terms in spite of the very real need for increased services on the ground in communities like mine and in many others. The lack of increase in real funding and, at the same time, the decrease in affordable housing and rising rents—particularly in boom areas like Parramatta, where what works very well for some sections of the community puts enormous strain on the most disadvantaged sections of it—make the demand even greater in areas like mine.
It is just not good enough that the federal government has not met this growing need. In fact, one could argue that it has increased the need through, for example, its Welfare to Work program and its decrease in funding to public housing. It is unacceptable that the federal government should simply say: We’ve put in the money. We’re not meeting increasing need. We’ve actually held the money steady. We’ve given the money to the states. It’s now their responsibility to squeeze more and more services out of the same amount of money.’ It is not a valid argument for a federal government that has not increased funding to meet the growing need to say: ‘It’s not my fault. We’ve given the states the money. It’s their responsibility to do the loaves and fishes and make that same amount of money grow to meet growing demand.’ The SAAP agreement is not and never can be an excuse for not delivering the services a community needs. It never can be.
The ramification of the federal government doing that is the closure of services like Meals Plus. The result is that a much-needed service in my community is likely to close its doors on 1 July. I am not naive enough to believe that the federal government would come to the rescue of Meals Plus because it does have a state-federal funding agreement and a system through which these services are delivered at state level. If I were to put my hand up for that project in my community, there would be an awful lot of other members of parliament putting a hand up directly for services in their community as well, because many other services are suffering like Meals Plus is suffering.
I put in a plea to the federal government that it reconsider its commitment to providing services to the homeless. It has not increased funding levels for the next five years. It has left some extraordinary organisations struggling. It has left many others with their services cut. It has also been in the habit over the last few years of proudly boasting about additional funding for particular projects, for new pilot projects, which it funds for a couple of years but does not follow up with further funding. Meals Plus, initially funded as a pilot project, is a good example of that.
As an indication of exactly how serious this problem is, a new report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that around one in two people who request immediate accommodation under the current Supported Accommodation Assistance Program, known as the SAAP agreement, are turned away and that almost two in three children seeking immediate accommodation are refused a place. This is already a service which is not in any way meeting the need. No-one could say it is meeting the need when two in three children seeking immediate accommodation are refused a place. Yet in spite of that, and in spite of an independent evaluation of the SAAP which found that a 15 per cent real increase in funding was required just to maintain the viability of existing services, the federal government has refused to increase funding to these services at all and has entered into a five-year agreement taking us through to 2010 that will leave them struggling, reducing their services in real terms. The New South Wales government in particular is unable to fund even its basic services at any real level.
Because of the demonstration projects which are so proudly boasted of by the government, real funding is decreasing. They are being funded at the expense of base funding, which will actually fall from $178.5 million in 2005-06 to $175.3 million in 2006-07 and $175.8 million in 2007-08. Again, there is not much fat. In fact, there is no fat in the services for the homeless. They are already overstretched; they are already failing to meet unmet need. I doubt whether any community in this country—certainly not mine—would look at any of its services to the homeless and think, ‘Yes, that’s a bit that can go now.’ I suspect that what we are all doing is looking at them and saying: ‘That’s a great program. Why can’t we expand it? That’s a great program that is working’—in the case of Meals Plus—‘Can’t we keep it?’ These are lifesaving services—services that keep people off the street, services that guarantee people at least one meal a day and provide a place where they can have a shower. These are lifesaving services; they are not luxuries. They make a profound difference to the lives of people in my community. I beg the government to put the politics aside, to stop the blame game and to do its job in working with state governments to make sure that these services are properly funded.
I rise in the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2006-2007 and related bill to raise two basic issues. One is to continue my remarks about the importance of the Balancing work and family report, which we addressed when the report was debated here earlier this week—in fact we had only 10 minutes, so there are a few more things I would like to say. The other thing I want to raise is a very important issue in my electorate of Mackellar, and that is the sale by the New South Wales Labour Council of Currawong—truly something that ought to be listed as heritage property under the New South Wales Heritage Act—to a developer arranged by the agent who is also the buyer, for half market value.
There is an excellent article by Piers Akerman in this morning’s Telegraph newspaper. Piers points out in his article just how wrong this sale is. If something looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it is likely to be a duck. If a cosy sale of a vital property looks like a crock and it smells like a crock, it is probably a crock.
The player in this game is Mr Robertson, the proponent of the sale for the Labour Council. They want to use the money to run a campaign against the federal government on Work Choices. They say that is the reason. The amount is $15 million. The state government’s own Department of Lands put in an earlier bid of $12½ million, and guess what? It withdrew it. There were two other developer offers made on the property, one for $30 million and one for $25 million. Mr Robertson has allegedly said of the $25 million offer that came from Macquarie Bank, ‘Over my dead body.’ But he wants to sell it to an organisation called KWC Capital Group.
The main players in this group are a Mr Linz and a Mr Tanevski. Mr Tanevski was brought on board by Mr Robertson, and it was reported in the paper that he said, ‘We wanted someone who understood how property developers operate.’ He knows, all right. He was the agent for the sale and he is selling it to himself. He is selling it to another organisation of KWC. But it is all a bit cosier than you would ever think.
KWC Capital Group has its registered place of business at level 12, 32 Martin Place, Sydney, which is the place of business of a firm known as Kingsway Financial Assessments Pty Ltd. Kingsway Financial Assessments is said in Piers Akerman’s article to have had Mr Linz and Mr Tanevski as directors. In 2001 they were granted by the state Department of Commerce a contract called the services contract under contract 0500969, which allows them to assess the financial capability of contractors for prequalification, pre-contract award and post-contract award monitoring for a wide range of contracts, including capital works, facilities, maintenance, goods and services as well as information communications and technology. In other words, the New South Wales Department of Commerce has outsourced the approval of people who are allowed to get contracts from the state government to this company, Kingsway Financial Assessments.
They first got a contract in 2001 and then, on 23 September 2005, the New South Wales State Contracts Control Board awarded the contract to do all those things again to Kingsway Financial Assessments, which is the registered office of, and has directors in common with, the agent who wants to sell Currawong to the buyer who is buying Currawong for one-half of the market value. I said earlier that, if something smells like a crock and it looks like a crock, it probably is a crock.
Piers Akerman says in his article that there was a further little company that this group of people were involved in. I will come to the name of the company in a moment. I think it is in the article. The article says:
Dealings between Robertson, Linz, Tanevski and another KWC capital Group director, Michael Braham, go back at least five years, when they were all on the board of the now defunct Unions NSW internet venture Getonboard. A company called Kingsway Capital took a one-third stake in the NSW ALP and Unions NSW venture, which offered discounted PC and internet packages to members of the two organisations.
Linz and Tanevski were directors of Kingsway Capital while Robertson, his predecessor and now NSW Treasurer Michael Costa, NSW ALP boss Mark Arbib, and his predecessor and now NSW Roads Minister Eric Roozendaal were among the ALP and union connections on the failed company’s board.
Selling Currawong has been a long-term desire for Costa, who almost managed to offload the workers’ retreat to Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who marketed transcendental meditation ...
That was before that project hit the dust. There is no suggestion that Mr Costa, Mr Arbib, Mr Roozendaal or Mr Braham were involved in the ultimate sale of Currawong, but Piers Akerman ably points out that this is a very cosy group. If you go to another New South Wales government activity, something called the New South Wales urban task force, which collects information about people for developing purposes, two of the members are Mr Allen Linz and Mr David Tanevski. So to try and say that it is just a coincidence that Mr Robertson had Mr Tanevski just to tell him how to develop his work and that they are an arms-length purchaser just does not wash. These people are up to their armpits with the Labor Party government in New South Wales.
I forgot to mention that Mr Sartor, who is, of course, the minister in charge of the heritage listing, is also the minister in charge of all planning and sales. And Mr Robertson, who is in charge of selling the property and is heading up the sale, sits on the Heritage Council. Isn’t it amazing that the Heritage Council application never gets dealt with? There are many questions that need to be asked about this deal.
When I read that article this morning I went back to an old file which I had not looked at for some time, because the whole question of outsourcing of government functions and how much it costs the government may in some way provide some of those answers about New South Wales. They have had an enormous amount of money, but where did it all go? So in getting out the file I literally was twigged when I read the article. Kingsway Financial Assessments rang a bell. Then I found the file. It is a very serious business and many questions have to be asked in this lead-up to the state election to just see how sullied that government has become.
This is worse than WA Inc.
It has all the features of that sort of arrangement. Those questions need to be answered. Thank you to Piers Akerman for that excellent article this morning. I think I will continue to find the rest of the material that we dug out earlier when looking at some of these issues.
The second issue I want to talk about this morning is the Balancing work and family report. In the 10 minutes we had available the other day, I was unable to deal with the unfair way in which the current tax system is exercised. A very privileged few are able to get a tax deduction for their childcare expenses while ordinary mums and dads cannot. The method of doing that is to be employed by either the Commonwealth government or large employers such as banks which allow their employees to salary sacrifice for childcare expenses. They are then exempt from the payment of fringe benefits tax.
The commissioner has ruled in a public ruling that if an employer controls a childcare centre, employees may salary sacrifice and get the benefit of paying for their childcare expenses with pre-tax dollars. In other words, they say to the employer, ‘You keep this percentage of my salary, pay it to the childcare centre which you control, thereby I will get an effective tax deduction for my childcare expenses.’ The Commonwealth government in all its manifestations meets that criteria, but it must own or control the centre. The centre does not have to be on the premises, but the Commonwealth must own or control it. It can lease it and let someone like ABC Learning come in and run it. Let me give an example. Defence owns 19 childcare centres. ABC runs them, so ADF personnel who can get their children into those 19 centres can have an effective tax deduction for their childcare expenses. But other people who just go to an ordinary ABC Learning centre or any other sort of childcare centre cannot. There is no fringe benefits tax exemption because the defence department does not own or control those centres.
In Canberra, if you work for the Treasury, you can get a tax deduction because they have a childcare centre. The tax office used to operate their own childcare centre and their employees could get the effective tax deduction; they were fringe benefits tax exempt. They got out of owning or controlling it and gave it over to the ABS, the Bureau of Statistics. Because they were all part of the Commonwealth government, tax office employees could utilise the ABS childcare centre—and on it goes. The largest one is CSIRO’s. I think they have about 134 people utilising it. One department down here is going to spend I think I heard a figure of $2 million to build a new childcare centre—that is taxpayers’ dollars—and will meet the tax office ruling.
There are two things involved here. If we got rid of fringe benefits tax, which the report recommends, on all childcare expenses, everybody would be able to salary sacrifice and get that advantage. That is why we sensibly said in the report that there should be tax deductibility for all childcare expenses, so that we have no losers. If fringe benefits tax were removed all employees could get a tax deduction. But if you are self-employed you cannot salary sacrifice; you are left out in the cold. Equity on all terms says there should be no fringe benefits tax on childcare expenses so that ordinary mums and dads can enjoy the privilege that employees of the Commonwealth Public Service enjoy. It also means that, once you remove it, so that it is fair for self-employed people you need to offer a tax deduction. As I have pointed out many times before, if you can get a tax deduction for your motor car, your computer laptop, your mobile phone, your steel capped boots and so on—this current year we are giving back $16.9 billion for things that are tax deductible—it is an equitable argument which has to be seen as sensible.
When I was talking earlier this week I said that, regarding the money that the budget had allocated for child care, there was a vast underspend—a $280 million underspend in the current year. I should have said that it is in excess of a $280 million underspend over three years. In any event, the point is this: the Econtech report that we commissioned said that the package would cost $262 million. In excess of $280 million would certainly go a long way towards making that very affordable. It is the equity argument, together with the facts and figures put forward by Access Economics, which did our macroeconomic modelling for us, that show it is good for the growth of the economy. It said that if there were more mums who came back into the workforce and worked full time then we would see growth in our economy of between 2.8 per cent and 4.4 per cent, which, as I said, is more than tax reform under competition policy. That growth would be national income.
So we have an argument that says it is good for the economy, and we say it is good for mums and dads because, as I have said in other forums, there are a lot of similarities between aged care and child care. When I was the minister with responsibility for aged care, I was very keen and did in fact introduce thousands of Community Aged Care Packages which enabled people to stay in their own home and have in-home care instead of being institutionalised in an aged-care facility, because that is where they wanted to be. You can apply the same argument to the many mums and dads who would like to have their children cared for in their own home with in-home care so that they can, with a much clearer conscience, be in the workforce without having to institutionalise their children in centre based care, which is where the vast bulk of the $1.6 billion that we pay out on the childcare benefit goes.
So, on all counts, it makes sense. It is good for economic growth; it is good for kids; it is good for parents because it takes away the angst. It might even save a few marriages. If you are a mum, you have to get up, get the breakfast, get the kids washed and dressed, drive one to preschool and one to school, in different localities, you have to work all day and then you come home and you have to be charming as you are cooking the dinner and putting it down on the table. I suspect that if we could relieve mums of some of those pressures, there might be a lot less angst in many families.
I am speaking on this because it is such a sensible proposal. I know that this government responds to good, sensible arguments—both equity and economic. I wanted to wind up the remarks that I began earlier this week because I believe that when the benefits are really appreciated then, hopefully, the proposal will get a damned good hearing.
Appropriation Bill (No.3) 2006-07 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2006-07 are before us. These are top-up bills which provide additional budget appropriations of $1.8 billion. Appropriation Bill (No. 3) deals with the ordinary annual operating services of government—additional funds to all the departments and agencies implementing policy—and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) deals with tied grants to the states and non-operating equity injections and loans.
Labor is of course supporting these appropriation bills to enable the government to continue its work. But I also rise to support the amendment that has been moved by the member for Melbourne, which condemns the government for its poor performance in securing Australia’s long-term economic fundamentals, reasserts Labor’s opposition to the government’s draconian industrial relations changes and highlights the flawed budget documents and Charter of Budget Honesty election costing process.
The government claims it has been a very good economic manager. The fact is it has not. The government has benefited greatly from the resources boom and it has definitely benefited from the superannuation reforms of the Keating years that have injected so much saving for investment into our economy. But, unfortunately, in riding the booms and Labor reforms, it has continued to waste the opportunities that this has presented to our economy.
These bills, like so much of the legislation that comes before this House, are part of a now well-entrenched pattern on the part of the Howard government of ever-growing wasteful spending and wasting of opportunities. Over the past few years we have seen the government engage in a giant spending spree, generally but not always linked to the election cycle, that has been built on the enormous boost to Australia’s national income that has derived from the minerals boom. But the government continues to squander these dividends of prosperity. It is not investing for Australia’s long-term future and, in particular, it is misusing its authority to spend money in a variety of ways that are designed purely to win political support for the government and to reward its supporters or particular interest groups instead of funding projects that actually deliver long-term sustainable investments in our communities and our national economy projects that benefit everyone over the long term.
This is not a government that is focused on serving the long-term interests of the nation. I think we need to highlight some of the wasted opportunities and mistaken priorities of this government and underline the social and economic costs of such gross negligence. Australia’s persistently large current account deficits and spiralling half-trillion-dollar foreign debt are just not sustainable. Australia’s current account deficit is one of the highest in the OECD despite record high commodity prices.
You need only look at Australia’s trade statistics to expose the lie that this government has been a good economic manager. It has been lucky. The Howard government has racked up the worst trade performance in Australia’s history. In December, the most recent figure, a monthly trade deficit of $1.3 billion was recorded, and this was the 57th consecutive trade deficit in a row. This is the longest uninterrupted period of trade deficit on record.
When Labor was in office, in every year between 1983 and 1996 we were able to average on an annual basis eight per cent growth in exports. How does that compare with what the current government has achieved? Despite a record resources boom it has averaged growth of only four per cent, if you take the whole 10 years that it has been in office and for which the records apply, and just one per cent over the past five years, unfortunately. It is a woeful performance.
Australia is stuck in a trade rut at a time of 30-year record high prices and demand for minerals. Australia is dependent on a narrow range of commodity exports. Unfortunately, service exports remain weak. Since 2000 the performance of elaborately transformed manufactures has collapsed along with productivity growth. The Howard government has done nothing after the reforms of the Hawke-Keating years, except of course introduce Work Choices.
A recent OECD report, released yesterday, said that Australia’s productivity was well below that of leading nations and its employment rates for low-skilled and older workers were relatively poor. I think that is worth dwelling on. In my area, Newcastle, we have experienced much change and restructuring in industry, including the corporatisation of utilities like Telecom, and we have seen rapid increases in mature age unemployment. Older men were forced out of their jobs and their lack of skills keeps them out of new employment, and they have fallen off the government’s statistics altogether. They no longer apply for jobs. Their partner may work or they have become welfare dependent. It is pleasing that the OECD have recognised that employment rates for low-skilled and older workers are relatively poor in this country. At a time when the utilisation of labour is reaching the maximum, we have people that we have left behind.
Australia’s performance in high-technology industries is also being eroded by underinvestment in universities, TAFE and training. The Productivity Commission’s Report on government services 2006 showed recurrent public spending on vocational education and training had dropped by 3.1 per cent in 2004. The Howard government has turned 300,000 Australians away from TAFE since 1998. The number of VET—vocational education and training—students has decreased by 6.6 per cent between 2000 and 2004. And this is not because they are out there getting jobs. Teenage and youth unemployment remains around 25 per cent in my electorate. Government recurrent spending per student hour fell from $20.18 in 2000 to $19.12 in 2004.
In my own electorate, university fees have grown so much since the introduction of HECS in 1989 that federal funding to the University of Newcastle only just outstrips its earnings from students. The federal government contribution this year will be about $140 million—just $10 million more than what is expected to be collected from student fees. Universities are now finding almost half of their funding by shifting the financial burden onto students and their families. Nearly two in five of this year’s undergraduate intake could be meeting the full cost of their education.
Education is becoming unaffordable for some, and student debt is already out of control, as one of my constituents from Thornton, in correspondence to me, recently noted:
Uni fees (are) unbelievably high ... I have a son starting uni this year and am worried about the HECS fees he will have to repay even before he starts taking loans for a home and family later in life. He will already be in debt before he starts.
I hear my own daughter saying, ‘Mum, we can’t afford to have a baby yet. We’re both still paying off our HECS fees.’ Coupled with housing unaffordability in New South Wales, this is a real problem. They consciously want to pay off their HECS debt, but it is a real burden. I say to them, ‘It’s the lowest interest rate you’ll ever get—forget it.’ But it is a huge burden on young people. Another constituent from Beresfield wrote:
I finished my HSC last year after getting good marks ... now I have deferred Uni for 12 months as I nor my parents can afford to pay for it.
We need to redress the gross inadequacy of current funding arrangements for Australian universities. We need to give our young people a chance. This used to be the clever country; it has to be that again. Education must be at the centre of our long-term strategy for national prosperity. Education is the engine room of the economy. It is the pathway to prosperity for everyone; it is the key to being globally competitive. But for too long we have failed to see education as a core challenge for the economy and a core recipient of the economy.
Australia definitely needs an education revolution—a revolution in the quantum of our investment and a revolution in the quality of our education outcomes. Labor have recently launched a ‘New Directions’ paper about the central role of education in our country’s long-term economic future. We have a goal for Australia to be the best educated country, with the best trained workforce, in the world. It is central to Labor’s existence that every Australian have the best opportunity to perform and prosper. It is the Australian ethos, I suppose, that people like me have benefited from parents who both left school before they were 14 and never had the opportunity to have an education themselves. They knew the value of education for their children.
We have also seen the government refuse to act on climate change and, by doing so, fail to protect Australian jobs and the economy. The CSIRO estimates that temperatures in Australia could be up to two degrees hotter by 2030 and up to six decrees hotter by 2070. As a result, we can expect more severe and frequent coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, increases in extreme weather conditions—weather phenomena that could be catastrophic, such as droughts, tropical cyclones and floods—a reduction in run-off entering our waterways and greater incidences of tropical disease. These events will have an enormous impact on our tourism, agricultural and insurance industries, with particular consequences for coastal and regional communities.
This week, we have been able to take a closer look at the government’s much-touted $10 billion program for the Murray-Darling Basin. We know that the inception of this program did not involve the departments of treasury and finance—no economic modelling for this government. We know that the financial statement that was associated with the announcement was just a single page. There have been few occasions in political history when so much money has been committed with such an incredible lack of economic scrutiny. So many questions remain unanswered, yet there is a notional commitment of $10 billion of taxpayers’ money to this program—a program that is undeniably necessary but desperately in need of detailed strategies and economic modelling for it to succeed.
Yesterday it was revealed that Treasury has not made any detailed assessment of the economic impact of climate change. Unbelievable! Unlike the British Treasury, which commissioned former Chief Economist of the World Bank Sir Nicholas Stern to report on the economic implications of climate change, our government says there is no urgent need for Treasury to do so. I wish they would go back and look at the CSIRO reports issued in the late 1980s which outlined the problem and provided projections. The government have had those reports since the late 1980s and, unfortunately, they have just sat on their hands. With Australia’s greatest climate change sceptic at the helm, it should be of no real surprise that Treasury does not regard the lack of economic analysis as a pressing issue.
Australia’s health system is being damaged by short-term political fixes which have created spending blow-outs in key program areas but have failed to address critical structural weaknesses such as workforce shortages and rising health costs. The Howard government has spent more time on fighting with the states, playing the blame game and cost shifting than on fixing problems and dealing with pressing issues such as childhood obesity, the structural changes in health delivery caused by an ageing population and the inequity of funding arrangements for rural and regional areas. The people of Newcastle and the Hunter region continue to go without much needed health resources in the face of wasteful spending by this government. Like the rest of rural and regional Australia, we have acute medical workforce shortages in the Hunter. We need health funding to address the chronic shortages of GPs and specialists, including orthopaedic surgeons, paediatricians, radiotherapists and obstetricians in particular. One of my new constituents from Beresfield recently wrote in response to a survey:
It is difficult finding a GP whose books are not closed ... newcomers to the area find it difficult getting into a practice.
There is also an urgent need for public health dental services. Hunter public patients face a five-year wait for dentures. I do not think that is in any way fair. We can only be ashamed. A new constituent from Tarro, which was previously in the electorate of Paterson, said:
One thing I am most concerned about is the availability of dental care. Private is too expensive and the government dental lists are much too long.
The public know the reality. Another new constituent in Beresfield said:
Bring back the Commonwealth Dental Scheme—it is very important to older people.
These people talk from direct experience. Certainly, they are not fooled. The Howard government abolished the Commonwealth dental scheme in 1997. Labor understands that unattended dental problems can become very serious and cause other health complaints. Labor remains committed to fixing the dental crisis in Australia, but there is no extra money in these appropriation bills to do so.
Other health projects in my region that require investment from the federal government include a Medicare licence for the PET scanner at the Mater Hospital. People still have to go to Sydney to get their PET scan. These scans are an imperative to saving money and lives in the treatment of cancer. Diagnosis, identification and certainly treatment plans are much more efficient if a PET scanner is used. We also lack a Medicare licence for the new MRI scanner at East Maitland, servicing the new areas of my electorate.
A new joint Hunter Medical Research Institute and University of Newcastle research facility is needed at the John Hunter Hospital. Secure, ongoing funds for the GP access after-hours service is needed. It is worth pointing out that the member for Paterson re-annouces funding for the GP access after-hours service every year or so and makes it look like he has saved it again from doom, gloom and destruction. He particularly goes out in election years doing that. Let us stop playing those nonsense games and make sure these good services are sustained and that people can have confidence that they will continue. We also need to refurbish the Hunter dementia resource centre and to fund additional Commonwealth medical places at the University of Newcastle.
When you also look at the failure of the economy, you have to say that investment in research and development has been particularly weak. R&D as a proportion of GDP is only 0.89 per cent—nearly half the OECD average of 1.5 per cent. Australia ranks 15th in R&D effort in the OECD tables. Since 1996 business investment in R&D has grown at only 2.6 per cent, while in the previous decade R&D investment grew at 11.4 per cent. Chinese firms are boosting R&D expenditure at a rate of 21 per cent per annum. Look out Australia! Companies such as Merck, Intel and Microsoft spend as much on R&D as the sum of all Australian businesses. Australia has an $85.4 billion trade deficit in high-technology manufactures—an increase of 13.4 per cent year on year.
Productivity growth is unacceptably sluggish. It is the most important source of economic growth and with declining labour supply growth its importance will increase. The Productivity Commission has estimated that if productivity growth could be maintained at 1990s rates, the decline due to ageing could easily be contained—something we should be trying to do. This calls for more effort on national competition policy, infrastructure reform, skills development, tax reform and cutting unnecessary regulation.
The government’s industrial relations legislation is not about improving productivity or workforce participation. The policy aims of the legislation are to strip entitlements and conditions and to remove or reduce safety nets. There has also been an enormous waste of money as the government has spent wildly on advertising after the introduction of Work Choices. The government has a history of wild spending sprees, particularly in election campaigns. It has more than $20 billion over the forward estimates stashed away in the contingency reserve that it wants to roll out in the lead-up to the election campaign. Standards of accountability are slipping—I note that the Chair of the Joint Committee on Public Accounts and Audit, the member for Deakin, is in the chamber—and of course accountability for spending is something we take very seriously.
The $10 billion 10-year water package contained no detail on the timing of expenditure or whether the projected expenditure is in the forward estimates period or in the never-never beyond the forward estimates. The Howard-Costello government is a big spending government compared to the Hawke government. Locking in spending against a tax base that will be eroded by intergenerational change is inherently risky. Much spending has been wasteful or politically motivated and is unlikely to secure higher levels of productivity or participation. There are also major problems with the transparency of the budget documents, and I think we all struggle with that at budget time.
There are other deserving federal projects that my region would like to have seen included, such as funding for a purpose-built Commonwealth courts complex. We would love a Federal Court building; the Family Court is all we have. Our legal fraternity currently have to go to Sydney to lodge bankruptcy, trade practices and environmental law cases. The pressure on the Family Court is accepted by the Attorney-General, but we do need a Commonwealth courts complex.
We also need an upgrade of our stadium. We are sick of seeing the Treasurer’s stadium and a few members’ stadiums get money while the Energy Australia Stadium gets nothing. Newcastle’s solar city bid is absolutely essential. The Prime Minister is trying to be fearful and cause division in mining communities like mine, but here we have a city that is advanced in R&D technology and solar energy and yet the success of our solar city bid remains unknown.
There are a lot of infrastructure needs in our area and of course broadband remains absolutely critical. One constituent wrote:
Having just moved into a new housing estate [I am concerned about] the lack of availability of broadband access …
Another Thornton resident said:
We applied for ADSL Broadband about 2 years ago and are still waiting.
So whilst these appropriations must of course go through, I join with my Labor colleagues in taking the opportunity in this debate to point to the wasted opportunities of the last 10 years. It is about time this government changed its direction. I know it will not, so we must change the government. The Australian people have the opportunity later this year to say: ‘Let’s have that change. Let’s get rid of this government and vote them out of office.’
I want to address a couple of issues in this debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2006-2007 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2006-2007 relating to my responsibilities as shadow parliamentary secretary for defence and veterans’ affairs. The first of these issues I want to address goes to the issue of the loss of value of the TPI pension. Before I get into that issue, I just want to say how ineffective this government has been in the face of the record reluctance of young Australians to sign up and join the ADF.
It is no wonder that the government has a retention and recruitment crisis on its hands. I have looked at some of the wasteful advertising on TV and in other places. The government are spending millions upon millions of dollars on this advertising, which is designed, I think, more to bolster the image of the government than to recruit. But it seems to me that, if they were dinkum about their need and the way they are going about their recruitment drive, they might be better off saving that money that they are wasting on advertising and putting it into looking after the veteran community—that is, veterans who served in previous eras or in previous conflicts—although, having said that, I am aware that a number of veterans who have served in Afghanistan, Iraq and places like East Timor are facing the same sorts of issues that older veterans are facing.
An example of that is in a recent letter that was sent to the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and to ex-service organisations by the Vietnam Veterans Federation in New South Wales. I might say that the Vietnam Veterans Federation under the presidency of Tim McCombe, himself a veteran, is probably one of the most credible of all ex-service organisations in Australia. I commend Tim and all of his team out there at Granville for the wonderful work they are doing across the board for veterans. In this letter, which they sent to the minister, under a heading, ‘Loss of value of the TPI pension’ they say this:
The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs is grasping at straws in his attempt to justify the government’s refusal to restore the lost value of the TPI pension and to stem its further erosion. His attempted justifications are untenable and contradictory. Our latest letter to the minister is enclosed.
I want to quote this letter because it shows that what is being said about the TPI is not just being said by me and other members of parliament on the ALP side who take an interest in these things but also in the broader veteran community. The letter is addressed to the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and it says:
Loss of the value of the TPI pension
Since 1979, the TPI pension has lost value compared with other pensions and the erosion continues.
In recent correspondence to the Vietnam Veterans Federation and others, you have defended the government’s refusal to restore the TPI pension’s lost value and its refusal to completely stem its continuing erosion.
The justification you give for the government’s inaction is that the TPI pension/Service pension package is adequate because it is roughly equivalent to the average wage.
But the TPI pension/Service pension package and the average wage are simply not comparable. It is like comparing apples with oranges.
Firstly, the spouses of civilians on the average-wage can earn as much as they like without it reducing their partners’ incomes, whilst any significant wage earned by partners of TPI pensioners reduces the TPI pension/Service pension package. This reduction is savage enough to discourage a great many spouses from taking up work. The importance of this difference cannot be overstated as the vast majority of Australian families find it necessary for both partners to work for at least some of the time to make ends meet. When spouse’s incomes are added to that of their average-wage earner partners, the TPI pension/Service pension package recipient is left far worse off.
Secondly many civilians on the average wage are in transit through that wage level and will be earning much more in later life. No such luck for the TPI Pensioner. He is stuck on the TPI Pension/Service Pension package for life and often from an early age. Unlike his civilian counterparts, he will have no chance to upgrade his skills and gain experience which will allow him to earn progressively more, so he can buy a house and accumulate superannuation for his old age.
Thirdly, there is another even more basic difference. Generally speaking, the civilian average-wage earner has not been sent off to fight Australia’s wars. War service is like no other job, it is uniquely dangerous and arduous. TPI pensioners’ war service did not conform to civilian norms so there should be no need for any compensation they might receive for the war’s devastating effects to be restricted by civilian norms.
In short, your argument for adequacy based on this comparison is fallacious and we are disappointed that you continue using it.
We are disappointed, too, at the figures you use in the comparison.
The average wage is clearly ‘income’. Any payments compared with it must also be ‘income’. The government has decreed that only part of the TPI pension is ‘income’, the other part being ‘lump sum equivalent’. Yet in making your comparison, you have included the whole of the TPI pension including the part you have decreed as ‘lump sum equivalent’. Your calculations are therefore invalid.
Including the whole of the TPI pension you calculate that a single under-65 TPI service pension/Service pension recipient receives a net $10 a fortnight more than a single average-wage earner. But if you play by your own rules and recognise that only part of the TPI pension is ‘income’, the under-65 TPI pension/Service pension package recipient is, in fact, over four hundreds of dollars a fortnight worse off.
The simple facts are these:
The TPI pension was 47.3% of the average wage in 1997 and it is now 43.5%.
The TPI pension is still losing value.
We ask that the lost value of the TPI pension be restored and its erosion stemmed.
This is an issue that the government must address. This is an issue that the government have run away from for some years now. We know that they changed the system in 1996. That is over 10 years ago, and it is time they recognised that they made a mistake and fixed it up.
I know that this is also an issue for the ALP to address. In due course we must address this issue in terms of our own policies, and I am greatly heartened by the work that Alan Griffin is doing out there. Alan is the ALP spokesperson on veterans’ issues. He has been out in the veteran community, listening to them, taking on board their arguments and showing them a great deal of respect. I know that this is an issue that Alan wants to see resolved as well.
The important point is that the government is currently putting together its budget that will be produced in May. I urge the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, who is the government spokesperson for veterans’ affairs in this parliament, to ensure that he gets his fingers into the Treasurer’s purse and rectifies this disgraceful erosion of the TPI pension. As long as this government continues to treat veterans in the shoddy way that it has then it will be equally hard to recruit young Australians to serve in the ADF. Word of mouth through the veteran community to younger people is simply saying, ‘Think twice about signing up because when the flags have stopped flying, when you are out of uniform, governments forget about you very quickly.’ That, unfortunately, is a sad truth. If the government is dinkum about its care and concern for veterans, it will make sure that in this budget it rectifies that erosion of the TPI pension. I once again compliment Tim McCombe and the Vietnam Veterans Federation for the tremendous work they are doing.
The second issue I want to deal with is the Australian Defence Medal. We saw this medal announced with a lot of hoo-ha some time ago. I think it is a very sad thing to say that there are so many anomalies in the way in which this Australian Defence Medal was put together and in the way in which it is being processed and sent out to the veteran community that it is causing a lot of angst and a lot of concern in the veteran community. I want to deal with one issue in relation to all of those confronting problems with the medal, and that is the issue that relates to members of the ADF who have been discharged on medical grounds.
I was recently contacted by the Injured Service Persons Association national group. I know that this is an issue that they have taken up. Their national president, Ray Brown, has written to me and has written to the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs pointing out the anomalies and asking him to get them fixed. But, in short, the military and honours and awards area is refusing to process applications for the Australian Defence Medal from former members of the ADF who were discharged on medical grounds. These people have just been put in a queue. They are in a sort of backlog area and no-one is dealing with their applications. Ray Brown quoted to me some correspondence that he had from one of his members, and I will quickly read it:
Hi, Ray.
I applied for my ADM in April last year. I telephoned around Sept to follow up as my husband applied same time as me & received his in July. I was told it is coming.
Yesterday I telephoned again & got an interesting response from Nigel at Directorate of Awards. He said all medical discharge applicants have been put on hold until they finalise policy about proof of discharge & compensatory injury. I asked him what he meant by that & he said they received more applicants than expected ... and many could not provide PROOF of their med disc and compensation.
I told him I found that to be quite embarrassing for them & inappropriate as most med disch would have some form of proof if needed.
In the end, he asked I provide further evidence. I had sent in my med disch certificate & now I have resent it with a copy of my compensation payment (which I marked confidential.) So another stuff around. With the letter I included I advised them since they were having so many problems even bothering to contact the members whom have claimed about their problems I would let my ESO know so they could inform all members.
As I see it, this is just purely a matter of resourcing. Surely, if this area—which we know was stripped of its resources some time ago by this government—had adequate resources, it could deal with and process these applications. There is no doubt that the government have made an absolute mockery of the medals situation in Australia and they continue to make a mockery of it by the way they are denying injured service men and women their access to a medal which the government trumpeted last year as being a very important medal. It is an important medal, and any backlog or any other reason that prevents these deserving members of the ADF from getting that medal should be rectified. I know it is something that I and the ALP will be having a bit more to say about later on this year. But there are a lot of anomalies in the way this medal is being processed and it is time the government accepted responsibility for them.
I have listened to a number of government speakers during the course of this debate. They have come in here whining and whingeing and moaning about state governments, trying to look for some scapegoats because of their own inefficiencies and their own shortfalls in the way that they have been managing the interests of Australia over the past decade. Instead of running around looking for scapegoats, they ought to come in here and accept responsibility for those things that they can affect and change, and they are not doing that. They are just running around, looking for someone to blame and, as Kevin Rudd says, playing the blame game. It is time they stopped doing that and it is time that they started to address the real issues.
Just in closing, last year I had a great opportunity to visit Salt Lake City as a guest for five days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was incredibly impressed with what I saw there. For instance, I was fortunate enough to attend the Sunday morning session of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints conference at the Temple Square in a centre that holds some 30,000 people. Prior to the conference we listened to the live CBS broadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Music and the spoken word. This is a world-famous choir. This broadcast occurs every Sunday and is usually held at the tabernacle, which is currently undergoing refurbishment. At that conference we were also fortunate enough to listen to the address by the president of the church, Gordon B Hinckley. The president is now in his 96th year and is the 15th president of the church.
The thing for me which was a great eye-opener was to learn of the incredible work that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does in humanitarian aid right throughout the world. It was just an absolute eye-opener to see the way that they are prepared, the way that they have stockpiled goods, and the way that they can so quickly respond to worldwide situations, including the tsunami, and the cyclone that hit their own country. I will quickly mention some of this. At a place called Welfare Square they have a bakery and a cannery. They provide employment services, grain storage, a thrift store, a dairy produce facility, storehouses and a family services office, as well as facilities to teach cooking. The philosophy of their welfare area is that people who want help must be prepared to help themselves.
It is interesting that, from 1985 through to 2005, the church, through its humanitarian aid services, provided $US830 million in total assistance to needy individuals in 163 countries. Distributions included 51,480 tonnes of food, 7,697 tonnes of medical equipment, 68,923 tonnes of surplus clothing and 5,753 tonnes of educational supplies. One product which really caught my eye was a maternity kit for mums-to-be or recent mums caught in disasters. It was a simple kit packed with the necessities of life for a new baby and a nursing mother. It was so practical yet simple, and I am sure it is of great benefit in times of need. I would like our Australian aid organisation to have a look at this pack. I thought it was just brilliant.
I want to thank those members of the church who hosted me and looked after me, particularly Phil and Trish Baker in Perth, Leo and Carmel Talbot and Lionel and Marianne Walters. I will be hosting them in Parliament House next month and we are looking forward to that. We are looking forward to about 40 young people coming here. I seek leave to table this report. It is simply a report I have written. Other members might find it useful. I would certainly like to once again compliment the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for the wonderful work they do worldwide. I seek leave to table that report.
Leave granted.
The defence budget is one of the largest items of the government’s appropriations and one of the most important. In the current security environment, with increased demand on our defence forces in our region on top of extremely expensive commitments in the Gulf and Afghanistan, it is appropriate that defence spending has risen and that equipment and personnel of the ADF should be upgraded. I make the point that, like other members on this side, I am a strong supporter of the defence budget, which constitutes only seven per cent of what we pay in transfer payments. Again, it is an extremely expensive item of appropriations which is overwhelmingly justified. Whether they are Centrelink payments or other pensioner payments, they are entirely justified.
Unfortunately, this government has a dismal record when it comes to responsible management of the defence budget. The Prime Minister has used the Defence portfolio as a dumping ground for ministers he is trying to get rid of—Ian McLachlan, John Moore, Peter Reith and Robert Hill. These ministers, in my view, were asleep at the wheel and the results have been predictable. At least now we have a defence minister who seems to take some interest in the portfolio, although his record so far is not much better. Just because parliament appropriates a very large sum for Defence each year does not give the minister a blank cheque. The money, in my view, is not being responsibly spent and accounted for to this parliament and the taxpayer.
This week we have seen the latest irresponsible rhetoric of the defence minister with his talk of scrapping the Seasprite helicopter program, which has so far cost the taxpayer in the order of $1 billion. As the honourable member for Hunter, the shadow minister for defence, has said, any decision to scrap the Seasprite project would be an admission of failure by the Howard government—an admission of failure to manage this project.
This government has been in power for nearly 11 years. It cannot evade responsibility for this matter. It cannot blame the Keating government, as some on that side have tried to do. The facts are that in 1994 the Keating government took a decision in principle, the correct decision, to buy helicopters that would operate from something that was called the offshore patrol combatant, which we were going to build in conjunction with the Malaysian navy. Unfortunately, the Malaysians decided to accept another ship that was provided to them by the Germans, which had a very large inducement paid with it, and Australia lost out. That was probably the stage—when this government took over the implementation of the project—at which the Seasprite should have been scrapped.
The contract to buy the Seasprite was signed by the Howard government in 1997. If there were problems with the Seasprite, it was the responsibility of the Howard government to know about them and fix them. Now, after a decade wasted and $1 billion spent, the minister, in what I can only describe as his Napoleonic style, is considering scrapping the whole project, despite the fact that, as we were advised, the problems with the Seasprite have largely been solved and full airworthiness certification could be achieved by 2010 for a cost of a further $35 million. I have no firsthand knowledge about that, but that is what we have been advised.
The minister now needs to explain to this parliament and to the Australian people what will happen if the Seasprite is scrapped. What are the alternatives the minister has in mind? How much will they cost? When will they be available? Does the minister think we can afford to wait another decade? The point is we have naval ships that need helicopters, either for surveillance or air defence or for air-sea attack, and they simply do not have them.
The honourable member for Hunter said this week that buying replacement helicopters would cost at least $1.5 billion. That is on top of the $1 billion already spent, which cannot be recovered because the terms of the contract which the Howard government signed preclude us from suing the contractors. That is right: this brilliant, free-enterprise government signed a contract which contained no clause that said we had a right to sue if the contract was not met. The figure of $1.5 billion seems to me to be a conservative estimate for the replacement of helicopter capacity. Military hardware has not become any cheaper since 1997. Even at that cost, replacement helicopters will not be available before 2010 and probably not until 2012 or 2015.
The Seasprite is the latest in a long line of defence procurement debacles under the current government, at a time when the policies of this government have put a great strain on our defence budget. Some of it is unavoidable; some of it is avoidable. This kind of irresponsible waste and bungling is simply not acceptable.
Another example is the joint strike fighter about which the minister has even now not told the House the full story. He has not told us of the impact that further delays to this program will have on our air capability, the cost to the taxpayer or the implications for our national security of the prolonged delay in replacing the F111s, which are 40 years old and nearing the end of their operational capability.
The government’s incompetence has already cost the taxpayer $3 billion through what I thought was a forced acquisition of the Super Hornet as a stopgap measure, although I notice in another backflip today the minister says he is not going to buy these stopgap aircraft. The thing that is really odd about that is: what will happen between the end of the F111 and the proposed acquisition of the joint strike fighter? Will Australia have no Air Force? It does not make sense to me.
Certainly the F22 has no stealth capacity. It would be easily matched by some of the aircraft being acquired from the former Soviet Union by countries to our north, and I think we ought to have an air superiority aircraft that would enable Australia to defend itself in the worst-case scenario of a conflict with these new, modern air forces.
This government’s mishandling of our defence acquisitions program is becoming a real threat to the sustainability of the defence budget and to our defence capability. The government seems to think it can go on wasting millions of dollars on failed defence procurement projects without any financial consequences. But the resource boom is not going to go on forever, giving us ever-expanding government revenues. Sooner or later the buck must stop somewhere.
I point out that these are not just the views of members on this side. We might for some reason be suspected of having partisan motives in our criticisms, but the same cannot be said of Australia’s leading defence policy centre, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which has issued a highly critical assessment of the government’s defence and national security policies. The report said that the government’s mismanagement of the Defence portfolio was undermining the safety and security of Australia. It highlighted the lack of planning, the failure to match our ambitions with proper funding and what it called a collapse in financial accountability.
Labor has been calling for a new Defence white paper to set out the government’s views on defence challenges facing Australia and how we are going to meet them and pay for them. This call was made last year by the honourable member for Barton and has been repeated by our new spokesman on defence, the honourable member for Hunter. I support that call, which I know is also supported by senior serving members of the ADF, and now the ASPI report supports that call.
I turn now to the government’s activities in electoral matters—something that has been of interest to me since 1998, when I became a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters when first elected to this House. Until last year I was deputy chair of JSCEM but made way for my colleague the senator from Western Australia. As I am already occupying the position of whip, I cannot now hold those two paid positions simultaneously. Previously, as deputy chair of the committee, and together with my Labor colleagues, I issued a minority report following the government’s inquiry into the 2004 federal election campaign. Major changes to Australia’s electoral enrolment were contemplated by the government on the—and I can only say—fraudulent claim of protecting the integrity of the electoral roll. Again, I feel like a robot repeating this, but I will keep repeating it until the next election, and I will keep repeating it through the media, as a lot of people are interested in how this disgraceful plan to close the electoral roll on the day the election is announced came about.
In 1983, when former Prime Minister Fraser and a previous conservative government ran Australia, nearly 300,000 people lost their right to vote after they closed the electoral roll on the day the election was announced. We had an inquiry immediately after the last election at which no evidence—not just little or infinitesimal evidence, but no evidence—was adduced that said the electoral roll in Australia had serious problems with it. The committee went to hearings all around the country. We considered these matters very carefully. We asked witnesses to provide us with this evidence. No evidence was provided. There were lots of complaints and lots of issues about other things, but to make a decision to change the requirements of Australian democracy for hundreds of thousands of people based on no evidence is a scandal.
In the period between 1990 and 2002 there were six electoral events—five elections and one referendum—and at each event 12 million Australians participated. So six events times 12 million voters is 72 million individual votes by Australians in that period. The Australian Electoral Commission, the body officially charged with looking after the integrity of the electoral roll in Australia, found that in that entire period, 1990 to 2002, there were 72 proven cases of electoral fraud in Australia. Most of them were to do with re-establishing people’s rights to get a motor car licence in northern New South Wales, vis-a-vis Queensland. They had nothing to do with political chicanery.
One in one million votes were proven cases of electoral fraud, and they were not done for political reasons. On that basis, we are now going to prevent hundreds of thousands of Australians from being able to use the normal period that they are used to using—and, I am very proud to say, Labor put into practice after the chicanery at the 1983 elections—which is the week after the election is called, to fix up their electoral enrolments, to find out the right polling booth to go to and to provide the Electoral Commission with some information so that the election can be conducted with some order. I predict that there is going to be chaos at all the booths, and the responsibility for this will lie squarely with the government. The names of the two relevant ministers, past and present—Nairn and Abetz—will stand for ‘chaos’ in terms of Australian electoral history, because that is what they are bringing to the Australian people.
We predicted that these changes would lead to the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Australians. In our report, we were highly critical of the government’s decision to change the Electoral Act to close the rolls on the day the writs for the House of Representatives were called rather than to allow a period of grace of five working days for voters to enrol or change their enrolment details, as the act has allowed since 1984. New evidence has emerged that the Australian Electoral Commission supports that contention even further.
The statistics are astonishing. At the end of 2004, there were 13,114,475 voters on the electoral roll. At the end of 2006, there were 13,081,539—a drop of 33,000 over a year. Why has this happened? Why is it important? The main reason that people go off the electoral roll is that they change their address or forget to update their enrolment. When the AEC notices that a person is no longer a resident at their earlier address, it quite rightly removes them from the roll. The AEC has stepped up its work of checking the roll so that the rate of removal is rising. In 2005-06, nearly half a million people were removed from the rolls. My colleagues the members for Bendigo and Chisholm will have noticed when they get their update from the AEC every month that more people in their electorate are being taken off the roll than are going on it. This is happening in all of our electorates right across Australia.
A secondary reason is that people who die or who leave Australia are rapidly removed from the roll. Also, the proportion of people who become newly eligible to enrol—they have turned 18 or have become Australian citizens—is falling. If the level of enrolment is falling at the rate of 30,000 a year—and it will be higher than that because the population is growing—at the end of a three-year cycle, we will end up with 100,000 people who may not be enrolled or who may be incorrectly enrolled. In the past, this would not have mattered much because, when the election was announced, these people would realise that they were not enrolled at their new address or were not enrolled at all and they would use the five-day period of grace to enrol. They will no longer have that option.
This is an election year and, of course, a certain number of these people will take action to get themselves enrolled well before the election, but many will not. The government says it will ask the AEC to run an awareness campaign before the election to encourage people to enrol. Australians have always run these campaigns and they have some success, but we manage to get enrolment up only to the level it has been, and it will not go higher than that, and that was in the previous circumstances when voters had a period of grace. I support the enrolment drives. I support the AEC and their advertising campaigns. But I have to ask: does the AEC know the date of the election? I think not. I have heard lots of government members gabbling around the House saying that it will be held in the first week of November, but I do not think they know. Most people expect it to be in late October.
Under our system, the Prime Minister can call an election whenever he likes. There is speculation that the Prime Minister is seeing his political position deteriorating and that he may opt for a snap early election—perhaps straight after the budget. All of these things are possible and all of them are an argument for Gough Whitlam’s great vision for Australia of a four-year fixed term. Like other democracies, we could go to our elections with our professional Electoral Commission fixing up enrolments, with citizens knowing they can come at a regular time, and with government not determined by such a short-term process as our current three-year term or by the whim of a Prime Minister of whatever political party.
What would happen to the AEC’s awareness campaign in the current circumstances? Enrolment would not happen; possibly several hundred thousand people will be caught out by having no time to enrol. Apparently, members opposite say, ‘Serves them right; they should have enrolled.’ We say that most Australians have higher priorities in life than politics and they should not be disenfranchised for the crime of not paying attention to the date of the 2007 election.
This country has a very good system of democracy. Our compulsory voting system gives us a very high participation rate but it also gives us the double duty of ensuring that our democratic franchise is as wide as possible. With our voting system being compulsory, we cannot possibly target for disenfranchisement, by neglect or difficulty, groups of young people, Aboriginal voters and people who quite often change their address who are more likely to live in rental properties. Some people like me who are cynical might think there is in all of this a deliberate plan or the black hand of Crosby Textor, who, in a Liberal world view and in an attempt to permanently disenfranchise voters with a propensity to support the Labor Party, is trying to cut out, salami style, union affiliation, Aboriginal voters, young voters and those in rental accommodation—people whom the government thinks this process will disenfranchise.
My suspicion is that the Liberal Party research team has advised the government that the majority of people who will be eliminated under these circumstances will be Labor voters; so freezing them out of the political process would be to the government’s political advantage. Current and former ministers’ plans have to be seen in this context. There is no other way of describing it than as a disgrace. It is a negation of the principles of democracy in this country and I am very proud that Labor has opposed these changes. We now oppose them all the more, having seen in the AEC report evidence of their likely effect on the level of enrolment.
Just as I know the shadow minister has made this pledge to the House, I make this pledge in the Main Committee: if after the election we are in government, we will repeal the harmful changes that have been made to the act. That will be a great thing for Australian democracy, along with our other plans for a referendum on Australia becoming a republic, looking at ideas such as four-year terms and many other democratic initiatives that will be seriously undertaken by a modern, reforming Rudd government. I can see a great democratic future for Australia and it is not going to be under this government; it will be under a new government.
As I begin my remarks in the appropriations debate, I commend the member for Melbourne Ports for his passionate defence of our electoral system and for his attention to such detail. I add my concerns also about the way that these changes will impact on many people on the roll—or not on the roll, as the case may be. I know these changes will have a severe impact on my own constituency of Chisholm. Having two major universities within my electorate, I know that an awful lot of young people choose either to put themselves down at the college at which they reside or at the house they are renting or to stay enrolled at their family property or home, and often that this needs to be addressed does not come to their attention until the election is called. Now, when the election is called, their attention may be drawn to it, but there will be nothing they can do about it. I think this is unjust—and that is the plan.
I think the hypocrisy in all this is the assumption that these people all vote Labor. The government, of course, could be disenfranchising a great many of their own voters. Having been in the States recently and having heard a great deal of the commentary going on over there, I believe that one of the things we can be truly proud of is our electoral process. I would hate to see it eroded and for us to end up with the debacle that even the Americans themselves now claim their system is. So I do commend the member for Melbourne Ports for his contribution to the debate today.
Whilst we welcome this additional spending and we would in no way prohibit it going through in these appropriation bills, I do want to commend the member for Melbourne’s second reading amendment, which highlights the government’s inaction over many years. The government have now been there for a very long time—longer than we had hoped or intended. They have had years and years of prosperity and they have wasted them. They have squandered them.
We heard yesterday a frank assessment from the new minister for industrial relations that governments do not create jobs. After many years of the government saying they create jobs, and with their one centrepiece in this term being their changes to industrial and workplace relations and their great claim that this is going to be the help for future prosperity, we now know that is not true. They do not even see it so themselves, because they do not create jobs.
I had a recent email from one of my constituents and I would like to share it with the House today. It says:
Angels, Shepherds, and the I.R. Laws
by Peter Burman
‘While shepherds watch their flocks by night ...’ so the Christmas carol tells the story given us by St Luke. The shepherds had to work night shift as well as day shift. And they had to work 7 days per week, which prevented them from going to church or synagogue on the Sabbath.
It would seem that the industrial relations conditions have deteriorated seriously since the time of Moses. At least the law of Moses gave everybody a Sabbath, including servants and livestock (Exodus 20:8-11). Furthermore, Moses had earlier established a fair and just industrial relations system. When Moses saw one of the bosses beating a worker, he clobbered the boss permanently (Exodus 2: 11-15) then shot through like a Bondi tram. Later, after a brief stint as a shepherd (Exodus 3:1) Moses observed the workers were being given the short straw for the manufacture of bricks (Exodus 5) so, after a confrontation with the bosses, he established the brickmaker’s unions and they all took industrial action. In fact they did more than hold a rally in Federation Square then march up Swanston Street: they quit their job and marched out of slavery to freedom in another country.
The shepherds were not protected by any union and had to work 24 hours and 7 days per week. They were at the bottom of the social structure and in double jeopardy, because their job prevented them from Sabbath attendance, therefore they were regarded as the worst of sinners. Nobody seemed to care about them except the angels who came to visit them with the Good News. But there is no suggestion that the angels visited the makers of the I.R. laws. After worshipping the Holy Infant, presumably while the angels minded the sheep, the shepherds dutifully returned to their flock, working on Christmas Day, without penalty rates, of course.
Our elder daughter is a mid-wife and rostered to work dutifully on Christmas Day, which at this stage is ‘sacrosanct’ to quote one who makes core promises then later downgrades them to non-core promises. But the covenant, given a long time earlier to Abraham, then renewed to the shepherds, is stronger than a promise.
I think this little story, which has been beautifully crafted by one of my constituents, highlights the growing concern out there in our community about the changes to the industrial relations law. It is interesting that, in the stream of emails, letters and comments I have had from constituents, generally it is not their own concern they have; it is concern for their children and their grandchildren—the people turning up to face the new world of IR. They say: ‘Here’s the job. You sign this AWA’—which has eroded the terms and conditions—‘sign it or leave it.’
We only need to see the recent certified agreement that has been put in place which our staff are now under to see that we have eroded their terms and conditions by taking away the option of actually working overtime. They have been given the ability to earn a set amount of overtime, but over time that will erode. That will go. In time that will not marry up the ability to actually claim overtime to the amount of money that is being paid. Once you take away a term and condition, you can never replace it.
I know that probably all of us around this room at the moment who are going through the process of trying to decide what amounts to give to people have juggled with that issue. I think the interesting thing is that now I have spoken to the people who look after us and deal with our staff and their employment conditions and they say, ‘You can change it come June in the financial year.’ Yes, but once you give someone a lump sum, that becomes part of the salary. I do not want to be the one to tell my staff, ‘By the way, because of the change in office, I am actually reducing your salary.’ That is the actual direct link with that certified agreement. I think it is very poor indeed. I do not think it is actually going to give any member in this House the ability to actually operate their office or will serve the staff who are going to be working under it. Yes, it might look like a good thing now to have a lump sum, but over time that will erode and that dollar value will never be replaced for the staff.
The other issue of grave concern within my electorate at the moment is climate change. A day does not go by without my receiving at least four or five emails in respect of climate change. I would actually like to be relieved of emails at the moment because they are clogging my box considerably, but I do want to thank my constituents who take the time and effort to send me their concerns. The No. 1 issue at the moment would have to be climate change. Here is another email I have received:
Dear Ms Anna Burke,
My name is Lauren Marc; I am an 11 year old student, currently in year 6, from Melbourne, Victoria. I go to Roberts McCubbin Primary School. Last year in September, my fellow grade 5’s and 6’s went on a camp to Canberra. We visited Parliament House and you talked to us. You may or may not remember us.
I have taken this time to write and send an email to you and other MP’s in federal, state and local levels of Parliament.
A few nights ago I saw ‘An inconvenient truth’. You may or may not have seen it. It is based on Al Gore’s slideshow about global warming. It shows many different troubles and problems that the world has. Along with many problems that we may not have noticed or thought about being related to global warming. If you have not seen it then I strongly suggest you do.
I understand that the U.S. and Australia are the only countries who have not joined Kyoto. This is because federal parliament is worried about it damaging the economy. I have been wondering why we didn’t have a referendum, so the people could choose.
Some of my close friends and I think we should, as a country, state or local area should do something more about this. Such as running more buses on ethanol or sewerage. One town in England, I think it was, had all its buses, trains and cars running on sewerage. I understand that this would be an expensive process, but it would be doing our bit, just to go that little bit further.
Thank you for your time,
Yours truly,
Lauren Marc.
I have an 11-year-old writing to me with an impassioned plea that we do something about our environment. We are out there; this is happening around us. It is of grave concern and we need to be doing more. This government stands condemned for its inaction. Yes, we can have the hullabaloo about this and that, and about the impact it is going to have, but unless we do something, and unless we do something now, there might not be anything to impact on.
We can have discussions about the water level rising and not being a concern because the area is high enough to sustain that water level, but it is not the case across the world. Very soon we are going to have to deal with people coming here from Kiribati, as their country will literally be under siege by water. We need to be doing more. We need to be grappling with this at a very radical level because it is there, it is real, it is happening. And the longer we let it go, it will not be something we will be talking about impacting on our grandchildren; it will be the environment I am leaving to my children. I seriously worry about that. With a four- and a seven-year-old, I constantly contemplate what world I am leaving them. Each generation should leave a better world for the next. We are not going to do that. This generation is actually going to leave behind a world that will be worse than the current one we have enjoyed. That is because of our inaction now on this one issue.
The government can talk about its $10 billion plan for the Murray-Darling Basin but we have not actually seen the details around it. It was done in such a hurry. The Prime Minister, who is meant to be great at reading these issues and how the public is feeling, suddenly woke up and thought: ‘I’ve missed that one. I’d better do something in a hurry.’ He puts together a cobbled speech and then says to people, ‘You’d better write the detail.’ We do not have the detail. We have had inaction on this. We have had major prosperity. We could have been doing so much more and we have done nothing. Future generations will not be thanking us for this because they might not even be here to enjoy it. Another constituent writes:
I wish to express my concern about the lack of response by governments in Australia to the issue of climate change. Federal and State Governments must take the lead now in initiating measures to slow down the rate of climate change. Although our population is small, we contribute more than our share of greenhouse emissions to the world and it is up to us to reduce that share as much as possible.
We are trying to do what we can in our home and business in terms of reducing energy needs but we need leaders with a vision who will make difficult, and perhaps initially unpopular, decisions about energy-saving or alternative energy options for the long-term. We need leaders to go out on a limb and provide sufficient funds to boost research into the development of viable alternatives such as solar energy, seeking to make such alternatives both efficient and affordable. Australia could become a world leader in alternative technologies if one of our leaders had the vision to channel funds into a concerted effort in this area.
My teenage children are becoming increasingly aware of the issues and increasingly concerned about how climate change will affect their futures and that of their future families. They are already asking questions about the environmental policies of major parties and I am sure this will have an impact on their future voting preferences.
I urge you to initiate and support measures which will reduce Australia’s contribution to climate change ...
I echo my constituent’s concerns.
Debate (on motion by Mr Barresi) adjourned.
I move:
That the Main Committee do now adjourn.
I want to take the opportunity today to bring to the attention of the chamber a great story of determination and persistence which has led to a wonderful outcome. About seven years or so back, a group of parents who have children or a child each with a mild intellectual ability contacted me to tell me about a plan they had to develop appropriate accommodation for their children. They had the idea and started this amazing project. They are like so many families in our communities. They hold concerns for the future accommodation needs of a child with a disability of some kind. What will the future hold for their child as they themselves age and are no longer able to offer their continuing care needs?
Over that period of seven or so years, they have held meetings and planning sessions for finance and land, building design, local authority requirement discussions—everything you can imagine—to achieve their dream. They came up against some pretty huge hurdles. However, they had the strength and determination to continue. During this process they looked at many options—examples both here in the ACT and elsewhere—to see what may be possible. The model they eventually adopted was an Abbeyfield model. Abbeyfield is a UK based organisation with an emphasis on a housing model for elderly people wanting to retain their independence in a home-like and safe environment. We have Abbeyfield houses of that kind in the ACT.
It is true to say that these families faced a few sceptics who, for one reason or another, opposed or at least doubted the appropriateness of this model. However, having seen the model they believed best suited the needs of their children, they then needed to secure land and money. The ACT government made the land available, followed by a one-off grant of $1.3 million for design and construction. This new model, Abbeyfield Disability, is the first Abbeyfield of its kind in the world, I understand. I want to commend the people at Abbeyfield Australia for seeing the potential in this project and having the confidence to proceed in their support.
The years of consultation undertaken by these families and parents involved a strong committee, including community members within the disability and community housing sectors. The house was completed last October. It houses 10 residents with mild intellectual disability who have a reasonable degree of independence. All of them receive the disability support pension. Some are employed or seeking employment and some are pursuing vocational training. Under the Abbeyfield model, a live-in housekeeper involves the residents in the communal kitchen, dining and living areas. It is not possible to visit this house without coming away with a feeling of optimism and a bit of a smile on your face. These young people now have a place they call their own home, and their parents and families are seeing their transition to the independent life they had always hoped they would see their son or daughter experiencing.
There is no ongoing funding provided to the house. It is completely self-funded by residents’ contributions from their incomes, which I understand also include rental assistance. Volunteers contribute to the maintenance and upkeep of the building. I want to pay tribute to John Benson, the founding president and one of the major driving forces behind this project. John’s energy and belief in bringing this supportive accommodation to completion has been outstanding. However, like all such projects, others have contributed enormously. Everyone on that committee deserves equal acknowledgement. I would also like to mention president Jackie Landos and committee members Louise Blue, Peter Vardoulis and David Pederson for their tireless volunteer work in the management of the house. However, all parents and families seem to have a role and a great community has evolved.
I would like to think that the success of this project may have helped pave the way for other communities. I hope they may have an opportunity to contact the house community committee to see what can be done. It is an idea that should be shared around for those whose circumstances may suit such a model. These young people now not only have a home in which to live; they also have a small community in which they live. As I said, there are 10 in the house. These young people have their social lives. As I said, some of them work and some of them participate in special Olympics. They have mad social lives, from what I can see—social lives that some of us could not keep up with. At the end of the day what we have seen is the evolution of a really successful good for the future model for people who it suits, who may have a mild intellectual disability.
I really want to take the opportunity to congratulate everybody concerned with this, the ACT government for their foresight and also all of those parents who for seven years have sat through committee meetings hoping that at the end their energy and their dedication to this project would pay off. It has. As I said, we now have 10 wonderful young people living very successful independent lives, their parents and families with smiles on their faces.
The last day of sittings in this place last year, 7 December, was a very sad day in the city of Bundaberg, with the passing of a bastion of the local community. Tom Quinn had fought a long battle with cancer and his passing was bittersweet. It was a blessing that he was relieved from his suffering, but his passing leaves a huge void in his family and the community.
Tom made his life’s work giving back to the community. He was a great example of how it is possible to live many lives in one lifetime—if you like, the man-for-all-seasons syndrome. I have previously listed in this place his many professional achievements, but some bear repeating. After a multifaceted career with Qantas as an accountant, corporate planner, aircraft purchaser and consultant, he retired early to Innes Park, near Bundaberg, but was restless to contribute to the community.
In that capacity, he served on the Woongarra Shire Council as a councillor, he was a director of the Bundaberg District Tourism Development Board and a lecturer at Central Queensland University, a campus in Bundaberg that he played a part in founding. He also found time to sponsor an African child from Lesotho. He entered the workforce on a full-time basis again as the manager and chief executive of Bundaberg’s group apprenticeship scheme, called BACAS, which he ran for 10 years prior to its incorporation in BIGA. Many tradesmen owe their careers to the apprenticeships that Tom created for them. He gave leadership to the group apprentices scheme, not only in Bundaberg but also at a national level, where he was international president.
Tom also worked with Lex Rowland and me to bring Burt Hinkler’s home from Southampton to Bundaberg. I might add, he was the one who suggested the name of Hinkler for the electorate I now represent. The Hinkler house is now the centrepiece of Bundaberg’s botanical gardens and has drawn over 500,000 visitors. It is about to be expanded again, with the construction of the $7.5 million Hinkler Hall of Aviation, for which the city has received $4.5 million from the federal government. Next month I will be involved in the sod-turning ceremony to mark the start of construction of this project, and I know Tom will be there in spirit alongside me.
At the tender age of 67 he enrolled at the University of New England, undertook his law degree and passed. Surprisingly, he did this not just for academic satisfaction, as some people do in retirement, but to actually use it. He completed a professional year at the Brisbane Supreme Court with all the young aspiring barristers and was received at the bar at the age of 75. He received few, if any, fees and devoted himself almost entirely to people who could not get legal assistance or legal aid. I understand that he helped more than 440 people in his short career, representing them in the Magistrates and District Court, and of course offering advice. He was enormously helpful to me in one of those intractable cases. He was a remarkable and selfless contributor.
I have met very few people in life who I would really say were at peace with their God, but Tom Quinn was one of them. He had a burning ambition to help people and especially the most deprived. He was a great adherent of the Salvation Army. He and his Salvation Army colleagues Major Peter Pearson and Tom Osborne purchased a derelict recycling plant, modernised it, painted it, landscaped it and turned it into a haven for young people and others with personal problems, poor workplace skills and learning difficulties. The centre was named the Tom Quinn Centre in his honour, and it has become a beacon of achievement, hope and restorative comfort for hundreds of deprived people, especially young people.
His children, Rosalee, Peter and David, should take great comfort and pride in the fact that the tangible and not so tangible legacies their father left will live for many years in the community. Tom Quinn was a father, grandfather, teacher, trainer, councillor, aviation devotee and carer of the poor and deprived. He lived Christ’s injunction not only in theory but in practice: ‘For as often as you have done this to the least of my brethren, you have done this unto Me.’
I want to report to this House the findings of a community survey that I conducted in my electorate of Calwell just before Christmas last year. Residents were asked to number in order of importance the federal issues that mattered to them most. The survey listed some 14 different issues for residents to choose from. The results of the survey showed that health, water supply and the high cost of petrol rated as the three most important issues of concern for the constituents of Calwell. I want to take some time today to speak to each one of these very important issues.
Overall, on the issue of health, access to affordable health care and the rising cost of medicines topped the list of concerns for local residents. In my electorate of Calwell, ongoing doctor shortages and the lack of an after-hours bulk-billing healthcare service remain two of the biggest concerns for residents. In March last year, I tabled a petition in this House that called on the government to provide federal funding for an after-hours healthcare service at the Dianella Community Health Centre. The petition contained some 1,406 signatures. On 11 May 2006, I tabled a second petition on the same issue that contained a further 818 signatures. When the after-hours service at Dianella was operational, the centre saw an average of 250 patients every week—51 per cent of those patients were healthcare cardholders. To date, there has been no response from the government, no federal funding has been forthcoming and local demands have thus far not been met as far as my residents are concerned.
Today, also in the area of health care, access and affordability have become key issues of concern for not only my constituents but Australians generally. As in so many other areas of health care, the government has swung the pendulum too far in one direction, and we need to restore the balance if we are to address the needs of our constituents.
The cost of medicines continues to grow, and so there are increasing concerns about the PBS. Residents in my electorate frequently complain that there are not enough GPs and specialists, particularly in the very important area of mental health services, practising in the area. I believe that one solution would be to introduce higher rebates for bulk-billing doctors. This would encourage more local GPs to bulk-bill their patients.
The region’s future water supply was the second concern most frequently cited by respondents to the community survey. An overwhelming majority of constituents who have spoken to me are frustrated and angry that so little has been done to stem Australia’s looming water crisis, especially in the areas of preparation and planning. Any solution to Australia’s water crisis must be sustainable in the long term as well as provide relief in the short term. It needs to reflect the reality that weather patterns in Australia have changed irrevocably, and it needs to link Australia’s decreasing water supplies to the broader question of tackling climate change.
The simple fact is that we need to invest in Australia’s national water infrastructure in a way that allows us to better conserve our freshwater supplies and better utilise the huge volumes of waste water currently being lost down the drain. My own belief is that water recycling for both domestic and commercial use will play a critical role in changing the fortunes of Australia’s water crisis. What this country lacks, however, is a set of clear and comprehensive national guidelines for water recycling in Australia. Such guidelines would go a long way towards building public confidence in water recycling.
The third most important issue for residents in my electorate of Calwell is, of course, the soaring price of petrol. High petrol prices continue to eat into the household budgets of many Australian families—my constituents included. Personal debt levels in Australia have already reached $1 trillion and Australians now pay a far greater percentage of their income on servicing their mortgages than ever before. When you add to this the soaring cost of everyday living and the uncertainty created by the government’s Work Choices laws, the dramatic effect of high petrol prices on household budgets becomes all the more real.
Unfortunately, the law of petrol pricing in this country remains one of putting company profits ahead of the interests of Australian motorists. Whilst oil producers are always quick to raise the price of petrol whenever the price of crude oil goes up, they are mercilessly slow to reduce the price of petrol when crude oil prices fall. Like many Australians, many of my constituents have caught on to this game. They want the government to act. (Time expired)
I want to highlight the work of a relatively new Sunshine Coast group that goes by the name of Road Trauma Services Queensland. This organisation offers counselling services to victims, family members, friends and witnesses of road accidents. It is quite frightening to think of the massive psychological effect that road trauma has on those who are not prepared for it. It can be truly devastating and debilitating. When a motorist travelling along a highway who witnesses a road crash stops to offer some help to the victims, he or she may be confronted with an unexpectedly gruesome sight. This horrible visual can come back to the person suddenly and when they are completely unprepared. What was to have been an ordinary driving trip can suddenly become an unwanted and unforgettable life-changing event.
Emergency authorities like the police, ambulance and fire department are well aware that witnessing a tragedy can have significant effects on one’s emotions, so these services have counsellors readily available to staff as part of usual operations. Unfortunately, members of the public who suddenly find themselves dealing with a similar shocking and horrific traffic situation do not have ready access to such valuable support services. That is where Road Trauma Services comes in. This organisation has been formed to meet an unmet need. It was recognised by the founders of a similar organisation in Tasmania that people involved in road accidents or people who witness such events often experience emotional and psychological problems, which can often be relieved by sharing, support, information giving or counselling. Road Trauma Services Queensland is meeting the same needs of Queenslanders.
I want to compliment one of the organisers of the Sunshine Coast service—it is intended that this service will go well beyond the Sunshine Coast to other areas of Queensland—my aunt by marriage, my wife’s father’s sister: Mrs Pam Meacle. She was almost killed when she was hit by a car on a pedestrian crossing at Maroochydore some 15 years ago. She was rushed to a Brisbane hospital in the Energex rescue helicopter. The Energex rescue helicopter is a wonderful service. It has saved so many lives in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales. The whole time she was in the helicopter she was on life support. She was not expected to survive. Pam tells me that it took 12 years of slow recovery, including recovery from a brain injury, before she was right again. Today she is very honest and open about her experience and her predicament. She knows that the motorist who hit her had not intended to do it and that he has also suffered significant psychological trauma as a result of the accident. She is very open minded and a fair person. She feels no animosity towards the man. She actually feels for him and realises that a service like Road Trauma Services Queensland may have been helpful had it been around all those years ago.
I commend the caring individuals who support and push this service, including Queensland police officer Gary Church of the Sunshine Coast Accident Investigation Squad, who has seen these events and effects firsthand. It really is important that the community support this service because this service has the capacity to assist so many people who in the past have simply not had access to the counselling and support services most seriously needed following some road accidents, which seem to happen all too often on our roads not only in south-east Queensland but more generally throughout the nation.
Road Trauma Services Queensland will have a positive impact so it is vital that the expansion of this service to other areas of Queensland be expedited. On behalf of the community I congratulate Mrs Pam Meacle and all those working with her to make sure that Road Trauma Services Queensland is able to perform the valuable role that I know it will perform. In our community we need people like Mrs Pam Meacle who are able to be role models for others, who are able to selflessly give their time, who are able to offer the benefit of their experiences and who are able to make sure that others in similarly traumatic situations receive the assistance that they and people associated with their accident did not receive at the time. I want to commend Road Trauma Services for the wonderful role it plays.
The central proposition of the Howard government’s extreme industrial relations laws is that every worker has the capacity to negotiate with their boss on the terms and conditions of their employment in a free and fair manner. This relies on the false assumption that employers and employees have equal bargaining power.
Last night on The 7.30 Report the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey, indicated his unwavering belief that employers and employees come to the bargaining table on equal terms. He said:
So I think if people have the capacity to negotiate to buy a house, to buy a car, if people have the individual capacity to raise children, why don’t they have the individual capacity to be able to negotiate employment terms and conditions ...
To compare the purchase of a car or a house or the raising of children to negotiating with your boss shows a level of ignorance that quite frankly I was amazed this minister possesses. The comments surprised me as I was confident that the minister knew that, when you buy a house or a car or when you are raising your child, you are generally not doing it by yourself. I would also have thought that the minister would recognise the vastly different power relationships that exist in such transactions.
That is the basic assumption that underpins Work Choices. That is at the very heart of Work Choices. For instance, does the minister really believe that a teenager seeking their first job is equipped to negotiate their own terms and conditions with their boss on a fair basis? Does an unskilled worker who has been out of work for some time have the capacity to negotiate on a fair and equal basis? What about a mother returning to work after time spent raising a family? Does she really have the capacity to negotiate on a fair and equal basis? Does someone suffering financial stress who is facing the loss of their house have the reality of being able to negotiate on a fair and equal basis with their employer?
I doubt whether a new university graduate would have the ability to be able to sit down and negotiate on a fair and equal basis, let alone someone from a regional or rural area who has access to a limited number of employment opportunities. Do they really have the capacity to negotiate, as the minister says, on a fair and equal basis? Does someone with a disability, no matter how severe, really have the capacity to negotiate on a fair and equal basis? We should also spare a thought for the migrants that we are attracting to this country. What is fair and equal in presenting them with addressing their employer on a one-on-one basis? I suggest that is also not fair and equal in that relationship.
The answer to all of these questions, quite frankly, is that they do not have a fair and equal opportunity. Not everyone has the level of self-confidence, let alone economic confidence, needed to be able to negotiate for themselves, and why should they have to? It is about time that the minister took off his rose-coloured glasses and realised that, in most circumstances, individual employees do not want to negotiate one-on-one with their employer.
In all cases, without doubt, the power in the employment relationship is held by the employer. In the overwhelming number of cases, I have to say that bosses do not abuse their power. In the vast majority of cases they will work to actually ensure that employees are looked after. However, it only takes one employer—one competitor—to decide that they will use the full extent of the Work Choices legislation to gain a competitive advantage, to force someone facing the loss of their business unless they compete and go down the same path. It only takes one employer to do that to change the situation. The reality hits home, and this is the truth—employers hold all of the cards. For employees there is no real opportunity to negotiate. There is no real opportunity to say no. There is no real choice at all.
It might not be said out aloud, but everyone who is presented with a Work Choices AWA knows that they only really have one choice and that is to either take it or leave it. As I said, the vast majority of employers that I have dealt with are good people and care for their employees. Unfortunately, it only takes some unscrupulous operators to come in and use the full extent of the law to cut costs to change things markedly in the workforce. Work Choices condones the actions of unscrupulous employers and encourages good employers to act badly. (Time expired)
I would like to spend the time I have in the Main Committee today to acknowledge the enormous contribution volunteers make, not only to the communities in my electorate of Forde. They are out there everywhere donating their time, effort, money and experience to the wellbeing of Australians.
The Costs of volunteering taskforce report chaired by Professor Myles McGregor-Lowndes that was released last month really brought home to us the major role that volunteers play in our communities. They are the backbone of our nation. They are also the heart and soul that jell our communities together. The report stated that average out-of-pocket expense for volunteers is approximately $600 per year. The report highlighted the fact that 6.3 million adults that volunteer in Australia did not want to be paid for their work because it would breach the spirit of volunteering. But there is a growing problem for some volunteers, the majority being pensioners. With the increased cost of fuel, phone calls and uniforms et cetera, they are being forced to give up their volunteering and the important role that they play in their communities.
I congratulate the Howard government on introducing the volunteer small equipment grant to assist the not-for-profit groups in the electorates with equipment to ease their workload. I have witnessed firsthand how beneficial and welcome these grants are in the electorate, but I believe we should change the guidelines and allow the funds to be used to reimburse volunteers for their out-of-pocket expenses. This would stop the mass exit of volunteers, who are being forced to give up what they like doing the most and what gives them real purpose in life.
We must take into serious consideration that the volunteers save all governments in Australia tens of billions of dollars a year. Professor Ironmonger recently estimated the figure to be at least $42 billion, which is 24 per cent of our budget. I believe we must act swiftly to sustain this wealth of expertise because, if we do not, 700,000 not-for-profit organisations in Australia who only employ 35,000 paid staff will experience major difficulties. We will see many of our vital community support groups disappear from our communities.
We must seriously take a good, long, hard look at the figures in the Volunteering Australia task force report. Their figures indicate that volunteering in Australia has doubled in the last decade from 3.2 million to 6.3 million. This is great news. But numbers in the US, Britain and Canada are dropping. This is a worry, because I believe that, if we do not assist our volunteers, we could follow this overseas trend. As I stated previously, this will spell disaster to our vital community support groups.
I personally acknowledge the volunteers in my electorate of Forde annually with a Forde community contribution award ceremony. The dedication of these special people never ceases to amaze me. Just as a quick example, Josephine Ferguson from Beaudesert has for the past 20 years worked doing emergency relief work and she has also worked for 20 years with Meals on Wheels. She helps voluntarily at our local Wongaburra Nursing Home. It is an amazing contribution.
There is also Murray Willem from Beenleigh. He has done 16 years of dedicated service to the Beenleigh touch football club for our juniors and he has encouraged young people off our streets and into sports. That is another major contribution. Kenneth Baker from North Tamborine has done some amazing work for 21 years at the Tamborine Mountain historical society village and also the Tamborine Mountain Garden Club, which converts our parks into beautiful gardens in the Tamborine Mountain area. That is something that visitors come from miles around to have a look at. Tom Ferguson has donated an amazing 25 years of work to the Beaudesert tennis club doing coaching and secretarial work and as the president. Elaine Gilmore and her family and a group of friends at Boonah have for many years bought and collected hundreds of toys all year around and they give them away at Christmas time to people in my electorate. Carol Caswell has done 15 years of voluntary work at Rural Options giving service to the disabled.
I take the remaining time to sincerely thank many hundreds of people in my electorate who give their time so freely. I would also like to place on record the wonderful work that Senator Guy Barnett does in advocating the importance of maintaining the support of volunteers and highlighting the enormous contribution that they make to the wellbeing of every Australian.
Question agreed to.