Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Costello.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This Trade Practices Amendment (Small Business Protection) Bill 2007 amends section 87 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 to allow the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to take legal action on behalf of persons who have suffered or are likely to suffer loss or damage as a result of unlawful secondary boycotts.
Currently, the ACCC cannot take such action even though it is able to do so in relation to all other forms of anticompetitive conduct under part IV of the Trade Practices Act. There is no good reason for excluding secondary boycott conduct. The government believes that people affected by unlawful secondary boycotts should have access to the same remedies as people suffering loss or damage as a result of all other forms of anticompetitive conduct under part IV of the Trade Practices Act.
The relevant secondary boycott provisions are contained in sections 45D and 45E of the Trade Practices Act.
A secondary boycott involves action by two or more people acting in concert, which prevents a third party, such as a potential customer or supplier, from dealing with or doing business with the target. The innocent third party, who has nothing to do with the dispute, which is the subject of the direct boycott, suffers loss or damage as a result of the boycott.
Sections 45D and 45E of the Trade Practices Act deal with two types of secondary boycotts. Section 45D prohibits two persons from acting in concert to hinder or prevent a third person from supplying or acquiring goods or services from the target of the boycott, where the purpose or likely effect of the conduct is to cause substantial loss or damage to the business of the target.
Section 45E prohibits a person from making an agreement with a trade union for the purpose of preventing or hindering the supply or acquisition of goods or services between that person and the target of the boycott. At present, the ACCC is able to investigate and prosecute unlawful secondary boycotts under sections 45D and 45E, but it cannot bring representative actions—that is, the ACCC cannot seek compensation for damages on behalf of parties affected by a contravention of the provisions.
On previous occasions when parliament has considered extending representative action to these provisions, the debate has centred on whether the provisions themselves should form part of the act or whether they should be reclassified as questions of industrial relations.
On this issue, the government’s position is clear: this is a matter of competition policy because trade is adversely affected in the market affected by an unlawful boycott. Secondary boycotts can have a significant impact on our economy. They disrupt trade, they reduce output and they inhibit competition. It is important that we provide a strong disincentive for those people who would target, intimidate and bully small business by applying a secondary boycott to that business.
As the provisions are part of the Trade Practices Act, it makes sense to allow the ACCC to have consistent enforcement powers across all the provisions in part IV.
In relation to concerns about extending the ACCC’s capacity to take representative actions, it should be emphasised that the government’s changes will not create a new cause of action. Unlawful secondary boycotts are already prohibited by the Trade Practices Act, and the ACCC can currently obtain substantial penalties against parties who contravene sections 45D and 45E. These reforms are about enabling the ACCC to bring a representative action seeking compensation and other remedies.
The ACCC takes into consideration a number of factors in determining whether it will bring a representative action, including the resources available to those affected to bring their own action. Therefore, these reforms will be of particular benefit to Australian small businesses that often do not have either the time or resources to commence legal action.
For over 10 years, the government has committed itself to implementing reforms which provide fairer outcomes for small business. This commitment is in recognition of not only the significant contribution small business makes to our economy, but also of the fact that the nearly two million Australian small businesses often lack the power and resources to take action when they experience unfair treatment. This is particularly so in relation to secondary boycotts, as small businesses operating on tight margins and with limited cash flows find it difficult to bear both the cost of the secondary boycott and the burden of initiating legal proceedings.
As a result of this bill, those who would inflict economic damage on small Australian businesses under sections 45D and 45E of the act will no longer be able to do this with impunity. Instead, they will be held to account for the economic damage that they cause as the ACCC will, for the first time, be able to bring a representative action on behalf of those small businesses.
The government reaffirms its commitment to stand up for small business against thuggery and intimidation. It is vital, both for our economy and our way of life.
These amendments will achieve greater consistency in the administration of the Trade Practices Act and provide Australian small businesses with greater protection from unlawful secondary boycott conduct.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Albanese) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Turnbull.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I am delighted to introduce the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Bill 2007. This bill is the first major step in establishing the Australian emissions trading scheme. On 17 July this year the Prime Minister announced that Australia would introduce an emissions trading scheme, commencing no later than 2012. This will be the most comprehensive emissions trading scheme in the world, broader in coverage than any scheme currently operating anywhere.
This world-leading scheme will cover between 70 and 75 per cent of total emissions, or almost 100 per cent of industrial energy and mining emissions. By including large emitters alone, the scheme would cover 55 per cent of total emissions. However, by including transport and other fuels, the coverage of the scheme is significantly increased. The emissions trading scheme is a major plank of the Australian government’s $3.4 billion climate change strategy.
The bill I am introducing today lays the foundation for Australia’s emissions trading scheme. Robust data reported under this bill will form the basis of emissions liabilities under emissions trading, and will inform decision making during the establishment of the emissions trading system, including with regard to permit allocation and incentives for early abatement action. The bill will establish a single, national framework for reporting greenhouse gas emissions and abatement actions by corporations from 1 July 2008.
The Australian government has invested $26.1 million to establish this system, which will also cover reporting on energy consumption and production. The bill also gives effect to the decision of the Council of Australian Governments on 13 April this year to streamline the reporting obligations of corporations. It will eliminate duplicative reporting and reduce red tape currently imposed by the patchwork of separate state, territory and national reporting schemes.
Hundreds of Australian corporations are already providing the same or similar data to multiple state, territory and national greenhouse and energy reporting programs. Each program has been developed in isolation and often subtly has different requirements, meaning that a unique report is required under every program. In some cases, corporations are preparing eight different reports, based on similar data, under eight different programs. The excessive red tape and unnecessary cost this situation inflicts on the Australian economy will be eliminated under this bill.
The government will continue to work cooperatively with state and territory governments to transition towards a single national reporting system that will meet their data needs and deliver streamlining benefits to industry in time for the 2009-10 reporting period.
The bill also removes the additional, duplicative greenhouse gas reporting requirements added to the National Pollutant Inventory by the National Environment Protection Council in June this year. Removing this duplication is consistent with the council’s decision to rescind the greenhouse gas component of the variation once the national mandatory reporting system is in force.
To enable the secure sharing of data between the Australian government and state and territory governments, the bill will establish data security and confidentiality protection arrangements. Secure access to nationally consistent data will better inform the greenhouse response and energy policies of all governments in Australia.
The bill will improve the Australian government’s ability to meet its international reporting obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and to the International Energy Agency. It will also, for the first time, provide easily accessible company level information to investors and the general public on greenhouse gas emissions and energy use by Australia’s major companies.
The bill requires corporations which produce or consume more than a specified amount of energy, or emit more than a specified amount of greenhouse gases, to register with the scheme and report annually on their energy use or emissions. The thresholds for the scheme have been set at a level which will capture a significant proportion of Australia’s emissions, while avoiding significant impacts on small business.
Under the scheme provided by this bill, it is estimated that around 700 companies will report on their greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and energy production.
Reporting will be managed through a system based on the Australian government’s Online System for Comprehensive Activity Reporting, developed for the government’s Greenhouse Challenge Plus Program. The bill provides for the creation of a new statutory position, the Greenhouse and Energy Data Officer, to administer the scheme.
A corporation will report emissions or energy use from facilities over which it has operational control; that is, facilities where it has authority to introduce and implement operating policies, health and safety policies or environmental policies. This approach places the responsibility for reporting on entities which have a direct influence on the operation of facilities and is consistent with approaches taken internationally for reporting and emissions trading schemes.
The thresholds at which corporations will be obliged to register and report will be phased in over three years, to provide those companies less likely to be reporting under existing schemes with time to prepare for the scheme. From the third year of the scheme’s operation, corporate groups will be required to report on their greenhouse gas emissions and energy production and consumption for any financial year in which they emit more than 50,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases (measured in carbon dioxide equivalent), or which produce or consume more than 200 terajoules of energy.
The bill will also require corporations to report on facilities which either emit more than 25 kilotonnes of greenhouse gas (measured in carbon dioxide equivalent) or produce or consume more than 100 terajoules of energy in a single financial year. Regulations on determining control of facilities, and boundaries around facilities, will be very detailed to ensure that industry has clarity on their reporting obligations.
In keeping with the need for the reporting system to underpin emissions trading, the bill allows for a range of enforcement approaches, including criminal offences for corporations which provide false information. It establishes a system for monitoring compliance with the scheme, including a system of infringement notices and enforceable undertakings. These provide a range of possible alternatives to heavy penalties.
It is anticipated that corporations will improve their reporting processes over time. The emphasis of the compliance and enforcement regime in the initial years of the scheme will accordingly be on encouraging compliance, rather than on punitive measures. As the scheme matures, a more stringent approach will be appropriate, particularly with regard to data that will inform emissions trading.
The government has consulted industry and the states and territories on key design elements of the national reporting system to ensure that the system delivers genuine reductions in red tape and in business costs. This government is serious about addressing climate change and is responding comprehensively, progressing the necessary detailed work underpinning emissions trading. This bill clearly demonstrates the Australian government’s commitment to an effective climate change response and the delivery of an efficient energy market based on sound and robust data and analysis. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Bevis) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Billson.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
In October 2005, in tabling the government’s response to the 2005 Senate report into The effectiveness of Australia’s military justice system, the previous Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon. Robert Hill, commented that the Australian Defence Force does a truly magnificent job in defending this nation and its interests. He also added that the government was committed to providing the best equipment and conditions of service to ensure that the ADF is a modern fighting force and that hand in hand with this is a determination to provide a military justice system that is as effective and fair as possible.
The government continues to express its admiration of defence personnel undertaking important and often dangerous activities in Australia and on overseas operations.
The government is also committed to reforming the military justice system to address the concerns of defence personnel, the parliament and the community. This Bill is designed to make significant enhancements to the military justice system, which in turn will facilitate confidence in that system amongst those it serves.
The changes are intended to provide for and balance the maintenance of effective discipline and the protection of individuals and the rights of Australian Defence Force members. This does not mean simply applying civilian standards and procedures to the Defence Force as this would not allow the ADF to perform its mission safely and effectively.
Because of the unique nature of warfare, the ADF applies a far greater level of regulation than that encountered in other forms of employment and demands behaviour which is consistent with its role as an armed force. Breaches of services discipline must be dealt with speedily and, sometimes, more severely than would be the case if a civilian engaged in such conduct. The military justice system needs to be one that can operate in Australia and overseas in times of peace and war. As the transition between peace and war can occur quickly, it is not practicable to have different systems with different standards applying in each of these circumstances.
The government recognises the need for these additional constraints and standards and that the military justice procedures that accompany them must be demonstrably objective, as independent as possible, timely, impartial and fair to ADF members, and that they must be seen to be so by the Australian people.
In 2006, the first stage of significant reforms to the ADF discipline system was implemented through the establishment of a statutorily independent and transparent Australian Military Court. The court will come into effect on 1 October 2007. The second stage of these reforms makes further significant improvements to the military justice system—in particular, through the modernisation and redesign of the summary discipline system.
Commanding officers in the ADF carry great responsibility, which may ultimately require them to use lethal force lawfully and with great discipline. The summary discipline system is the cornerstone of command authority in an armed force and enables the timely maintenance of discipline and morale.
The balance between discipline and the rights of individuals is the key to achieving the operational effectiveness and success that the nation expects of its armed forces and of which the nation can be proud. It is this balance that produces a defence force that can wield lethal force while reflecting the values of its homeland and complying with its international obligations.
The ADF summary discipline system forms one part of the military discipline system which, taken as a whole, must provide the safeguards necessary to protect the interests of ADF members. Commanders use the summary discipline system on a daily basis. It is integral to their ability to lead the people for whom they are responsible in order to ensure their welfare and safety. It must operate quickly, be as simple as possible and be capable of proper, fair and correct application by commanding officers.
It is upon this premise that the Australian military justice system is based and the amendments proposed in this bill have been drafted.
To ensure this fairness and rigour, the bill will introduce a number of enhancements to the summary discipline system including:
A number of other significant improvements to the Military Justice system are included in the bill.
Following a review of offences and punishments in the Defence Force Discipline Act, a number of proposed changes will be effected in the bill, including:
These changes will make an immediate contribution to the rigour, fairness and transparency of offences and punishments under the DFDA.
A number of other agreed recommendations from the 2001 Report of an inquiry into military justice in the Australian Defence Force by Mr JCS Burchett QC will also be effected in the bill. These include:
Additional proposals include:
These recommendations and initiatives, when implemented, will streamline and improve the ADF discipline system. I want to commend Rear Admiral Mark Bonser, head of the military justice implementation team, and deputy head, Air Commodore Simon Harvey and the team in total for their support and also my defence advisor, Cameron Hooke, for his advice, support and wise counsel.
A modern and professional force deserves a modern and effective system of military justice. With the reforms contained in this bill, the government will provide a system that improves impartiality and fairness while striking the correct balance between ensuring effective discipline to allow the Australian Defence Force to operate safely and effectively, and protecting individuals and their rights.
I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Albanese) adjourned.
On behalf of the Leader of the House, I move:
That:
I am often perplexed as to what the Leader of the House actually does. There are motions appearing in his name but he is never actually here to move them, nor is the Deputy Leader of the House here to move them in his absence. So it is very difficult to have a debate about changes to procedures in the way that the House of Representatives will operate when there are no responsible ministers in the chamber to respond.
However, the detail of this motion before the House also reflects the lack of common courtesy towards not just the members of the House of Representatives but the general public as well. If the visit of the Canadian Prime Minister is important enough to have a joint sitting of parliament and have the Canadian Prime Minister’s address to us broadcast to the nation, then it is important enough to tell us when it will be. This is a mere three weeks away and yet the motion before the House states that the Rt Hon. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, will attend and address the House on Tuesday, 11 September 2007 at a time to be notified by the Speaker.
The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs opposite has been forced to pretend that he is Tony Abbott once again because the Leader of the House is never here to do his job. He usually rushes out immediately question time is over and does not even do the basic procedural business of the House. That is symbolic of government that has stopped governing. This is a government that has stopped governing. This is a government that is out of ideas, out of touch and out of time.
It is extraordinary that a motion could come before the House not moved by the Leader of the House, who, whilst he does not have time to do what he is paid to do by the Australian taxpayers, does have time to do doorstops regularly, including this morning defending the extraordinary revelations surrounding the Treasurer’s contempt for and, indeed, hatred of the Prime Minister. The Leader of the House sees it as his job to be engaged just in partisan politics—in being the bovver boy for the government. But he does not see it as his job to do the basic functions to which he has the honour of being entrusted as the Leader of the House.
I would hope that later today the Leader of the House, in between doing doorstops defending the completely dysfunctional relationship between the Treasurer and the Prime Minister, could convey to the House and therefore to the Australian public the timing of this address, whether or not there will be an adjournment or a lunch held, which would normally occur for a visiting dignitary, and what the arrangements will be for the sitting times of the House of Representatives on that day. Many organisational details for that day in parliament revolve around the visit of Prime Minister Harper.
We know that Prime Minister Harper has been invited to speak to this parliament in reciprocation for Prime Minister Howard addressing the Canadian parliament. We know that it is a personal arrangement, essentially. Whilst those on this side do not object to these personal arrangements—we do not object, and we have supported Prime Minister Harper addressing the joint sitting—it is a bit much to extend the personal arrangements between ideological bedfellows such that the whole of the parliament should revolve around this without being properly informed and able to make appropriate arrangements. Those on this side of the House take our responsibilities very seriously indeed. The Leader of the Opposition is out there this morning talking about educational opportunities and preparing young Australians, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, to ensure that they have the best opportunities in life. That is the sort of activity we are engaged in as the opposition in putting forward a future agenda.
On that day, as we would normally do on a Tuesday, we would have party room meetings. Our caucus meets on the Tuesday morning. The arrangements for Prime Minister Harper’s address could impact on that. It could also impact on the joint party room. It may well be that those opposite do not want to have a joint party meeting. They could transfer it to another venue; the Hordern Pavilion used to have punch-ups and wrestling in years gone past. Given the extraordinary, dysfunctional breakdown of relationships at the most senior levels of the government, it may well be that the government does not want to have a joint party meeting at that time. That would not be surprising. You have not just the Prime Minister and the Treasurer; last night you had the minister for ageing and seniors, when going into the Treasurer’s drinks for his not-so-happy 50th birthday, refusing to say anything nice whatsoever about the Prime Minister.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Our abundant reservoir of goodwill goes so far. I understand the opposition is worried about diary planning—what they might have for lunch and the like—but is there a chance we might come back to recognising an invitation for the Rt Hon. Stephen Harper on Tuesday, 11 September and all of the consequential issues? I am sure the member for Grayndler’s diary coordinator and his dietary arrangements will be able to be canvassed as soon as those—
Order! The minister will resume his seat. The member for Grayndler will associate his comments with the question before the chair.
Absolutely, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am very disappointed. I thought the minister might actually have got a response and been able to tell the parliament about the arrangements on Tuesday, 11 September 2007, but he was unable to do so. It appears that we will have to wait until a later time today. I just hope that this is resolved quickly, because it could well be the last sitting week that we have of this parliament as it moves to a close.
We on this side do want to get the details of this arrangement: firstly, because it is the right thing to do for the House of Representatives; secondly, because the public has a right to know; and, thirdly, because we on this side of the House are interested in developing the future agenda that we have for the nation. We know that those on that side of the House are only interested in squabbling amongst themselves and that they have ceased governing, but they have taken it to the point where we now have uncertainty about the sitting day after next, which is what we are talking about.
The Main Committee does not sit most of the time now because there is no legislation for it to consider. We have the extraordinary situation whereby this week the government is stopping its departing members—those who are departing voluntarily—from making statements that it would be appropriate to make at this time of the year. I conclude by asking the minister to visit the Leader of the House. I do not suggest you try his office. Perhaps if you go to the doors and wait for the next doorstop by the Leader of the House you could ask him what the details are for the sitting day after next. I do not think it is too much to ask that that information be given to the House of Representatives and the Australian public.
I wish to make a few brief remarks in support of the Manager of Opposition Business. Honourable members should be advised what time the joint sitting will take place. It seems extraordinary to me that in the motion before us the time is omitted. Mr Deputy Speaker, you may recall that the original schedule of sittings for the parliament included Monday, 10 September. In consequence of the visit by two prime ministers—not only the Canadian Prime Minister but also the Japanese Prime Minister—the Leader of the House changed the sitting pattern to remove Monday as a sitting day. You may recall that I asked the Speaker whether or not, in view of the fact that there was only one Prime Minister visiting, the Monday would be reinstated. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen.
If the Leader of the House or the Deputy Leader of the House were here they may be able to confirm whether or not the sitting pattern that week has been changed for the Senate—whether the other place will be sitting from Monday to Friday. I ask the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, who is at the table and is acting on behalf of the Leader of the House, or alternatively the Deputy Leader of the House, whether he can confirm these changed sitting arrangements. I know that all honourable members would be interested to learn whether or not that is the case in relation to the sitting week in the House that now commences not on Monday, 10 September but on Tuesday, 11 September.
Question agreed to.
Debate resumed from 21 June, on motion by Mr Ruddock:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I note, first of all, that Labor is supportive of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment (Terrorist Material) Bill 2007. We will be voting for it in the House of Representatives and also in the Senate, but we will be moving some amendments consistent with the recommendations of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I move:
That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
The aim of the legislation is to provide greater clarity as to whether or not terrorist material must be refused classification by the Classification Board of the Office of Film and Literature Classification. The bill will insert a new section 9A into the act, which provides that material which advocates terrorist acts must be banned. The new section also provides the criteria that will be used to determine whether or not material advocates the doing of a terrorist act, specifically, whether it: (a) directly or indirectly counsels or urges the doing of a terrorist act; (b) directly or indirectly provides instruction on the doing of a terrorist act; and (c) directly praises the doing of a terrorist act in circumstances where there is a risk that such praise might have the effect of leading a person, regardless of his or her age or any mental impairment—within the meaning of section 7.3 of the Criminal Code—that the person might suffer, to engage in a terrorist act.
The report of the Senate committee recommended that changes be made to paragraph (c) to remove the phrase ‘regardless of his or her age or any mental impairment (within the meaning of section 7.3 of the Criminal Code) that the person may suffer’. This is an amendment that Labor will move, and I will return to those Senate committee recommendations shortly.
Proposed new section 9A(3) provides clarification of this. It provides that the section does not apply if the depiction or description could reasonably be considered to be done merely as part of a public discussion or debate or is entertainment or satire. So material which is produced genuinely for public debate or is produced for entertainment and satire will not fall under the aegis of proposed section 9A.
The bill originates from revelations earlier this year that films advocating terrorist acts of martyrdom and jihad had in fact been rated PG by the Office of Film and Literature Classification after referral of the material by the Australian Federal Police. In response to this, the Attorney-General firstly called on the states and territories to amend the classification laws and subsequently released a discussion paper on material that advocates terrorist acts, which has resulted in this bill.
Labor’s response was to call on the minister to immediately refer the films to the Classification Review Board on the grounds that the material promoted and incited matters of crime or violence. However, I do note that the Sydney Morning Herald had revealed the existence of these movies two years ago. At that time, the Attorney-General promised that he would act but then did nothing for a year until he wrote to the states to request action on the National Classification Code. Surprisingly enough, the Attorney-General has now decided that it is time to act, three months out from an election—indeed, perhaps less than three months out from an election.
Rather than bringing forward this legislation when the situation became public knowledge two years ago, and rather than acting to protect Australians from this material at that time, the government and the Attorney have instead chosen to debate this legislation in the final sitting weeks before an election. I say to the Attorney and the government that they should not try to point the finger of blame at the states for this delay, for not agreeing to the proposals which were taken to the SCAG meetings earlier this year. The Attorney knew about the problem for a year before he wrote to the states, so it is a bit rich to sit on the issue for a year and then foist it upon the states and expect them suddenly to agree. Once again, the government is a picture of panic in slow motion. The government has known of the existence of this material for the past two years and until the introduction of this legislation had done precious little in an attempt to remove it.
At this point I want to take a moment to say something about the Classification Review Board. The chief problem facing Australia’s classification regime these days is simply the fact that the government has spent the past 11 years making sure that, instead of community representation, Liberal Party mates are more than well represented on that Classification Review Board. We have now reached the stage where four out of seven members of the review board have either direct or very close links to the Liberal Party. In other words, we have a board that, in large part, is representative not of the community at large but of a narrow political ideology represented in the Liberal Party. How can the Australian community have confidence in the classification watchdog when more than half of its members are representative of such a narrow constituency? The government, as it has done with so many other Public Service institutions that it has had its hands on, has transformed the Classification Review Board into a source of jobs for Liberal Party mates.
I note that in the community there are many who have expressed opposition to this bill. I want to make a couple of comments in the hope of allaying some of those concerns. It is Labor’s opinion that the bill will not improperly or unfairly impact on the legitimate right of the community to debate these issues. I note that there are moves underway at the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General that will allow for much greater freedom for academics to access the material that has been refused classification. As we understand that many in the community have legitimate concerns regarding the legislation, there are a number of points that need to be made in response to those concerns.
The first point is that the concerns of many in the community opposed to this bill have to be weighed against competing interests, which include the right of the community to protect itself from material which openly advocates violent attacks upon it. The unfortunate and unacceptable situation at the moment is that we have material which openly advocates for young children to become terrorists and which racially vilifies groups, particularly Jewish people, being given a rating of PG. As Australia’s alternative government, Labor takes the threat of terrorism seriously. We will not allow a situation to evolve where material, such as Hamas’s infamous Mickey Mouse and Jihad bee characters, indoctrinates young Islamic children into committing acts of violence.
I point out that this bill belatedly arose out of a situation in which a DVD urged young children to become terrorists and martyrs yet had been given the same rating as The Neverending Story or Star Wars. There is a serious and legitimate concern about freely allowing material which openly purports to turn children into holy warriors or terrorists to circulate. While there is a general presumption in our society and in the Classification Code that adults should be able to see and read what they wish, there have always been limits on that right, and our society has endorsed those restrictions over time. On balance, we believe that this legislation strikes the appropriate balance between the competing desires of public safety and the rights of adults to see and read what they wish.
The second point I would like to make is that there are legitimate uses of this material—for academic, security and intelligence purposes. I note that some have called for an exemption for academics from the provisions of this new bill. However, I am advised this cannot be achieved for technical reasons. While it is the Commonwealth which classifies the material, it is the states or territories which provide penalties for its distribution. So this is not something which we can achieve directly here, through federal legislation.
However, I would note that there are currently proposals before the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General looking at ways to allow academics and others with a legitimate interest to legally access material that has been rated RC. I hope that the Attorney at some point will be able to provide some further insights into that matter. It is clearly an important issue that needs to be properly addressed. In federal Labor’s view, this is an appropriate way to progress the issue. We support the SCAG process. I understand that the proposals before SCAG do go a long way towards eliminating many of the concerns that have been raised in this area.
The third point I would like to make is that this legislation in many respects only clarifies what could be fairly regarded as the existing position. The National Classification Code, as it stands, already provides that material that counsels, praises, urges or instructs in matters of crime or violence must be refused classification. As advocating terrorism and terrorist acts are already offences under the Commonwealth Criminal Code, the effect of the legislation is largely to clarify the situation of material that promotes and incites terrorism. The effect of the scheme would be to streamline the process for police investigations of this material. If the police believed that material advocated a terrorist act—again, already an offence under the Criminal Code—they would be able to refer it to the Office of Film and Literature Classification for their consideration and subsequent classification.
Finally, I make the point that the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs has recommended a change to the legislation to make it easier for the material to be classified. I have touched on this briefly before. But a problem arises in clause 9A(2)(c), which provides that material must be banned if ‘it directly praises the doing of a terrorist act in circumstances where there is a risk that such praise might have the effect of leading a person—regardless of his or her age or any mental impairment (within the meaning of section 7.3 of the Criminal Code) that the person might suffer—to engage in a terrorist act’. The Senate made this recommendation after receiving submissions, including from the Classification Review Board, that this clause would be difficult to enforce. They said:
It is difficult to envisage circumstances where the review board might objectively assess how a teenager, for example, or a person with some mental impairment might react to praise of a terrorist act.
The committee ultimately recommended the removal of this clause from the bill. Labor supports that view and will be moving amendments in the Senate in an effort to achieve that outcome.
I again remind the House that for the last two years the current government has allowed material of this kind to be freely circulated within Australia. That is a concern. Action on these matters could have and should have been taken much earlier. However, the legislation that is before the House is appropriately adapted to the twin tasks of providing proper guidelines for the classification of terrorist material and ensuring that the principle that adults should prima facie be able to read and view what they want is also upheld.
When the bill is before the Senate, we will be moving the amendment to which I have referred. I would encourage the government and the Attorney-General—who I am pleased to say is in the chamber, for which I thank him—to give consideration to the adoption of Labor’s amendment, which addresses a concern noted by the committee, including a number of senators from his own party. Labor, as I said, will be supporting the bill.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I rise to support the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment (Terrorist Material) Bill 2007. It gives me no great pleasure to follow the member for Brisbane. The member for Brisbane spoke about the Liberal Party having a narrow constituency, but perhaps it has eluded him that, on this side of the House, we have representation from nurses, policemen, milkmen, doctors, lawyers and motor mechanics—unlike the situation opposite, where trade union hacks litter the opposition benches at a time when less than 17 per cent of the workforce in the private sector is unionised. This is the situation in a party that has been gutless and stuck in a previous century and refuses to reform its party structure to allow within its ranks genuine, fair representation of the Australian community. They know it, and they are embarrassed by it. The member for Brisbane’s bold claim that the Liberal Party has a narrow constituency does indeed ring very hollow.
The member for Brisbane also spoke about the threat of terrorism. I could not help but sense yet again Labor saying ‘me too’. But let us stop for a minute and think: had the Labor Party been in government instead of the coalition over the last few years, would we have had the myriad of security measures that this government has taken? The answer is no.
They like to say, ‘We’re exactly the same as the coalition.’ They like to say, ‘We will be just as strong on security and terrorism.’ But we know, and in their hearts the Australian people also know, that this is wrong, that this is false. It does not matter how many times and how loudly the Labor Party say, ‘We are just as strong against terrorism as the coalition’; in their hearts the Australian people know it is not true.
When the Attorney-General presented this bill to the House in June, there was a view around the parliament that perhaps we would not need to proceed with the bill as the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General would be meeting in July and this issue would be resolved with amendments to the National Classification Code and guidelines, which require the consent and agreement of the states and territories. That meeting of the state and territory attorneys-general occurred on 27 July this year, exactly one year since the standing committee had previously met. It should be noted that New South Wales and South Australia were the only two states who agreed to support the amendments to the classification act that were proposed by the Australian government.
The Attorney-General is on record as saying that he would rather have dealt with the matter under the provisions of the National Classification Code and guidelines than under the classification act. But, as the National Classification Scheme is a cooperative disposition with the states and territories, all state and territory attorneys-general and the Commonwealth Attorney-General must agree to the provisions contained in the code and the associated guidelines.
Let no-one be confused as to the lengths to which the Commonwealth Attorney-General has gone in seeking the agreement of the states and territories to amend the classification laws landscape. Indeed, much of his current role is taken in negotiating with all sorts of individuals within his party and between governments to get cooperation and agreement on essential legislation in the national interest.
This process has been going on for more than 12 months. In fact, on 27 July 2006, the Commonwealth Attorney-General noted that he was pleased that, after a meeting of the state and territory censorship ministers, the states were ‘willing to support a fresh look at the classification scheme’. Yet 12 months later, they did not agree to such important changes. It is like Victoria’s approach to the National Plan for Water Security all over again. You can just smell an election in the air when state Labor governments become recalcitrant and work against the national interest just to support their union hack mates in the federal parliament.
It is surely not a fanciful policy ideal to ensure that material advocating and supporting terrorism be illegal in our country. Why has it taken the states more than 12 months to come to terms with this basic policy ideal? We are not dealing with fairytales here. We are dealing with the very materials that advocate acts of terrorism. This bill amends the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 to require that publications, films and computer games that promote terrorist activity and terrorist acts be refused classification. This measure will essentially make it illegal to deliver, promote or sell such material in Australia. It is clear that the Australian government is serious about ensuring that material which supports and promotes terrorist activities will not be legally available in Australia.
Of course, concern has been expressed that this legislation may impinge on the notion of free speech. This is misguided as the proposal put before the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General clearly included provisions that would have ensured that these new provisions would not encroach or infringe upon our much valued freedom of speech or mainstream popular culture. In society we often say that prevention is better than cure. When we are dealing with terrorism, it seems that it is often prevention which is the hardest battleground to conquer.
Once again, some in the filmmaking industry and the publishing industry need to realise that these provisions are not intended to limit the authentic operation of their democratic right to free speech, nor are they intended to limit writers, publishers or filmmakers in dealing with sensitive subject matter in an informative manner. There are protections in the act for public discussion and debate, along with investigative journalistic work and other things such as historical analyses. However, the government believes that material which goes beyond this—material which might directly praise terrorist acts or might inspire, provoke or instigate terrorist activity—clearly needs to be dealt with under the Classification Act to ensure this material is free from the hands of those in our society who wish to do harm with evil intent.
We need to do everything we can to improve our laws to prevent material that glorifies terrorism by removing its circulation within our community. This is a basic responsibility we have as a national government: to ensure that we take these preventative measures in the national interest and in the interests of the safety of our communities right across Australia.
So I take the cries from prominent actors, academics and celebrities who claim that actions such as these are too draconian or an encroachment of civil liberties with a grain of salt. As the Attorney-General noted in his second reading speech on this bill, this is a very serious issue. He has noted that it is important to strike the right balance on matters such as this. On this matter I agree with him entirely. But that does not mean we should not take strong peremptory action in condemning terrorist acts, which are tightly defined under the Criminal Code, and the published material which might inspire terrorism.
The Attorney-General should be commended for bringing this matter to fruition. Whilst the government would have preferred that the states and territories came on board through amending the Classification Code, this was not to be the case as interstate egos, a federal election and other priorities got in the way. This is an issue that is far too important to get bogged down in petty politics. When passed, this bill will allow the Australian government to be in a better position to deal with material which advocates terrorist acts and we should support this wholeheartedly. I commend the bill to the House.
I thank the members for Brisbane and Indi for their contributions to the debate on the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment (Terrorist Material) Bill 2007. I particularly thank the member for Indi because I think her contribution was very measured, sensible and a constructive contribution to a debate that is of the utmost importance. I will come back to the member for Brisbane shortly, but let me just make it very clear that governments do have a responsibility to do everything possible to improve security to deal with potential terrorism threats in Australia. Waiting for a terrorist attack to occur is unacceptable, and I have been concerned for some time about the influences within our society that lead people into terrorism. We need our laws to deal with material that encourages people to commit terrorist attacks, and that is what this bill is about.
The Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment (Terrorist Material) Bill 2007 amends the Classification Act so that material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act must be refused classification. Material that has been refused classification cannot be legally sold, exhibited or displayed in Australia. There is significant doubt and uncertainty whether the current classification laws adequately catch material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act. What is clear is that something needs to be done. I would like to point out that this bill was not how I wanted to resolve the issue. I made it clear in my second reading speech that this bill would not proceed if the state and territory governments did not agree to amendments to the Classification Code and guidelines.
However, the states and territories have been anything but cooperative. I first sought their agreement over a year ago and have continued to press the issue in good faith since then. I was hopeful that agreement could be achieved at the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General meeting in July this year, but unfortunately the states and territories continue to frustrate the process, and I am not willing to indefinitely wait to address this problem. It is disappointing that the Commonwealth has been forced to go it alone on this issue. The states are clearly divided. New South Wales and South Australia indicated their support for the proposal. The National Classification Scheme requires the unanimous support of all governments. That is why the initiative failed. I want to make clear that New South Wales and South Australia did indicate their support. The states and territories are clearly divided on this issue.
In thanking members who have contributed to this debate, let me deal with the member for Brisbane very directly. I am quite disappointed by his amendment. He is not without accurate information in relation to the chronology of events in this matter. I was asked a question by his colleague in the other place—I assume he talks to the shadow Attorney, Senator Ludwig—and I answered on 24 May questions that went to this very issue.
I might table a chronology of events for the benefit of the House. It is a chronology which identifies that what happened in 2005 is that there was a discussion between me and Ray Hadley on radio station 2GB about the sale of books inciting terrorism, our sedition laws and also the classification process. I took steps following that matter back in July 2005 to have the AFP examine eight publications and one film, and they determined that no offences had been committed. The AFP provided material in December to the Classification Board for assessment, and they classified the film ‘PG’ and the publications ‘Unrestricted’. The AFP consulted with the DPP and then examined the material against the recently amended sedition laws. I requested advice and I received that. Separately, I applied to the Classification Review Board for a review of the classification of the eight publications and one film. I wrote to censorship ministers in June 2006, putting them on notice that this was an issue that I thought the censorship ministers should consider. The Classification Review Board did refuse classification for two publications. They reclassified the other six publications ‘Unrestricted’, and the film remained ‘PG’.
So it can be seen that I was very active in dealing with these issues. It can be said quite clearly that it is quite inappropriate to offer any criticism of me, in the form of the amendment, for delaying this matter and sitting on my hands for some two years, as suggested. It is quite inappropriate, given that the member had the chronology available to him, to draw those conclusions.
I notice that in his comments he went on to say that the extent to which academics might be able to access material that is seen to be advocating terrorism, for academic pursuits, is an issue that ought to be addressed. That was an issue that I put on the agenda for censorship ministers to deal with. It was an issue that I thought was appropriate to be examined. I notice that the shadow minister, the member for Brisbane, says that this is not an issue that the Commonwealth should deal with unilaterally and that I should continue to work with the states and territories. So on the one hand he says that I should work with the states and territories and continue to suffer the frustration of their inertia—and I might say that they are very slow to deal with these issues; that is, the praising and advocacy of terrorism acts in material—but on the other hand he says that I should in some way be condemned because I had endeavoured to treat with his Labor colleagues in state and territory governments.
I make it very clear that this is not an issue in which any delay can be sheeted home to me. It is an issue in which there has been very clear frustration of the process by certain Labor attorneys, and that indicates to me quite clearly that the Labor Party across this nation is not serious about dealing with terrorism issues. I was faced with a situation in which I could only get New South Wales and South Australia to support me, and people were coming into this chamber and saying: ‘Look, this is an important measure. You’ve been sitting on your hands. You should’ve been dealing with it and you should be criticised for it.’ And then they foreshadowed an amendment that the opposition intended to move in the Senate—not in this chamber, but in the Senate—which would effectively weaken the measures! They say they support the measures, but then they want to weaken the measures—and they do so very deliberately when they say that they would support an amendment that would effectively delete the measure that says that those who are looking at these issues should have regard to a person’s age and mental impairment when they look at the impact that material advocating terrorism might have on them.
I want to deal with that issue quite deliberately. This bill is not about restricting freedom of speech; it is about ensuring that material advocating terrorist acts is no longer legally available. The bill takes into account submissions received during the widespread consultations. The original proposal was modified to address concerns expressed about its scope. In particular, section 9A(3) of the proposed bill was added to make it clear that material that does no more than contribute to debate or public discussion or is of no more than entertainment value or satire is not material to which this provision is intended to apply. The explanatory memorandum states clearly that the provision is only intended to capture material which goes further than that and actually advocates the doing of a terrorist act. As I said, I did, as always, happily see the bill referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. The committee recommended that the bill be amended to delete reference to ‘regardless of his or her age or mental impairment’ from the proposal.
The government considers the amendment proposed by the committee unnecessary. In fact we think it would be highly undesirable because the Classification Scheme requires boards to consider the context of material and its target audience. Paragraph 9A(2)(c) makes certain that, in assessing whether there is a risk of a person engaging in terrorist acts, boards do not inappropriately consider only an average or ordinary person. The fact is that terrorist organisers make material available with a view to encouraging the naive and, in some cases, the mentally impaired to participate in terrorist acts—in particular, suicide bombing. The government believes that if the criteria is pared back in the way proposed by the opposition, the Classification Board and the Classification Review Board will make decisions with reference to whether the material presents a risk to the ordinary or average person. This measure would not be effective if that were adopted, and I would hope that the opposition would reconsider its approach on this matter. Let me make it very clear: this measure would not be effective unless boards consider those who are more vulnerable to this sort of material. I make it very clear that I would not want to be the one who finds that somebody who was mentally impaired picked up some of these messages and set off to carry out a suicide bombing here in Australia—influenced by material of that sort, which we could have done something about.
This is a major issue, as far as I am concerned, with the opposition. They are about putting in place measures that would be inadequate to protect the Australian community. Yet they come in here and say, ‘We’re not opposing the bill.’ It is clear that they see the bill as one that ought to be watered down. If you look at the way in which the Labor Party are looking at these issues across the nation, what you see is that they are clearly divided. We have the New South Wales government saying, ‘Look, we support you.’ The South Australian government says, ‘We support you.’ What does that say about Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia, the ACT or even the Northern Territory? What I say is that the Labor Party across this country are clearly divided about the urgency and the need to deal with these issues. They were prepared to frustrate this in the committee process. They have the audacity to come in here and suggest that I have been in some way derelict in my responsibilities because I saw fit not to play what they accuse us of being engaged in—that is, a blame game. But when you sit down and try to talk about the issues and work them through, you find it a very frustrating process. I am deeply disappointed that the opposition want to play around with this sort of issue. They pretend that they are just as concerned about these questions as the government, but they seek to undermine the legislation by amendments and they condone the actions of their colleagues in the states, who clearly were not prepared to come to the party on dealing with these issues.
Finally, I will conclude with some general comments about the scope of the bill. The provisions do set a high hurdle for material to be refused classification. Some have expressed concerns about the ease of applying the provisions. The provisions provide a clear set of elements for the Classification Board and the review board to consider when making decisions on these matters. It is important that people understand that, to be refused classification, material must advocate the doing of a terrorist act. These are the two terms that are defined in the bill. These are precisely defined terms, taking their meaning from or directly adapting the Criminal Code provisions which were agreed to by the Council of Australian Governments following widespread consultation when introducing antiterrorism laws in 2005. The meaning of these terms should be consistent with their meaning in the Criminal Code. Terrorist acts are a specific and highly dangerous threat to Australian society. The government believes very firmly that material that advocates that people undertake such acts should not be legally available and that the measures in this bill will achieve this objective. I commend the bill very strongly to the House. I hope it will receive a speedy passage and I hope that the opposition will reconsider their proposals to move amendments in the other place.
The original question was that this bill be read a second time. To this the member for Brisbane has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
Question agreed to.
Original 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 13 August, on motion by Mr Robb:
That this bill be now read a second time.
upon which Mr Stephen Smith 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 recognises that the Government has failed to act to address the skills needs of the Australian economy by:
I am delighted to speak in support of the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007 because this is another element showing the success of the Australian government’s Australian technical colleges program, a program which was promised during the last election campaign. This program not only has met the expectations created in that promise but has now exceeded those expectations in every possible way. Originally there were to be 24 colleges, with $343 million allocated over four years. That was the figure promised during that election campaign. With this legislation we will see further funding of almost $75 million. This will mean an expansion of the original program. The government found, through the community consultation process which it undertook in the early part of this parliamentary term, that the ambitions of local communities around Australia to have an Australian technical college were very strong indeed.
The Australian Labor Party have fought this tooth and nail in every possible way. Labor members come in here, one after another, and say, ‘We are quite in favour of any additional funding to education,’ but it is an iron fist inside a velvet glove. The Labor Party, through the state governments, through education unions around this country and even in members’ utterances in this place, have shown complete contempt for local communities around this nation.
Twenty-four original localities were identified, 25 colleges were eventually announced and a further three were announced in the budget, to expand the program to a total of 27 regions around this country. This means that, while the Australian Labor Party may do all they can to try to prevent this program from occurring, communities right across the nation are very much in favour of the idea of working with the Australian government in this way.
The thing the Labor Party does not get about the Australian technical colleges program is that it is all about trust. It is all about (1) a very clear statement from the Australian government that additional resources are available and (2) local communities being trusted to spend the money in a way that works for them.
There is a big, glaring misunderstanding that is inspired by Labor’s first point of duty, which is to whatever the union movement demands, not to the local communities that Labor members are meant to serve and that they are elected to serve. It is not always understood that the people in local communities around the country that support Labor candidates do not end up with a local member: all they end up with in this place is a delegate from the union movement. It is a great pity that so many communities do not get the kind of service that they should from their local members. Why is it that local members have come into this chamber and argued against a program which provides additional resources to fund the educational opportunities of year 11 and 12 students? Why is it that Labor members, one after another, get up and demand that the moneys simply go to state governments, in spite of the fact that people did not trust state governments to deliver, particularly on core services such as education, police and hospitals?
A third of the money that goes from the Australian government to state governments in education resources gets lost in the bureaucracy of those state governments. They will spend it on card-carrying members of the Labor Party who are in the bureaucracy, ahead of resourcing the area it should go to—that is, the teacher-student equation. I see students in the gallery here today. I am not sure what school they are from, but the key thing that they need to know is that this side—the Liberal-National parties side of this chamber—believe that the No. 1 priority when it comes to education spending is the relationship between professional educators or teachers and their students.
What the government has done during this term is find a number of new ways to resource people directly, to cut the very expensive middleman out of the equation. By funding directly local community consortia through the Australian technical colleges program, we are able to see more people engaged in school based apprenticeships and employment opportunities, earning while they learn. We see less money spent on paying big dollars to bureaucrats and education head officers, all of whom have to have a membership card from the Labor Party to be able to advance into those positions. I have yet to be proved wrong on that claim on the many occasions that I have made it. We have prioritised ahead of anything else the advancement of local students and their opportunities to do so.
What the Australian technical colleges program has done is re-establish the status of the nation-building skills at the heart of the important trades that are being targeted by this agenda. We have reversed the decline which the Australian Labor Party presided over. There were just 30,000 people in training when we came to office; there are now 400,000. The so-called ‘workers party’ forgot about the workers and about promoting the opportunity for young people to go into trades. They talked the trades down and, instead, promoted non-productive elements in society ahead of the trades. They forgot that, if you do not have people with electrical, plumbing, carpentry and motor mechanics skills, nothing in Australia can work. This side, however, have understood clearly that the challenge for Australia’s workforce base is to make sure that it is competent and capable and that there is prestige attached to the core skills which underpin the way in which our society operates.
We are the ones who stood for the workers. We are the ones who promoted the value of the trades and have made sure that tradespeople and other people in the workforce have been able to enjoy a pay rise in the order of 20 per cent over the last decade. With those opposite, it was at minus two per cent—they went backwards.
The Australian technical colleges bill fits into a broader picture of the way in which Australia operates today versus the way it did when Labor were last in office. It also provides real proof of the way in which we are gearing up for the long-term, sustainable good of Australia and championing the way young people should be rewarded for the abilities they get. We are also about saying to the business community, ‘The best investment you can make in your business is in your people.’ That is not simply an investment in the trade skills to get them started in the business but also an investment in retraining them. The Australian technical colleges program very deliberately says this to the business community, who have bemoaned for years their absolute dissatisfaction with the way institutional trade training through the TAFEs has turned out apprentices who have a piece of paper but who do not necessarily have the real-world skills that they need. We have challenged the business community to put up or shut up, to get involved. That is why there is a very clear difference in the way that the Australian technical colleges program operates. It demands that a real employer chair the board of the community consortium and that the board be dominated by a simple majority of employers. What is absolutely vital is that the business community knows that there is a difference in the way this system operates, compared to others.
This system is also a fast track to the real outcomes of real trade apprenticeships because it means that young people can start a trade apprenticeship while they are actually at school, in years 11 and 12. The school based apprenticeship program was something that was announced a decade ago when David Kemp was the minister responsible. It was only the state of Queensland that grabbed hold of this in the early days, when former Senator Santoro was the Queensland minister for trade training, and Bob Quinn, the former Queensland Liberal Party leader, was the Queensland education minister. Those two gentlemen grabbed hold of school based apprenticeships and introduced them into Queensland; the Queensland government of today have kept them going. The point I make is that trade training while kids are doing years 11 and 12 studies is a very regular part of the Queensland school experience these days. It has also become a very regular part of the Victorian school experience.
Yet another way in which the Labor Party have fought the Australian technical colleges program tooth and nail is demonstrated by the way state governments have reacted. The union control of the New South Wales education system is legendary. Nothing works in New South Wales unless the New South Wales Teachers Federation say it is allowed to work. From their point of view, the Australian technical colleges program has to be defeated, and they are still doing all they can to defeat it in that state. It is a great pity that the biggest economy in the country offered no school based apprenticeships until this year. It was dragged kicking and screaming to this very sensible program, a program which has not caused the sky to fall in either in Queensland or in Victoria. The New South Wales government has this year finally begun to offer school based apprenticeships.
In New South Wales, when the technical colleges program was announced, it was a no-go zone, yet there were eight colleges announced there. The fact that local communities wanted to take on the New South Wales government meant that it was met with a response of complete resistance to the cause. ‘Who cares what local communities think?’ say Labor. They say: ‘We want complete, centralised control and union domination of the spending of money. We’ll decide who wins and who fails. As far as we’re concerned, anything that offers a sense of trust and direct connection between the Commonwealth and local communities can’t be supported.’ That has been the approach of Labor.
The Victorian government is a partner on the board of three of the six Australian technical colleges there. The Victorian government had a completely different attitude. We welcome the fact that the Victorian government did not stand in the way of the Australian technical colleges program. I believe that, in each case, the colleges are going very well and will continue to go from strength to strength.
The arrogance of the Queensland Labor government is breathtakingly obvious. We have introduced sanctions on countries like Fiji for far less than the discretions we have seen in the way in which the Queensland government has been operating in recent days. The idea of denying democracy and threatening to imprison anybody who wants to embark on the democratic path of checking with the people about local government amalgamations is absolutely breathtaking. With technical colleges, the Queensland government also said, ‘We’re not going to stand in your way, but don’t expect any cooperation.’ They robbed state government students of the chance to attend an Australian technical college. The Queensland government’s attitude was, ‘Our way or the highway.’ The arrogance of then education minister, Anna Bligh, now Deputy Premier or Premier-in-waiting, was breathtaking—matched only by that of the current incumbent, Rod Welford.
South Australia had no idea what to do. To the credit of the South Australian government, they did cooperate when the Commonwealth bailed them out over the Adelaide South technical college proposal to purchase a former high school site—and the work of the member for Kingston made a difference.
In the case of Western Australia, the then education minister, Ljiljanna Ravlich, was so bad that she had to be embarrassingly shuffled off to some other place. The Western Australian government refused to do anything. It has possibly the worst TAFE training system in Australia, yet the Western Australian government chose to do nothing but try and prevent the Australian technical colleges program. Tasmania became an active partner in the program, as did the Northern Territory.
I detail all of this based on my own personal, intimate knowledge about the early days, the formative months, the formative years, of the Australian technical colleges program. It is important to put on the record the inconsistency at best and the downright belligerence of the Australian Labor Party in doing all they could to stop this program. The alternative could have been a far stronger environment for the Australian technical colleges program. All we needed was the states to simply say, ‘We’ll trust local communities; we’ll let local communities make a decision.’ Instead, a central politburo style of education planning that says, ‘If we didn’t come up with the idea it can’t be any good’ seemed to prevail.
Even the Department of Education, Science and Training did not well understand what the Australian technical colleges program was all about in the early days. I suspect that some of the early technical colleges announcements were not as well founded as they are today. There was a sense of working with people, based on the surface statements of people like those in the South Coast of New South Wales and Wollongong consortium, which was beset with people from the education union, the TAFE union, who were doing all they could to prevent that particular technical college from growing in the way the community would have liked it to do. DEST advised the then minister on the best course to follow, and DEST’s advice was ambitious at the very least. The point is that education officials these days have a far clearer understanding than they did early on. In their defence, even though my criticism will probably have hurt them, it was brave new world stuff we were embarking upon.
A direct relationship between the Commonwealth and local communities is something we need to foster—a direct relationship built around a sense of trust. Furnishing resources to meet an ambition of a local community to give kids in those areas an opportunity is something that is worth while. What I find extraordinary is that member after member opposite will get up and say, ‘No, just give the money to the states.’ To do that would be to maintain a system that we already know has failed—a system that, in the case of six of the eight jurisdictions in this country, does not want to give people an opportunity to start a real certificate III plus apprenticeship in the trades.
It is only Queensland and Victoria that have their hearts in it. Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales were dragged kicking and screaming to the table when it came to school based apprenticeships. How on earth are you going to give kids the power today to make the decisions for their tomorrow? How are you going to give them the right signals unless you engage with them early? The pressure now is not to keep kids in a holding pattern just so that their bottoms are on seats in nice neat rows in schools around this country and so that the education officials at head offices in all the different states and the Education Union officials in their little lofty ideals of centralised control are well satisfied that all is good in the kingdom of God. Why on earth they are not allowing kids their full range of opportunities as a given is beyond this particular member of parliament. Why is it that the circumstance and convenience of bureaucracy is more important than opportunities for young people?
The Australian technical colleges program is about saying to young people who have the ambition and the skills that, if they can meet and work with the employers who also have the ambition to grow their business by investing in people, that will produce great fruit. It will be about saying to young people at the age of 15: ‘If you have the mental capacity, the physical capacity and the ambition to learn a trade, society is going to back you. Society will not only back you but nurture you and pay you to earn while you learn, to start your apprenticeship while you are at school, to finish your years 11 and 12 academic studies and, at the same time, complete the early parts of your trade training requirements. It means that, by the time you have finished year 12, you have not only money in the bank, if you have saved it and you have been sensible, but also a credential that allows you to go on to further study at university if that is what you choose. It means you have work experience in the real world with an employer who wants to nurture you on to further trade training and it means that you can complete your overall trade competencies in a faster way than the system currently demands of you.’ It is wrong that our children are being used as some sort of fodder to maintain an education system that does not want to really educate them but just wants to keep the funds flowing through to employ people—bureaucracy—and at the end of it we might even pay our teachers some of the money they are worth.
I am very much in favour of the additional resources that are voted in this bill today. Apart from everything else, one of the three new Australian technical colleges will be on the south side of Brisbane. I am optimistic that the announcement will be made that the Education City consortia based on Springfield—and the construction training centre at Salisbury—will be a very positive thing for young people in my area. They are very used to doing school based apprenticeships through the various great state and non-government schools in my area, but the opportunity will also come their way for them to earn while they learn through a school based apprenticeship at the Australian Technical College Brisbane South. The money voted in this bill will make all of that possible. On that basis, I greatly commend this bill to the House.
I rise today to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007. This bill amends the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Act 2005 to provide funding for three additional Australian technical colleges announced in the 2007-08 budget to be located in Perth, Brisbane and Western Sydney. I say to the honourable member for Moreton, who has taken off out of the chamber as we speak, that his mindless drivel on the TAFEs in Western Australia is absolutely incorrect. We have some incredible facilities, some of them located in Swan, which I will talk about during my contribution.
Many of us here today will recall the coalition’s campaign launch in the last election in Brisbane when the Prime Minister announced what he described as the centrepiece of the coalition’s response to the skills crisis. In fact, on that day, 26 September 2004, the Prime Minister said that this centrepiece would revolutionise vocational education training throughout Australia. This centrepiece was the establishment of the Australian technical colleges, or ATCs. Ever since that day, the Australian technical colleges have stood as a testament to the way this government develops bad policy for political purposes, no matter what the cost or how stupid the idea.
While I welcome the additional expenditure in the critical area of vocational education and training, I do not believe that the establishment of the Australian technical colleges was a sensible choice for responding to the national skills crisis that now threatens the viability of our economy. Had the money that has been wasted on this initiative been allocated to existing TAFEs, the system would have worked much better and many young people would have already received the training that they need, which could have alleviated the current skills crisis.
The Australian technical colleges are simply a quick political fix to a policy problem of this government’s own making. I say a ‘political fix’ because from the very beginning the Australian technical colleges initiative has been a farce and it has done precious little to address Australia’s growing crisis in skilled labour—and those who sit opposite know it. In this government’s new model of uncooperative and antagonistic federalism, this policy accords well with those wishing to marginalise the power of the states. But, out there in the real world of critical skills shortages, where employers simply cannot find the trained workers they so desperately need, this policy has been nothing short of a failure. According to the government’s own figures, over the next five years Australia has a projected shortfall of more than 200,000 skilled workers. But the Australian technical colleges are expected to produce only 10,000 graduates by 2010. That is little more than a drop in the ocean.
The growing shortage of skilled workers in Australia undoubtedly represents one of the greatest policy failures of the Howard government’s 11 years in office. As members know, the Reserve Bank has repeatedly warned that the skills crisis that has developed under this government is a major constraint on economic growth and is causing inflationary pressure; therefore, pushing up interest rates. This government’s failure to invest in skills is part of the reason that interest rates are being forced up. This is being done by the mob that says it is keeping interest rates at a record low level. This government is creating the environment that is driving up interest rates.
Like me, most people would have presumed that this government would implement practical measures to end this crippling shortage of skilled workers. But, no, rather than choosing the common-sense option and allocating additional funds to increase the size and scope of existing vocational infrastructure, this government chose to bypass the TAFE sector—run by those nasty little state governments!—and to establish its own colleges, 90 per cent of which just happen to be in coalition or marginal seats.
I have an idea that tomorrow, when the government makes the announcement about where the colleges will be established in Perth, lo and behold, there will be a college in the northern suburbs with two campuses, and I am pretty sure that one of them will be in the electorate of Cowan—which the coalition thinks it might have a chance of picking up—and the other will be in the electorate of Hasluck, where it knows its member is under pressure. I also believe that it will duplicate a service provided by Midland TAFE by establishing a facility there. That is a total waste of money and political pork-barrelling. If the government were genuinely interested in addressing our chronic skills shortage, the funds that have been allocated to these colleges would have been spent on existing vocational education programs and more Australians could have already been beneficiaries of new training and work opportunities.
TAFE is the major provider of vocational education and training in Australia. With more than 1.2 million students and accounting for 85 per cent of all training, the TAFE system is Australia’s provider of choice in vocational training. In my electorate of Swan, for example, we have the aptly named Swan TAFE, which has campuses at Bentley and Carlisle that provide excellent courses in hospitality, baking, refrigeration, business studies, engineering, occupational health and safety, health sciences, nursing, vet nursing and animal studies. Swan TAFE also has campuses in Balga, Thornleigh and Midland. These campuses have excellent reputations for the high standard of training that they provide and the outcomes they have achieved. Far from what the member for Moreton has been drivelling on about, these TAFEs provide excellent services to the people of Western Australia.
However, rather than strengthening our existing system of vocational training, in conforming to its motto of never letting bad policy outcomes stand in the way of its narrow ideological agenda, the Howard government chose to undermine it. Over the past decade the Howard government has slashed investment in vocational education and training. By decreasing Commonwealth allocations for vocational education by 13 per cent between 1997 and 2000, and increasing it by a paltry one per cent from 2000 to 2004, this government has failed grossly to provide the necessary funding to redress our growing skills shortages. In terms of revenue expenditure, vocational education in Australia has fallen behind other education sectors in both aggregate terms and on a per student basis, despite it being the area that bears the greatest responsibility for the vocational training of our workforce. The result has been a public system starved of cash. Students and staff suffer with reduced course durations, increased use of casual staff and fewer course offerings.
Due to this government’s utter neglect of vocational education and training, each year more than 34,000 applicants are turned away from TAFE because there simply are not enough places. However, while the TAFE system has suffered from numerable cutbacks under this government, more than $500 million has been allocated to the establishment of the Australian technical colleges. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul. For a government that likes to talk up the benefits of eradicating duplication and waste between the state and federal levels of government, that is a strange policy decision indeed. Creating an entirely separate layer of schooling funded and administered directly by the Commonwealth simply does not make public policy administration or financial sense.
The member for Moreton talked about all the state bureaucrats who would get the additional money if it were allocated, and said that the government could not do that. But it has created its own system with its own level of bureaucracy. How stupid is that? It has duplicated the existing system. In fact, little about the Australia technical colleges stacks up in terms of practicality. In effect, the Australian technical colleges are Commonwealth run secondary schools, but the Commonwealth has no history or expertise in establishing or running stand-alone secondary schools.
Instead of going through the established channels of the TAFE system, this government has embarked upon a costly and unnecessary project that will duplicate the vocational education and training infrastructure that exists elsewhere in the country. The inherent inefficiency of this system is plain to see. The cost to taxpayers of the 21 technical colleges that have been established—including capital set-up costs—averages out at nearly $175,000 per student. For that amount of money the government might as well have loaded the students onto a couple of jumbos and flown them to Harvard to learn their plumbing and carpentry skills. It is an absolute waste. One can only imagine what kind of facilities our TAFE system would have if each of its 1.2 million students were allocated anywhere near the level of per student funding that the government’s technical colleges receive.
Even with that level of funding, the ATCs are still struggling to find students. While only two met their target enrolments for 2007, some are operating at less than half their capacity. The Australian Technical College East Melbourne fell short of its enrolment target of 180 by a staggering 94 places. Some of these colleges must be getting used to operating under their full capacity by now. As I am sure many members recall, the Australian technical colleges got off to something of a slow and rather embarrassing start. For example, for some time the Australian Technical College Gladstone had only one student enrolled. I am sure that student would have received a very good education. Despite placements in apprenticeships being one of the primary features of the technical colleges, many have struggled to find placements for students.
Most damning of all, however, is that these colleges, which were specifically set up to provide skills and training to our young people, are having to outsource much of their work back to the TAFE system or other registered training organisations. In Victoria alone, five out of the six colleges built have had to outsource their training functions to TAFE—the very same system that has seen its funding slashed by this government over the past 11 years and the very same TAFEs which the federal government said were inefficient and which it used as justification for the establishment of the Australian technical colleges. What a debacle! Put simply, Australian technical colleges have been an expensive and unnecessary waste of Australian taxpayers’ money and they will do little to help end the growing shortages of skills in this nation. They have caused needless duplication between the state and federal layers of government and have failed to offer anything more than a token bandaid solution to the nation’s growing skills crisis. Yet, according to the Minister for Vocational and Further Education, the colleges are ‘going gangbusters’ and ‘working their socks off’. Once again, a Howard government minister either is seriously misleading the public about the abysmal state of one of the government’s policies, or simply has no idea of what he is talking about. I suspect it is probably a little bit of both.
The truth of the matter is that an independent expert report by the Australian National Audit Office has heavily criticised the Howard government’s Australian technical colleges, finding that insufficient attention has been paid to state and territory governments—we know that; they are trying to blame them for everything, so they are not going to work with them. It found that tenders for nearly half of the colleges were awarded based on only one or two applications, that enrolments had been overestimated, that initial tender applications were weak and inadequate and that there was little choice among Australian technical college applicants. The report confirmed that the Howard government’s Australian technical colleges were nothing more than a cynical political response to a critical policy challenge.
Unlike the government, Labor has a real plan to address the chronic skills shortages in this country. If Australia is to create a high-skilled workforce and an economically secure future, we need nothing short of a revolution in vocational training and education. In order to attract and train the estimated 200,000 skilled tradespeople needed over the next five years, Australia needs a truly national approach, not a ridiculous symbolic commitment for only a small number of students. Committed to working in partnership with the states—no matter which party holds office in those states—Labor has a cooperative approach to addressing the nation’s growing skills crisis that aims for outcomes and not the narrow ideological interests pursued by this government. We will work with the states and territories to ensure effective training policies and to ensure that funds are allocated to those learning institutions that are capable of delivering the best educational and training outcomes.
According to the Chairman of the Productivity Commission, Gary Banks, one of the best opportunities for improving productivity rates in Australia lies in ‘raising the performance and accessibility of our education and training systems’. Not only is a higher level of investment in education necessary for higher productivity growth but making sure that investment in education is used efficiently and effectively is necessary as well. Australia must therefore focus its resources on the areas of maximum impact, such as TAFEs and on-the-job training places and trade places. The first step, however, is to increase the emphasis and quality of vocational training opportunities in our secondary schools.
To this end, Labor has announced a 10-year, $2.5 billion trades training centres plan targeted at the 1.2 million students in years 9, 10, 11 and 12 in all of Australia’s 2,650 secondary schools. Designed to create a stimulating educational and training environment that prepares young people for vocational occupations and encourages them to remain in school by making studying in trades more attractive to students and more relevant to industry, Labor’s trades training centres plan is a practical and effective means for encouraging a greater number of students to pursue skilled, vocational career paths.
In my home state of Western Australia—the state that is responsible for much of the nation’s current prosperity—Labor will spend $284 million to build state-of-the-art training centres, ensuring that our booming economy is not stalled by a lack of qualified workers. In addition, Labor will also devote $84 million as part of its trades training centres plan to ensure that students involved in trades training receive at least one day a week of on-the-job training for 20 weeks a year.
As well as improving vocational and trades training in secondary schools, Labor also plans to introduce a Job Ready Certificate for all vocational education and training. Obtained through on-the-job training placements, the Job Ready Certificate will assess the job readiness of secondary school students engaged in trades and other areas of vocational education and training, providing employers with a tangible reference, including whether students are capable and ready to work. Presently, there is no such requirement for education and training providers to formally issue a statement of employability skills, despite the fact that there have been repeated calls from industry groups for their introduction.
These initiatives will enable a Labor government to address Australia’s skills shortage in a meaningful and effective way, unlike the failed technical colleges program of this tired and out-of-touch government. While Labor will not close down any of this government’s expensive and inefficient technical colleges, we will work out the best way of folding their management back into the state based educational system. The states have had a longstanding responsibility in this area, and simply trying to arrogantly bypass them, as this government has done, will only result in more bad policy outcomes.
In closing: Labor is not opposing—and I am not opposing—the appropriation of funds for the three additional technical colleges provided for in this bill. Nor will we seek to close any of the existing colleges upon assuming office. We will, however, consistently remind the government of its utter failure to address the growing skills crisis and its appalling neglect of vocational training and infrastructure over the past 11 years. The longer that this government clings to the belief that a few technical colleges can end the skills crisis or make up for its 11 years of neglect in vocational education and training, the greater the damage this government will do to the prospects of our children and our economy. Only a federal Labor government can fix this disaster brought upon our country by the mismanagement of education and training by this lot opposite.
We have heard it all. Technical trade schools used to be around when I was going to school. We had Granville Technical College. We had lots of technical colleges all across Sydney. Who closed them down? State Labor governments. And now they come back, saying that they are going to reintroduce them. Why are they going to reintroduce them? Because we have had the Australian technical colleges. The Australian technical colleges are already an outstanding success throughout Australia. The Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007 aims to further ensure their continued success into the future.
This bill will increase the total funding for the ATCs initiative from $456 million to $530 million over the period of 2005 to 2011, to support the establishment and operation of a further three Australian technical colleges announced in the recent budget. This brings the total number of colleges to 28, spread over 45 campuses in areas of Australia with high numbers of young people and areas experiencing skill shortages. Of these 28 technical colleges, currently 21 are operating, with four more colleges to commence in 2008.
The three new colleges which are part of this bill will open no later than 2009. The level of funding available to support the establishment of these colleges will ensure that they are resourced to provide high levels of support to both students and employers who engage students as school based apprentices. The three new ATCs will be established in greater Penrith, northern Perth and southern Brisbane and are in addition to the current 25 colleges, one of which will be located in the Dobell electorate, which was only recently announced by the Minister for Vocational and Further Education, me and the member for Robertson. Just last week, $16 million of funding was assigned to this particular project, and students will be enrolling next year. This announcement is great news for the people of the Central Coast and puts the region at the forefront of the delivery of vocational and technical education for students in years 11 and 12. The technical college on the Central Coast is one of the 25 across Australia and it is being established where skills needs are high and we have a high youth population and a strong industry base. These are the parameters that define where the colleges go. These colleges will cater for local years 11 and 12, and students who wish to obtain their year 12 certificate can start an apprenticeship whilst still at school.
Eighteen hundred students across Australia are already benefiting from being able to do year 11 and obtain their year 12 school certificate. Eight thousand four hundred students are expected to be attending these colleges once they are fully operational in 2009. These students will finish their two years at the ATCs having completed a high school education and having already undertaken two years of training in their vocational career of choice. The courses are developed with industry input to ensure that the training offered will be relevant to local needs.
Last week, the member for Perth accused the Howard government of deliberately neglecting TAFE and instead funding a duplicate vocational training system. However, we heard the member for Swan say they will keep them. If we look at the member for Perth’s speech, he said that the Howard government is attacking states and territories in an area that has traditionally been their responsibility. Of course education has been their responsibility, but where they fail we have to come in and prop them up, as we do in so many other areas across this country.
Australian technical colleges are designed to adapt quickly to address regional needs directly through the input of local industry. There also seems to be deliberate confusion on the part of the New South Wales government. It claims that Australian technical colleges are competitors with TAFE. This is not the case. The ATCs are for year 11 and 12 students to complete their secondary education at the same time as starting an apprenticeship, joining the workforce and earning some money. TAFE on the other hand provides more for postsecondary students or more advanced certificates and diplomas. That was the case for me. I started my working life as an apprentice electrical fitter. I did the electrical engineering certificate at Granville tech for three nights and one afternoon a week for about four years and then went on to do postcertificate engineering subjects as well. The approach taken by the ATCs is to make sure that when kids come out of school they can move into a trade course. If they want to go on and do further TAFE training at an engineering level, they can do that. Then they could progress through to university.
In fact, at the Ourimbah campus those facilities are available for students to do that. The Central Coast manufacturers are the local consortia providing the technical college. They are the people who know what is needed by local industry. Many of the technical colleges have partnered with TAFE to assist with the provision of technical training, and that is a logical step. TAFEs have been around for many years in Gosford and Wyong and they have experienced teachers. I recently visited a TAFE and told the teachers they need to look at the ATCs as being a primer for TAFE. They tell me that students have to have remedial numeracy and literacy teaching. They have to teach them to read and write and do arithmetic before they can even do a trade course. The ATCs will put an end to that. Parents and grandparents on the Central Coast are pleased that their children will soon have greater choice, another option, to complete their high school education. The Central Coast ATC will operate as a business. They will be operating for 48 weeks of the year, just like a business. It is not the school based idea, where they have semesters and heaps of holidays; they will start off in a business environment.
As well, the colleges provide a dedicated focus on technical training while ensuring students get the literacy and numeracy skills of a year 12 certificate. Labor likes to talk about encouraging students to complete year 12. When it comes to the crunch, it is nothing but empty rhetoric. We see so many kids coming out of high school with numeracy and literacy issues. It is time for Labor to put students’ interests first and stop their practice of the last 30 years in talking down the trades. We need to reach a point where a high-quality technical education is as valued as a university degree.
Even though all of the states have closed down dedicated technical schools, we are pleased that most have subsequently decided to follow the Howard government lead and reintroduce technical schools and colleges. They are set up to cater especially for students who have strong technical and creative talents, and they are a huge success due to the quality of the facilities and teaching staff and the very close guidance and involvement of industry. This is the model for the ATCs that is working very well. They have also restored links with industry and restored pride and prestige in technical training so that a high-quality technical education is as prized as a university degree. The unique set-up of the ATCs gives local students the chance to undertake trade training and academic subjects and is also a fantastic opportunity for our region. It is also a great opportunity for local employers in the region to work with education providers to establish a college that responds directly to the needs of local industry.
Students at the Central Coast college will be offered trade training in engineering, construction, electro-technology, automotive and commercial cookery. When students at this technical college finish year 12 they will be one-third of the way through an apprenticeship, they will have completed the year 12 certificate, they will have worked on state-of-the-art equipment and they will have had two years of real experience in the workplace, earning as they learn. Many local students will benefit from this ATC over the next three years. The new technical school will follow the success of the 21 colleges already operating around Australia.
The recent signing of the funding agreement for the Central Coast is an excellent demonstration of the partnership between industry, educators and training providers to ensure that young people in the Central Coast region are given training relevant to local needs. The establishment of the college has been warmly welcomed by local communities, businesses and industry and this is reflected in the industry representation on the governing board.
The establishment of the college has been fully supported locally, as seen through association members, including Albany International, Kitchens of Sarah Lee, ADC Krone, Gibbens Industries, Masterfoods, Adhesive Research, Gosfern, Thermit and Pacific Labels. These industries are further supported by the involvement of Australian Business Ltd, the Master Builders Association, the NRMA, the Gosford District Chamber of Commerce and Industry and others in the area. They have all either taken part on the interim board or lent their valuable support to achieve this fantastic result.
It is a shame, however, that the New South Wales state Labor government have once again demonstrated their complete disregard and ignorance towards meeting the needs of the Central Coast and local residents. We have had so much opposition in the past few years to establishing this technical college. The state education minister, John Della Bosca, referred to it as a ‘failed experiment’. However, they were going to be involved in providing the educational component for the Central Coast ATC. Of course, that was in the run-up to the last election in March. Then they decided in Macquarie Street to overrule the memorandum of understanding that was provided by the Central Coast department of education. The week before the March election they decided they would set up technical colleges at Wyong and Gosford. What has happened since? Very little. What are they going to do? Not much at all. They had an information session a week or so ago. They are now talking about providing technical training for only two areas of interest in the area. Mrs Della Bosca, who is Belinda Neal of course, is running as the federal candidate for Robertson. She was parachuted in, like the other two Central Coast union heavyweights that are running for election to the federal parliament. She was saying that the Howard government had failed to establish the college. But had she asked her husband she would have been informed that the stalling of the Central Coast ATC was purely the business of the state government and their total intransigence. Just before the recent election they had their spoke in the wheel and we have not seen much else from them.
It is quite disappointing that the New South Wales state government is too busy playing political games to recognise the importance of this fantastic educational opportunity in giving the young people of my electorate the choice to study at an ATC and get a head start in their working lives. Instead, it means that local young people on the Central Coast are being denied an opportunity to study a trade, while people in other parts of New South Wales are allowed to make a choice. In fact, the early ATCs in New South Wales were established using the Catholic education component. As the member for Moreton said earlier, New South Wales and Western Australian fought the introduction of these ATCs all the way. However, there was a decent response and good cooperation in Victoria—and also in Queensland, I believe. It is also disappointing for the local businesses that are working as a team to establish a college that will respond directly to industry needs led by the hardworking Central Coast Manufacturers Association. They will be pleased that after all these years it will finally start.
The abolition of technical colleges by the states has meant that over the past few decades our young people have lacked training skills and pathways. The price we have paid is the current severe skilled trade shortages we are experiencing in many of our key industries. As a community we made a big mistake, turning our back on technical education, as we closed dedicated technical high schools and treated vocational training as a second-class career. This was all done under state Labor governments. General high schools in Australia provide an excellent general education, but they have a strong academic focus. It is important that students with strong technical or trade skills are given the opportunity to develop these special talents, while also being given the opportunity to obtain their year 12 certificate. In 2004 the Howard government introduced the ATC program in response to the greatest mistake made in education over the last 30 years. These 28 Australian technical colleges are designed to elevate the status of technical education and provide dedicated technical and vocational training for students with these wonderful talents.
Despite the legislation only passing parliament in 2005, the initiative has gone from idea to reality in a remarkably short space of time, with 21 ATCs currently operating at 33 campuses—all operating within 18 months of the legislation being approved. A number of states, including Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT have followed the lead of the Howard government and have established similar facilities. It is estimated that by 2009, with the combined commitments of the states and the Howard government, there will be around 70 technical schools around Australia with enrolments of between 25,000 and 35,000 young Australians. This will make a serious contribution to the skilled workforce that Australia will need for the future.
Let us look at Labor’s problem with the ATCs. The system that operates at these schools is much like that of private schools. The teachers will be on AWAs—that dreaded process that the Labor Party hate. They want to destroy them. The principals will have choice in employing teachers. Teachers will be paid on performance. And, of course, they will not need the union bosses; they will not need the union intransigence to cause the problems that we see in schools. Members opposite have spoken about the duplication of schools.
Recently, on the Central Coast, the New South Wales minister for education, John Della Bosca, threatened public school principals when they wanted to attend a meeting in my office with the federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop. Initially, we were going to hold a forum of teachers, from across the 55 schools on the Central Coast, at a public school. The night before, we got a message to say, ‘No, you can’t hold a forum in a public school,’ so we moved it to my office. The next morning, my staff rang around and invited the teachers to attend a meeting in my office. By midday, while we were touring the area with the minister, teachers were ringing in and apologising, saying that they had been leaned on by John Della Bosca. They were threatened, so they could not come to my office and meet with the federal minister for education.
This is the Labor approach of typical union bullying—threatening teachers so that they could not come and meet with the federal education minister. And this is the bloke who then wants to say, ‘The ATCs are a failed experiment.’ Of course, before the state election, they decided: ‘Technical colleges look like they’re going to be popular, so we’d better bring them back on. We’d better say that we’re going to have a technical college in Wyong and Gosford.’ It is typical of the rhetoric we hear from the other side.
It is just like the broadband proposal, with the whole deal involving bringing back the union heavyweights. They want to have broadband run partly by government and partly by private enterprise. Why? Because, as is the case with a lot of the utility businesses, they can demand that these employees be union members. We see it right across the country, with union heavyweights coming in. They have even displaced some members on the other side. The member for Blaxland, who knows a bit about communications, got the chop so that another union boss could be brought in. In my area, there is a blow-in from Victoria. They could not find enough seats down there; they had flicked too many of the sitting members, so Greg Combet is coming up north, to the seat adjoining my electorate. They could not find a seat for him in Victoria, so they deny Labor members on the Central Coast the opportunity to select their candidate, and they get told who the candidate is going to be.
This is the sort of thing we can expect from Labor. We can see why they are vehemently opposed to these ATCs—because they do not meet the aims of the union bosses. That is the issue with them. We hear all of this claptrap about skills shortages. Those shortages were created under state Labor governments. It started when they closed down technical colleges. This discouraged businesses from employing apprentices. In the time that I did my trade, there were a number of companies who used to be the leaders in taking on apprentices. They made it so much more difficult for employers to do that that this government decided to use employers in the setting up of technical schools, so that in each region they can decide what trades need to be supported. In Dobell, the Central Coast manufacturers are the group that will be running the ATC in that area. I will give them every encouragement to continue what they are doing. I am very pleased to support this bill.
The Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007 provides additional funding for three more Australian technical colleges in line with measures the government announced in the 2007 budget. This bill commits an extra $74.7 million over the next four years to build three additional Australian technical colleges that will cater for approximately 900 students.
Tackling Australia’s worsening skills crisis and investing in quality education and training for young Australians is about securing Australia’s future prosperity and ensuring that young people in this country have the best opportunities when it comes to building their own future and choosing their own individual career paths. Making sure that we get the policy right in these areas should be one of our highest priorities in this place, and that is why I am keen to speak in the debate on this bill.
I also want to pick up some of the comments that the member for Dobell made. Skills shortages and the need to provide young people with an opportunity in this area are very important. I take the matter very seriously; I know my colleagues on this side of the House take it very seriously. It is a myth that government members like to perpetuate in this place that the Australian Labor Party talks down trades and has a very low opinion of young people who choose a profession in the trades. That is absolute nonsense and it is untrue. We on this side of the House are supportive of all the choices that young people make. If they choose to pursue a career in the trades, we will provide whatever support we can to ensure that they get the best-quality opportunities to pursue such a career.
By the government’s own reckoning, Australia faces a shortage of 200,000 skilled workers over the next five years. The fact that this shortfall of 200,000 skilled workers exists shows the extent of the Howard government’s failure when it comes to investing in vocational education and training in this country. Skilling up the Australian workforce is absolutely crucial if we want to see Australia continue to grow and prosper, and if we want to make sure that Australia is ready to meet the many challenges that inevitably lie ahead in today’s very fast changing world. This figure of 200,000 skilled workers also highlights the mammoth task ahead of us in reversing Australia’s skills shortage.
Today we are debating the merits of the Howard government’s proposed solution to Australia’s skills crisis. This solution comes in the form of Australian technical colleges—an initiative that the Howard government first introduced during the 2004 federal election. Since then, the government has portrayed Australian technical colleges as if cumulatively they were the golden goose, destined to solve all our problems when it comes to Australia’s worsening skills crisis. Indeed, we again heard this very same message from the federal Treasurer during this year’s federal budget. The key question here is whether Australian technical colleges will actually solve Australia’s skills crisis.
Revisiting that figure of 200,000 additional skilled workers needed in Australia over the next five years, the government estimates that Australian technical colleges will produce no more than 10,000 new graduates by 2010. Ten thousand new graduates by 2010 is a far cry from the 200,000 skilled workers Australia is in desperate need of now. By any stretch of the imagination, this does not even come close to solving Australia’s skills crisis, and I doubt that it will be seen as a real solution to Australia’s skills crisis by those living in my electorate of Calwell. So much for the goose laying the golden egg; rather, Australian technical colleges are more about providing the Howard government with leverage to pretend that they are addressing Australia’s skills crisis than they are about solving the problems we face.
The Howard government’s hope is that somehow we will all forget this shortfall of 190,000 skilled workers in Australia if they incessantly talk up their Australian technical colleges every time someone utters the words ‘skills crisis’. Given the seriousness of the crisis that Australia now faces, I doubt very much whether this is going to happen, for this is a skills crisis that not only affects the future competitiveness of Australia; it also robs young Australians of work opportunities, because the government have neglected to invest in their education and training.
The government not only lacks a solution to Australia’s worsening skills crisis; it is largely responsible for creating it in the first place. TAFE colleges have long been one of the key providers of vocational education and training in Australia, and they have long played a central role in skilling up Australia’s future workforce. But the Howard government in its wisdom—or lack of wisdom—has decided to slash federal government funding to TAFE in Australia.
Since 1997 Commonwealth funding for TAFE has decreased by approximately 26 per cent and the amount of government funding per student has also fallen dramatically. As a direct consequence, TAFE colleges have been forced to turn away over 325,000 potential students—that is, 325,000 potential skilled workers. It is estimated that in one year up to 40,000 Australians who apply for TAFE will miss out on a place in vocational education and training or VET, in part due to government funding cuts.
So is it any wonder that Australia faces a skills crisis of the magnitude we see today, given the current record of this government? The Howard government’s underfunding of education in Australia is not just peculiar to TAFE. Rather, its policy of neglecting education is something that you will find across the board. This is a government that has shown little interest in and little regard for the needs and interests of young Australians when it comes to education and the opportunities it provides. That is why government spending on education has fallen by seven per cent under the Howard government, at the same time that it has increased by 48 per cent in other developed countries over the last decade. Similarly, that is also why higher education spending per student has gone up on average by six per cent in these same countries, while in Australia it has fallen by six per cent. Under John Howard’s watch, Australia has tumbled to last place among developed countries when it comes to investing in preschool education. These figures speak for themselves. They highlight a decade of neglect, a decade of complacency and a decade of contempt when it comes to the education of our children. Australia’s current skills crisis is but one of the effects of this legacy.
Australian technical colleges are an attempt to find a quick political fix for what amounts to a massive policy failure on the government’s part. The member for Dobell, who let the cat out of the bag when making reference to the Australian technical colleges, said that they were very popular and tried to imply that the New South Wales government was quick to jump on that bandwagon. In saying that they are popular, he has admitted that the government is looking for short-term, popular fixes to a long-term problem that requires serious thoughtfulness and serious commitment from the government to address the issues. It is a popular fix, as admitted by the member for Dobell.
Australian technical colleges are an attempt, as I said, to find a quick political fix for the government’s massive policy failure and short-term vision in addressing the current skills crisis. For the Howard government, decreasing the amount of Commonwealth funding allocated to TAFE colleges and establishing Australian technical colleges have always been about bypassing Australia’s state and territory governments in an area that has traditionally been their responsibility. Instead of cooperating with state and territory governments and investing in TAFE, the Howard government chose to go it alone by establishing Australian technical colleges. Of course, the political payback in this is that it allows the Howard government to blame state and territory governments for the very problems that it has created and, at the same time, to masquerade as the can-do saviour of education in Australia. The Howard government is the master of the quick fix on all issues; education is no exception. It is a scenario that we see played out once again today in many areas—in particular, in the area of health.
The government’s decision to ignore TAFE colleges, to bypass state and territory governments and to go it alone with its Australian technical colleges has not exactly been without its problems, of course. Originally, the government announced that 24 Australian technical colleges would be established that could, together, accommodate up to 7,200 students from years 7 to 12. In July 2005 the Howard government added an extra college to its itinerary, to be built in Adelaide, bringing the total number of planned Australian technical colleges to 25. This bill provides funding for three additional colleges, bringing to 28 the number of technical colleges the government has promised to build. The $74.7 million set aside in this bill brings the total cost of establishing these 28 technical colleges to some $548 million. But, after three years and more than half a billion dollars in funding, only 21 colleges have opened and to date they have produced not one graduate.
Just two out of the operating 21 colleges have met their enrolment targets. Collectively, there have only been 1,800 enrolments registered for Australian technical colleges. Only one-third of these colleges are legally registered to provide training, with many outsourcing the bulk of their training to TAFEs or registered training organisations. Of the six Australian technical colleges operating in Victoria, where my electorate of Calwell is located, five colleges have outsourced their training to TAFE. The average cost per student is $175,000. Not all colleges have opened, not all colleges are legally registered to provide training, not one graduate has been produced and there have been only 1,800 enrolments so far. That hardly sounds like a well thought out and well-executed plan to solve Australia’s chronic skills shortage.
By their standards—
By their standards: with the quick fix, the populist way—that is how they address problems in this country. They move in, they throw some money at them and they hope for the best. They hope that people forget after the next election that they made those commitments and those promises. When you look at the amount of money being spent on Australian technical colleges against the number of Australian students who will benefit from them, the TAFE VET system wins hands down.
If the Australian public lack confidence in the sincerity and in the ability of the Howard government to fix Australia’s skills crisis, they can hardly be blamed. Combating Australia’s skills crisis requires a government that both understands the seriousness of the problem and is committed to getting the problem fixed once and for all. It should be obvious to this government that investing in quality education and training for young Australians and combating Australia’s chronic skills shortages go hand in hand. What should also be obvious is that good policies are ones that actually get results. Pretending to fix Australia’s skills crisis is no substitute for real solutions regardless of how easily the words ‘Australian technical colleges’ may roll off our respective tongues. Labor is committed to investing in Australia’s education system so that all young Australians can have the best possible start to life. That commitment saturates every page of Labor’s education revolution policy platform.
Labor is serious about fixing Australia’s skills crisis. That is why Labor has already announced its $2.5 billion trades training centres in schools plan. This plan will provide every secondary school in Australia with between $500,000 and $1.5 million to build or upgrade trades training centres for their students. This is for every school in Australia, not just areas located in marginal seats, and that includes the kids in my electorate of Calwell, who would not see an Australian technical college within cooee of the next 100 years as far as this government is concerned. This plan provides opportunities for all schools in Australia. This initiative will not only provide local high school students in my electorate, as I said, with a much broader skills base at school; it will also provide them with real career options when it comes to trades and apprenticeships.
Labor’s trades training centres policy focuses on the long-term future of our children’s education, and provides a long-term solution designed to address Australia’s skills crisis and to reverse the damage done by 11 years of neglect under the Howard government. With census figures showing year 12 retention rates having stagnated over the last 11 years, investing in vocational education and training in high schools will encourage students to stay in school longer.
As the report Australian social trends released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics some time ago shows, completing year 12 and contemplating some form of postsecondary education has become increasingly important in today’s changing job market. According to the ABS report, the unemployment rate for students who fail to complete year 12 is over three times higher than for those with a tertiary qualification. Keeping Australian kids interested in school and helping them to complete year 12 is therefore crucial. Improving vocational education and trades training is certainly one way of doing this.
Labor also plans to introduce a job ready certificate for school students undertaking vocational education and training at school. Labor’s trades training centres in schools plan includes one day a week of on-the-job training for 20 weeks per year for VET students. The job ready certificate will be linked to a student’s training placement. This certificate will assess the job readiness of VET students and will help potential employers when it comes to assessing the level of skills and on-the-job training school leavers possess.
Addressing Australia’s worsening skills crisis is crucial in securing Australia’s future prosperity. Australia needs a government that is forward thinking and able to plan for Australia’s future. More than anything else, it needs a government that is able to produce sound policies that look to the next six years, not just the next six weeks. Providing quality education and training for young Australians and addressing Australia’s skills crisis go hand in hand.
By promoting vocational education and training in Australian high schools, Labor’s $2.5 billion trades training centres in schools plan makes a real and significant dent in Australia’s skills crisis. It broadens the range of options and opportunities made available to Australian high school students. Whilst I fully support additional funding to promote and expand vocational education and training programs in Australia, it is obvious that Australian technical colleges are much less a real solution to Australia’s worsening skills crisis and much more a quick political fix for what has been a massive policy failure on the Howard government’s part.
It is with a great deal of pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007, especially as it relates to one of my great passions: developing the opportunities for training, skills development and careers for young Australians through structured, relevant and flexible technical training in schools and training institutions, be they industry centres or TAFE colleges, with appropriate industry involvement and structured workplace learning.
It has certainly been interesting to listen to the diatribe from the member for Calwell and her comments about the Howard government’s failure in skilling up the workforce. The reality is, and the statistics demonstrate, that the Howard government has done much more for apprenticeship training and skills development in this country than any previous government. It demonstrates that we have a very strong growing and expanding economy that provides significant opportunities for new businesses, employment growth and development.
We see that in the unemployment figures that we have in this country, which are at a 30-year low. That very much undermines the argument that has been put by Labor and the member for Calwell with respect to the issue of skills shortages and the reasons for them. It is not about neglect; it is actually about the growth in the economy, unlike when, with the last Labor government, we had the recession we had to have. We had $96 billion worth of debt—
Mr Martin Ferguson interjecting
and one million people unemployed while you were president of the ACTU and the member for Throsby beside you was vice president and assistant secretary. That is an indication of how much support there was for people in the workplace and working families—one million people unemployed, $96 billion worth of debt, over 300,000 long-term unemployed and 34.5 per cent youth unemployment—over the period of the Labor government. It was very much a case of not really understanding where they were or where they were going.
That is certainly the case with the Labor Party’s policy with respect to including vocational training in 2,650 schools across Australia. They are throwing money at vocational training without any structure, purpose or proper process for ensuring that there are properly skilled, adequate and qualified industry trainers to be able to address the real skill needs in this country, unlike the Howard government with the development of specialised Australian technical colleges. Certainly, I am a long-term advocate for apprenticeship training, trade training, post-trade training, training for new careers, no matter what your age, and upskilling to ensure the current skill sets are relevant to industry needs.
I do have some knowledge and understanding of these challenges, having spent some time involved with industry training. I was responsible for the development of MPA Skills, one of the first industry training centres in Australia, which now boasts three training campuses in Western Australia. I was also involved in group training at both an operational level, placing apprentices with employers for both short- and long-term training opportunities, and as a director of Group Training Australia.
In this year’s budget the Howard government announced increased funding for the establishment of three more Australian technical colleges to be located in the Penrith area of Western Sydney, in Brisbane’s southern suburbs and in north Perth, including the City of Swan. It is no secret that I am totally committed to the next Australian technical college in Western Australia being built at the Midland railway workshops in the northern part of my electorate of Hasluck. I have been strongly advocating Midland to the government and to successive ministers as the most suitable and logical site for the next technical college, particularly in light of the criteria established for the selection of these particular regions. The criteria are that the region must have a high youth population, a strong industry base and local skills shortages in skilled occupations. Midland is the major centre of Perth’s rapidly expanding north-eastern corridor. My efforts to secure Midland as a site for an Australian technical college have been extensive and unrelenting. Along with the Swan Chamber of Commerce, the City of Swan, the North-Eastern Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council, I have been working hard to ensure the objective of having an Australian technical college in Midland is realised.
In all, 11 major organisations covering local government, local business, local industry and local education are supporting Midland as the best site. The catchment area of the proposed college takes in the metropolitan municipalities of Bassendean, Mundaring, Kalamunda, Bayswater, Belmont and Swan. This accounts for some 13.3 per cent of the metropolitan population of Perth. In addition to this catchment are the surrounding areas that use Midland as a regional centre. They are the shires of Toodyay, Northam, York, Chittering, Beverly, Gingin, Victoria Plains, Goomalling, Cunderdin and the town of Northam. Combining both the metropolitan and country areas gives a total catchment of 15.7 per cent of the Western Australian population.
As an outer area that has experienced rapid urbanisation, the population growth is estimated at nearly three per cent per annum. I have written directly to some 14,000 homes in the northern part of my electorate seeking their support for the Australia technical college at the Midland railway workshops. There has been a huge response by mail, email and phone, and people have been coming by the electorate office to pledge their support for this initiative.
The Perth airport and the Kewdale and Forrestfield marshalling yards involve all facets of the transport sector, with companies in the area involved in heavy industry, including the construction and resources sector. The northern and central part of Hasluck is the point where all key transport nodes meet, including air, road and rail, servicing a rapidly developing industrial hub, which is the home of businesses such as WesTrac Pty Ltd, the Caterpillar Training Institute, Midland Brick Company, Boral Ltd, Hanson Australian Construction Materials, Toll Ipec Pty Ltd, GEMCO Rail, South Spur Rail Services, Hoffman Engineering Company, BlueScope Steel Ltd, BGC and many others.
Many local construction, engineering, resource and transport companies have pledged to support young people in school based apprenticeships at the Australian technical college in Midland—if established—guaran-teeing the success of such an initiative. Local education and training bodies see the Midland technical college as the ideal venue for providing school based apprenticeships and traineeships. The Perth eastern region, and Midland in particular, has a culture of trade training and will adapt very quickly to embrace the development of the new culture of school based apprenticeships, which builds on the old apprenticeship training system.
The region has a 100-year history of trade based training, which in the past was very much underpinned by the Midland railway workshops, with literally thousands of Perth tradespeople having completed their training at this site in the past. However, with the closure of the railway workshops some years ago, the trade focus for the area has fallen away, in spite of significant industry growth in the surrounding area. The eastern metropolitan region has a higher proportion of young people aged under 20 than the Western Australian and Perth populations. These young people, as with similar age brackets across the state, are twice as likely as the general population to experience unemployment. Young people in the region are also less likely to participate in education, with only 20.3 per cent continuing with some form of education, compared to the state average of 23.7 per cent.
I have led delegations to the relevant federal ministers and I would like to thank them for their time and for giving the case for Midland due and proper consideration. There is already a very successful Australian technical college operating in Western Australia—the Perth South ATC. It is spread across two campuses—one at Maddington and the other at Armadale in the electorate of Canning, which is held by my colleague Don Randall. The Maddington campus trains students for the automotive trades, while the Armadale campus trains students in the building and construction industries. This and other Australian technical colleges across Australia are already an outstanding success due to the quality of the facilities, the industry-qualified training staff and the very close guidance and involvement of industry and local employers in the areas of specialisation that these colleges focus on. It is not quite the quick fix the member for Calwell wanted us to believe. These specialised training areas are going to provide very positive outcomes for students being trained in those areas. They will have an excellent opportunity to complete their apprenticeship training at TAFE colleges because Australian technical colleges work in partnership with the TAFE system and the industry training system that we currently have.
The commitment made by the Howard government at the 2004 election to fund and develop 24 Australian technical colleges is already a strong reality, with some 20 colleges up and running at 33 campuses across Australia. Nationwide, a significant number of students are benefiting from being able to complete high school—getting their year 11 and year 12 certificate—and starting a school based apprenticeship at the same time. It is expected that over 8,400 students will be attending these colleges each year once they are fully operational across Australia in 2009. That means these students will finish their two years at the Australian technical college having completed their high school education and already being two years into their chosen trade or vocational training.
Given that most colleges have only started up in the last 12 months, the claim by Labor that they have not produced any qualified people yet is somewhat spurious—to say the least—because it does take two years to complete high school. Of course, the apprenticeship is part of that training process in those two years as well. With a school based apprenticeship they can come out and articulate into trade training delivered through TAFE or through an industry based training centre to complete their qualification. This gives them an important head start for their careers. From there they can continue their on-the-job training with their existing employer. This initiative will very much streamline the apprenticeship training system by reducing the time required for trade training once the students have left school. It will meet employer need for job-ready young people who need only a short time to complete their trade training following their schooling.
One of the keys to the success of these colleges is the close involvement of local industry and employers who know what skills they need and when they need them. The other is to have trainers with technical skills that industry wants and needs. Again, I think this is a dramatic difference between what the Howard government is doing with vocational training and what the Labor Party wants to do by introducing vocational training in schools. Labor has made no commitment and there is no industry involvement in that process. I have seen schools where state Labor governments have tried to introduce vocational training in the past. School teachers have told me that they could train kids to certificate III level in vocational training. I have asked what industry involvement there has been and the answer is none. How do they know what competencies industry needs without industry involvement? There is exactly the same problem with what Labor has proposed.
Australian technical colleges are an effective and simple solution to increasing the skills of school leavers and meeting the skill needs of employers in traditional and other trade areas. Local industry knows what to look for in technical skills, and local students get the benefit of that knowledge. Three decades ago, this nation wrongly turned its back on the old style technical high schools—I think that was a Labor initiative—closing them down and dumping students with good technical skills and real potential in the trades into schools interested only in an academic outcomes. There was a big push to send everyone to university. We have seen that that did not work. This suited about 30 per cent of school leavers; the other 70 per cent were left on their own, with some gaining an apprenticeship or traineeship and others tragically becoming the long-term unemployed of the Labor governments of the 1980s and early 1990s. I quoted earlier the youth unemployment rate of 34.5 per cent back in those years. This cost Australia a lost generation of tradesmen, and we are paying the price now at a time when we can least afford it, particularly in the states of Western Australia and Queensland. It was Labor policy that promoted university education above all else—at the expense of trade training. It was under a Labor government that we saw apprenticeship numbers decline from 151,000 in 1991 to 122,600 by 1993. It was under Labor that we saw teenage unemployment at a record high of 34.5 per cent, because there were no opportunities for either education or employment. In the early nineties the opportunity of finding an apprenticeship was as rare as hen’s teeth.
Australian technical colleges are being established to cater for those students who possess strong technical and creative talents and want to have a go at a trade. This reinforces for them that they are as highly valued for their special talents as someone with academic talents. Indeed, learning by doing, developing manual technical skills by actually learning through a hands-on approach, is something that the majority of us do easily. The critics of this great initiative to establish Australian technical colleges accused the government of duplicating the TAFE system. Quite clearly these colleges do not duplicate TAFE colleges; they are high schools designed to deliver years 11 and 12 according to the high school curriculum, to deliver high quality vocational and technical training relevant to the needs of industry and employers, and to create fast-track career opportunities for these young students keen to take up a trade when they leave school. TAFE delivers vocational and trade training at a post-secondary level to students who have completed their schooling. Indeed, it could be said that in some cases TAFE has lost its way and dropped the ball on trade training in trying to be all things to all people.
However, it should be noted that the Howard government has provided a record level of funding—$12 billion since 1996—to state and territory governments for TAFE and vocational education. State and territory governments have failed miserably in their responsibilities to their communities and industry by failing to deliver the skill needs that Australian industry so desperately needs. In Western Australia it is now a requirement that all students stay at school until year 12. This was an edict of a state Labor government, but they failed to provide the sort of learning environment that these vital, dynamic and energetic young people need. I do not think it would be going too far to say that the Western Australian government has made a real mess of education in my state. Labor have turned education into an absolute disaster area. I read recently that, because of a shortage of teachers, it was proposed that class sizes be increased to 75 students. There is much confusion amongst teachers and parents about the on-again, off-again OBE—outcomes based education. Teachers are still battling to make sense of a chaotic system, with morale so poor that they are leaving the profession in droves.
It is only since the advent of Australian technical colleges that high schools have started to focus on and provide effective and structured vocational training delivered by trainers with industry skills and knowledge. This has come about through state governments following the lead of the Howard government and working towards their own models of technical schools and colleges. It is worth putting on the record federal Labor’s blind opposition to these colleges, which we heard from the member for Calwell earlier. So much for the ALP being the so-called champions of the Australian worker—they would seek to deny the very measures that give talented and bright young Australians the opportunity to begin a career in a trade in industry sectors crying out for such trainees. Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to review a discussion paper called ‘It’s Crunch Time: raising youth engagement and attainment’, which was published by the Australian Industry Group and the Dusseldorp Skills Forum. It is a very interesting report. It states:
We can no longer afford significant levels of disengagement among Australian youth.
The 34.5 per cent youth unemployment of the early 1990s can never be repeated. The report further states:
There should be simple, clear but compelling objectives driving federal and state policy. These are that, subject to their ability, every young person:
Australian technical colleges go a long way towards achieving this sort of integrated pathway.
There is much in the report that I agree with. The challenge, of course, will be to ensure that state and federal governments are on the same page, that political expediency and point scoring are left behind, and that the real needs of Australian youth are focused on, including educational and training pathways, the quality of workplace and institutional learning, training opportunities, career advice and guidance, transitions from schools to vocational tertiary learning and training centres and to workplaces.
The Realising Our Potential initiatives in this year’s budget recognise that the university and vocational education training sectors are becoming increasingly interlinked. I strongly support the proposal for a new trade diploma, which will provide an excellent transitional opportunity from trade qualifications to university qualifications. There should be no reason why a qualified licensed plumber, for example, cannot apply to a university to obtain a mechanical engineering qualification. By breaking down these barriers we will provide Australians with a greater choice and opportunity to enhance their careers and working lives. Taking a trade as a career pathway should not be a barrier to university but, rather, another pathway.
Clearly, the Australian government has made some significant progress and developed a leadership role in all of these areas, but there is more to be done. Australian technical colleges are a model for transitional arrangements from school learning to industry learning and training to workplace learning and skill application. In addition, they start to really facilitate industry and employer involvement in education at an earlier stage. In my view, over time, this will improve the understanding for more quality on-the-job training. (Time expired)
Once again we are in this place with a bill before us that seeks to extend the funding directed towards the government’s problematic Australian technical colleges program. I say ‘once again’ because we have been down this path before of having to extend the funds directed to this government’s system of technical colleges. While Labor will not be opposing the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007, we have moved a second reading amendment which contains an extensive and damning critique of the Howard government’s handling of vocational education and training over the past 11 years.
Those familiar with the south-west of Sydney—the Macarthur region, where I come from, which takes in the seat of Werriwa—would understand the importance that parents place on having access to employment opportunities for their kids and, in particular, the abilities and opportunities for their kids to pursue trades. Two of our kids are tradespeople—I am very fortunate; one is an electrician and one is a carpenter—so I know what parents think of their children having the opportunity to undertake trade based education. The concerns I had for my own kids about apprenticeships and apprenticeship training and vocational education are precisely the concerns I know people in the south-west of Sydney have when they look at training opportunities for their kids and, further down the track, career opportunities in chosen trades. Parents always want better opportunities for their children than they themselves had. That is why the Prime Minister’s unfair dismissal laws—Work Choices in particular—have resonated to the extent that they have within communities. That is certainly so in my community in south-western Sydney, and I know from the industrial relations task force what resonates in various electorates throughout this country. People are concerned about the impact that these laws are likely to have on their children and their children’s opportunities. Before an objection is taken on me straying from this bill, it is fair to say that my views on Work Choices are well known, so I will not proceed with that any further.
In order for parents to be comfortable in the knowledge that their children will have greater and better opportunities to pursue their dreams than they did, most parents realise that at the base is the importance of having a good and fundamentally sound education. While universities and academic pursuits are very important to many, they will not be suitable for all, and that is why the issue of vocational education, trade based education, takes on even greater importance. The importance of trade training is why Labor has announced a range of policies to address skills shortages and trade training into the future. I will outline some of those policies later.
It is timely that I make this contribution in the debate today as it was only Monday last that I received a response to one of two questions that I placed on the Notice Paper to the Minister for Vocational and Further Education about the proposed Western Sydney technical college. The first related to the number of students from various parts of the greater Campbelltown and Liverpool areas that were enrolled in the original Australian Technical College Western Sydney. The second was about the basis of the selection of Penrith as the location of the second Western Sydney technical college, which is what this bill seeks to provide funds for. To date, I have not received a response to the first question—although I suspect I already know the answer. I have received a response to the second question. The response, as is the case with most answers from this government, it is fair to say, I found less than revealing and certainly less than satisfying.
Disappointingly, it came as no surprise to me when it was announced in the budget in May this year that the Western Sydney technical college would be located in the electorate of Lindsay, based in Penrith. It came as no surprise because Lindsay fits the majority of the criteria for the technical colleges and their locations—that is, it is a marginal coalition seat. The fact about the Australian technical colleges that does not appear on the advertisements that are now starting to flood our televisions, for the consumption of all Australians, is that 90 per cent of the colleges are to be located in either a coalition seat or a marginal seat. I suppose it is a no-brainer with Lindsay, which, being a coalition held marginal seat, has a tick in both boxes. When asked about the reasons for locating the technical college in Lindsay, the minister was not so bold as to admit that it was a coalition held marginal seat and that that is the reason it got the nod. The minister said this:
The area of Greater Penrith was selected for a second Sydney Australian Technical College as it is a region that has demonstrated significant skills needs, a high youth population and a significant industry base.
At face value, that seems a quite reasonable response and basis on which to make a decision on where to locate an educational facility. But I got to wondering: how does that stack up when compared to other areas in Western Sydney? Accordingly, I thought it appropriate that we compare Lindsay’s credentials to those of other areas of Sydney, such as south-west Sydney, to be sure that this was not just an issue of pork-barrelling, that the government did not seek to achieve a political advantage by spending multiple millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in another marginal seat.
When we consider the skill needs of a region, I do not believe that Lindsay has any greater demands than other parts of Western Sydney. At the moment, we find ourselves in an economic position which has resulted from a skills shortage. As a result, those with skills and experience are generally able to find work in their chosen field. The skills shortage was certainly affected by the government’s decision some time ago to cut funding to TAFE colleges and vocational education. I will come back to that.
The government’s figures estimate the skills shortage to be in the order of 200,000 skilled workers over the next five years, indicating that we have a significant need to train young people to develop their skills so that they can be deployed in the labour market. In other words, we need to take steps now to ensure that there will not be further constraints in the economy as a result of the exacerbation of the existing skills shortage.
Different skills pressures will arise in different labour markets as a result of differences in local economies. Given the skills shortage and the relative ease with which skilled workers can find employment, I sought to look at the respective skills shortages that had occurred in south-west Sydney. Despite the government crowing about 30-year lows in unemployment, you need not travel too far around the south-west of Sydney to know that the government is trying to dupe people with a reference to aggregate statistics and averages which are, quite frankly, far removed from local realities.
Unemployment in the south-west of Sydney is high; there is absolutely no denying that. It is too high, in everyone’s view. But the Howard government has done little to address that problem. In March this year the unemployment rate in the electorate of Werriwa was 8.2 per cent, in Macarthur it was 6.1 per cent, in Fowler it was 8.5 per cent, in Prospect it was 7.7 per cent and in Chifley it was 8.4 per cent. No doubt we would all agree that these rates are high; at the very least, they are well above the national average. By comparison, the unemployment rate for the electorate of Lindsay in March this year was 4.8 per cent. That is not equal to the national unemployment figure, but it is certainly much closer to it. So, on the approximate measure of the need for skills being one rationale for the selection of Lindsay as a suitable place for one of these colleges, Lindsay does not stack up.
I turn to another criterion which the minister listed—that is, the youth population of the electorate. To compare the credentials of Lindsay with those of other parts of Western Sydney, I compared the number of people under the age of 15 in each of those other electorates. For instance, in Werriwa the number of people under the age of 15 is more than 37,500, in Macarthur it is 33,500, in Fowler it is 29,400, in Prospect it is 28,700 and in Chifley it is 38,000. By comparison, according to the 2006 census, the number of people under the age of 15 in the electorate of Lindsay is just a tad over 28,900. So, on the measure of youth population, Lindsay ranks only slightly higher than Prospect, and below Chifley and Werriwa by a margin of about 10,000 each. You can only say that the government’s argument that this was another criterion for selecting Lindsay as the appropriate place to locate an Australian technical college is somewhat flawed.
Whilst I have not done the analysis of each of the seats in the Penrith area in the south-west, existing industrial capacity and growth potential would be, at best, similar to my area, which is fast becoming an inland port with the development of two intermodal terminals and a third being planned. It is certainly seen as a growth centre not only for the distribution of goods for the intermodals but also for the establishment of employment sites and employment-generating industries based around Liverpool and Campbelltown. I am not sure where Penrith sits in relation to that and I am not sure whether that measure of growth would be quite the same.
Penrith fails to meet the minister’s test on two to three measures that he cites as reasons why the new Australian technical college would be located there. However, on the most important measure—that is, the position of Lindsay on the national electoral pendulum—with a margin of just under three per cent and a Liberal sitting member, Lindsay wins hands down. While it might not stack up on the basis of reasonableness, it certainly stacks up on the Howard government’s ‘pork-o-meter’, as only electorates of need are to be measured by a desperate government. I am sure that my constituency would have been rejected by the minister, and I am sure that I will be accused of some sort of base parochialism; but, on the basis of establishing each of the criteria the minister sets down for the location of this technical college in Lindsay, it is rank opportunism by a desperate government prepared to do and spend whatever is necessary in its approach to the next federal election.
My aim in this contribution has been to highlight the base political motives behind the selection of the location of the Australian technical college in Western Sydney but more than that to look at the whole Australian technical college system, established because of the Howard government’s failure over many years to support the great vocational education systems that we have in this country through TAFE. In 1997 the Howard government cut funding to the TAFE system. Commonwealth revenues in vocational education decreased by 13 per cent from 1997 to 2000 and increased by only one per cent between 2000 and 2004. This government’s neglect of TAFE has come at a cost, which is now manifesting itself in the skills shortages that we are experiencing throughout this nation. The economic constraint that that is creating is a direct result of the actions taken by this government back in 1997. Over the past decade the government’s funding cuts in vocational education and training has forced the TAFE system to turn away more than 325,000 young people. These are young people who would have been taking advantage of the opportunities in our resource industries, who would have been filling various areas of opportunity in the services sector and who, these days, see people coming to this country on 457 visas, taking work that they should have been trained to perform over the past 11 years. This government has taken short-term decisions without looking at the development of the Australian economy with a view to the future.
TAFE has more than 1.2 million students and accounts for 75 per cent of all vocational students and 85 per cent of all training hours, yet this government ignores that fact, preferring instead to duplicate the system through a technical college system—not add to it, not help it to get further established or help it to train more people but to duplicate the system. I would much prefer to see the $1.3 million already spent on the Australian Technical College Western Sydney, the $10 million dedicated to the construction of a purpose-built campus and that part of the $74 million in funding appropriated in this bill for the new Western Sydney technical college extended to TAFE education in Western Sydney. Sadly, that is not going to occur. Madam Deputy Speaker, you know the reasons. This is all about the government’s industrial relations drive. We saw what the government did to the university sector. We saw what the government wanted to do for the TAFE sector. Unless TAFE colleges were going to be compliant with the government’s industrial relations agenda, they were not going to receive that funding. This is just a continuation of an ideologically driven government which is prepared to compromise on tertiary and vocational education. (Time expired)
The member for Werriwa made a pitch for his electorate and, interestingly, complained that it did not get one of these new technical colleges. Of course, it is his party’s policy to do away with all of them if it wins office. His electorate has the prospect of a college being established under this government, but if his party were to win government it would have none. The Labor Party does not believe secondary education should include vocational education and training. Everyone must be educated to a level of brilliance that would allow them to go to university and to join a student union! When did all the state technical education institutions disappear? It was while the Hawke government was in power. They were all closed down by state governments; they did not need any of that.
The member talked about 457 visas. The real skills shortage in Australia today is in the semiskilled work force, and 457 visas do not apply in that area. Meatworks all around Australia are finding it difficult to get the semiskilled workers they need because under the coalition government’s economic management those workers have found better and higher-paying jobs that are obviously more appealing. That is a tragedy in my electorate. Fortunately, some of the job vacancies are being filled by backpackers. However, the reality is that the people who would normally being doing those semiskilled jobs now have more highly paid jobs in other areas. The government has established 20 of these technical colleges and this legislation, among other things, provides funding for the establishment of another three.
The member for Werriwa was at pains to tell us that the present shortage of skilled workers was all the government’s fault. The Labor Party still argues that no apprenticeship should be less than five years. That means five years of study in addition to on-the-job training. In 1996, when this government won office, only 31,000 apprentices completed their training. Over the past four years, under the Howard government, 544,000 apprentices have completed their training. It may be an apples-and-oranges comparison, but I did a simple calculation and multiplied the 31,000 apprenticeships completed under the previous government by four and got 124,000, which is less than one-third of the number completed under this government. There are some good reasons for that difference.
I was an employer for many years and during that time there was no such thing as apprenticeships for chefs. When they were introduced, I was happy to provide job opportunities in a country town for young men who wanted that training. For the first time I had a vision of not having to employ an immigrant from southern Europe or elsewhere as a chef because Australia did not provide that training. I remind the House of the days when we had wall-to-wall awards, which imposed strict limits on the number of apprentices who could be employed. The number of apprentices employed was limited by the number of senior employees. It was argued that they needed to be there in sufficient numbers to train the apprentices. Apprentices were also quarantined from being members of a union because the unions were interested only in the senior employees and the jobs available to them.
I was involved in the administrative side of the racing industry as a committee member and the Chairman of the Western Australian Turf Club. The club approached the appropriate authorities in Western Australia to see whether we could establish an apprenticeship for farriers. It is a well-paid profession and a tough job. The only way to become a farrier was to do casual work and learn on the job. There was no proper process or academic-style training involved. To this day there is no such apprenticeship because the committee, which is dominated by trade union officials, knocked back the proposal on the ground that the program had no capacity to provide multiskilling. I asked whether it was expected that a 14- or 15-stone farrier should be trained in the skills of a jockey. It was a silly objection, but none of the trade union representatives on that committee wanted a new-style apprenticeship in Western Australia.
Many years ago I looked at employment in the fishing industry out of Geraldton, which along with a number of smaller southern ports catches 10,000 tonne rock lobsters a year. I saw 15-year-olds working as deckies and earning about $50,000 a year on a piecework basis. The trade unions hated that and have tried to unionise the fishing industry for years. Those involved tell them to buzz off; they do not want their help. Of course, 15-year-old kids could negotiate their share and they were paid about $50,000.
It became obvious to me that in later years these young people had no skills that qualified them to take over the control of a fishing vessel—that is, to get a skipper’s ticket. So I called a meeting of all secondary schools in Geraldton and asked if they could have a focus in their secondary years on developing programs and curricula so that the kids could get those skills at school and not wait till they were 30 or 35, when the opportunity arose. By that time they would be married, have a couple of kids running around the lounge room and would not want to have to go back to TAFE.
Of course, for the information of those present, the foundation of navigation is trigonometry. If you grab the average kid, who is not really planning to be an engineer or a scientist or somebody at that nature, and ask him if he will do trigonometry, he will say no. But ask him, ‘Would you like to do a course of navigation?’ and he will say, ‘Yeah, I’d like to do that.’
The principals were very impressed, but the TAFE colleges said, ‘Don’t you dare get into our territory.’ There was a demarcation dispute. In other words, they were saying, ‘Send your kids onto us after they have left secondary school.’ Fortunately, as I understand—although I have not checked it for some time—an accommodation was eventually reached and the secondary school kids go over to TAFE and do those subjects. I always remember my next-door neighbour, who had a son one year older than mine who was not academically bright. His father got him an apprenticeship at 15 and insisted he start a builder’s registration ticket. He did, and at about 17 or 18 years old he came out with both qualifications. The firm of Bunnings, where he was employed, plucked him out of the cabinet shop and put him on the front desk. In later years he managed a big timber company in Victoria, where he still resides. That is what happens when someone makes it happen.
Isn’t it amazing! It was a parent, a caring parent, who actually set all that up. Day after day we hear bleatings about young people having to negotiate their own contracts. I heard some on the ABC, which scours the world for someone to criticise us. They had some American saying, ‘Isn’t it terrible that young people have to go and negotiate their own contract.’ Of course they do not. As has been pointed out, they cannot enter a contract without the signature of a parent or guardian. And who would believe that any decent parent would not attend with an employer at the first interview of their children?
They are probably busy at work, mate.
I note that one member laughs at that, and probably he was too negligent with his kids to give them that bit of assistance. But why is it that only a trade union can do that job? Parents, grandparents or whoever else has the time can do it much better, and the responsible ones do it.
Remember that the Australian government suffered great political damage when we did the right thing to reform the Australian tax system by introducing a GST. It was hotly contested, not only by the members of the Labor Party in this place but by all those Labor premiers who, once the GST came into effect, could not get into the queue to get the money quick enough. What did our Prime Minister tell the Australian people during the campaign? He said that this was a growth tax so that state governments could properly meet their responsibilities in hospitals, law and order and education. The next speaker might tell me where the money has gone, because it has not gone into those areas. The states have closed down their tech colleges, they are closing down police stations—for example, in my electorate—and, no matter where you turn in Australia, the delivery of public hospital services is a mess. Now, in response to that and recognising the rights of the taxpayer, our government is looking at opportunities to assist community run hospitals, and I applaud the Minister for Health and Ageing for nominating those that are community run.
I do not know where the money goes, but, no matter how much we pour into state government coffers, it does not come out in better educational services. So we have had to give opportunities to young people like the young man I mentioned who ended up a senior manager. He took the opportunity to be apprenticed at the end of year 10—we called it third year in those days—but immediately commenced a night school program in his secondary years, while he was at work. Look at the benefits he achieved. All of those opportunities exist.
I want to make special reference to a secondary school program of vocational education that exists at the agricultural colleges in my electorate. These are residential and offer a very broad range of education. They give the necessary training in English, mathematics and those sorts of subjects; yet, you go to their field days and find magnificent furniture. And the card on the piece of furniture will say, ‘made by Mary Smith’. Not only that, but Bill Smith might have welded up a trailer for the family farm. Then you will find that ‘Mary Smith’ has come up from Perth to take up that educational opportunity. Yet when parents throughout my electorate want their children to take up that educational opportunity and find there is another secondary school between them and the available agricultural college, they are not given the financial assistance that is otherwise available in boarding allowances and things of that nature. I think that is silly.
This raises another issue which I want to identify to the parliament. The Narrogin agricultural college has an agreement with the Western Australian Farm Machinery Dealers Association, which assists them in running a course for agricultural machinery repairs and maintenance. These kids are coming out of years 11 and 12 well prepared to go to work with the machinery dealer and, as an apprentice, pick up the last bit of training they need.
I can remember in earlier years, as a shadow minister, visiting the Repco apprentices school in Melbourne, which was closed down by the Hawke government. It was run by Repco, doing the same thing as these colleges, and employers found it better to pay Repco to take their apprentices on for those two years and get them up to a basic skills standard so that, when they entered the workforce, they were not on the broom or all the things that are often said about young apprentices. They went straight to work, they were productive and the employer had an advantage because the money they spent in providing that education and training was saved by the productivity of the individual when they arrived in the workplace.
As a youth, I had the opportunity with my secondary education credentials to apply for a job as a cadet scientist with CSIRO. I am rather glad to say that they did not take me on; someone else got the cadetship. But what did those cadetships provide and why should big business—maybe I will remind the Business Council in my discussions with them this evening—not complain, when they abandoned cadetships, about the lack of availability of people with the skills they require? Cadetships meant you were employed but went to university when you had to attend, but when the holidays came around you went back into the laboratory or whatever was related with that training. I think it is a tragedy that big business walked away from that and expected the taxpayer to carry the full burden. The quicker they revisit those sorts of arrangements the better. It helped young people. They did not end up, as they do today, with a HECS debt.
Notwithstanding the comments that are frequently made by the shadow minister in this regard, HECS was brought in by the Hawke government, and it was brought in because a previous member for Werriwa decided Australia could have free universities and nearly sent the government broke in the process. The Hawke government introduced HECS on the recommendation of a committee chaired, I think, by Neville Wran. It was their invention and it has become necessary. Touching on that area of education, I heard the shadow minister this morning saying that Australians now have to pay $100,000 and $200,000 for a full-fee position to the exclusion of those who are otherwise qualified for a HECS position. Yet most universities at the moment cannot fill their HECS positions, so where is the statistical support for that remark? Why can’t they fill them? Because it has suddenly become valuable to take other trade positions.
I have had a lot of work done on the university facilities in Geraldton in my electorate. The member for Werriwa complains about what he did not get in his electorate and what the member for Lindsay did—there might be some comparison there of the capacity of the two members to perform—but I took the initiative of getting some university places allocated to a town that had no university infrastructure or structure at all. The universities had to go up there and chase them, and they did. In a recent discussion with the universities as to the future of that situation, I suggested they should have special courses for the fly-in, fly-out people who live in that region so that on their week off they can start to upgrade their academic skills as mining engineers or something of that nature in a mixed sort of situation of face-to-face training and extension courses. These are the things that we are doing; we are combining with the community to get results. These technical education facilities certainly meet that criterion. (Time expired)
It is a great privilege for me to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007 today. The reason for that is quite simple: I believe in training and in skills and I think it is important that this parliament does everything in its capacity to enhance and support that. To that effect, Labor will not be opposing the bill. But it is interesting to note a number of things that bring about the amendment to this bill. This is the third cost blow-out for the government in relation to—what I would call at this stage—their failed Australian technical colleges. They must be failed because they have not yet succeeded. There can only be one or the other; it is an on-off technical point. If they have not succeeded, they must have failed. The first round of funding was $343 million, which was not enough. It had to be increased to $456 million, and that was not enough. Now it has been pushed out to $548 million. The government might try to explain away as to why there have been these additional costs, but they are not really additional costs; they are cost blow-outs. They are a failing on the part of the government to understand in the first place why it did not need to introduce these colleges.
It goes to the intent of why these ATCs are there in the first place. The Australian technical colleges were put in place not as a solution, not for an outcome, not for training needs, not for skills and not to do something in the national interest; they were quite simply put there as a political tool. It was about an election outcome. Let us be clear about that right from the outset. There is no way from anything I have read, anything I have seen or anything I have heard, particularly not from government members or the Minister for Vocational and Further Education—in fact, the more I listen to them the more I am convinced that this was about an election outcome—that success is measured in students, results or outcomes in the national interest. Success is measured in whether this mob got re-elected, and in that they did succeed. Their primary goal of setting up something which would cost the taxpayer half a billion dollars to get them re-elected was successful.
However, we need to do something for young Australians. We need to do something for skills and for the crisis which everyone acknowledges is real. On that score the government have failed, because they are not interested. That is the reality; the government do not care. They would not spend five minutes looking at what people really need but they would spend $500 million looking at what they need for an election outcome. That is what disappoints me—the lost opportunities, the waste of taxpayer dollars, the false hope that the government put out to people in terms of providing something extra. We could put this money to good use, and I will deal with that as I consider the bill today.
This is a failed program by the government. The amendment bill before us means that there will be three new ATCs. I would have thought that the government would have concentrated on the existing ones and the ones that have not opened yet, rather than setting up new ones. There will be new colleges in Perth, Brisbane and Western Sydney. I welcome them. If, in the end—no matter how painful and how much it costs—there is an outcome for skills and for young people, I welcome it. I understood what this initiative was about. In the heat of an election campaign, there was desperation and the government needed to do something. We all understand that. There is no question that people understand what this government is about. But if there were an outcome and some students had some skills at the end, you could give it a tick and say, ‘We’re at least getting something.’
Probably one of the best submissions, or tenders, put forward to the government was from my electorate of Oxley. If you look carefully and closely at the government’s guidelines on Australian technical colleges—and this is about what they say, which is different from what they do—you find that they talk about skills, working with industry and partnerships. They use all the usual terms to try and convince people. They talk about outcomes and areas of need. I could not find a higher area of need than the western corridor in Queensland. The government want to talk about partnerships? We have got it all. We have the TAFE institution of the year in my electorate. I looked at the guidelines and thought: ‘This is fantastic. Finally, the government will acknowledge that we need to do something in the western corridor of Brisbane and we are going to deliver something on the ground.’ I was excited. I did not agree with their policy, because I understood what it was about—it was about the politics, not the outcomes—but I thought, ‘At least I’m going to get some money in my area.’ Guess what? There is no funding for the western corridor. I do not want to be cynical about this. As John Howard always says: ‘We’ll let the record tell the story. We’ll let the record stand for itself.’ Why is it that 90 per cent of ATCs are in coalition marginal seats?
Really?
Yes, 90 per cent. If it were about a fair balance of need, you could not go much further than Labor electorates in parts of Western Sydney or in western Brisbane in my electorate. There is genuine need. People are crying out for support from this government but they get absolutely nothing. Why is that? Maybe it is because of what I mentioned at the start: political outcome, not educational or training outcome. Everything in this whole dogged exercise from the government has been about the politics and about saving their own skin. All that this government, the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Treasurer, Peter Costello, are about is their political hide. We saw it this week. I will not discuss it here as there are other forums to do so. We saw what the Treasurer is about. It is about his wanting to become the Prime Minister. He could not give two hoots about what happens to anyone in this country—young people, old people. He does not care about housing affordability or interest rates—nine interest rate rises in a row. Do they care? No. All they care about is re-election. The imperative of all government policy and funding is re-election. It is in everything they do and in all of their policies. It is disgraceful. The government will pay a very high price for it.
I do not really care about the price this government will pay because no price is too high to pay for what it has done. I am concerned about the price that young Australians are paying and the price that our national economy is paying. No matter how good the economy, it is never good enough. No matter how well we are doing and how low the unemployment rate is, it is never good enough. This government went to sleep years ago thinking that its job was done, that it was finished. It thought: ‘No more needs to be done. The economy’s great. Interest rates are at so-called low levels’—but after nine interest rate rises you would have to ask yourself how real that was—‘The job is done.’ It is all about being re-elected.
Currently in Australia the TAFE system is the one that provides real outcomes, real skills and real training—and it does it very well. There are 230 TAFEs in this country and they do a fantastic job. The courses and the training that they provide give young people the ability to take on apprenticeships. It gives them access to coursework and courses that allow them to earn credits towards a bachelor’s degree or recognised diploma. It is the primary provider of skills and training in this country. I do not think anybody can dispute that. This is the largest organisation in Australia that provides some 85 per cent of all outcomes—the outcome of not just getting people through the door but getting people out the door, the ones getting the real jobs and the real training. You would think that anyone with a bit of common sense—and, I have to say, a bit of honesty—would have asked: ‘Shouldn’t that be the system we support?’ It is not about the system. When I talk about support, I am talking about supporting the young people who go there. I am talking about their educational needs, outcomes, training and skills. It is not the system.
What have the government done over the last 11 years? What have John Howard and Peter Costello done? They just keep taking money away from TAFE—defunding it further and further each year. Year on year it has received less money. That is how committed the government are to training and skills and to looking after young people. They have created a massive problem. Labor have been talking about skills for many years. That mob opposite used to laugh at us and say: ‘Skills? What skills problem? Crisis? There is no crisis. You’re overstating it by saying the sky is going to fall in.’ Guess what? There is a skills crisis. Business—small, big and medium enterprises—and young people agree; everyone agrees. Sure, young people are getting jobs, and that is a good thing, but there is a price to be paid for it. Let them get a job, but let them get skills and training. Let them get the bits of paper that say they have a skill beyond what is the economic resource boom of today.
Things change, and we are starting to see that now in the mining industry. This government think they can just skate home on the back of the mining and resources sector; they should look at how productivity levels in mining have dropped. They should look at how people are now losing their jobs in mining. Of course, we have plenty to dig up; we have literally 200 years worth—an endless supply—of resources in just about everything. But we can’t get it out the door fast enough. That means reduced productivity. Reduced productivity, in the end, means fewer jobs. So people who went to the mines and earned incredible amounts of dollars are now coming back out. The problem for some of those people is that they have nowhere to go in terms of their skills, so they are getting unskilled jobs. The government just do not understand this. The sad part is that they do not want to understand. If you refuse to acknowledge that a problem exists, you will never find a solution for it. In the mind of the government, it does not exist.
It is the same with interest rates. One of the biggest issues in my electorate is housing affordability and housing costs. When the Liberal candidate in my electorate is asked what the big issues for the election are, he says, ‘Oh, there’s a road.’ Of course, I have been talking about the roads for 11 years, but nobody on the government side ever listened to me because they could not care about roads in south-east Queensland. The Liberal candidate said, ‘No, it’s just a road.’ When asked specifically about interest rates, he said, ‘No, everyone’s doing fine; the economy’s great.’ Which planet is he living on? How much does he pay for his mortgage or rent?
Families are doing it really tough, and it is all interlinked. This is the part that really gets to me, because it is all interlinked—this whole question about skills and about providing the educational pathways in schools. We still have government members who are living very deeply in the past—10, 15 or 20 years ago. They still talk about the competition, the class warfare, between getting a trade and getting a university degree. That is old stuff. We do not talk about that anymore. People in schools, at TAFE, at uni and in trades do not talk about that; it is all about different pathways to get to where you want to be. You do not have to start in one place and stay there for the rest of your life. You can actually learn for the rest of your life. That is what we should all be doing.
With respect to young people finishing school, I say to the member for O’Connor that maybe in his day it was all right to leave school at 15, get an apprenticeship and be set for life. That was fine; that was a normal thing to do. But today, it is very dangerous to give that sort of advice to young people. There are not too many employers out there who will give a 15-year-old a job. The other issues are the type of job and the sort of money that you would be earning. There are also the things they will miss out on. The data today is pretty clear: no matter what job you apply for, employers really want people who have completed year 12.
The government cannot have it both ways. They talk about numeracy and literacy levels and how important they are in terms of skills in industry and business. You are not going to get the sort of numeracy and literacy skills that you need by age 15. You are going to need those couple of extra years. That is really important.
I do not really care whether a young person transitioning in school wants to be a scientist, a doctor, a tradesman as I was, or go out and start their own business. They can do whatever they want to do. That is the great thing about our system: it allows people to have that flexibility in choice. But you have to provide for it. This is where government plays its role at the federal level. It is not just the fault of the states all the time. It cannot always be somebody else’s fault. Sooner or later, you have to step up and ask: ‘Where do we do something for the country?’ When is this parliament going to do something for the country? When are we going to invest in young people? When are John Howard and Peter Costello going to say, ‘Hang on, maybe we should take some responsibility’? Why is it always somebody else’s fault? It is because they do not care. As long as they get re-elected, they just do not care.
I simply suggest this to the government: have a close look at the sort of money you are spending. The provision of three new ATCs will take the figure to 28 in the country. They are not located in the areas where we need to do the most but they are still good. They are there; we are not going to take them away. It adds another layer. Again, it is about more duplication. Today, in the modern world, we talk about reducing bureaucracy and duplication. This government want to keep adding layers of bureaucracy and burden. We have perfectly good infrastructure out there called the TAFE system, with really wonderful teachers and students, yet this mob want to undermine them. I just do not get that—I do not understand it.
Maybe I do understand it a little bit: it is all about having a go at the states. The federal government is really angry that the states have the TAFE system and it does not. It has said: ‘How are we going to create a pseudo TAFE system? We’ll rebadge it and call it Australian technical colleges.’ So there is a Commonwealth badge instead of a state badge. Who cares? How about doing something for young people who have training needs? I do not really care what badge is out the front of the bricks and mortar of the school. Obviously, this government does. It is all about the badge out the front—whether it is the coat-of-arms and the Commonwealth badge out the front rather than some state badge. Personally, I could not care either way. I do not care what badge is out the front.
What I do care about is turning up to a graduation ceremony and seeing young people, accompanied by their parents or grandparents, who are proud as punch that they now have a certificate IV in whatever it might be, or they have an apprenticeship and have graduated. They are out there contributing to the economy, participating fully as a member of society and in life. Instead, we now have more than half-a-billion dollars being spent, yet delivering a zero outcome.
With respect to the zero outcome, the Audit Office report gives the details. I did not make this up; I just turned to the report to see what the government body was saying about it. I wanted to see what the government’s independent arm was saying about these sorts of programs. If you read it, you will fall off your chair, because you just will not believe how bad it is. It is even worse than you might think.
The Audit Office says that there is ‘insufficient attention paid to state and territory governments’. Again, we know why that is: they want to bypass them as if they do not exist. The Audit Office says that ‘initial tender applications were weak and inadequate’, that ‘there was little choice among ATC applicants’ and that there were ‘no student outcomes’. We have not had any graduates. Over the full life of the program, if there is a 100 per cent success rate, we will get 10,000 graduates by 2010. The problem is that we have 200,000 new skilled positions to be filled. So the figure should be 200,000, not 10,000.
The government’s solution to a problem which comprises a figure of 200,000 is to say, ‘We’ll give you five per cent, but it’ll cost you more than half-a-billion dollars.’ Do you have to be an economic genius to understand simple mathematics? Five per cent ain’t going to solve the problem, but it is a huge cost. You need to take that same money, half-a-billion dollars, and invest it back into the TAFE system—into the quality teachers and the quality infrastructure.
That is what Labor’s policy is about. We are saying that we want to work with people. We want to partner with the states, we want to partner with education and we want to partner with schools. Why bypass the schools themselves? They have 1.2 million students in years 9, 10, 11 and 12 that are currently going through the education system who need the assistance. Why not partner with them? I think it would be really good if the government actually looked at that, but it cannot look beyond itself.
Again, it all gets back to where I started: it is never a plan about an outcome or about skills or about fixing the real problem; it is a plan for the government’s own re-election and survival. And those plans always fail because they are no good for the country, for young people or for training. They do not have an outcome. We have the outcome from the 2004 ATC policy: they got re-elected. Fine; I am sure they are happy. They pat themselves on the back. They must be so proud of themselves. When they go to bed at night they must think, ‘Jeez, we have achieved a lot—zero outcome students for half a billion dollars.’ But then again, it is not their money; it is your money. It is taxpayers’ money, and the government can spend it like there is no tomorrow—like drunken sailors.
After 11 long years of this government, I think people are starting to wake up to the incompetence and to the nine interest rate rises in a row. There is a lot of irony in this place; it is one thing that I love. I just cannot get past this: in 2004 John Howard, the Prime Minister, did a fantastic job—a brilliant job—of convincing everybody that he was 100 per cent responsible for interest rates. He was responsible personally; he controlled them so much so that to vote for anyone else would be disastrous on interest rates and they would go up. People believed him. He did a good job—they believed him. Guess what? They still believe him today. He is responsible, and I believe he is responsible. I say that tongue in cheek. They believe he is responsible today for all nine interest rate rises—for the five since he made the promise. Yes! You are right! In 2004 you convinced everybody that you were responsible, Prime Minister, and they still believe you today, and now they are going to make you pay for it.
I would like to see Labor’s policy adopted. We can do something real about the 200,000 gap we have in skills—the crisis. We can do something beyond just importing labour; we can train young people. We can give them real training for real jobs. That can be achieved, and, with the half a billion dollars being spent on the ATCs, we will keep them but we will do it right. We will do it in partnership with industry, schools and the states. We will actually talk to people and consult with them, because we believe in the outcome of young people getting skills and jobs, and a national economy that works for everybody—not just the government. (Time expired)
It is a pleasure to follow the honourable member for Oxley and his fine contribution to this debate on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007. From the outset I want to say that I agree with his remarks that on this side of the House we are interested in any solutions that will provide additional training opportunities for students that we represent in our electorates. We are not ideologues; we are not hidebound. We welcome innovation. It was on that basis that this proposal for Australian technical colleges was welcomed. I note that this bill is to increase the funding for the additional three technical colleges to be located in Perth, Brisbane and Western Sydney. The funding will increase by $74.7 million, taking the government’s overall contribution for 28 colleges to $548 million.
If you were to listen to the contributions of government members, you would not understand what businesses have been complaining about. Whether they are small, medium or large, businesses have been complaining consistently for some time that there are insufficient people being skilled and trained in this country. That is a tragedy. If we dismiss small business as just a bunch of whingers who do not know what they are talking about, we should at least take note of the Reserve Bank, which on more than 20 occasions has pointed to the skills shortage in the economy. This is acting as a handbrake on the economy. Our growth could be more sustainable if we had more skilled workers in our economy and did more training.
I want to get back to Western Sydney, my part of the world, which I am very proud to represent. We have a temporary college in Western Sydney at a temporary location. Notwithstanding it being up and operating—it is at Rouse Hill, an interim location—in 2007 it had an enrolment of 20 students. The actual enrolment was 20; the target enrolment was 25. For these 25 students the funding was $1.302 million. This is a very expensive way of training people. Consistent with the way these technical colleges are going, the training is often outsourced. So we are getting a double hit: you have to manage those contracts as well as the contracts of the students. I am proud to come from Western Sydney. In 2016 more than half of Sydney’s population will live in Western Sydney, but we have got only one technical college—its temporary location will be replaced by a permanent location at Schofields—to service Western Sydney.
I have some figures here that indicate just how many students there are in the TAFEs in my part of Western Sydney—not south-west Sydney; this is the Western Sydney Institute area. TAFEs delivered programs to 85,000 students in 2006 in eight campuses: Baulkham Hills, Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Mount Druitt, Nepean-Kingswood, Nepean-Penrith, Nirimba and Richmond. I am not counting south-west Sydney. What is the ATC delivering? It is delivering programs to 20 students—that is what it is actually delivering—and it is programmed to deliver to 25. That is a disgrace.
When you scratch the surface of the Howard government you will find an ideology. They are not interested in what is going to deliver the most practical outcomes. Where will the government and the taxpayers get the biggest punch for their money? I would have thought that the Western Sydney Institute, which is servicing 85,000 students, probably has the capacity to take on board another 25. In fact, I think it could take on a lot more if this government were serious about solving the skills shortage problems in our community. They are not. They would much rather have 457 visas, and we know all the problems that are associated with those visas. I well remember the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Cairns telling me how disgusted he was that for every application that was submitted and granted to import a skilled worker—none failed; there is a 100 per cent success rate—not one check-up was undertaken by the department to see whether or not the conditions were actually being met, whether the shortage was real or not. I do not mind importing people; I do not mind having them come here, adding to our migrant population and our skills base. The thing that I really object to is when we are not doing the right thing to provide opportunities for our young people.
I would like to reiterate some of the points that the honourable member for Oxley spoke about. Now, after three years of the operation of these technical colleges, so lauded by every backbench member of the coalition, there has been not one graduate. There are only 1,800 enrolments in these technical colleges, but to that we are proposing to put in half a billion dollars. Half a billion dollars goes to 1,800 enrolments of the Australian technical colleges. Just two of the 21 colleges met their 2007 enrolment targets. I repeat: just two of the 21 colleges met their 2007 enrolment targets. What was the average cost? It was $175,000 per student. That is an enormous amount of money per student when you have not actually graduated any of your students. Only a third of the colleges are legally registered to provide training. As I mentioned previously, the colleges have outsourced the bulk of their training to TAFEs or registered training organisations.
One of the things I constantly hear from either the Minister for Vocational and Further Education or, alternatively, the backbenchers of the coalition, is that we are producing more apprentices now than we ever did. It would be a good thing if that were the truth. But, of course, the truth is that the Howard government folded traineeships into apprenticeships very early on, so they are just the one figure. So whenever it talks about apprenticeships, the reality is that the Howard government is talking about apprenticeships and traineeships. I have no difficulty with anyone doing a traineeship and I think it is a good thing that they were introduced, but I think it is very dishonest to suggest that someone doing a 12-month or six-month traineeship is equivalent to someone doing one of the more traditional trade apprenticeship programs. I think it is very dishonest of the government to run around claiming that there are more apprentices these days than there ever were under the former Labor government.
If we think that education and vocational education are really important in our society or communities—and I think they are—we would surely see an increase in spending; we would surely see that the proportion of government outlays going to education would be increasing. If that were the case, it could be truly said that the government of the day, the Howard government, was investing in the future of our society—investing in young people. But, of course, it is not. The investment is declining. Education expenditure is anticipated to decline from 7.7 per cent of total spending in 2005-06 to just 7.4 per cent in 2010-11.
Isn’t it disappointing, if you accept that there is a skills shortage, that expenditure on education is going to decline rather than increase as part of government outlays? I would like to think that it would, in fact, increase. I certainly hope that at the next election we elect a Labor government, and that would be the result over the next period of office of the government. Labor also have a program which would result in the establishment of trade facilities in schools. Something like $250 million will provide appropriate training facilities for the nation’s high schools over a 10-year period. I think that is a good thing. We have a long way to go to develop the vocational education opportunities for secondary students who are still in secondary schools. I note that in my own electorate the state government has designated Colyton High School, which will now be in the electorate of Lindsay, and Chifley College Senior Campus as part of the trade school system. That is a good initiative.
There has been an Auditor-General’s report of these Australian technical colleges and, not surprisingly, it has been very critical. It has been very critical of the haste with which the government has proceeded with these colleges. It has drawn attention to the lack of planning and integration and discussion with the state education systems. I think that the government should take to heart exactly what has been said in the Auditor-General’s report. I am not going to go through every piece of criticism.
Where does Labor stand? As I said at the beginning of my speech, we support a fresh and different approach. We wish that the Australian technical colleges could have fulfilled just one-tenth of the hype of the government, but, sadly, they have failed to measure up to date. I hope that we can get them to succeed. I think it is a good thing to have a variety of different educational and training opportunities for young people. I believe that there is a place in the sun for Australian technical colleges, but they need to be much better administered. I do not think we can continue to have them costing $175,000, on average, per student. That is horrendous. We certainly need to get those costs down. My own part of the world, Western Sydney, is the third largest economy in Australia. Having just 20 of these students enrolled in the third largest economy in Australia is, in my view, nothing to boast about. As I said, the TAFEs have a huge presence in Western Sydney.
Since the state government has amalgamated the department of education with the department of vocational education, I am looking to see more robust outcomes in the vocational area from our traditional high schools. The Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, has already announced a positive and practical measure that will allow many of the high schools in my electorate to give a better suite of choices to those students who want to enter the world of work but want to get some vocational training and perhaps even become a traditional apprentice.
We need to say in Australia that we put a priority on young people, that we value young people, that we want to give them opportunities and that we want them to be able to enter the world of work well-qualified for the challenges of working in private enterprise as apprentices or trainees. I support the amendment moved by Mr Stephen Smith, the member for Perth.
I thank my colleague for his contribution. He was erudite, as usual. We agree on most things, but not everything—just as I agree on some things with you, Mr Deputy Speaker Haase, but not a lot. The Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007 provides funding for three more Australian technical colleges. We have spoken about this in this chamber before. We support the additional expenditure in the critical area of vocational education and training, but the proposed amendments, as other speakers have said, highlight, among other things, the government’s complete lack of commitment to education within the broader Australian community. This ineptitude is felt most starkly in my own electorate of Lingiari but also, I am sure, in other regional and remote areas. In my case, it is particularly so, given the recent announcements of government intervention and a national emergency. I will come to that a little later.
This technical colleges legislation highlights a particular issue which I have spoken about before in this chamber on a number of occasions, and I am sure it reflects what is happening in your own electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker. This bill provides an additional $74.7 million for three new Australian technical colleges announced in the 2007-08 budget, to be located in Perth, Brisbane and Western Sydney. This appropriation takes the total cost of establishing 28 technical colleges to $548 million. That is a large sum of money—over half a billion dollars.
I want to express some grave reservations about the public policy aspects of these technical colleges and some concerns about the failure of the government, in looking at vocational education and training, to properly address the needs of my electorate. I think it is worth highlighting some of the comments that were made by the shadow minister for education and training, Stephen Smith, the member for Perth, in his speech in the second reading debate. He said that the government’s rationale behind the creation of the Australian technical colleges has been to isolate and attack the states and territories in an area that has traditionally been the responsibility of the states and territories themselves. Furthermore, he said that the government is attempting to find a political fix to an area of policy that has continued to be neglected over its 11 years in office. After spending more than half a billion dollars on a stand-alone network of ATCs, this is appalling.
I think this observation of itself is an example of the problems we are confronting—that is, that the ATCs have yet to produce one single graduate and the Howard government’s response is to build three additional colleges. The government’s own estimate is that Australia will confront a shortage of over 200,000 skilled workers over the next five years. These technical colleges are, we are told, expected to produce 10,000 graduates by 2010. That is a significant shortfall and it is hardly going to address the problem. It is like a pimple on the bum of an elephant—it will not show up. As for the impact it will have on the skills shortages across Australia, we know it will be farcically insignificant.
Over the past decade, the Howard government has slashed investment in vocational education and training. The TAFE system has been forced to turn away more than 325,000 students because of a lack of resources. There is one of these technical colleges in Darwin, which is not in my electorate but in the adjoining electorate of Solomon. It was allocated $8.265 million in the funding agreement and had a targeted enrolment of 50 in 2007. However, the actual enrolment was just a bit more than half—27. The Darwin technical college has already taken over three years to establish. The government only advertised for a college principal at the end of last year. It will take a number of years yet before it will be able to release skilled workers onto the labour market. It will not deliver enough tradespersons for Darwin’s needs, let alone for the needs of the Northern Territory generally. This further emphasises the policy failure in relation to addressing this very important national issue.
We have been told by the government that the technical colleges are located in regions with a high youth population and skills needs and which are supported by a significant industry base. Interestingly, my electorate has, I think, the highest birthrate of any electorate in Australia next to yours—Kalgoorlie—Mr Deputy Speaker Haase. Probably I am right in saying that it has the youngest population of any electorate in Australia. As in your electorate of Kalgoorlie, but not as significant in terms of the demand, there is a considerable skills shortage. As in your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker, the mining industry is prominent in my electorate. The pastoral industry is prominent in my electorate. The tourism industry is prominent in my electorate. The fishing industry is prominent in my electorate. The housing and construction sector is prominent in my electorate, as are many other sectors. There is only a relatively small manufacturing base. Nevertheless, there is one. All of those sectors suffer from severe skills shortages. So we have a young population, a very high birthrate, severe skills shortages and a lack of educational opportunity. You do not have to be Einstein to work it out. It is a region where there is a young population, severe skills shortages and no investment at all by this government in vocational education and training. There is no technical college for Lingiari—nothing.
The Northern Territory government held a conference in November 2005 entitled 2015: Moving the Territory Ahead. It was told that regional economies were suffering as the Darwin economy boomed. In 2006 the Territory Construction Association stated that these skills shortages were leading to business closures, despite a booming economy. In addressing this concern, the conference delegates stated that there was a crucial need to involve Indigenous people. Mr Deputy Speaker, a little like your electorate—although it is a significantly higher proportion of the population—in my own electorate roughly 40 per cent of the population are Indigenous. Just shy of a third of the whole of the Northern Territory population are Indigenous. You would know, Mr Deputy Speaker, from the work which has been done by some of the mining industry players in your own electorate, how it is possible, working with local communities and education providers, to get skilled workers from the Indigenous population. Unfortunately, there is no indication from the announcements made thus far by the government in relation to technical colleges that they understand this priority for my electorate.
We know that the cost of providing one graduate from this exercise is very significant—$125,000 per student, which is not a bad sum of money. Imagine what you could do in your electorate, and certainly in my electorate, if someone offered to fund 50 or 100 kids at $175,000 each. You could build the Taj Mahal of all training centres and you would be guaranteed people to fill it. But that is not what is happening. Instead of investing resources in the TAFE sector, as Labor has suggested, and instead of investing resources in schools, as Labor proposes, what we have is a stand-alone system. We are discovering that this system is subletting or tendering the training back to the TAFE sector. So one asks the obvious question: what is the relative value of having this investment in technical colleges when we can see that it is at the cost of the broader community?
The shortage of skills in the Territory is exacerbated by the growth in the level of economic activity that the Territory is experiencing. Access Economics’ five-year Business outlook released last month predicts strong growth in the Territory economy of between five and 6.5 per cent per annum over the next three years. You know what that means in your own electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker Haase, in terms of driving demand, but, most significantly, it is driving demand for labour. We know that little effort has been made by the government to address the skills needs of industry by tapping into the untapped resource—in the context of my own electorate and no doubt in yours, Mr Deputy Speaker, and certainly in other parts of Australia—that is, the Indigenous labour force. There has been no attempt. I think it is worth reflecting just for a moment on some important information about the Northern Territory’s labour force. The Workforce NT report notes:
Over 83 per cent ... of the Indigenous population aged 15 years and over—
in the NT—
reside in remote areas. This existing and potential labour force is characterised by:
Dr John Taylor, author of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research report Indigenous economic futures in the Northern Territory, has stated:
The CDEP program was a response to the calls of Indigenous Australians for an alternative to passive welfare—that is, sit-down money—that would meet the requirements of community development. I will come back to that in a moment.
To date, the thrust of Commonwealth policy aimed at reducing welfare dependency and raising economic status has been towards increasing mainstream employment, especially in the private sector. This has not been achieved in the Northern Territory. The underlying determinants of the skills shortage in the Territory and the inability of many in my electorate to fully engage with the labour market remain focused on the themes of disadvantage and the historical legacy of exclusion from the education and training sectors.
I want to spend a bit of time on that. You will have heard me talk about it here before, because I have flapped my gums about it so often in this place that I am getting sick and tired of doing it. But there are, in my estimation, somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 young Aboriginal Territorians between the ages of 13 and 18 who have no access to any education services to speak of, no access to a normal high school and certainly no access to any vocational education and training—none.
We know that the significant proportion of these people, once they reach the age of 16, end up as CDEP workers. Some of them undertake very important work in communities. They might engage in major programs; they might be engaged in working in the local store, in school, in aged-care programs or childcare programs. There are a range of programs that you see in communities, Mr Deputy Speaker, about which you are aware.
We have seen, as a result of the intervention by the Commonwealth government in the Northern Territory, the sacking of 8,000 workers, effectively, by removing CDEP. As of the end of this current financial year, it will no longer exist in the Northern Territory. So the 8,000 people who are currently on CDEP will be off it. Remember what I said earlier: CDEP is about Aboriginal people themselves saying that they are sick of passive welfare and they want to actually make sure that people do something for the money that they get from the Commonwealth.
I think the first CDEP scheme operated in 1976 or 1977. I recall doing a review of the scheme when I was working for the Australian National University between 1979 and 1981. I know how it operates. What we have seen in the Northern Territory, as a result of the government’s intervention and a change in the way in which they administer labour market programs and the removal of the remote area exemption, is that Aboriginal people are going to be moved from CDEP, where they are actually doing work, onto sit-down money.
The reason for this is, of course, so that the Commonwealth can garnish or get hold of by quarantine some of the income of Indigenous people. Leaving aside the merits or otherwise of that debate, the point to be made here is that the government have taken people off a work program and put them onto the dole equivalent or into a training program and this is already causing major concern in the community. There is major concern for a number of reasons, not least of which is that we are seeing an increasing number of people relocate. They are relocating from their home communities, because of these changes, to towns like Alice Springs, Katherine and Tennant Creek. This of course places increasing pressure upon those towns and increasing pressure upon the services that they currently provide and are able to provide. Unfortunately, it is one of the negative effects of the government intervention and something which was highlighted in evidence last Friday to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs by the Mayor of Alice Springs Town Council, Her Worship Fran Kilgariff, and the Mayor of Katherine Town Council, Her Worship Anne Shepherd. They both highlighted this issue.
When we look at the recommendations of the report on which the government’s intervention is based, we see that one of the most significant recommendations is about education. The report points out clearly the things that I have observed over many years—that if you want to provide people with an effective capacity to be participants in the community and to take the responsibility of every other Australian citizen, you provide them with an opportunity for a job. But, to provide them with an opportunity for a job, you have to provide them with access to training or an education. We have historically seen in the Northern Territory a failure by successive governments to do just that, and we are seeing a continuation of that by this government.
So instead of seeing any expenditure at all relating to technical colleges, which will assist in the training of Aboriginal people to address their skills needs, there is no money—not a red cent, not a zack—for the provision of vocational education and training or indeed educational services in these communities. Even in the government’s response, which is currently being debated in the Senate, there is no mention of this. The government have spent over half a billion dollars, but they cannot find any money to address this crucial issue. In the context of this bill that we are currently discussing, I ask one thing: what benefit has the establishment of these technical colleges had for people in remote Australia? I say that it is nil, zilch, zero. There has been no benefit whatsoever. (Time expired)
I rise to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007. This bill provides the funding for three more Australian technical colleges, in Perth, Brisbane and Western Sydney, bringing the total cost of establishing 28 colleges to $548 million. Unfortunately, the bill reflects the usual approach that this government has to serious issues in the Australian community and economy. It does nothing for so long, and then, when it finally does respond to a problem largely of its own making, what we get is not a real solution for the future but a political fix. This is a political fix to a problem that desperately needs a very real solution, and that problem is the skills crisis.
The Reserve Bank has warned over and over again of the growing skills crisis and the impact that it has on inflation and interest rates. Just last Monday, the Reserve Bank of Australia issued a warning again about capacity constraints in the economy and the implications for interest rates. That warning, of course, came on the tail of the most recent, the ninth, interest rate rise in a row. The Reserve Bank statement reinforced the need for positive action from the Howard government to address capacity constraints, particularly the skills shortage. And it was not the first warning. There have been 20 warnings from the Reserve Bank about the implications of capacity constraints and skills shortages in the Australian economy. The response from the Howard government was to deny it for many years and finally to come up with a highly cynical political fix.
Capacity constraints, including the skills crisis, are not things that rise up out of the ground. It is not as if the economy is moving along and then suddenly, overnight, out of the ground, rises the capacity constraint of a skills shortage. You can see it coming. We on this side of the House have seen it coming, and we have been asking for action for a number of years. Business, both big and small, has seen it coming, and it has asked for action. The Reserve Bank has seen it coming and has given at least 20 warnings. But the government denied the existence of the skills crisis even as recently as last year, just as they denied climate change and housing affordability. And, when they finally acted, they did not govern for the future of the country. They campaigned for their own futures. This is a political fix which was announced in the lead-up to the 2004 election and will be delivered to a marginal electorate near you in the lead-up to the 2007 election.
We on this side of the House are not opposing this scheme. It did go to the electorate in the 2004 election and, quite frankly, some action—any action—is better than no action on something that has such a negative impact on ordinary families dealing with interest rate rises. We do, however, have grave reservations about the effectiveness of the Australian technical colleges in fixing a problem that the government itself has created over 11 years of neglect. When the government was elected in 1996, there was already in place a non-tertiary education sector, known in the broader community as TAFE. In that first year, 1996, the government cut the Commonwealth Dental Scheme. It waited until the second year, 1997, to begin slashing investment in vocational education and training.
Between 1997 and 2000, Commonwealth revenue in vocational education decreased by 13 per cent. Between 2000 and 2004, it increased again by the extraordinary figure of one per cent. That is a 13 per cent decrease between 1997 and 2000 and a one per cent increase since then. Since 1997, on John Howard’s watch, with increasingly strong indicators that a skills crisis was approaching and would put upward pressure on inflation and interest rates, real expenditure per hour of TAFE curriculum fell by nearly 24 per cent. That figure comes from data from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research. TAFE is the major provider of vocational education and training in Australia, with more than 1.2 million students. TAFE accounts for 75 per cent of all students and 85 per cent of all training hours, yet we saw it slashed by 13 per cent in the first four years of the Howard government.
Year after year, the Howard government has ignored this most vital part of our community and education infrastructure. The sector is crying out for additional recurrent funding and much needed investment in infrastructure, despite it being the area that will bear the greatest responsibility for the skills, vocational education and training development of our workforce. So what did we get with the Australian technical colleges announcement before the election in 2004? We have seen it delivered, in the main, over the last three years. Ninety per cent of the Australian technical colleges are in marginal or coalition held seats. How cynical is that? It is a political fix for the Liberal Party, not for the future for the Australian people.
More than $500 million in expenditure and so far there is not one graduate to show for it—not one. There will be graduates; the first one will be known as the ‘half billion dollar graduate’. We will see that one soon, I am sure. The Australian technical colleges will graduate fewer than 10,000 students by 2010. The government’s own figures show a shortfall of 200,000 skilled workers by then, and the centrepiece of the government’s skills program will deliver, maybe, 10,000 students by 2010. The locations for these centres were chosen not based on the need for skills but based on John Howard’s need for votes. So far, we have no graduates. Only five per cent of the government’s own estimation of need by 2010 will be met by this, the centrepiece of their skills policy. Meanwhile, the skills crisis grows week by week and continues to put upward pressure on inflation, which, as we know from the Treasurers’ comments, is exactly where he thinks we need it.
The costs also have blown out, but there have been other problems as well. The Australian technical colleges have been plagued by difficulties and low enrolments. After three years and $500 million there is not one graduate, but there are only 1,800 enrolments. Twenty-one of the 25 colleges are now open, but only two of those 21 met their 2007 targets for enrolment. The average cost per student at this point is $175,000 per student. Only one-third of the colleges are legally registered to provide training, and many outsource to TAFEs. In fact, only nine of the 21 Australian technical colleges do not outsource to TAFE, which, as I said, existed before. So they cannot fill their enrolments, they outsource to TAFE, which was already happening and where it does not cost anywhere near $175,000 per student, and they have been unable, to date, to provide apprenticeships for their students—which was, of course, the original idea.
Despite the government’s Australian technical colleges’ website noting that the colleges would be established in ‘areas where there are skills needs, high youth population and a strong industry base’, we have seen 90 per cent of the colleges instead located in coalition or marginal seats—in other words, not where the skills need is high but where the government’s vote need is high. The Australian technical colleges are the centrepiece of the Howard government’s training agenda. After years of denying there was even a skills crisis, this is it. This is their vision for the future: a political fix that will try to plug a 200,000 deficit in skilled people with 10,000 graduates, that puts marginal seats above all else, that puts politics above government, that fails to serve my community and that fails to govern for my community.
While we on this side of the House agree that any move to increase training opportunities in Western Sydney is important, we need to acknowledge that this latest technical college, the only one in Western Sydney, will provide 25 places in a city of two million people. One technical college in Western Sydney will provide 25 student apprenticeships in the third largest economy in Australia—a city of two million people and the fastest growing region, in terms of population, in the country. The Howard government has let us down badly. It has really let us down. I have spoken many times about education in my community. I have talked about the university participation rate in Western Sydney being just over half the rate of the rest of Sydney. I do not have the figures for technical college participation—they are not available—but I would expect that they reflect university participation rates, which, coincidentally, also matched the participation rates in leisure and cultural activities. In Western Sydney, we are an incredibly long way behind now. After 11 years of a Howard government that claims to govern for the battlers, it has delivered 25 places—for those people who can afford to pay—for a city of two million people that is already participating at only just over half the rate of the rest of Sydney. Well, that is going to solve the skills crisis in Western Sydney! That will do a great deal!
There are three reasons why the skills crisis in Western Sydney needs to be solved—three reasons which stand out like nothing else. The first reason is that it provides an escape from poverty and public housing. We in Western Sydney have large public housing estates—planning errors from the past, I think we would all agree. We have large areas of disadvantage. Skills, training and education are the way out for these people. But there are 25 places, if you can afford one. Too bad if your parents are unemployed; too bad if your parents have a drug problem; too bad if your parents are on a disability pension; too bad if you are on a disability pension. There are 25 places for a city of two million people, if you can afford to pay for one.
The second reason is that we are one of the largest economies in the country. We are the driver of this country. Our population is growing at a much more rapid rate than the rest of the country. If we cannot grow our business in Western Sydney to match our population growth, this whole country will wear the price of that. The skills shortage in my area is a major constraint to the development of business. It is a major constraint. Twenty-five places for 75,000 businesses in Western Sydney is not going to do the job. Twenty-five places for those who can afford it, and we have 75,000 businesses.
The third reason is one that the Reserve Bank has warned the government about 20 times: the skills crisis is putting upward pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates. I do not know how many times this has been said. I do not know how many times it needs to be said in order for the government to respond to this. My area of Parramatta is one of the areas in the country where house prices are falling. It is one of the areas which has the highest insolvency rates in the country. Nobody in Australia can afford interest rate rises but, I tell you, my area is really struggling. My area is struggling like I just cannot believe. When I am doorknocking out of there, I can see the fear in people’s faces now because of this. We have to deal with the skills crisis—
I’m sure when you’re doorknocking you can see the fear.
You need to get out more, Parliamentary Secretary.
Order! The honourable member should ignore the parliamentary secretary and the parliamentary secretary should sit there quietly.
I walk 500 kilometres around my electorate.
The parliamentary secretary should not get so excited.
If the parliamentary secretary went out in my electorate with his views that there is no problem here, I think it would serve this side of the House very well. The campus, which was announced in the budget in July, was originally at Rouse Hill. It was announced last year as a temporary campus. The most recent announcement was for a permanent campus at Schofields. Currently there are 20 students enrolled at Rouse Hill with a target of 25 students. There is an extremely low completion rate of only 60 per cent. Even the one technical college that we have is clearly struggling to meet its own targets. We know that the Australian technical colleges plan is a quick fix and we know that it is a political fix. It was the rebadging of one class of 25 student apprentices from one high school in Rouse Hill. That is what it was. The original announcement of a new technical college was the rebadging of an existing class of 25 students at the Rouse Hill school, which has now been moved to a permanent home at the cost of $174,000 for 20 places. It is quite extraordinary.
We need much more than this in Western Sydney. We need real answers for young people and for adults who are retraining. In a city of two million people, 25 places does not cut it. Of course, we do not at this point know how much it will cost for one of these very lucky 25 young people to attend this school. We do not know what it will cost, but we can assume that not one adult from a disadvantaged background will benefit from the opening of this college. How much could have been done if the government had invested this funding through local schools or the local TAFE system. In Western Sydney we have eight TAFE campuses. There are none in my electorate, but Parramatta is surrounded by them: Baulkham Hills, Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Mount Druitt, Nepean-Kingswood, Nepean-Penrith, Nirimba-Quakers Hill and Richmond. In 2006 that combination of eight TAFEs delivered programs to more than 85,000 students in 1,000 vocational areas, yet this is the area that had its funding cut by 13 per cent by this government in its first four years and has had an increase in funding of only one per cent since then.
In spite of the 20 warnings from the Reserve Bank of Australia about the implications of capacity constraints and skills shortages in the Australian economy, what we get from Howard at this point is cuts to TAFE that provides training for 85,000 people and 25 places in a city of two million people. What distresses me about the 11 years of the Howard government—the last 11 of 15 years of an unprecedented boom in this country on the back of the mining boom and the growth of China and India—is the lost opportunity of it. Boom times such as those that we have had over the last 15 years were an opportunity to make a real difference—to invest for the future.
The part of all of us that is not selfish and is responsible expects much more than we have got from this government. After a decade of boom times, is our education system better? Do we honestly think that it is better for our children after a decade of boom times? The answer coming loudly from my electorate is no. After a decade of boom times, unprecedented global booms, are our hospitals better? The answer coming from my electorate is no. Are our community facilities and our ovals and sporting clubs better? No, absolutely not. Are our cities more liveable after a decade of unprecedented boom times? No. Have we bitten the bullet on water? No. Have we bitten the bullet on energy? No. After a decade of boom times, have we looked at the changing world and seen jobs moving freely around the world and even wondered where this country fits in? Have we looked at our strengths and invested in ourselves? No. We have congratulated ourselves on riding on the tail of the biggest boom the world has ever seen. We have not noticed the growing number who are left behind. We have on this side, but on the other side absolutely not. We have not put out a hand to make a difference in the lives of people with mental illness or disabilities and the families that share their lives. After a decade of boom times, are we more open, more generous, do we feel safer and are we better regarded in the world? No, we are not. These are absolutely the easy things that we understand.
It is the hard things that are required to solve the skills crisis in this country. Having consideration for the division of responsibility between federal, state and local governments—getting out there and finding solutions and cooperating—is the hard stuff. That is what was needed. We had an extremely effective system in TAFE. We have seen substantial cuts to that by this government and a $500 million political fix that delivers 25 places for the people who can afford it in a city in Western Sydney containing two million people. That is what we got from this government after 11 years—11 years of denying that there was a skills crisis.
I consider that it would be appropriate to change the name of this bill. I know I cannot do that, but when I look at the title of the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007 I consider what that means in my electorate. It means Australian technical colleges in marginal electorates in order to get the government re-elected and flexibility for 25 people who can afford it in a city of two million people achieving Australia’s skills needs. That is what the government has delivered for Western Sydney: 25 places in a city of two million people and cuts to the TAFE system of 13 per cent that delivers training to 85,000.
As the honourable member for Parramatta said, nothing demonstrates the failure of this government’s Australian technical colleges program better than the experience in Western Sydney—one of the biggest employment-generating areas in this country and its program has been a complete failure. The previous Minister for Vocational and Further Education has been sacked but the people trying to get a technical education in Western Sydney and elsewhere continue to pay the price. The former minister has paid a price, but the people trying to get into the system continue to pay the price. Let us look at the background of this issue in Western Sydney. On 26 September the government announced the establishment of Australian technical colleges. On 15 November, Senator Payne announced that tenders would be sought to establish a college in Western Sydney. The former minister announced this college with great fanfare on 23 June 2006. He said, ‘I look forward to attending the opening of the college in early 2007.’
Order! It being 2 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 Industry, Tourism and Resources will be late for question time today as he is returning from interstate. The Minister for Trade will answer questions on his behalf.
My question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer recall being asked yesterday whether he had said the following: ‘Howard can’t win; I can. We can, but he can’t’? Does the Treasurer recall his answer, which was: ‘No. I don’t know where the Bulletin got that from, certainly not from me’? Does the Treasurer stand by that answer in parliament today?
Of course I do.
My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister update the House on the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics wage data? Is there any risk to continuing growth in wages?
I respond to that question from the honourable member for Stirling by saying that today’s statistics on wages growth confirm the spectacular success of our industrial relations policy, because what they show is that this economy has maintained strong but containable wages growth. These statistics show that wage rates in the private sector increased by one per cent in the June quarter to be 3.8 per cent higher over the year and that wage rates for all sectors rose by 1.1 per cent in the June quarter to be four per cent higher over the year. What this proves yet again is that we are able to sustain simultaneously record lows in unemployment, relatively low interest rates and strong wages growth, but wages growth which is affordable and relevant to the productivity levels and prosperity levels of the different sectors of the Australian economy. It is relevant to recall some remarks made by the Governor of the Reserve Bank on 14 June. He said:
Despite, on most counts, the tightest labour market conditions for a generation, growth in most measures of labour costs has remained well disciplined for the past two years or more, after a mild acceleration earlier. Wages are rising quickly in some areas, but quite slowly in others. That is, relative wages are changing, adjusting to the forces at work on the economy, but without, so far at least, a serious inflation of the whole economy-wide cost structure. This looks like a text-book case of adjustment.
That was a ringing endorsement of the industrial relations policy of this government, and I say in reply to the member for Stirling: there is a threat to that orderly and affordable growth in wages and that is the introduction of the Labor Party’s industrial relations policy. Any return to centralised wage fixing will threaten the non-inflationary growth in wages in this country. It will threaten low unemployment. It will put pressure on inflation and thereby on interest rates, which, in the words of Econtech, the respected economic consultancy, will rise by 1.4 per cent and unemployment by 300,000.
I read a few articles in the paper this morning and there was one that really caught my eye. It was an article written by the respected columnist Paul Kelly, who had this to say in his very last paragraph:
But Labor’s folly is industrial relations. This threatens the economic credentials of a Rudd government and the risk is lethal: higher interest rates. Just look to history.
I say, ‘Amen to that!’
My question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer recall being asked yesterday whether he had said the following: ‘John Howard can’t win the election, but I can’? Does the Treasurer recall his answer, which was, ‘No’? Does the Treasurer stand by that answer in parliament today?
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I draw your attention to standing order 98, which lays out the types of issues that may be addressed in questions. This is not one of them, and I would ask you to direct the member that way.
The member for Mackellar would be well aware, if she were listening to the question, that it was directly related to an answer that the Treasurer had given in this chamber, so it is in order.
Lest there be any doubt, I would like the Leader of the Opposition to listen very carefully: John Howard can win this election and John Howard will win this election. John Howard will win this election because the people of Australia do not deserve to have somebody who does not have a policy position, who has no experience and who would be a patsy for the trade union movement in the prime ministership.
My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer outline to the House the results of the June quarter wage price index? What does this indicate about the importance of flexible labour markets and what are the risks of rolling back to a more centralised industrial relations system?
Today’s publication of the wage price index is good news for the economy, because what it showed was that the wage price index rose 1.1 per cent in the June quarter and four per cent through the year, which is actually down on the through-the-year result for the March quarter. Private sector wage costs increased 3.8 per cent through the year and public sector wage costs increased a little more at 4.3 per cent through the year.
What this illustrates is that, notwithstanding record low unemployment—now at a 33-year low—wages continue to be moderate. The importance of that is this: on previous occasions when we have experienced either a terms of trade increase or a surge in employment, it has always set off wage inflation in this country. One of the main reasons wage inflation was set off in this country was that, under enterprise bargaining agreements, pattern bargaining and centralised wage fixation, we took wage settlements out of profitable areas of the economy and we put them right through the economy, which set off inflation.
With the kind of industrial relations system we now have, we have been able to manage strong employment growth and a terms of trade increase, yet keep wage outcomes moderate. As Ken Henry, the Secretary of the Treasury, said in his speech last night:
Today the Australian economy is as close to full employment as it has been for more than 30 years. At 4.3 per cent the unemployment rate is at a level that many would have thought was not achievable without unsustainable wage and price pressures.
The IMF has said that improved industrial relations are in Australia’s interests, the OECD has said it and the Reserve Bank governor has said it. I know of only one political movement in Australia that wants to roll back industrial relations reforms, and that is the Labor Party. They want to do it because Mr Rudd, the Leader of the Opposition, is a patsy for the trade union movement. He fronts up here for and on behalf of the trade union movement; he is a trade union member; most of his frontbench are trade union officials; he is funded by the trade union movement; and he is beholden to the trade union movement. Let us make this clear: if Australia rolls back industrial relations reform, if we do it in an economy where we have low unemployment, if we do it in an economy where we have strong terms of trade, we will be going back to the boom and bust of previous generations, interest rates will rise and people will lose their jobs. We do not want to go back to the boom and bust, high interest rate Labor way; we want to take this economy forward.
My question again is to the Treasurer and follows his failure to answer the previous question. Does the Treasurer recall being asked on Sky News yesterday whether he said the following in 2005: ‘John Howard can’t win; I can’? Does the Treasurer recall his answer yesterday, which was, ‘No’? Does the Treasurer stand by that answer in parliament today?
I stand by the answer that I have just given.
Oh, so you don’t stand by yesterday’s answer?
No, I am sorry, if you had listened and not interjected you would have heard me say that I stand by the answer I have just given, which is this: not only do I believe John Howard can win the election in 2007; I believed that he could win it in 2005. I will tell you why. All he had to do was defeat the Labor Party.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Treasurer has to answer the question that he was asked.
The member will resume his seat. I have been listening carefully. The Treasurer’s answer is certainly relevant to the question. I call the Treasurer.
I think most Australians would have agreed in 2005 that the Prime Minister was in a position to win the next election in 2005. I think probably the person who would have agreed with him most is the Leader of the Opposition himself, because he was at that time doing everything he could to get rid of the then Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brand, on the grounds that the member for Brand could never win an election. So if I have a sin, it is to have agreed with the Leader of the Opposition.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the minister inform the House how the government’s workplace policies are curbing inflationary pressures in the economy? Is the minister aware of any plans to roll back these policies?
I thank the member for Hasluck for his question. Since 1996 we have introduced laws that deliver more flexible workplace arrangements, and that has resulted in higher wages, improved productivity and more than two million new jobs. The Labor Party’s plan for industrial relations, Forward with Fairness, was written by Greg Combet for the Leader of the Opposition. It is an alarming document that winds back not just the reforms of the Howard government but the reforms at the end of the Keating government as well. Whilst many people in this building seem to be focusing on the day-to-day sport of politics, every day another voice joins the chorus of concern about the Labor Party’s plans to wind back the clock on industrial relations. Employers like Graham Kraehe of BlueScope Steel, Charlie Lenegan at Rio Tinto and today Wal King, the head of Leightons, which is the largest employer in the construction industry, are expressing dire concerns about the Labor Party’s plans for workplace relations.
It is not just employers. According to independent economic analysis, the Labor Party’s plans would cost 300,000 jobs and increase interest rates by 1.4 per cent. The Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, has expressed concerns about the effects a centralised workplace relations system would have; the Treasury’s Ken Henry has said that retaining a flexible system is important; and today another independent economist, Chris Richardson from Access, said:
On industrial relations I fear that Labor misjudges the risks involved. ... I think a slow-up in flexibility of the industrial system risks slower average growth and lower income growth, a smaller economic cake for Australia overall.
‘A smaller economic cake for Australia overall’ as a result of the Labor Party’s policies on industrial relations.
The Leader of the Opposition is running a duplicitous and tricky campaign on industrial relations. The Labor Party policy Forward with Fairness received unanimous trade union support on the floor of the national conference in April. My colleagues will recall that. All the members of the Labor Party who were there will recall it—unanimous support on the floor of the conference. The day after, on the Insiders program, the Leader of the Opposition admitted that he did not know the detail of his own policy and said that he left the detail to his deputy. As the policy began to unravel over those two weeks, increasingly the Leader of the Opposition hung his own deputy out to dry on bargaining fees; on minimum standards; on Fair Work Australia—we remember that one; on the Building and Construction Commission; and on a range of other issues. As the policy started to unfold, the Leader of the Opposition started to walk away from his deputy. As late as Monday this week, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said in a doorstop outside this building—and she should listen to this:
Labor announced its policy Forward with Fairness in April. We believe in that policy, we got the balance right.
So the Deputy Leader of the Opposition on Monday was recommitting the Labor Party to Forward with Fairness.
It has been brought to our attention that there is movement at the station. We are hearing from major employers that the Leader of the Opposition is engaging in one-on-one discussions, ensuring that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is not in those discussions, in an attempt to wind back parts of their policy, particularly in relation to unfair dismissal laws and in relation to AWAs. We also understand that the Leader of the Opposition wants to announce some minor modifications to the Labor Party’s industrial relations policy during the APEC conference in Sydney.
Isn’t this interesting? In the same week that we find out that the Labor Party leader is trying to undermine his own deputy, we also discover that the Labor Party is in fact sending out form letters to its own candidates, telling the union members that the Labor Party’s policy is exactly the same as that of the ACTU. So, on the one hand, the Labor Party is trying to walk the line of the union movement, delivering everything the union bosses want, and, on the other hand, the Leader of the Opposition is engaging in one-on-one meetings with business leaders, trying to placate their concern—and they are concerned.
The business campaign at the moment is an employer campaign, and—do you know what?—the biggest supporters of that employer campaign on TV are small business organisations. ACCI represents all those chambers of commerce out there. Little businesses in regional Queensland and small businesses in South Australia and Victoria are all putting their hands into their pockets to support this campaign, a campaign which we have not seen before in Australia, which covers small business and large business. Employer organisations are quite frankly scared of the implications of the Labor Party’s industrial relations policy.
All along, the Leader of the Opposition is engaging in deceit. He is deceiving his own deputy. He is deceiving Australian employers. He is deceiving Australian workers. No matter what he does and says, his policy is built, owned and operated for the union bosses, and that is bad for Australian workers.
I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the Hon. Judy Madigan, former Speaker of the Parliament of Victoria. On behalf of all members, I extend a very warm welcome to her.
Hear, hear!
My question again is to the Treasurer. Why can’t the Treasurer answer a direct question with a direct answer about what he actually said about the Prime Minister’s inability to win the next election? Treasurer, will you confirm that you were asked on Sky News yesterday a question about what you said in 2005, and that question—
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on standing order 98. They cannot go on breaching it indefinitely like this.
I am listening carefully to the Leader of the Opposition. So far, it seems a repeat of a previous question, but he has not completed his question. In calling him, I remind him that he should not use the expression ‘you’.
Does the Treasurer recall being asked on Sky News yesterday whether he had said, in 2005, ‘John Howard can’t win the election but I can’? Does the Treasurer recall his answer, which was, ‘No’? Does the Treasurer stand by that answer in parliament today?
I think that is an identical question, but if the Treasurer chooses to answer it I will call the Treasurer.
Mr Speaker, I have already answered it three times. The answer the fourth time is precisely the same. But I will take this opportunity to say, having answered the question the fourth time, that the Leader of the Opposition has another six questions to get through in question time. He will be desperately trying to ask this or a variation of this question for the next six as well because, if he ever got off this—and I see people nodding in the gallery as well—he might have to talk about jobs or interest rates. He might have to talk about his tax policy. Maybe he might even have to talk about Rosanna Harris. If we can get onto some substantive issues which the people of Australia care about then they will know that there is one side of politics that is interested in substance. It is the coalition. There is another side of politics which is interested in stunts, and that is none other than that of the Leader of the Opposition.
My question is also addressed to the Treasurer. Is the Treasurer aware of public comments relating to the Leader of the Opposition’s announcement of tax breaks for institutional property investors? What do these comments suggest about the merits of Labor Party policy?
The Treasurer is not responsible for Labor Party policy, but I will call the Treasurer.
Members of the House will be aware that on Monday the Leader of the Opposition announced what he said was a policy to reduce rentals. That was a policy to hold out to property developers a tax break of $150 a week, which for a renter paying $300 a week would deliver a reduction of $60. So it was a tax break of $150 a week for a rental break of $60 a week. It was a ratio of about three to one in favour of the developer. After the Labor Party machine put out an email—and I have a copy of the email—asking for a sympathetic person who could be used as a prop to illustrate this policy, the Labor Party found Rosanna Harris. The Leader of the Opposition, in one of his now all too frequent stunts, went out to the home of Rosanna Harris, where she was renting, and on camera asked this question: ‘What is the rental on a place like this?’ Ms Harris replied, ‘Two hundred and sixty dollars a week.’ Rudd continued, ‘Two hundred and sixty dollars. So you’re effectively going to get 50-plus bucks off each week.’ That of course was entirely false. Rosanna Harris will get nothing under that policy because that policy only applies to new construction commencing in 2008. Either he did not understand his own policy or he misled Rosanna Harris. The ABC news carried footage of Mr Rudd saying to Rosanna Harris, ‘If you’re here on $260 then you’re effectively going to get 50-plus bucks off each week.’ After the cameras left and the Labor Party moved on—and now they will be on today’s distraction—one of the television networks went back to the home of Rosanna Harris.
Government member interjecting—
No, it was not the ABC; it was Channel 9. They said to Rosanna Harris, ‘Now that you understand what the policy is, how do you feel about it?’ Rosanna Harris said this on camera: ‘It’s one step forward and three steps back.’ By the time you have taken one step forward and three steps back, you are hardly in front. She was also quoted as saying, ‘It is bloody ridiculous,’ after having learnt the truth about the Leader of the Opposition and his policy.
Since we are all interested in the propositions of being totally upright, honest and forthright, presumably the Leader of the Opposition will be going back to see Rosanna Harris. Will he be going back to see Rosanna Harris? Will he be saying to Rosanna Harris, ‘That promise that I made does not stand’? Will this Leader of the Opposition, who would have you believe that he is an upright purveyor of political truth, be going back to see Rosanna Harris? No, he will not be going back to see Rosanna Harris because, in the Leader of the Opposition’s mind, Rosanna Harris is just a prop for his own ambition. Rosanna Harris was wheeled out on the ABC news. Rosanna Harris was made a false promise. Now Rosanna Harris has no further use for the Leader of the Opposition. He will not be going back to Rosanna Harris to tell her the truth. Rosanna Harris will not be getting anything from the Labor Party. Rosanna Harris has received just about all that she is ever going to receive from this Leader of the Opposition.
My question is directed to the Treasurer. I refer to the 2005 dinner at the Waters Edge restaurant attended by the Treasurer, his press secretary and three senior journalists. I also refer to the notes of the Treasurer’s comments, taken by a journalist at that dinner and quoted on The 7.30 Report last night, that (1) he had set a mid-term deadline for the Prime Minister to hand over the leadership, (2) he was prepared to go to the backbench, (3) he would carp at Howard’s leadership from the backbench and destroy it until he won the leadership, and (4) ‘Howard cannot win, but I can.’
I rise on a point of order. Standing order 98(c), which I have referred to previously, says:
It goes on to say that questioners may not ask ministers for an expression of opinion. The question is clearly out of order.
I remind the member for Mackellar that I have already ruled on the substance of this question. I call the member for Lilley. I ask him to come to his question. He does not need such a long preface to the question.
My question to the Treasurer is very simple: which of these four statements does the Treasurer deny making?
Let me make it entirely clear: at the Waters Edge restaurant—not on 5 March, because I was at my brother’s birthday party, and not on 3 March, because I was at the Essendon Football Club—on 2 June, as I recall, I had the fish. I recall that.
You wouldn’t have had chicken.
No, I did not touch the fowl in honour of the member for Fowler—and I rarely eat chicken, out of respect for the rooster. Apart from a very enjoyable dinner and a nice chat about political life, all of the things that were allegedly going to come true did not. If you want to judge 2005 conversations by what they carry of import in Australian politics then presumably you would look at what actually happened—and all of these predictions did not come true.
Mr Martin Ferguson interjecting
No, I did not have the curry either, sound-effects man—and aren’t you lucky I didn’t? Apart from that, I have thoroughly dealt with all these matters.
My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House how the government’s investment in rail infrastructure is creating jobs in regional Australia and keeping our economy strong? Are there any risks to this investment?
I thank the member for Riverina for her question. I shared an experience with the member for Riverina in opening a new rail bridge over the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga recently, and she knows full well the significant commitment the coalition government have made to proper infrastructure planning and investment. Under AusLink 1 we are in the process of investing $2.4 billion into the rail infrastructure to improve the freight task across Australia. Of course, the bridge over the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga was one of those investments that we had undertaken that the previous operators of that track, the New South Wales Labor government, had failed to invest in. More than that, and beyond AusLink 1, the member knows that we have committed $22.3 billion in AusLink 2 to continue that investment through to 2014. That will include road transport as well as further developments in rail infrastructure.
Part of that infrastructure investment is obviously driving down unemployment. We are seeing unemployment at its lowest level for 33 years—4.3 per cent—and that is being assisted by the major construction investment that we are making. We have created 2.1 million new jobs in the Australian economy since 1996, and that is all a part of the sound economic management that we have been delivering. But we are also delivering infrastructure that generates, creates and sustains a lot of jobs in the Australia economy.
Most importantly, investment in improved efficiency in infrastructure flows right through to consumers. We have been having a debate in this country about the pressures on working families and the costs to households on a daily basis. One of the areas where improved infrastructure can help is in keeping down the pressure on the prices of consumer goods and groceries across Australia. We have announced recently that we are going to invest $15 million to go to the next stage of planning a new inland rail corridor through the centre of New South Wales between Melbourne and Brisbane to improve rail efficiency in Australia. One of the pieces of correspondence I received after that announcement is from none other than the new CEO of Woolworths, Mr Michael Luscombe. He said of this proposal of ours:
That inland rail project is a fundamental infrastructure project to cater for the future growth of our nation. An efficient single-gauge, large capacity line that eliminates bypass delays and can link with well planned intermodal locations is a goal which our company would support any government commitment to. Without the investment in rail infrastructure, inefficiencies in the current alternatives will continue to grow and the ability to reinvest cost savings in retail prices will be diminished.
In other words, he is saying that if we continue with our investment strategy he will keep downward pressure on retail prices of groceries because the freight task is going to become much more efficient. That comes from one of the major retailers in Australia, supporting what the government is doing with its forward-looking vision as far as rail infrastructure is concerned.
There is an alternative view, and it comes from the Labor Party in New South Wales. We know how successful they have been at running rail in New South Wales! The Commonwealth has had to take over a 60-year lease on the main freight rail lines through New South Wales. We have had to take over a 60-year lease on the Hunter Valley coal lines to make them work properly and to ensure that there is investment in those lines. The Deputy Premier and the minister responsible in New South Wales, John Watkins, is vehemently opposing our proposal for inland rail. He said, ‘What the Commonwealth is proposing now is a major spend for limited benefit.’ He goes on to say that he wants that money spent in Sydney. Of course he does; it saves them from spending money on rail in Sydney. They have been a stunning success in running the commuter rail system in Sydney! They cannot deal with union control over the rail system in Sydney, and the interaction between the commuter system and the freight rail task in Sydney is exactly why that system is so clogged up.
That was acknowledged in the Ernst and Young review that was done on the freight rail task, which recommended that we go ahead with an inland corridor. As is always the case, the state Labor government is blaming everybody else for what it failed to do, and saying that we should invest where it has failed to invest. Well, we are not going to do that. We will improve the corridors through Sydney; we will improve the southern Sydney freight line; and we will improve the North Coast freight line. But it will not be enough to absorb the growth in the freight task. As the Ernst and Young study said, we need this new corridor to absorb the growth into the future. This is our government planning and investing for the future, but all we get is criticism from the state Labor government.
Mr Martin Ferguson interjecting
If we have a look at federal Labor’s platform on this there is no mention of it. The federal Labor platform commits Labor to working with the states on an extension of the interstate rail line. Clearly, Mr Watkins will tell the federal Labor Party to come and invest money in Sydney, to fix up where they have failed and to not plan and invest for the future, so that that is what the Leader of the Opposition will do. Whereas we have a futuristic vision for rail in Australia and for the rail task that will put downward pressure on grocery prices, as has been indicated by Michael Luscombe, we know that a Rudd led Labor government would be a puppet to the unions that are controlling the rail system in Sydney, a puppet to the unions across the rest of the country and, most importantly, and to the detriment of Australia, a puppet to the state Labor premiers.
My question is directed to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to his Waters Edge dinner with three senior journalists in 2005. Can the Treasurer confirm that following the Treasurer departing the dinner, the three journalists discussed the accuracy of their notes in the presence of the Treasurer’s press secretary?
How can I confirm what happens when I am not present? What a ridiculous question. Can you confirm my walk down the street after you left the parliament last night, Mr Speaker?
Mr Speaker, my point of order is very simple: the Treasurer could ask his press secretary.
The member for Lilley will resume his seat; that is not a point of order.
As I said, what a foolish question; what a foolish questioner.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister confirm that the government is determined to ensure continued delivery of quality hospital services at the Mersey hospital in La Trobe, Tasmania? Is there now general acceptance of the need to preserve the range of services at the Mersey hospital? What alternative policies are there and what is the government’s response?
I do thank the member for Braddon for his question. Again, I congratulate him on leading the fight to stop the state Labor government’s downgrading of the Mersey hospital in Tasmania. Let me say this: to the extent that the state Labor government’s health plan involves upgrading one community’s hospital by downgrading another community’s hospital, it is a bad plan and it should be blocked. Bad plans by the state governments should be resisted by good local members like the member for Braddon.
Let me say again that the people of Devonport, La Trobe, Kentish, Sheffield and Ulverstone deserve a hospital of their own. They should not be forced to go 60 kilometres up the road to gain access to acute hospital services. That is why the Howard government has put a plan in place to save the Mersey hospital. The Commonwealth will fund the hospital, the community will control the hospital and the hospital will deliver the same range of services that have been safely and effectively delivered at the hospital for many years. That is the Howard government’s plan. And when it was announced, didn’t all hell break loose! We had the Leader of the Opposition, no less, describing it as ‘an absolutely rotten way to conduct the business of a federation’. We now know that he thinks the right way to conduct the business of a federation is to engage in secret negotiations with the state government, with a state government imposed Friday deadline—just the sort of thing he used to do when he was the Dr Death of Queensland. And, just like the only real job he has ever had, yet again he is taking instructions from the state premiers.
Order! The minister will withdraw that statement.
What’s that, Mr Speaker?
The reference to the Leader of the Opposition—
As taking instructions from the state premiers?
No, the previous one.
Mr Speaker, it was a self-description, but in deference to you I withdraw it. As the Australian revealed today, the Leader of the Opposition now accepts that the state government’s plan was in fact a betrayal of the people of the Mersey region; and the federal government intervention that was a travesty last week, it seems, is a necessity this week. Once again, on a major policy issue, we see the Leader of the Opposition practising followership, not leadership. This Leader of the Opposition only knows what to do because he sees this Prime Minister doing it first. He follows the ACTU on industrial relations and he follows the Prime Minister on just about everything else. The people of Australia are entitled to ask this question: what would the Leader of the Opposition do if he did not have a great Prime Minister to follow and echo? I tell you what he would be. He would be a kind of Manchurian candidate for the ACTU. But what the people of Australia are coming rapidly to conclude is that we need a leader, not a cipher, in the Lodge, and that is what we have got with this great Prime Minister, John Howard.
My question is to the Treasurer. I again refer the Treasurer to his Waters Edge dinner with three senior journalists in 2005. Can the Treasurer confirm that his press secretary contacted the journalists the day after the dinner and sought to have the dinner conversations placed off the record?
What I can confirm is that in 17 years of politics I have had many conversations with journalists off the record. This is well known in Australia. I would be very, very happy if all of the off-the-record comments of the member for Lilley were put out in the public domain, and I challenge journalists to do that.
Honourable members interjecting—
He is very quiet at this moment. Let’s see if we can warm him up. He has got seven questions; he needs to ask another three about this issue before he can move to his censure. Let me give him a word of warning: you normally start off soft and come home strong, but you have started off a bit strong and you are coming home soft. So let me see if I can warm him up. I will warm him up by tabling the Australian of 20 November 2000, which carried an article headlined ‘I paid poll rival, says Labor MP’. The article states:
Labor frontbencher and Queensland power broker, Wayne Swan, has admitted—
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance.
I am listening carefully to the Treasurer’s answer. I call the Treasurer.
It is very relevant, because I am working him up to his crescendo for the censure. He was failing in his attack and I just want to work him up. I table the Australian.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister update the House on the security situation in Iraq? Is the minister aware of any other approaches and what is the government’s response?
First of all, I thank the member for Boothby for his question. He is a very strong member and doing a very good job for the people of Boothby.
The security situation in Iraq is difficult and I think that was clearly underlined by the grim news overnight of over 170 innocent people being killed by suicide bombings in trucks. Probably, but not certainly, the people responsible will have been al-Qaeda because the bulk of suicide bombings in Iraq are committed by al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda related organisations.
We have a simple view and that is that people who do that sort of thing are simply beyond the pale. We would never want to be defeated by such people and such tactics, and we would never want to see the people of Iraq dominated or ruled by such people. That is why we take the view that there needs to be a continual commitment to security in Iraq until the Iraqi security forces are able to take care of security on their own without the likes of those committing the atrocities overnight being able to take over the security of the country. That is quite a simple proposition. That is not a political proposition; that is a policy proposition.
The member for Barton, who is the opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, said on the World Today yesterday that the Iraqi government will have to step up and take charge of security or ultimately lose power. In other words, the Labor position is that all foreign troops should be withdrawn from Iraq and we will see how the Iraqi security forces go. If they cannot do the job, the terrorists and insurgents will take over the country. We think that is an irresponsible position because we believe it is important that the terrorists and insurgents are not able to take control of the country. It is as simple as that. I think most Iraqis, by the way, would agree with that proposition. I noticed the Labour leader saying something that I thought was very true. On 13 July, he said:
In Iraq, we have duties to discharge and responsibilities to keep in support of the democratically elected government and in support of the explicit will of the international community.
When I say ‘Labour leader’ I mean the British Labour leader, Gordon Brown. From our own Labor leader, the member for Griffith, we get—as I think the House knows only too well—policy contortions the like of which we have not seen in this House before. Listening to question time today reminds me of it. There is a stench of hypocrisy, if I could put it that way, wafting across to this side of the House. I remember, when Mark Latham said in March 2004 that Labor would withdraw troops by Christmas, the member for Griffith going around the press gallery—and people in the press gallery remember this—backgrounding and saying he did not agree with that policy. It is somewhat reminiscent of the comments by the Leader of the Opposition on 27 November 2006 when he said to Fran Kelly, the well-known ABC reporter:
I’ve said repeatedly last week, and I’ve said it again this week, that I support Mr Beazley’s leadership of the Labor Party. My position on that hasn’t changed.
Four days later there was a leadership challenge and up turns the member for Griffith challenging Mr Beazley, the member for Brand. My point being that, in the weeks leading up to that, he was constantly backgrounding people in the press gallery about how he wanted to knock off the member for Brand. He was undermining the member for Brand throughout that period. I do not think it sits comfortably for somebody like the member for Griffith, the Leader of the Opposition, to be running the sort of campaign he is running today, because people in the press gallery have seen him backgrounding against his colleagues, including his leader—two leaders, the member for Brand and Mark Latham—in the most vicious of ways, and we have heard of that backgrounding, so I suspect it would be best if we heard no more from the Leader of the Opposition on his hypocrisy.
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! Members on both sides are holding up their question time.
My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer confirm that his press secretary contacted the journalists the day after the dinner and sought to have the dinner conversation placed off the record? Yes or no?
The Treasurer has been asked that question but if the Treasurer chooses to answer it, he can.
The answer was that the dinner was off the record. It always was.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Science and Training. Is the minister aware of any examples of schools being used for blatant political purposes, particularly in Queensland? As a co-funder of these schools, what is the government’s response?
I thank the member for Moreton for his question. The Howard government listens and responds to the concerns of local people in local communities. A fantastic example of this is the Investing in Our Schools program. Members on this side will recall that school communities—the parents, teachers and students—were concerned that their state government schools were being neglected by state governments in their failure to fund basic items like playground equipment, libraries and science equipment. These school communities raised the issues with federal members on this side of the House. The government listened and responded with the $1.2 billion Investing in Our Schools program. Nearly $830 million of that program has been invested in state government schools.
I know the member for Moreton is very pleased with the outcome in his electorate, where over $3.3 million has been provided to 27 state government schools. Naturally, these school communities invite our local members along to view the projects—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The minister has the call.
Naturally, these school communities invite their local members who have fought so hard for these schools along to their schools and want to show them the projects and also to raise with them their concerns about the continuing chronic neglect of their schools by state governments. Mr Speaker, what do you think the response would be from Queensland? After all, in Queensland the Howard government has invested a further $123 million in state government schools. What do you think the response of the Queensland government would be? Do you think it would have sent a note thanking the Prime Minister for this additional $123 million? No, the response from Premier Beattie—or should we call him Emperor Beattie, he who says he will reign for 100 years—
And his consort Rusty.
Thank you, Treasurer—Emperor Beattie and his consort Rusty have now decreed that no federal member is allowed anywhere near a state government school without personal permission, which may or may not be provided; it can be withheld on a whim. That is sheer arrogance on the part of the Queensland government. The Queensland government is gagging our schools. We are investing in our schools; the Labor Party in Queensland is gagging our schools.
Ms Owens interjecting
The member for Parramatta is warned.
The Leader of the Opposition did not have the courage to pull Emperor Beattie into line over the gagging of local councils. Show some backbone and pull Beattie into line for gagging our schools for political purposes.
My question is directed to the Treasurer. Why was the Treasurer prepared to be brave at the Waters Edge Restaurant and say to journalists that he would destroy the Prime Minister’s leadership but never, ever have the guts to challenge?
It brings to mind another statement from one of my esteemed colleagues. When I was at school, the schoolteacher said, ‘Son, what you need is a brave heart.’
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The Treasurer will resume his seat. The member for Denison is warned. I call the Treasurer and the Treasurer will be heard.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. You need a brave heart. What you need to do in Australian politics to show bravery is to put in place those policies that will change your country: things like balancing a budget—that takes bravery; things like paying off $96 billion of debt—that takes bravery; things like reforming the taxation system—that takes bravery; things like introducing a new tax system—that takes policy bravery; reforming industrial relations, establishing the Future Fund, establishing a higher education endowment fund—doing all of those things which will set up Australia for the great challenges of the future. But let me tell you, Mr Speaker, what does not take bravery in politics. What does not take bravery is when you sit around and oppose every policy and then try to claim credit when it is over.
Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: the Treasurer is not answering the question.
I have listened carefully to the question. I believe the Treasurer is certainly referring to some of the points raised in the question.
I am taking this opportunity because—
No guts, no glory!
The member for Fraser is warned.
I am taking this opportunity because this is the second last question before they move the censure motion. The member for Lilley has one more question and then he will move the censure motion. I am taking the opportunity in answer to this question to talk about those things that require decisiveness in the interests of our country. I want to make the point to the people of Australia who are listening today that the Leader of the Opposition has not shown any interest in a single policy today.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: we know who has guts. The Leader of the Opposition has got guts—
The member for Lilley will resume his seat. That is not a point of order.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: under the procedures of the House, points of order must be genuine, not rhetorical tricks. This is a consistent abuse of the procedures of the House by members opposite and should be dealt with.
The Leader of the House raises a valid point of order. The member for Lilley should be well aware that if he wants to raise a point of order he will raise a point of order; otherwise, I will deal with him.
I want to say this: what does not take any leadership in this parliament is to stand up here and oppose every change and then, when it is over, try and take credit for the result. We know this is not an economic conservative. We know this is a policy vacuum. The people of Australia will know there has not been a question today about anything that concerns them: a job, child care, the environment, interest rates. This has been an attempt to try and get through 10 questions whilst keeping off policy. There is one more before he moves his censure and we look forward to it.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Defence. Would the minister update the House on the role of our defence forces in protecting our borders? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches? What is the government’s response?
I thank the member for Kalgoorlie for his question and very strong commitment to the protection of Australia’s borders. Beyond the economic fundamentals for Australian families, the first priority of the Australian government, the Howard government in particular, is the protection and defence of Australia. There is no higher priority, of course, than the protection of our borders. That means the protection of our gas and other resource platforms; making sure that people do not come here unlawfully and steal our fish; dealing with the people smugglers and drug smugglers; and making sure that our exclusive economic zone is protected.
Last year in the budget, the Treasurer announced a $387 million increased investment for the protection of Australia’s borders. Border Protection Command, the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Customs, the Australian Federal Police and other agencies make a concerted and coordinated effort to protect our borders. Only last Sunday, a vessel with 200 kilograms of illegally caught Australian fish on board was intercepted and destroyed by the Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Huon. Also, last year I requested the Chief of the Defence Force to strengthen the rules of engagement for the Royal Australian Navy. That means that they are now able to do a number of things, which range from firing across the bows with teargas towards foreign fishing vessels right through to directly firing upon those vessels—all of which have been used. In fact, in the last 12 months, we have had a 91 per cent reduction in sightings of foreign fishing vessels in Australia’s exclusive economic zone. This is an extraordinary tribute not only to the determination of the Howard government to protect our borders but to the men and women who do it on our behalf.
I am asked about alternative policies. The Australian Labor Party, for a number of years, has had a policy called Coastguard. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has coined it ‘coast guide’. It has had four iterations. Firstly, the Australian Federal Police and Defence have expressed very strong reservations about a so-called coastguard. On 30 January 2001, the then Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police told the public accounts committee of the parliament: ‘I would gain no comfort at all from those arrangements which would cause a division through the investigative focus in a very counterproductive way.’ The Department of Defence said this to the same inquiry—
In answer to what proposition? Try telling the truth for once.
‘The creation of a coastguard would have a detrimental effect—
Mr Bevis interjecting
on Navy training and experience.’ Of particular concern, I think, to Australians—
Mr Bevis interjecting
Order! The member for Brisbane is warned!
is that the CFMEU journal, called Common Cause, in October and November 2001, said this about a so-called coastguard: ‘The creation of an Australian coastguard would be manned by members of the Maritime Union.’ Anybody who has watched Sea Patrol on Channel 9, which is an outstanding reflection of the work that is done by the Royal Australian Navy, needs to imagine what it would be like having Australia’s borders protected by small boats of a coast guide, manned by people from the Maritime Union of Australia with a loudhailer, saying, ‘You are not welcome. This is a picket line of the MUA.’ That is not the way to protect Australia.
It is even more disturbing because the member for Hunter, in one of the very few speeches he has attempted to give on defence this year, on 23 April at the National Security and Defence Election Series, was asked a question: ‘Are you able to share any thoughts on a coastguard?’ The answer was: ‘There are some difficult administrative decisions to be made in implementing that policy and we won’t be in a position to detail those, even pre-election, because it is too difficult.’ The Australian Labor Party and the Leader of the Opposition, before they are in government, are putting up the white flag and saying that it is too difficult, too hard, to protect the borders of this country. As the Treasurer said earlier in question time, Australians need to ask themselves: ‘If it is working well, why would you break it? Why would you put someone into government to be the Prime Minister of this country who has no policies, is a patsy for the union movement and, worse still, has no policy on the protection of our borders?’
My question is directed to the Treasurer. How can the Treasurer continue to work with the Prime Minister when he tells senior journalists he is committed to destroying the Prime Minister’s leadership? When will the Treasurer do the honourable thing: challenge or resign?
Let me tell you how I work with the Prime Minister. I work with the Prime Minister on creating 2.1 million jobs for Australia. I work with the Prime Minister on balancing the budget. I work with the Prime Minister on clearing $96 billion of Labor debt. I work with the Prime Minister on introducing a new industrial relations system. I work with the Prime Minister on cleaning up Australia’s waterfront. I work with the Prime Minister on increasing the position of the lower paid in Australia. I work with the Prime Minister on increasing real wages by 20 per cent. I work with the Prime Minister on increasing child care—
Ms Gillard interjecting
Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is warned!
I work with the Prime Minister on having a $500 pension bonus plan. I work with the Prime Minister on having a $500 self-funded retiree bonus.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We would like an answer to at least one question today.
The Treasurer is being entirely relevant to the question that was asked.
I work with the Prime Minister in Australia’s biggest defence build-up we have even seen in this country. I work with the Prime Minister and his team of talented ministers. Most of all, I am going to work with the Prime Minister in making sure that the worst opposition in Australian history never gets elected to be a government. I am especially going to work to make sure that somebody so clearly ill equipped to be Prime Minister never gets anywhere near that job.
You! You!
Mr Kerr interjecting
Order! The member for Denison will remove himself under standing order 94(a). The Treasurer has the call and the Treasurer will be heard.
I will work with the Prime Minister—
Order! The Treasurer will resume his seat. The member for Denison will remove himself immediately.
The member for Denison then left the chamber.
I will work with the Prime Minister to make sure that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition never gets her hands on industrial relations. I will work with the Prime Minister to make sure the unions do not take over this country. Most of all, I will work with the Prime Minister to make sure we never have a Treasurer in this country who goes around giving money out in brown paper bags. Please move the censure.
Government members interjecting—
Members on my right are holding up their own member’s question.
I just want to stress that leave will be given for the censure that these people now seem too gutless to move.
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! Members on both sides are holding up their question time. I say to the Leader of the House that this is question time.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer. Would the minister outline to the House how the government is encouraging low- and middle-income earners to build their retirement savings? Is he aware of any alternative policies? What is the government’s response?
That was a hard act to follow from the Treasurer. I say to the member for Bonner: thank you very much for the question. He has a very important role in this government in making sure that we continue to provide assistance to low-income people. That is one of the proud policies of this government. We have delivered not just to people on middle and low incomes but particularly to people in small business as well. In the honourable member’s electorate, in the last three years 20,675 co-contribution payments worth a total of $21 million have been made to his low-income constituents.
This is part of a $3 billion strategy to help people on low incomes get more money in their superannuation accounts. The problem is that not enough Australians know about the way in which we are helping people through their superannuation. The way in which the scheme works is that for people on low incomes we will, as a government, on behalf of taxpayers, contribute up to $1.50 per dollar that low-income people put into their superannuation funds. That makes a world of difference for people in their retirements. It makes a world of difference because of the effect of compounding, and there is a stark contrast in the way in which this government continues to provide assistance to low- and middle-income earners as opposed to that which sits today as an alternative.
Australian people and the members of the public in the gallery today would ask themselves: why, in this question time, has the Australian Labor Party not taken the opportunity to ask one question about policy that this government has put in place to help Australian families in this country? The reason is very clear. At the last election, the Labor Party opposed lock, stock and barrel this government’s co-contribution scheme. They opposed it because they had no understanding of how to help Australian families. The second point is that they oppose policy and they oppose good policy discussion in this country because they, as an alternative government, have in mind a policy which will see small business put people out of work.
This week they have secretly put something on their website; there have been no press releases, no grand statements and no public statements by any of their shadow ministers. It has just appeared on their website. There has been no grand speech by the shadow Treasurer or the shadow Assistant Treasurer. It has just mysteriously appeared on their website. It says to Australian small business that they want to increase the contribution from nine per cent to 15 per cent and they want small businesses in this country to pay for at least a good part of it. They have not told Australian small businesses this, but it has appeared magically on their website and they are going to say to Australian small businesses, ‘Not only are we going to slug you with a wind-back of the Work Choices legislation, not only are we going to have small businesses run by union thugs in this country, but we are going to increase the nine per cent contribution possibly to 11 or 13 or 15 per cent,’ which will result in people in this country being put off by small business.
The third point that needs to be made—and it needs to be made very clearly to Australian small business—is that the Labor Party, if they are elected at the next election, intend to have as part of their policy platform an obligation on businesses in this country to have a union backed fund as their default superannuation fund. That is what also mysteriously appeared on their website this week. Put into awards, they want the default position for employee superannuation in this country to be an industry fund, most of which are dominated by unions. If people in small business have any doubt about the stranglehold that the union movement has around the throat of the Leader of the Opposition, they need look no further than superannuation.
Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Mr Speaker, during question time today we saw both the member for Grayndler and the member for Lilley purporting to rise on points of order but in fact not doing so. I would ask you, Mr Speaker, when they continue this practice, to consider invoking standing order 91 in calling their behaviour disorderly and deal with them in accordance with the standing orders.
I will consider the member’s question.
The member for Melbourne Ports asked me about a delay in publication in Hansard of an answer to a question in writing to the Special Minister of State. I can inform the House that the answer was published in the Hansard of 9 August 2007. Firstly, I make it clear that no pressure was exerted in relation to the publication of the answer. Secondly, I am advised that at present it is not possible to publish all answers received during a long break on the first sitting day after the break. This is because the software currently used for Hansard makes it very slow to process large documents, especially those containing tables. Publishing all answers on the first day after a long break could delay the issuing of the next daily Hansard. I can further inform the House that the delay in publication of answers to questions in writing after extended breaks has been of concern for some time. The Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services are considering options for speeding up the process. This may involve modifications to the Hansard software or publication of a separate edition of Hansard containing only answers to questions in writing.
Mr Speaker, the other day I posed a very serious question to you about the cacophony of noise on the other side of the House. I am finding it extremely difficult during question time to hear the questions which are asked and, more importantly, the answers that are given and I ask you to vigorously apply standing order 91.
I thank the member for Hume. I think he raises a valid point. I will continue to uphold the standing orders.
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Yes, most grievously by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services.
Please proceed.
In question time today the Minister for Transport and Regional Services sought to misrepresent the views of the Australian Labor Party and me as shadow minister on two very important rail infrastructure issues. Firstly, he suggested that the opposition did not support the inland railway proposal.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In his opening remarks to a personal explanation, the member said something that was misrepresenting the Labor Party.
Order! The member will resume his seat. I suggest that if the member heard correctly he would also have heard the member for Batman say that he personally had also been misrepresented.
I can understand why the Prime Minister sent him to the back bench, Mr Speaker. The Deputy Prime Minister suggested that the Labor Party did not support the inland railway. This is incorrect. In a speech on 18 July at the Australian Rail Summit in Sydney entitled ‘Federal Labor’s vision for rail in a national intermodal transport system’, I clearly stated that the opposition supported the inland rail link between Melbourne and Brisbane as the next logical step to build on the 2006 north-south rail corridor study report.
Mrs Bronwyn Bishop interjecting
Order! The member for Mackellar! The member for Batman has the call and he will be heard.
Secondly, the Deputy Prime Minister and minister for transport suggested that we were about moving away from the importance of rail freight. In that speech I also indicated that both sides of politics now agree that the role of the national government in transport infrastructure centres around the national rail freight task. I also indicated that that suits the needs of the economy, freeing up state and territory funds for public transport. I seek leave to table the speech of 18 July setting out the national Labor Party rail priorities. I simply ask that the minister read it and learn about transport infrastructure in Australia.
Leave granted.
Documents are 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 documents:Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency—Quarterly report of the Chief Executive Officer for the period 1 September 2006 to 31 December 2006.Migration Act 1958—Section 486O—Assessment of detention arrangements—Government response to the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s statement—Personal identifiers 200/07 to 214/07.
Debate (on motion by Mr Albanese) adjourned.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Griffith proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The Government’s focus on itself rather than governing Australia in the interests of working families
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—
What we have seen in this place today has been a great display of arrogance by a government that has been in office for too long. We have seen arrogance writ large on the part of a minister at the dispatch box. We have seen arrogance writ large by those ministers interjecting in this debate. The bad news for the government is this: working families across this country spot arrogance at a hundred paces; they spot it at a thousand paces. Those listening to the debate today, those who have been watching the debate today in question time, will have seen arrogance writ large. In the last 24 hours we have seen a government which has said to itself: ‘We have as a leader the greatest Prime Minister Australia has ever seen.’ We have had a government which has claimed for itself that it has the greatest Treasurer Australia has ever seen. We have had a government which has said that it has produced the greatest environmental achievements that Australia has ever seen. Today we had ministers being described as the ‘greatest ministers ever to serve in any government in this place’. The Australian people, working families, spot arrogance, and they spot arrogance on the part of a government which now finds itself in decline.
The purpose of question time today was very straightforward—that is, to establish some basic truths, some basic facts. We asked the Treasurer a series of very basic, factual questions. The Treasurer refused to answer each of those questions that he was asked, bar the first. He was asked specifically about the nature of his answer to questions asked of him by Sky News yesterday. He refused. He was asked specifically questions concerning his comments to Mr Brissenden of The 7.30 Report. He refused. He was asked specifically questions about the activities of his press secretary in seeking to place that interview off the record, and he refused. These were just some of the questions which the Treasurer refused to answer.
What we have instead from the Treasurer is bluff, bluster and volume. The great Costello principle is that the more you shout from the dispatch box, the greater the degree of logic must be attendant on the proposition which has just been shouted. But when people dissect what the Treasurer has said, underneath it all they know that he had no answer to deliver to these questions. And the reason we asked them, apart from establishing the truth of them, is this: when we come to the actual proposition of the sustainability of this government, the relationship between Prime Minister and Treasurer is a fundamental one.
More fundamentally, what has been at stake here is: how fair dinkum is the Treasurer? We have seen the Treasurer engaged in duck, weave, obfuscation, refusing to answer, a selective quotation here, ignoring the question there. But do you know something? Working families have spotted this, they have spotted it over a long period of time, and they are reaching the conclusion that not only is this Treasurer not fair dinkum—and these questions today have all been about whether this Treasurer is fair dinkum and can be trusted—but also that the government of which he is a part can no longer be trusted either.
After 11 long years in office, this government has lost touch with working families. After 11 long years in office, this government has gone stale and has run out of ideas for the country’s future. And worse, this government has ceased governing. This is a government now preoccupied with fighting among itself. This is a government distracted by its internal feuds. It is a government whose energies are now sapped internally by its own divisions. It is a government which has increasingly become directionless, leaderless and without a vision for the future, because it is a government now absorbed with itself and no longer absorbed with the nation. It is a government whose ministers believe that what is more important is their own futures, not the future of the country. And that is what families across our nation have seen, identified and are reaching conclusions on.
This Howard government is no longer just a government in decline; it is a government in decay. If you cannot any longer govern yourself as a party, how can you continue to lay claim to being able to govern the country? These are the basic propositions which those observing the politics of this nation are now asking themselves.
Of course, this record of decline, this record of decay, has not just happened overnight. This has been happening for some time, and it has been happening on key questions about which families across this nation have been engaged for a very long time. This government has breached the people’s trust on Iraq. It is a government which has breached the people’s trust when it comes to the $300 million worth of bribes it happily consigned over to the Iraqi dictator, having sent our brave men and women in uniform to Iraq to fight in that war. It is a government which has breached—
Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: I do not believe it is within the standing orders for the Leader of the Opposition to say that we have bribed the Iraqi dictator. That is a vicious and false charge, disproved by a royal commission. It should be withdrawn.
I ask the Leader of the Opposition to withdraw.
This government, which—
Does the Leader of the Opposition withdraw?
Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker. This government’s inertia and incompetence in office have allowed $300 million worth of bribes to be paid to the Iraqi dictator through its own failure and inability to discharge its basic functions under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. That is why the way in which this government is trusted and looked upon by the Australian people is now in such a fundamental state of breach.
This government has breached the people’s trust when it comes to ‘children overboard’. This government has breached the people’s trust when it said at the last election that it would keep interest rates at record lows. This breach of trust goes, of course, into the back pockets, chequebooks and family budgets of every working family in this country. This breach of trust has resulted in seeing five increases in interest rates since the last election. And now the government seeks to wriggle out of that promise which now dare not speak its name.
This breach of trust continues also into the workplace. This government breached trust with the Australian people when they went to the last election and said not a word about altering fundamentally the laws governing the workplaces of our country. They then introduced Work Choices. They then produced laws which stripped away people’s penalty rates and overtime for zero, and they wonder why there is a sense of breach of trust across this country.
We then come to the matter which has been the subject of debate here today—the absorption of this government with its own internal conflict, its own internal ambitions writ large and its own internal inability to resolve this dysfunctional, destabilising division between Prime Minister and Treasurer, which sucks out and saps what energies were left in this government to provide leadership for our country’s future.
I am not all that interested in who did what when or who said what when, because with these ministers at the dispatch box, as we all know from history, we will never actually know. It is like Blue Hills: it just rolls on and on, without conclusion. It is like those radio broadcasts: it is volume 67, chapter 28 of the Howard v Costello leadership battle which has never become a leadership battle. On these questions, the core issue in people’s minds is this: why is it that when the nation faces such huge challenges for its future, such a huge slice of this government’s energies is being consumed by this destabilising, dysfunctional relationship between a Treasurer and a Prime Minister? It is the worst-kept secret in Canberra, the worst-kept secret in the boardrooms of this country and certainly the worst-kept secret among those who populate the press gallery that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have such a degree of mutual loathing that it has reached cancerous proportions and is unable to be sustained into the future. That is why we have probed these questions today, because we have before us a relationship which is now in tatters.
Remember that it was the Treasurer who reminded us recently that the Prime Minister’s record on interest rates was very poor: 22 per cent. We know that. It was the Treasurer who reminded us recently that the Prime Minister has an appalling record when it comes to spending like a drunken sailor on the eve of an election. It was the Treasurer who said that; we did not. And we all remember how many billions of dollars were racked up by the Prime Minister in his campaign speech last time. You see, when it comes to the future direction of economic policy, the worst-kept secret in Canberra is that the member for Higgins has a fundamental distaste and disdain for the member for Bennelong. That is the story which has been told across the country, and the problem with today’s revelations and with the Howard biography is that it all seeps into the public domain and saps the energies of this government’s ability to deal with the real challenges facing the nation’s future—that is, working families under financial pressure. That is the future challenge which faces us as a nation for tomorrow.
When it comes to this government losing touch with working families, the Prime Minister stood up here earlier this year and said, ‘Working families in Australia have never been better off.’ I can think of no greater evidence of a Prime Minister losing touch with working families than for him to stand up there with that level of arrogance and say to people who are suffering under Work Choices, people who are suffering under five interest rate increases on the trot, people who are suffering through the escalation of grocery prices and people who are suffering from a 12 per cent annual increase in childcare prices that these working families have never been better off.
It demonstrates what has happened inside the engine room of this government. Their energies have been so sapped away from the business of government and of remaining in touch and in contact with the community that, instead, they believe that their personal ambitions are far more important than dealing with these basic challenges to the ability of working families to survive into the future. The question is: do they stand here and believe that they have some plan for the future?
When it comes to the future, where are this government’s plans for this nation’s future over the next 10 years? Where are the government’s plans for an education revolution? Where are the government’s plans when it comes to climate change and water? Where are the government’s plans when it comes to infrastructure bottlenecks? Where are the government’s plans when it comes to broadband? Where are the government’s plans when it comes to ending the blame game with the states? Where are the government’s plans when it comes to providing a viable, credible exit strategy for our troops in Iraq? Where are the government’s plans when it comes to dealing with the unfolding challenge across Melanesia as one Pacific island state after another rolls into the dust through inaction through our foreign aid vote? We have no evidence of plans across any of these great challenges facing the nation. But there is a core reason. The energies of this government are being directed inward, no longer outward. The energies of this government are about their personal ambition, not about an ambition for the nation. And the Australian people have woken up to it.
By contrast, in these areas we, as an opposition, as an alternative government, have said that the nation requires leadership. We have said on the question of an education revolution: ‘Let us build early childhood education. Let us rejuvenate our universities. Let us enable our kids studying trades in schools to have 2,650 trades training centres built in each of the secondary schools of this nation.’ That is a plan, whereas this government has none. When it comes to the future of infrastructure, we will have a body called Infrastructure Australia and we will build a $4.7 billion high-speed broadband network across the country. Then there is the National Party, represented here in this chamber, which is ticking the box when it comes to a second-rate, second-tier, lower-speed system for everyone in rural and regional Australia because it does not have the guts to stand up against the Liberals and deliver anything decent for its own constituency.
We have plans when it comes to an education revolution, plans when it comes to infrastructure, plans for a future of broadband, plans when it comes to climate change. How can you have a serious commitment to dealing with climate change when those opposite are still in a position of not having the courage to identify a carbon target for the future? How can you be serious about a plan for the nation’s climate, the future environment of our children, when you refuse to identify any such target?
The tragedy of this government is this: they have had 11 years in office. They have been the beneficiaries of a mining boom. They have had, for the last five or six years, a huge injection of public revenue from around the world into the coffers of the Treasury. And what have they done with it? It has been a squandered opportunity. You have not invested in productive capacity for the future; you have sat around that cabinet table in each of your own private councils of the Liberal Party and National Party and planned instead for your own political futures. You have not had the energy, the discipline, the leadership or the vision to craft out a long-term plan for the country. Despite the fact that you have been uniquely gifted by providence with the product of this resources boom, with the resources to invest in our country’s future productive potential, you have not done anything with that. We stand ready for the future. Your government is not just— (Time expired)
The Leader of the Opposition might still be doing okay in the polls but he certainly is not a leader and, on this performance, he certainly is no parliamentarian.
They are not crowding around him.
That is a very fair point that my colleague raises. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: ‘Where are your friends? You did not win any on today’s performance.’ On today’s performance, it is not at all surprising that when members of the opposition had a choice between Mark Latham and Kevin Rudd they chose Mark Latham, and that when they had a choice between Kim Beazley and Kevin Rudd they chose Kim Beazley, because there is hardly a member of the opposition frontbench who could not have put in a more convincing performance than the pathetic effort by the Leader of the Opposition today.
Because he doesn’t believe it.
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is warned!
The MPI today is:
The Government’s focus on itself rather than governing Australia in the interests of working families.
The best way to know what is on the mind of political parties is to listen to what they talk about in question time. From the government today we had questions on wages growth, industrial relations reform, inflation, assistance for renters, a new model for public hospitals, Iraq and retirement savings. What did we have from members opposite? Absolutely nothing of any substance at all. Just an attempt to rake over old embers—an attempt to inflame an old issue which has been decisively dealt with and satisfactorily resolved by this government.
We were told repeatedly by the Leader of the Opposition that this government has somehow run out of puff. Let me just remind members opposite—and indeed the Australian people—of some of the big-ticket policies which this government has been pursuing since early 2005, when the alleged conversations which triggered today’s MPI took place. Since early 2005 this government has pushed through historic industrial relations reforms. They were tough reforms, and not necessarily popular, but they were necessary for the long-term future of this country, because you do not build the future, you do not build tomorrow, by embracing the soft option today, which is what we consistently see from members opposite. There have been three budgets since that time, presided over by the Treasurer, with serious personal tax cuts, the establishment of the Future Fund and superannuation reform. We have sold off Telstra—something that was always opposed by members opposite and then, at the last minute, in one of the great pieces of me-tooism, endorsed. The Commonwealth government has achieved debt free status; Welfare to Work reforms have been put in place; the historic plan to save the Murray-Darling Basin has been announced and is being implemented in the teeth of opposition from the Labor states; and, most recently, the historic, once-in-a-generation set of reforms to restore civil society in the Indigenous townships of the Northern Territory. I do not want to boast—I do not think it is a very good policy for government ministers to boast—but it is not a bad record. It has been masterminded by the finest political partnership in Australia’s history: John Howard and Peter Costello, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer of this country.
I do not say for a second that the Treasurer is not ambitious. Of course he is ambitious. He is entitled to be ambitious. If I had achieved what he has achieved, I would be entitled to be ambitious. Why shouldn’t he be ambitious for the higher things and, one day, even a higher job? Why shouldn’t he be ambitious? If from time to time he has been a little impatient, that just proves that, as well as being a great reforming Treasurer, he is a normal human being. I tell you what: we want human beings to be running this country and in charge of this government, and that is what we have got—fine human beings.
We have been told that we have been introverted rather than governing Australia in the interests of working families. Let us just remind members opposite, as they keep saying that this government has no plans: plans do not matter nearly as much as performance. We have endless waffle from the Leader of the Opposition, but what has he ever delivered in his life? He has not even run a local council let alone a national economy. By contrast, we have this government, this Prime Minister and this Treasurer, delivering more jobs, higher pay and greater wealth for the people of Australia—a 20-plus per cent increase in real wages, 2.1 million new jobs, and real net wealth per head in this country doubling since 1996. I do not say that this government is perfect; I do not say that this government has not made mistakes; I do not say that this government has not from time to time been prone to the ordinary human tensions and difficulties to which our flesh is heir, but it has been a good government, and nothing we have seen from members opposite suggests that they could even come close to matching it.
Let me just make a few points in response to the newspaper articles and the press reports which have prompted today’s MPI. If the Treasurer really said what some journalist claim he said, why wasn’t it reported in 2005, when it might have had some relevance, rather than now, when those alleged comments have been entirely disproved by subsequent events? If it wasn’t a story in 2005, why is it a story in 2007? If it was off the record in 2005, why is a distorted and, it seems, factually inaccurate version suddenly on the record in 2007? Let me make this clear: I am a former journalist. I think I know something about the way journalism should work. I think I know a little about professional standards in journalism. Let me just remind the House and anyone who might be listening to it that, if something is off the record, it effectively does not exist—and people are certainly entitled to deny that which does not exist. I know the Treasurer very well. I have known the Treasurer since January of 1977—more than 30 years. He is not perfect—none of us are—but he is a fine man, he is a truthful man and, most relevantly, he is a very effective Treasurer and a very effective politician who is entitled to be the next Prime Minister of this country.
Members opposite have attempted today to suggest that there is some fundamental character flaw in the Treasurer of this country. I am sure that members opposite would discount the sort of thing that I might say, but let me quote a journalist. Suddenly, what journalists say is gospel truth. Let me give an alternative gospel truth to members opposite.
On the record?
It was on the record, too. It is an article by Jason Koutsoukis from the Sunday Age of 3 June this year, and it is actually comparing the Treasurer and the Leader of the Opposition. Of the Treasurer, he says:
He certainly has some things Rudd doesn’t.
Such as a sense of humour (has anyone ever seen Rudd really laugh, or crack a joke?). Costello is also a man who makes friends easily, while I’m yet to meet one person who describes themselves as a friend of Rudd’s. (A Labor MP told me over dinner last week that he could not name a single friend Rudd has made in the eight years he has been in Parliament.)
There are also signs that Rudd shares some of the characteristics that made Hewson a poor political leader. He is a workaholic with a short temper, he is quick to blame others for mistakes and is apparently unwilling to listen to other points of view.
… … …
It is also said that Rudd does not respect the intellect of most of his peers and doesn’t mind showing it. Conversely, Rudd doesn’t seem to command the sort of respect from the caucus that a good leader should have.
And didn’t we see that lack of respect as they listened to the pathetic effort of the Leader of the Opposition earlier this afternoon?
We had the statement from members opposite that the Treasurer is in some way loose with the truth—in some way not to be trusted to tell the truth. Again, let me quote a journalist—a respected journalist who understands, I think, the conventions that should govern conversations between public figures and the media. Laurie Oakes, in the Bulletin of 24 April this year, wrote: ‘“I would never knowingly lie,” Rudd told 60 Minutes. That was a whopper right there.’ Laurie Oakes goes on to describe in some detail the untruths that had been retailed by none other than the Leader of the Opposition. As my colleague the Minister for Foreign Affairs reminded the House earlier today, we had the Leader of the Opposition on 27 November last year saying:
I have stated time and time again in the last ten days or so since this last bout of speculation came round that he—
that is to say the then Leader of the Opposition Mr Beazley—
has my support.
How many times did the cock crow when this particular lie was being peddled? Because, within a few days, this person pledging full loyalty was in fact mounting a leadership challenge.
More or less at random, I go through the events of the last seven or eight months, looking at what I suppose can best be described as fables—I do not want to say they are outright lies, but certainly they are not pure and uncontested truth—peddled by the Leader of the Opposition: the story of his allegedly being kicked off the farm; his repeated equivocation and slidings-around over what really happened between the Leader of the Opposition and Brian Burke; and then of course there was the ‘sun lies’ story, the fake dawn service that the Leader of the Opposition’s office was arranging with Channel 7 and which the Leader of the Opposition constantly denied, only to be humiliatingly caught out. There was his fatuous claim about wanting to drive a hybrid car, for God’s sake—such an environmentalist: ‘Yeah, yeah; me, me; I want to drive a hybrid car.’ And when he had to admit that, no, in fact he drove a Ford Territory, he said, ‘I’m only driving a Ford Territory because I can’t get a hybrid car’—a complete and utter fabrication, of course. And then we had yesterday’s little porky to poor Rosanna Harris, who has been utterly deceived by the Leader of the Opposition—and there is no apology from the Leader of the Opposition. He is not going to visit Rosanna Harris to tell her what the real situation is.
A lot is said off the record around this place. For instance, I now quote Paul Daley, the Bulletin’s national affairs editor, who quotes, off the record, someone who supported the Leader of the Opposition, who turned his back on the beloved Kim Beazley, for a final roll of the dice behind Rudd. What does this Labor parliamentarian say about the Leader of the Opposition? The article says:
Indeed, the C word featured so prominently in this Labor man’s description of his boss that I started to shift uncomfortably in my chair ...
For in front of C, he used - unprompted - the following adjectives:
Friendless.
Cynical.
Autocratic.
Egotistical.
Narcissistic.
Short-tempered.
Thin-skinned.
Condescending.
… … …
“He does not ... have a friend in the place ...”
I can understand why, with the kind of misplaced and prissy sanctimony that we saw from this pseudo-leader earlier in the House today. This is a silly MPI. It should not have detained the business of this House.
Order! Before I call the member for Lilley, I say to the Leader of the House that I do not think that quote was really appropriate for parliament.
This debate goes to the core of the honesty and the trustworthiness of the Treasurer. Last night, three respected and senior journalists indicated that the Treasurer had lied, on national television, and everything that we saw in the parliament today indicates that that is exactly what he did. He refused to honestly and directly answer nine questions that were put to him in this parliament this afternoon, and he has, in effect, confirmed the statements that have been attributed to him in the media by three senior and respected journalists.
This is a sign of someone who is prepared to be slippery, a sign of someone who does not tell the truth and a sign of someone who really should not be in charge of the high office that he holds. We saw evasion. We saw hairsplitting. We saw him at his slippery best. He did not at any stage dispute the substance of what those senior journalists were saying. He did dispute the date and he did dispute whether they were off the record. The Leader of the House had the hide to say that if it is off the record then it did not happen. Well of course it happened—and it was confirmed today by the Treasurer that it did happen. What he wanted to do in the House today was to shoot the messenger. He could not shoot down the substance of the message because it unquestionably happened. When you have three senior respected journalists all saying the same thing, then it absolutely happened. He confirmed that by his trickery and slippery behaviour in the House today. But he has gone further, because essentially what he is doing is attacking these three senior journalists. He implies that somehow they have fabricated their notes or collaborated to ensure their versions of statements are consistent. These journalists have risked their reputations on this issue. They have put their honesty and their integrity on the line. I tell you what, I know whose integrity I would choose when it comes to a choice between those three senior journalists and the Treasurer of Australia, who makes a speciality out of slippery behaviour in this House. It was all let out of the bag by the Treasurer when I asked him whether his press secretary contacted the journalists after the dinner to confirm the accuracy of their notes. Why would the press secretary have rung them after the dinner if the Treasurer did not think that he had said something that was a problem? This is a small bit of logic that really points to how this Treasurer has become.
What we saw today was a low-rent barrister, not a reforming Treasurer—not someone who has a plan for the future and who is tackling the great challenges of inflationary pressures in the Australian economy. No-one is doing that. The Treasurer has got his eye on the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister certainly has his eye on him, but neither of them have their eye on the main game—which is looking after the national interest. So we know from these three senior journalists that he was at that dinner, having the odd red wine, denigrating, as usual, the Prime Minister and doing his best to undermine the Prime Minister. I guess he was demonstrating why former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett nicknamed him ‘dog’. Why did the former Premier of Victoria nickname the Treasurer ‘dog’? It is because he said that he had all the attributes of a dog except for loyalty. Of course, that was on display for everybody to see on that night in 2005. You can be sure that there have been plenty more dinners around this country and plenty more discussions in plenty of boardrooms where the Treasurer has repeated his very low opinion of the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister had a scintilla of leadership left in him then he would not cop it. If the Prime Minister had any political strength, he would not cop it. But we all know that he is copping it because the election is only weeks away and he is not game to do anything about it. So what we have on display in this parliament is not only the lack of ticker from the Treasurer to challenge the Prime Minister but also the lack of ticker from the Prime Minister to throw the Treasurer out. We see the lack of ticker in this Prime Minister, who wants a political fix and who will not face up to the reality.
We now have a dangerous combination in Australia: a Prime Minister who will say anything, do anything and spend any amount of money to cling onto office, and a Treasurer who will not do anything about it. That is a dangerous situation in a climate of higher inflation and rising interest rates. We have a Treasurer who will not do his job and who is incapable of restraining the Prime Minister in an inflationary environment. And they want to lecture us about experience and strength! What about a Treasurer who has the strength to stand up to a Prime Minister when it comes to the vital economic question of the security of lower interest rates in this country? He will not stand up to the Prime Minister when he goes on spending sprees. And of course the Prime Minister will not do anything about the Treasurer’s insubordination because we have a dangerous combination of them being linked together by a political imperative, not the imperative of looking after our national interest and the interests of all Australians.
Why does all of this really matter? It matters because, if they are not capable of working together properly in the national interest, that endangers strong and effective economic management. It absolutely does do that. We have seen the evidence of this from the Treasurer himself, who complained to the Howard biographers that during the last two election campaigns the Prime Minister went on a reckless, unsustainable spending spree. Here we are, on the cusp of another election, with a Prime Minister who has made it clear as day that he intends to buy the next election and a Treasurer who is too weak to stop him. How can you trust the Liberals with interest rates when they have plans to buy the election? You cannot trust a party planning to buy an election with interest rates, and we have seen today that you cannot trust the Treasurer to do anything other than to pursue his own personal interests.
Of course, in a roundabout way, the Prime Minister has confirmed this. He confirmed this in an interview on radio 5AA on 19 July. He said it is impossible for the economy to be properly managed ‘if you do not have harmony between a Prime Minister and a Treasurer’. I think it just got more impossible. How can we properly manage an economy with harmony? It is obvious to everyone in this country that there is little harmony between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. That was on display for everybody to see only this week. The Prime Minister, dare I say it, had an honest moment. When we brought out our rental affordability scheme he went on the radio and said, ‘We might have a look at that; maybe that has something going for it.’ Five hours later the Treasurer emerged to do his Herman Munster act—to come out and monster our affordability scheme and to tell his usual lies about Labor policy.
It was a very embarrassing performance. No matter whether you are dealing with the level of interest rates, the causes of interest rate rises, what is going on with housing affordability and how to fix it, or what is happening with climate change—all the critical areas of policy that go to the core of the personal security and environmental sustainability of our country—this Treasurer will be on the wrong side of the issue. There is a failure to understand it. If he cannot understand the problem when it comes to housing affordability, if he cannot understand the pressures that interest rates are putting on Australian families, how can he be part of the solution? He cannot be part of the solution because he is so far out of touch. Why is he so far out of touch? Because he is obsessed with his own personal advancement and not the advancement of the nation or standing up for the national interest.
All of this pervades the government’s approach to policy issues, which are critical to future wealth creation in our community. You see it in the dishonesty of the government when they brag about the current boom as if they are responsible for the mining boom, as if they are responsible for the strongest world conditions in 30 years, as if they are responsible for the fact that the terms of trade are at a 50-year high. What they are doing is squandering the opportunities that are coming from this marvellous opportunity. The government is consumed by a power struggle between the Costello forces on the one hand and the Howard forces on the other. The losers here are the Australian people. It is as the Prime Minister accurately said; ‘You cannot manage the economy if you do not have harmony between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.’ (Time expired)
It gives me no particular pleasure to follow the member for Lilley with his nervous, rehearsed performance and his clenching of one of his fists. Obviously, it is something he practised this morning. As we know from other comments on the public record, he likes to stand in front of the mirror and practise. But, quite strangely, he talked about trust and interest rates. He knows that, under the former Labor government, interest rates were at least 4½ per cent higher. He remembers all too well the 17 per cent interest rates. But let us think about this: trust and the member for Lilley. How can the Australian people trust to be Treasurer of Australia a man who hands over money to an alternative political party in a brown paper bag? He has gall and he has no shame—he is an absolute embarrassment not just to himself but also to the Labor Party.
We heard the Leader of the Opposition talking about governance of political parties and claiming that the government cannot govern itself. Let us have a look behind some of those sentiments about the governing of political parties. Let us remind ourselves, yet again, just in case we may have forgotten, who actually governs and controls the Labor Party. We have had Kevin Rudd say, ‘We are unapologetic, completely, about our strong links with organised labour,’ and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in parliament say, ‘We do the job that the ACTU would expect us to do.’ What sort of people are these union mandarins, these union officials, who control the Labor Party and who say, ‘I need a mum or dad, someone who has been seriously injured or killed; that would be fantastic’? These are the sorts of people who control the Labor Party. We have seen a former leader of the Labor Party, the member for Hotham, totally fail when he tried to reform the internal preselection structures of the union movement.
But for a real insight into the workings, the dysfunctionality and the political inbreeding of the Labor Party, we only have to go to the very comprehensive chronicles of the Latham Diaries. They provide us with some insight into why the Labor Party have been a poor opposition, why the Labor Party have not done the basic job and taken the basic responsibility that they owe the democratic system—that is, to be an opposition and to hold the government accountable for 11 years. Why is it so? Because they are obsessed by their own power plays within their own party. Mark Latham said:
The faction bosses see power as an end in its own right, a chance to dispense patronage and entrench their position at the top of the party hierarchy. They see policy as a vehicle to achieve power, not as a reform tool for a better society—
and, dare I add, for better working conditions for families—
The methodology is simple. Use the opinion polls and focus groups to find out what the public thinks and tell them we think exactly the same way.
In other words, the Labor Party’s words and actions are false—deliberately crafted, deliberately choreographed, to fool the Australian public into thinking that they truly represent the aspirations of the diverse people that make up the Australian electorate. In Mark Latham’s words, and if we look at some of the policy history of members opposite, we find that they do not represent the Australian electorate. Why? Because fewer than 17 per cent of the workforce in the private sector are unionised, and we see that the opposition frontbench is littered with the dregs of the trade union movement. Parliament has become the knackery for the trade union bosses and for those whose strings they pull.
But Mark Latham did give us an insight into the Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd. He told us that the health minister said, ‘He has no friends in this place.’ That is perhaps not because he is obsessed too much with other factions—not too many people wanted to support him in other factions until they got extremely desperate—but because, after regurgitating the member for Brand and after trying the experiment with the former member for Werriwa, they thought: ‘We’re desperate; there’s no-one left. We may as well give this poor lonely man a go.’ Why is that? Let us have a look at what Mr Latham said about Mr Rudd. He said:
Today Rudd was even worse. At 9.15 am he played a role in drafting the troops’ resolution at shadow cabinet. But at 5 pm at the national Right meeting after Robert Ray attacked the wording, Rudd stood up and disowned it, calling it hopeless. I am still shaking my head in disbelief that it was the same person at both meetings. He is an incredible piece of work.
I do not think Mr Latham used the word ‘incredible’ in a complimentary manner in that instance.
What else did he have to say? He recalls a situation where Kevin Rudd went to see him, lobbying him to be shadow Treasurer:
He went into a long explanation of why he is so wonderful. When he finished I put my cards on the table that I regard him as disloyal and unreliable and he only holds his frontbench position because of his media profile and public standing among people who have never actually met him.
He goes on—it makes for fascinating reading. It has reminded me that perhaps that is something I will do during the break, when parliament rises at the end of the week. We have an opposition leadership team that is not only the knackery for the trade union movement, that is not only filled with those who do not represent the demographics and the aspirations of the Australian people but that is also false and fake. If they look at governing themselves they should actually start with the power base of the Labor Party—that is, the trade union movement. They have got people like Joe McDonald. Remember the man who said, ‘I’ll be back when f’ing Kevin Rudd gets in’? These people are full of hatred and loathing, not only for mainstream Australia—and the word ‘mainstream’ is a word that I am sure is not used that often in the Labor Party caucus. They have a disdain not only for mainstream Australia but for each other and for the myriad of factions that exist.
This is a disingenuous and misleading MPI from a cocky and smarmy opposition leader. The Leader of the Opposition talks about being concerned for working families, but we know—just as with his falseness in dealing with his own party—these crocodile tears are just another charade. I wonder where his concern was for the families of those 58 individuals whom the Leader of the Opposition’s wife’s business underpaid. Where was his for his concern for those families? Where was his concern for the family who operates the Lilac City Motor Inn in Goulburn?
Madam Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order going to relevance. I have been listening to the speaker for some time. Despite her rather crude language it seems to me that she is well away from the point of the actual debate, and I would ask you to draw her back to it.
There is no point of order. The member is in order, but I do take the point about language; we will stick to parliamentary language.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I was quoting and I used the first letter of a very crude word.
I accept the explanation of the member; she may continue.
Where was the Labor Party and the Leader of the Opposition when the member for Lalor crucified a hardworking small business in the form of the Lilac City Motor Inn? Where were they? Obviously it is quite convenient to use and abuse, just as Sharan Burrow wanted some family disaster, someone to die for them, to make a political point. The family-run Lilac City Motor Inn and the family that had built up that business, that relied on that income, were totally dispensable and to be used—in the words of another long departed from parliament Labor Party power broker—for ‘whatever it takes’, and that is exactly what drives the Labor Party. Whatever lies it takes, whatever obfuscation it takes, whatever facade it takes, they are desperate—and they are desperate to win government at this year’s federal election.
They talk about working families. Working families have experienced a growth in jobs. We have seen not only 2.1 million new jobs created up to March 2006 but also an unemployment rate of 4.3 per cent. No family can begin to plan for their future, no family can begin to dream— (Time expired)
Today’s matter of public importance is very well timed. Today we have seen the most compelling evidence that this is a government that is totally preoccupied with its own survival. This is a government that is willing to do anything and say anything to get re-elected. As the previous speaker proved, it is willing to slander anybody, attack anybody and override anybody to scrape up some electoral advantage for itself. The Treasurer is accusing senior members of the press gallery of being liars. He talks big over a few bottles of red wine, then he has a panic attack and insists that his bragging was off the record. He said he would destroy the Prime Minister, then he lacked the guts to follow through. He denigrated the Prime Minister behind his back, then he denied to his face and to the public that he did it. He safely ridicules former Prime Minister Keating from this House, but he does not have half of Paul Keating’s ticker. If one doubts how division is consuming the government, one only has to see the performance of the Minister for Ageing on TV this morning. He was asked about the Treasurer and he was effusive. He was asked about the Prime Minister. He made a face, said nothing and walked into the House.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is totally obsessed with preserving his reputation. He had the chance to bow out gracefully last year but hubris got the better of him. Hubris is followed by nemesis, as it always is. In his desperation he is lashing out at the states, claiming credit for state initiatives he thinks the voters will like and sticking his nose into areas where he thinks he can find some advantage. Once it was possible to respect the Prime Minister as a born-again economic rationalist, even if we disagreed with his principles, but no longer. Now he has thrown overboard the advice of Mr Henry, the Secretary of the Treasury. He has thrown overboard principles in pursuit of naked political self-interest. Whatever happened to small government, to states’ rights, to federalism? Robert Menzies would be horrified to see the rampant centralism, the big government and the high-taxing, big-spending excesses of this government. Their TV advertising is bigger than that of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola combined. None of the strong Liberal premiers of the past—Bolte, Askin, Court or Playford—would have tolerated a Liberal Prime Minister behaving in this way.
Now we have a government that is so determined to get itself re-elected that it is willing to spend unprecedented amounts of taxpayers’ money on thinly disguised political advertising. This year alone we have got $14.5 million for promoting private health insurance, $15.8 million for promoting so-called simpler superannuation; $12.9 million on something called Skills for the Future and at least $4.1 million for selling the disastrous workplace relations laws. This is a scandalous waste, far outstripping any spending on political advertising by any previous government. Meanwhile, the problems this government has neglected continue to fester.
Many people on this side have spoken about housing stress. In my electorate 53 per cent of all households are in rented accommodation, which is the fourth highest rate of all electorates. More than 30 per cent of these households in my electorate are paying more than 30 per cent of their income on rent. Rents in Melbourne have risen by nearly nine per cent in 2006 and they are still rising. People in St Kilda, Elwood, South Melbourne, Caulfield and Balaclava, many of them young families with children, are being squeezed out of the rental market, but they are shut out of the homebuyers’ market by rising property costs and rising interest rates.
The childcare crisis continues to affect many people in my electorate, as it does across the country. At one centre in my electorate childcare fees have risen by 39 per cent over the past year. Of course, fees rise because demand is outstripping supply. The government’s response is, ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ The government legislates to force mothers with young children to go back to work but does nothing to help them to find affordable child care, which is vital for working families.
Other vital issues are being neglected while this government is preoccupied with its own survival and its own leadership. The rest of the world is moving on to deal with issues of climate change, for instance. But this government is paralysed because the climate sceptics led by Senator Minchin are preventing any serious action. The honourable member for Tangney and his flat-earth friends have let the cat out of the bag with their dissenting report. Australia is paying a heavy price for this government’s inertia and policy paralysis.
Government paralysis is also evident in local education, which has seen 10 years of inaction. Only measures by the shadow education minister, the member for Perth, and Kevin Rudd have changed these schools, prospects and put pressure on this government to do the right thing. We have also seen evidence of this government’s preoccupation with its own survival in its shameless manipulation of the electoral system. Recent changes to the Electoral Act will deprive more than 100,000 Australians, mainly first-time voters, of their vote. The Special Minister of State will say that it was their own fault for not enrolling on time. What harm is done by allowing them the traditional five-day period of grace to enrol? The government hopes that by shutting 800 or 900 young people per seat out of the election it can scrape up some petty advantage. Maybe it will, but it will not be enough to save the Special Minister of State, the member for Eden-Monaro. (Time expired)
Standing here this afternoon I think what an important discussion this must be because we are debating some very core issues at the present time. When we have someone that is prepared to stand up—and we have had a few here this afternoon—and attack someone’s character, we want to think very carefully because I am reminded of the biblical quote, ‘Let he who has no sin cast the first stone.’ I think to myself that no-one in this place could stand up and cast the first stone. I am appalled on a number of fronts. For a start, I am appalled that a few weeks out from an election a private dinner with discussions that were in camera two years ago all of a sudden is the most important thing in Canberra. It really does say something about journalism in Australia. No wonder the people of Australia say, ‘What the hell goes on in Canberra?’ It is never reported. We discuss some very important issues in this chamber, but rarely do I see them highlighted where it is important. And when you have journalists who are prepared to break a confidence and run a story like they have just out from an election you have to ask yourself why.
I have been around politics for a long time and I have a very strong feeling about journalists. I have never given off-the-cuff comments to any journalist. I have a good reason for that. I come from a country background and I learnt long ago you never pat a black snake on the head—it will bite you. That is what happens here. I warn young members of the parliament to take this as a lesson that you never brief the journalists. Do not try and buy them and think you will get some meteoric rise in politics by going behind your friends’ backs to try to give them some information. They will bite you. There is a good lesson in this for young parliamentarians—do not get involved.
I take it very seriously because, as I said, there are very important issues here that we are discussing weeks out from an election, yet we are not interested in those. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to stand up here and talk about character, he has a very short memory because I recall in this place only a few weeks ago that certain questions were being asked about a lunch and a dinner in Western Australia. We saw some obfuscation at that particular time about whether we attended the lunch or the dinner or whether we did not. If you are going to point fingers, you want to think about yourself and where you stand on some of these particular issues. There are a number of points that need to be explained by the Leader of the Opposition.
Investigation is rare in journalism in Australia. We have a lazy press. We do not get investigative journalists any more, just people who want cheap headlines. When there was some investigation about a company run by the wife of the Leader of the Opposition, there was a quick headline saying, ‘Oh, we will sell it.’ I have not seen it for sale. And we have had no questions asked by the media about that, have we?
Another point that many in this parliament probably do not realise, but it was certainly an issue at the time, is that the Leader of the Opposition was a senior adviser to the Goss government. It has been mentioned in the parliament on a number of occasions, but something that has never been told is the fact that the very first contract that Therese Rein got in Queensland was with the Goss government when the Leader of the Opposition was the senior adviser and he did not abstain from giving advice to the government. If you want to point fingers, you have to start explaining some of these things about what went on. You cannot run away and hide.
Order! The time for debate on this matter of public importance has concluded.
On behalf of the Standing Committee on Health and Ageing I present the committee’s report entitled Review of Auditor-General’s report No. 19 (2006-2007): Administration of state and territory compliance with the Australian Health Care Agreements, together with the minutes of proceedings.
Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present the committee’s sixth, seventh and eighth reports of 2007 relating to the proposed fit-out of new leased premises for the Department of Health and Ageing at the Woden Town Centre; the Royal Malaysian Air Force Base Butterworth, Malaysia, Australian Defence Force facilities rationalisation; and the RAAF Base Pearce redevelopment stage 1, Pearce, Western Australia.
Ordered that the reports be made parliamentary papers.
by leave—The Department of Health and Ageing undertook a rationalisation of accommodation in 2005 that co-located most of its activities in the Woden Town Centre centred in Scarborough House. However, a number of departmental functions continue to be performed in other leased buildings in Woden on which the leasing options are due to expire in mid-2009 and on which there are no further renewal options. Further, these older buildings do not offer a suitable standard of accommodation and maintenance costs are escalating.
The committee was informed during the inquiry that the department’s long-term strategy is to consolidate its central office functions into two sites in the Woden Centre, thereby overcoming the problems of older buildings as well as improving operational effectiveness. Scarborough House, which was the subject of a fit-out approved by the committee in 2004, would be retained and a new building constructed and leased by the department for a period of 15 years. This solution would provide the department with the capacity to locate approximately 3,100 personnel in accommodation and overcome the current fragmentation of staff, as well as meeting future organisational change. The costs of the proposed fit-out is estimated to be $67 million, excluding GST, with occupancy scheduled for 2010.
I turn now to the proposed ADF facilities rationalisation at the Royal Malaysian Air Force Base Butterworth in Malaysia. This project is proposed against the background of Australia’s participation in the Five Power Defence Arrangements that came into force in 1971 as a series of bilateral agreements between Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Singapore. The arrangements provide the opportunity for the partners to undertake joint military exercises, develop policies and exchange information on issues affecting regional security in South-East Asia. With the removal of direct threat scenarios to the region, the arrangements have increasingly focused on other regional issues, including global terrorism, piracy, the protection of exclusive economic zones, disaster relief and smuggling of illicit drugs. Australia’s commitment to the arrangements is outlined in the government’s white paper on defence.
While the basing of Australian aircraft was withdrawn in 1988, RMAF Butterworth routinely supports the deployment of aircraft from the RAAF’s air combat and air lift squadrons, and the Aerospace Operational Group. Currently there are 241 ADF personnel stationed at RMAF Butterworth. This number escalates to in excess of 500 personnel during exercises. The purpose of this project is to replace a number of buildings used by the ADF that over time have deteriorated, and to refurbish others, including transit accommodation, mess buildings, vehicle workshops and ancillary facilities. A new sewerage works is proposed to replace the failed system currently on base, together with general repairs and repainting. The cost of these works is estimated to be $A23.6 million, with work commencing in early 2008 and completion scheduled for the end of 2009.
Finally, I would like to move on to report No. 8, the RAAF Base Pearce redevelopment stage 1. Coincidently, the base is located in my own electorate, so it is of particular interest to me and my constituents. It has over a number of years expanded its role and operational importance. The base supports deployments and transit operations for aircraft of the Surveillance and Response Group, the Air Combat Group and supports a training presence from the Republic of Singapore Air Force. This project proposes the upgrade of a number of base facilities and the construction of some new facilities at a total estimated cost of $142.2 million. According to evidence provided by officials of the Department of Defence, many of the buildings on base do not meet the operational requirements of new technologies or the numbers of personnel now based at RAAF Base Pearce. Further, the base infrastructure is in need of major remediation works, including works for the delivery of water. I am sure that my colleague the member for Cowan, who is in the chamber, would agree that it is very old infrastructure.
The issue of water is of some importance to this region of Western Australia. The Great Northern Highway corridor within which RAAF Base Pearce is located has been drought prone for the last few years, imposing real constraints over access to water. While the committee is satisfied that Defence is aware of the difficulties that are being experienced by local communities and is assessing ways to minimise the impact of the proposed development on the local infrastructure, there are nevertheless some ongoing concerns that the increase in personnel will impact on available water resources and the overall sustainability of the base. This issue was the subject of extensive committee inquiry during the hearing it conducted on this project. The department informed the committee that a number of initiatives are proposed relating to water storage that it hopes will reduce the demands of RAAF Base Pearce on the existing water infrastructure provided by the Western Australian Water Corporation. That notwithstanding, the committee has recommended in its report that Defence maintain the consultative process with all stakeholders on the vexed question of water, including local government agencies, state government instrumentalities and the local community in the interests of good citizenship. The committee noted that those who appeared at the hearings were all very supportive of the works on the base.
In conclusion, I thank all those who contributed to these inquiries, including my fellow committee members, the deputy chair, officials of the various departments and, of course, the secretariat. This committee has had an extraordinarily heavy workload and complex hearings. I very much appreciate the support the committee members have received from the secretariat and Hansard. I commend the reports to the House.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I pleasure in presenting the committee’s report entitled Review of the relisting of Hizballah’s External Security Organisation (ESO).
Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.
by leave—ESO is also known as the Islamic Jihad Organisation, Hizballah International. The ESO was originally listed in 2003. In 2005 the committee reviewed the relisting and reported to parliament in September of that year. This review is the second relisting. On 7 May 2007 the Attorney-General advised the committee that he had decided to relist Hizballah’s ESO as a terrorist organisation for the purposes of section 102(1) of the Criminal Code Act 1995. The regulation was tabled in the House of Representatives on 29 May 2007 and in the Senate on 12 June 2007.
The committee advertised the inquiry in the Australian on 5 June 2007. Notice of the inquiry was also placed on the committee’s website. Two submissions were received from the public. The committee wrote to all premiers and chief ministers inviting submissions. No submissions were received from the states or territories. Representatives of the Attorney-General’s Department, ASIO and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade attended a private hearing on the listings.
The committee heard from ASIO that the ESO maintains its capacity to undertake significant terrorist attacks. The ESO has a global reach which has been detected in countries around the world, it has mounted international terrorist attacks and there is no reason to believe the organisation has relinquished this worldwide capacity. In view of this, the committee will not recommend to the parliament that the regulation be disallowed. I commend the report to the House.
by leave—As deputy chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I rise in support of the chair, particularly in view of the relisting of Hizballah’s External Security Organisation. I will make some comments amplifying the reasons why the recommendation has been made to relist this organisation for proscription.
With respect to the evidence that was received by the committee of ESO’s activities, there has been some discussion about the fact that ESO is a clandestine organisation, and thus it is very difficult to identify it as an organiser of terrorist acts. But, clearly, in the words of ASIO in particular with respect to ESO, ESO has global reach which has been detected in countries around the world. ESO has mounted international terrorist attacks and there is no reason to believe the organisation has relinquished this worldwide capability. When the committee relists an organisation, it looks at its capacity for and engagement in terrorism. Despite the lack of evidence of recent ESO activity, we took evidence from ASIO which effectively says that, in its view, ESO maintains its capacity to undertake significant terrorist attacks.
In February 2007 there were renewed reports that the suspected ESO leader was undertaking contingency planning for future attacks. It was assessed that such planning included identification and surveillance of prospective targets. In its final conclusions about this matter, the committee sought confirmation from ASIO that it was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that ESO is still a dangerous organisation. ASIO was quite unequivocal that ESO continues to prepare and plan for terrorist acts. It is ESO that is responsible for planning and coordinating Hizballah’s international terrorist related activities. The absence of terrorist operations against Western interests during the past decade reflects a calculated policy decision rather than any lack of capability. Obviously this was the terms of the recommendation arising out of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security. The recommendation was unanimous.
Because I suspect that this will probably be the last report that is tabled in the House with the member for Fadden as chair, I would like to take the opportunity to say, as deputy chair of the committee, that it has been a great honour and privilege to work with him. As chair of this committee he is impartial. The task of the committee is not easy; it is onerous—particularly because of the chair’s recent battle with illness. To be able to resume chairing the committee with equanimity, intelligence and fairness is a great tribute to him as a person.
When he reflects on his life and time in parliament he should reflect on the Intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction report, a very seminal report which led to the realignment of our intelligence agencies for the betterment of our national interest and national security. On behalf of Labor members of the committee, I wish you well in the future. You should have great pride in what you have achieved as chair of the committee.
Bill returned from Main Committee without amendment; certified copy of the bill presented.
Ordered that this bill be considered immediately.
Bill agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Bill returned from Main Committee without amendment; certified copy of the bill presented.
Ordered that this bill be considered immediately.
Bill agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Bill returned from Main Committee without amendment; certified copy of the bill presented.
Ordered that this bill be considered immediately.
Bill agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Debate resumed.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Perth has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
As I was saying before question time, the example of Western Sydney is a very good one when it comes to this government’s failure in the matter of technical education. On 23 June 2006, the government announced to great fanfare a new Australian technical college for Western Sydney. The then Minister for Vocational and Technical Education announced that the Catholic Education Office, with industry partners, had won the tender to construct and operate a Western Sydney ATC. He said: ‘I look forward to the college opening in early 2007.’ But the facts have not matched the press release and the reality has not matched the then minister’s expectation. That bid process fell apart and the Catholic Education Office was, in my view, treated in a less than ideal manner. The people of Western Sydney have been dealt a blow in that they now have a technical college with a student body of 20 out of a possible 25 students. For the entire Western Sydney region we have 20 students in the ATC, which is in Rouse Hill. I have nothing against Rouse Hill, but anybody who would suggest that people from greater Western Sydney—from south-west Sydney or other parts of Western Sydney—would be able to easily get to Rouse Hill is clearly having themselves on and has no knowledge of how Western Sydney works or of the importance of more technical education places in Western Sydney.
This has become an annual debate, with the government bringing in more legislation, more appropriation bills and more amendment bills to fix up problems with ATCs as we go along. This debate happens around this time of year every year. It is always useful to go back and say what you said last time it was debated. On 22 June 2006, I said:
This policy does not reduce duplication; it creates it.
A year before that, I said that this policy would take a long time to get up and running and that there would be a start-up lag. Clearly, the government rejected those arguments at the time, but the reality has been borne out. Those predictions have been borne out by the reality.
The experience of Western Sydney has been replicated across the board. Senate estimates heard recently that the average cost per student in an ATC is $175,000. That compares to an average cost per TAFE student of around $15,000. What an inefficient and incompetent way to get involved in technical education in this country! Can you imagine what could have been achieved if the half a billion dollars which has now been allocated by this government to their ATCs had been allocated to the existing TAFE system? If we avoided duplication, if we avoided fights with the states, if we sat down with the states and worked cooperatively and said: ‘We want to spend half a billion dollars on technical education in this country and you have the infrastructure. You have the expertise. Let’s work together and work out ways for you to implement, in cooperation with us, a major expansion of the number of students in technical education in this country,’ can you imagine what could have been achieved? In Victoria alone, where the average cost per student is only $25,000 according to some figures, the Victorian schools minister estimates that an extra 8,000 students could have been trained.
The government’s own figures say that we have a skills shortage of some 200,000 people in this country. We need 200,000 more trained, highly skilled tradespeople. And what is the government’s contribution? In Western Sydney, it is 20. In the Illawarra, it is 35 out of a possible 50. In northern Tasmania, it is 120 out of a target of 175. In Port Macquarie they are doing a little better—302 out of a possible 325. In eastern Melbourne, it is 86 out of a target of 180. Across the country, it is 1,800. We need 200,000; this government has spent half a billion dollars and we have 1,800, and it will be some years yet before any of those graduate.
There could have been many multiples of 1,800 if the government did not have an ideological and political obsession with fighting with the states, if it did not say in this place: ‘Oh, you can’t give it to TAFE. They’re dominated by those evil people—the states and the unions.’ If the government had said, ‘It doesn’t make much sense to completely duplicate an existing system,’ we might have more people going into technical education in this country. Over 300,000 people have been turned away from TAFE in this country. The government says, ‘Blame the states,’ but the Australian people are not interested in the blame game; they are interested in the solution game. This government is not in the game of solutions; it is in the game of cheap political points. That is what the government does and it does it quite well. This failed policy cannot provide any solutions.
It is not just me who believes this. I read with some interest the report of the Australian National Audit Office. You would understand that these reports are always couched in quite moderate and temperate language. It is very unusual for them to use an inflammatory set of words, but you always know what they mean. The Audit Office were particularly critical of the government’s failure to work with the states in this area. They said that insufficient attention had been paid to state and territory governments. They said that in one region the program has had to address significant issues because of the co-existence of a new college with existing state government secondary schools. Additionally, the Audit Office reported that nearly half of the first 24 colleges were awarded on the basis of a very small number of tenders—one or two applications. They said it would have been better to go back to the market, but of course they could not do so because the government was in a hurry. For political reasons, the government wanted to ram the colleges through. Of course, the government would not have needed to ram the process through with only one or two tenders and avoid going back to the market if it had got the policy settings right in the first place and worked with state governments for a cooperative arrangement.
The government’s arrogance really knows no bounds. The current Minister for Vocational and Further Education released a press release calling on me to apologise for criticising his policy. He called on me to apologise to the students of ATCs. I have no beef with the students of ATCs; I have a big beef with him. I have a big beef with the government’s arrogance and incompetence. The government do not have much to run on. One thing that a conservative government do try to run on is competence. They certainly do not try to run on their philosophy. They say, ‘Trust us because we are basically pretty competent.’ But they have been completely incompetent in administering ATCs. As I said before, one person has paid the price: the former minister was sacked. You have to try pretty hard to be sacked in this government—you have to be pretty incompetent—because the Prime Minister does not like sacking ministers very often. But the minister for vocational education and training was bad enough, and we called for his sacking long enough, that the Prime Minister eventually saw no alternative but to sack him, as he should have been sacked.
But the arrogance continues under this minister. I admit that he is fixing up many of the problems left him by his predecessor, but his arrogance continues. He issues press releases saying how dare the Labor Party criticise ATCs and that we should apologise to the government and to the students of the ATCs. He is the one who should apologise for the absolute disaster, the public policy disaster, that has been wrought on Western Sydney. A campus was promised in mid 2006 for many more students than 20 and now we have 20 students being educated in conjunction with a school in Rouse Hill. That is this government’s contribution to technical training and education in south-western Sydney, and Western Sydney more generally. My electorate in south-western Sydney has the biggest industrial estate in the Southern Hemisphere. It is has huge needs for skills training, and yet this government’s contribution is 20 students.
The rebadging of student apprentices in one school does not amount to a plan for the future. It does not amount to a significant contribution to technical skills and education in Western Sydney. Everybody knows that we have a skills crisis in this country. There have been occupations on the skills shortage list in some cases for 11 years and more. The government have only become involved in technical education in a serious way over the last two years. What have they done? They have announced a duplication of an existing state system. They have announced that they will not work or cooperate with the states. As such, they are being criticised by no less authority than the Australian National Audit Office.
It is this government which should apologise. It is this government which should say: ‘We got it wrong. We should be working with the states. We should be adopting something like Labor’s policy, which is trades in schools, giving schools extra funding to teach more trades, and capital funding for important technical classrooms.’ The minister pooh-poohs it; the minister belittles it. In an arrogant way he says, ‘All you are doing is buying lathes and hairdressing machines.’ It is much more than that. With a bit of vision and commitment to back up the policy we can turn every school in this country into a technical college. That is what the Leader of the Opposition did in his address-in-reply to the budget. He put out an alternative vision in this important field. Yet all the government can do is carp and issue silly press releases calling on Labor members of parliament to apologise for criticising the program.
The minister’s press release is quite amusing. He says, ‘Chris Bowen, in typical style, wants to take these away by calling them a national disgrace.’ I do call their policy a national disgrace. It has been a complete and utter duplication of a system which could have been enhanced. It could have been grown. Putting half a billion dollars into the TAFE and schools education system in this country could have achieved a great deal, but instead we see a mechanism in place in which new colleges are built. They have to be started, there are understandable start-up lags and time has to go into building them and getting the capital structure in place, hiring employees et cetera. This all takes time. It would all be unnecessary if a more holistic, visionary approach had been taken.
We have now seen the announcement of a second Western Sydney ATC, which I understand is to be in Penrith, in the electorate of Lindsay. We have one in the Liberal electorate of Greenway; now there will be one in the Liberal electorate of Lindsay. That is good; I welcome that. I hope it is more successful than the first one. I hope that in three years time I will not be saying, ‘We’ve got 20 students now in the Penrith ATC,’ because it will need to be administered a whole lot better than the first one was. The tender negotiations with the winning tenderer will need to be handled a whole lot better than the first ones were. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there are a lot of very angry people who were involved in the failed project to establish the first ATC, and the government knows it. They are not people who are traditionally critical of the government, but these people are very angry about the way in which they have been treated.
I simply hope that the implementation of the second ATC, in Penrith, which we do not oppose because we will support anything which does a little bit of good, goes smoothly. We are not going to stand in the way of funding something which may do a little bit of good, but we reserve the right to point out that we think the money could be spent a whole lot better. We reserve the right to say that 8,000 extra students in Victoria alone would have been a more efficient and better result. It is not just about the use of taxpayers’ money, as important as it is; it is about the opportunity cost. People are missing out because they are being turned away from the TAFE system.
This has been a public policy disaster. As I say, I hope that in 12 months time, when we return to this debate, as we are likely to do, we will not be saying that the ATC at Penrith has been as disappointing as the ATC at Rouse Hill in terms of take-up rates and student numbers. I do not mean any disrespect to the people at Rouse Hill, who I am sure are working very hard and doing the best they can with the resources given to them by this government. I am saying that there is a much better way, and it is very disappointing for the future of this nation in this very important area that it has not been done much more efficiently.
I rise today, in this debate on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007, to focus on the strength, innovation, creativity and the successful initiative of the Howard government in relation to the Australian technical colleges. At the 2004 election, the Prime Minister promised to establish 25 new Australian technical colleges to boost not only the number of young people who were engaging in apprenticeships but also the status and quality of technical and vocational education in this nation. The cost of these colleges through to 2009 is estimated to be $456.2 million. The Australian technical colleges are already an outstanding success due to the quality of the facilities and teaching staff, and also due to the strength of mentorship, guidance, support and leadership of industry and teaching staff.
The 2004 election commitment has gone from idea to reality in only three short years. This is a remarkably short space of time, with 20 Australian technical colleges currently operating at 33 campuses across Australia. In 2008, that number will increase to 25 colleges at 30 campuses and in 2009 there will be 42 campuses. A further three Australian technical colleges were announced in the recent 2007-08 budget to be located in northern Perth, southern Brisbane and in greater Western Sydney, New South Wales
Two thousand students across Australia are already benefiting from being able to do their year 11, obtain their year 12 school certificate and start an apprenticeship at the same time. Seven thousand five hundred students are expected to be attending colleges each year once they are all fully operational in 2009. These students will finish their two years at the Australian technical college, having completed their high school education, and will already be two years into their chosen trade or vocational training, giving them an important head start for their career. To be skilled up and educated until a third of the way through their trade is an outstanding opportunity. Indeed, they are earning while they are learning.
The Australian technical college concept is unique. In fact, the various models operating across the nation all have unique characteristics. The uniqueness of the Western Sydney model is that it is a partnership with industry as well as involving mentorship. There is mentorship in the classroom and in the workplace. These young people have an indentured apprenticeship.
The technical colleges are by no means in competition with TAFE. TAFE will focus on providing education for post-secondary students. One of the examples that I think is critical in Western Sydney is that already, at the grass roots, the principal of the Australian technical college is working very closely with TAFE. Many of those students are already engaging in studies at TAFE. So they are working together.
For example, a young person leaving year 12, about to embark on a trade, has to find a job and also has to enrol in TAFE. Often, although some support may be offered, they do not have that strength of mentorship and guidance. The Australian technical college model is very different. The employer that they are indentured to is visited regularly. If there is a challenge or an issue, the indentureship continues. If the student needs to find a different employer, for whatever reason—sometimes these things have challenges—these challenges can be addressed and the student can continue their indentured apprenticeship.
If there is a challenge at the school, if there is an issue for that young person that needs to be addressed, then it can be picked up early and dealt with. This ensures that the young person is supported fully. It encourages and enhances the opportunity for success—that is, for these young people to complete their trade. This particular model, led by industry partners, is a model where the students have a high chance of completing their education. This is about encouraging the young person to take up opportunities in not just their trade skills but also their capacity to develop business skills. These are the future business leaders of Western Sydney. These young students will reach a standard of excellence and will be sought after by business leaders across Western Sydney.
Some members opposite have talked about the number of students at the Western Sydney college. I am sure members opposite would agree that, considering apprenticeships have increased by 183 per cent in Greenway since 1996, the people of Western Sydney will embrace, and have embraced, the Australian technical college. This is demonstrated not just by the 20 young people that are currently enrolled but by the fact that already there are 130 young people on the waiting list for 2008. This is without any advertising or promotion. That is families, parents and young people saying that this is a choice in education that they want. The college is averaging 10 inquiries a day—again, without any promotion or advertising. The people of Western Sydney, young people and their parents, are voting with their feet.
Those students and families understand what this means for these young people. I am very proud of these 20 young men and of what they have achieved. I congratulate them on their hard work. They have had to knuckle down. They have just completed their first stint with an employer—100 per cent indentured employment. Every single one of them is linked to an employer and they have come back even stronger.
The members opposite talked about the reduction in students. I have had many conversations with the principal, Sandra Langford. I acknowledge that two of the students have moved on. It is important to acknowledge that it was them choosing to move forward. One student has chosen to move into the IT industry and pursue an education in IT; the second student had such a fantastic experience with their employer that they have chosen to pursue their apprenticeship full time. I think that is a wonderful outcome.
Some members opposite talked about the consortium partners. What is important here is that it takes time to plan, coordinate and structure the college to reach a standard of excellence. I do not think we should despise the days of small beginnings. These 20 students, the staff and the consortium partners have worked very hard to establish the foundation. And the foundation on which they are building is going to be so strong that it will provide a wonderful example for the 100 or so students that are going to be coming in next year. I also acknowledge that these students, the staff and the consortium partners are pioneers. They are committed, passionate and extremely hardworking.
The opposition has failed to acknowledge some of the challenges that the consortium has faced in being able to open the college this year. The New South Wales government was one of the last state governments in the nation to change legislation so that young people were able to engage in an apprenticeship and be employed while they were studying at school. In a press release in October last year I called on the state government to get a move on and take some action. But, again, it was not until the eleventh hour, which meant that at the end of last year the consortium and the education facility—particularly the Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation—had to come together very quickly to put everything in place so that these 20 students had an opportunity. I want to congratulate them for working so quickly to pull this together.
I also want to focus on the strength of the partnership. The industry leadership and the partnership worked extremely hard. As has been acknowledged by the Minister for Education, Science and Training, it would be helpful if the members for Chifley, Parramatta and Prospect could consider a formal apology to not just the students but also the staff. In fact, I have spoken to the principal today; they are working so hard and this is not what they need. They need encouragement; they do not need to be told what they have not achieved. They need to be encouraged. Indeed, I think what they have achieved so far is outstanding.
The consortium consists of Paul Naylor, who is the current chair; Sandra Langford, the principal; the Master Plumbers Association; the National Electrical and Communications Association; the Master Builders Association; the New South Wales Motor Traders Association; the Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation, which I have already acknowledged; Restaurant and Catering NSW; and Master Painters. There are five apprenticeship options for these young people. These individuals, industry groups and a number of others have worked tirelessly to achieve what has been achieved to date. There is a lot more work ahead of them.
We need to focus on not necessarily the political imperative but what is significant for the young people of Western Sydney. This is about a future for them. This is about a structured pathway. It is about providing them with an opportunity where there are facilities second to none, where there is the right kind of support and mentorship, where there is a link to an employer that is secure and where there are opportunities for young people to not just be seen as great tradespeople but also be trained and skilled up to lead the business world in Western Sydney. When I look at some of these young men, I think: ‘These are the future business leaders of Western Sydney.’
I look forward to not just supporting Australian technical colleges in my region, particularly in Western Sydney, but also seeing the fruit of the labour that has already been and will continue to be invested in this, and seeing these young men and women engaged in employment, engaged in industry and engaged as business leaders. I acknowledge the young students and their hard work. I commend this bill to the House.
It is interesting to speak on this education bill, the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007, in what has been agreed will be a valedictory speech. In starting, I want to talk a little bit about this bill because it really exemplifies the government’s approach to a range of things. This is about adding a few extra technical colleges to the original 24 that the government proposed as an election promise. They tacked on another three or so. This bill gives us, I think, another four technical colleges, spread around Australia, as an attempt to say, ‘This is the way you fix the skills crisis in Australia.’ I do not think that is so. I think it is demonstrable that the government does not really understand the dimensions of the skills crisis Australia faces. It does not understand what needs to be done in order to fix that crisis, except for pulling in hundreds of thousands of people on 457 visas and displacing Australians and all of those young people—up to 300,000 of them—who could have had better, more regularised trade training and full apprenticeship training if the government had had the will. The reality is that this is posturing and filling gaps. It is not getting to the core of the problems.
This incremental approach, this ad hoc approach, should be entirely condemned because it does not address the fundamental problems. You can understand. This tells you a great deal about a government that have spent more than a decade—11 full years—posturing. In 1995-96, when they were running for election, they did not attack the federal government’s policies, the then Labor government’s policies; they only attacked local councils and state governments. Guess what? Nothing much has happened in the last 11 years to change their approach. In government they have been like an opposition. They have continued to campaign against councils or state governments when it suits them and have not addressed their fundamental responsibilities. Regarding the real key issues that should have been faced by this government, they have either walked away or offloaded them to the states and have kept politicking rather than trying to do something significant and real.
I support the opposition’s amendments with regard to this bill, which go to the government’s continued failure to ensure that Australians get the training they need for a skilled job and meet the skills needs of the economy; their failure to make the necessary investments in existing vocational education and training infrastructure to create opportunities for young Australians to access high-quality vocational education and training in all our secondary schools and in the TAFE system; and their creation of an expensive, inefficient and duplicate network of stand-alone Australian technical colleges, without cooperation or consultation with the states within the existing vocational education and training framework. All of these points are true and valid. All of them go to the core of a government intent on politicking rather than addressing real problems.
We have seen this as well in the area of literacy and numeracy. For 11 full years we have had a federal government that has campaigned against the states in relation to literacy and numeracy, has taken some small steps to address the fundamental problems, but has never really grappled with them. From Dr Kemp to now, the key, fundamental problem in Australian education—literacy and numeracy at the very start of schooling—has been so apparent over three decades. It is because of an ideological approach taken to teaching methods, against teaching reading and phonics. This government has not fronted up to that, except to undertake to get a report done in 2005, entitled Teaching reading. What has been done with that report 18 months on? Not much at all. It has been flick-passed to COAG. Out of all of the recommendations that have been given to the government, two tiny recommendations have been implemented, but the rest have been flick-passed. The attitude is: ‘We’ll leave that up to the state governments, and we can continue the blame game.’
I estimated when I came into this parliament 11 years ago that it would have cost in the order of $600 million to properly address the fundamental problems of literacy and numeracy in Australia. To really address the problem, you have to change teacher education across Australia. You have to go to the core of the problem, which is the manner in which people are taught to teach and the way in which phonics has been thrown out the window—and it has gone on for three decades. That has meant that we have gone from being a country which used to have one of the proudest education records possible and one of the strongest education systems in the world to being one with a system that is progressively weakening. Our capacity to compete with the world has been slowly whittled away, step by step, because that tremendous capacity that we had has been allowed to wither.
All you need at base when you start your education in Australia is an efficient and effective tool kit, a way to unlock learning and a way to unlock how to read, how to write and how to count. But for decades now that tool kit has not been properly given to Australian students. The fundamental method of learning now is to bump up against things, a bit like a pinball game. You shoot the pinball out and, as it bumps up against things, if you are lucky it might make a few strikes, some lights will go off and the student may be able—because they have been able to solve the problem for themselves—to learn something. I think that approach has been fundamentally wrong. We need to address it. We need to face up to it. We need to say that the mode of instruction in Australia for a long period of time now has been wrong.
We want to ensure that all Australian children have the best possible chance of learning, whatever the subject is, whatever the mode, whether it is in a technical college or a comprehensive high school. But unless you can read, write and count, you are really up against it. It is out of fashion to get young kids in primary school to do what they are tremendously good at: rote learning. That went out decades ago. It is not fashionable to do it. But you have a look at any small child and the way in which they take a DVD and watch it 4,000 times. They learn by repetition. They learn by playing. They learn by gaining experience of the world. Yet our education system has put that aside, and it is to the detriment of children right throughout their education.
I taught for just on 10 years. I was an English and history teacher. I am probably one of the most pedantic people in this parliament. I cannot get out of it; I have to confess to it. The fundamental reality is that, whatever level of government is dealing with this, not only do we have a skills crisis in Australia but we have an education crisis. That has run for a very long period of time. You need to break the ideological approach to the mode of instruction. Just recently there have been two major pieces in the paper on the issue of teaching mathematics and English. These have come from people who were involved in the government study. The person who ran the government study in 2005, Dr Ken Rowe, from the Australian Council for Educational Research, is one of them. They are disappointed that, 18 months on, so little has been done to implement the clear outline of what the government was told needed to happen to address this problem.
On this issue, this government has chosen not to follow President Bush. The only decent thing this bloke has done in eight years as the President of the United States of America is to follow his librarian wife’s advice. Laura said, ‘You need to mandate phonics.’ His decision to do that was based not just on her advice but on 500,000 evidence based studies throughout the world about how you effectively teach. They found that the key thing in teaching reading is associating sounds and letters. It is very simple but it has not been done properly in this country for 30 years. It has to be done.
The teachers in our system are victims of what has happened in that period of time. They are not as competent as they should be in not only reading and writing themselves but communicating that and teaching it. We need a big program to address that. The productivity of Australia as a whole is dramatically lessened not just in our classrooms but through every part of the Australian workforce. We are in a situation where we have hampered ourselves. If you look at any other country in the world, you will find that they are determined to ensure that their education system mirrors the best that is possible. In productivity terms, we have fallen back and back. If Australia is going to serve its people well and compete properly in the world, we need to advance that dramatically.
That is a hobbyhorse I have not run for the past 11 years because I have had a much broader scope in terms of what I have been able to do in this parliament. When I was elected 11 years ago, having taught for just on 10 years and then having run Paul Keating’s electorate office for 11¼ years, I was able to come into this parliament and speak with my own voice. I also had the immense privilege of being put in a position where I could travel from one end of the joint to the other, to see every Australian state and territory and see what the problems were in situ. It is only when you travel to see the problems in practice, as I did on the public works committee, where I started off; on the industry and resources committee, which I am deputy chair of now; on the defence committee; and on the regional and rural committee, as I did for six years as chair, that you get a real appreciation of what it is all about. There is a difference between that and being a staffer. When I was working for the Treasurer and Prime Minister that was a much tougher job than the one I have had for the last 11 years, let me tell you, because in government you are responsible. Working in the Treasurer’s and Prime Minister’s office, you are responsible for what a government that is active and real does. You have to front up.
But having the great opportunity to see problems directly dramatically expands your capacity as a member of parliament. I am immensely grateful to the people of Blaxland, who gave me not only the opportunity to follow Paul Keating in the seat of Blaxland but the opportunity and the support for the last 11¼ years or so to do this job to the best of my ability and to do it in an enlarged manner. For all of us, my colleagues here today and my wife and family, the reality is that parliamentary life is not only a great and high calling but a very tough one as well, as we know. It is one that is crucial and essential to the good and wellbeing of the country and to the future of the whole Commonwealth of Australia.
We have to play our part in working as hard as we can across a whole range of fields. I tried very deliberately to move away from my areas of expertise, gained either as a teacher or in working for Mr Keating, to go into areas that I did not have any experience in at all. They had been of interest, certainly, but I did not have practical working experience of them. That is the great advantage one has in this place: one is able to speak broadly on a whole range of issues and hopefully affect and advance not only the party’s cause but the cause of the people you represent and the cause of the country as a whole.
If you look at the first speech I gave—born out of a by-election campaign—and this speech, they are pretty much book ended. It is all about campaigning and it is about a contrast between us and them—between the Labor Party and the government. It is a contest of ideas; it is a contest of attitude and philosophy. In the Labor Party, we have always believed that our core mission and fundamental goal was to make life better, richer and fuller for ordinary working Australians. That sums it up; that is what it is all about. That is why 40 years ago I joined the Australian Labor Party, because that is as complete an idea of what we have been about as you need.
It is quite true that the conservatives have a much narrower vision. It is about getting into power, staying there and not doing all that much while you are there. It is about weighing off the problems to someone else, whether it is local governments or state governments. The Labor Party did grapple with the big issues and the major problems when we were last in government. Over the last 11 years I have had the privilege to serve with my colleagues, particularly the brave group of 49 in the 1996 parliament, those who hung in hard and tight. To have spent our time in opposition for more than a decade now is a very difficult thing.
Not having had the opportunity to be in government except as a staffer—and now I will not have the opportunity—I can understand how brutal and difficult it was for people in the 23 years before the Whitlam government came to power. They had such an extended period of time in opposition but still had to work at the job and continue to believe in constructing themselves in such a way that they could do their proper job of running the country and delivering for all of those people in Australia left out by coalition governments.
So it is very important for anyone who is leaving, I think, to understand that the job that we have done in the past 11 years has been enormously important, because in opposition it is not easy. It never will be. I trust and hope—being the pessimist that I always am; it saves time—that we have some chance of getting up at this election and that we will be able to bring to an end more than a decade’s worth of a closed Australia. The last decade has been without much vision at all except how you stay in power and how you use every device possible in order to do so. That kind of closed Australia is not the one that I want to live in; it is not the one the members of the Labor Party want to live in. We want a broader, stronger, more open society; we want a government that actually confronts problems and fixes them to the benefit of everyone in Australia.
I took so much time on the educational aspects that I no longer have much time left, but I did give a speech on 27 May in which I covered a whole range of areas. In the short period of time I have to give thanks for an 11-year period in which I have been immensely proud to have served the Labor Party, the first vote of thanks goes to Shirley Hatton. She has done it hard, as all spouses do, and has done it in adverse circumstances. She has had to put up with me as part of the Labor team in opposition, carting ourselves from one end of the country to the other, working on delegations and doing all of the things that are available to a federal member of parliament. It is critical that you have support, and I simply could not have done it as well without Shirley, without her love, her affection and the enormous amount of work she did to keep me there. She gets the bonus that we will be out of the joint.
My family will get some bonus as well—maybe it will be a negative; I am not sure. I want to thank my mother, my brothers, the rest of my family and everyone who has worked in my office—in particular, Veronica, my electorate secretary, who is the best electorate secretary in Australia. She spent 13 years running Neville Wran’s office and has been with Paul and me since 1987. She has been a tremendous backup for me, as have been all of the loyal members of the Australian Labor Party in Blaxland, who elected me in the first place with an overwhelming majority. They put their trust in me to be their voice, the tongue in this federal parliament, and to do the best I could to advance their cause and the cause of ordinary Australian people.
I have cherished the fact that I was put in a position to do it. I would like to do it for a longer period of time, but that is not the case. Be warned: I am not really going away. I have worked out a way to keep campaigning and to keep on with what I am really interested in, very much so, apart from the other panoply of things that there are to do. But I am interested in the political process itself and, as I have pointed out in my previous speech, the tremendous work that the committees do in this parliament and the way in which we are able to do it on a cross-party basis. You can do things as a parliamentarian that you can immensely proud of.
Mr Deputy Speaker Jenkins, having been on the speakers panel as well, I want to thank you, particularly for your indulgence in letting me go 20 seconds over. I want to thank all of my colleagues for their great friendship and support. I have enjoyed this immensely; it was something that I always wanted to do. Thank you to all of those people, both Labor and in the coalition, who have extended friendship, help and assistance over those years. I thank the House for its indulgence.
Order! This occupant of the chair, without passing judgement on any comments the member made about the question before the chair, congratulates the member for Blaxland and wishes him well in his future endeavours.
At the beginning of February 1988, I was the school principal of one of the most disadvantaged schools in South Australia. The school was located in the federal electorate of Port Adelaide, not far from where I lived as a youngster and where I still live today. To the surprise of many, in 1984 I had left a previous school which I had built up to be one of the best in Australia. But Taperoo meant something. It was where I lived and began my teaching career. When I left it in 1968, I said that I would come back as a principal. I did, and I kept my word. Other than education and sport, federal politics was also a passion. I remember, at the age of 43, my father saying to me, ‘If you don’t change your career by the age of 45, you never will.’
Further promotion in the education department had no appeal for me. The administrators who had led South Australia to international leadership in education were retiring, and they were being replaced by a very unimpressive lot of bureaucrats. At that time I was president of the metropolitan principals’ association in South Australia. It was an active group. I had upset more than a few people with public stances on openness and transparency, early intervention, literacy and numeracy, boys’ education, technical education, teacher education, the dumbing down of mathematics and science, overcrowded curriculum, the lack of competition and physical activity, political correctness and, in particular, the different resourcing of all sectors of education based on tradition and privilege rather than educational rationale.
When I arrived in this place, those areas had been ignored. The House of Representatives education committee changed all that by at least putting them front and centre. But, as the member of Blaxland said, we have not gone too far in 11 years. The repeated threats by sections of the education bureaucracy, when I was a principal, that they would not renew my tenure as a class A principal sooled me on to the possibility of another career. With my wife, Aldona, who is in the chamber tonight, my cousin Ralph and his wife, Oli, the possibility of going into the hotel business was explored. At the time, I was president of the local branch of the ALP and was a candidate in the 1985 state election. Labor had lost the seat of Semaphore in a fit of madness in 1979 to an Independent, and he was entrenched. Although I achieved a swing of 15 per cent, the likelihood of winning the seat in 1989 was still pretty minimal.
The younger generation of leaders in my area was quite impressive. One was Kevin Foley, the current Deputy Premier of South Australia. Another was Joe Cappella, the President of my FEC. I informed them, after standing at the 1989 state election, that I was going to go into a new career, and I prepared them to take over my party and community responsibilities. I never thought there would be an opportunity for me at a federal level. I was a close friend and confidante of Mick Young, the then Leader of the House, Special Minister of State and federal member for Port Adelaide. Among other positions, I was his campaign director. I initiated, developed and administered his scholarship fund, now known as the Mick Young Scholarship Trust. On a personal level, I enjoyed his company professionally, politically and socially.
How unprepared I was when Michael Wright, now a minister in the Rann government, phoned me in early February 1988 to tell me that Mick was going to resign. I was, like most people, shocked. I had suspected that Mick’s health was below par, but that possible knowledge did not prepare me for his phone call inviting my family and me to his house for dinner on the Thursday of that week. To cut a long and personal story short: he said, quite bluntly, ‘It’s you, mate.’ On the morning of 19 February 1988 I won the preselection by 16 votes to nine. Shortly after, I resigned as principal of Taperoo Primary School and began a very public and national campaign as the Labor candidate for Port Adelaide. At the time, the federal Labor government was going pretty rough. In South Australia we had already lost the seat of Adelaide, and predictions were being made that we were going to lose Port Adelaide. I never believed that, but, mind you, the government and Mick himself found ways to unintentionally undermine the campaign.
The national exposure at the time was particularly daunting, but our campaign team, led by Michael Wright and Don Mackay, overcame all the obstacles, and Labor prevailed. In 1990 we returned to a more normal margin and have kept that ever since. I actually predicted the swing against the government. My grandfather, Wattie, had taught me a bit about federal elections when, in 1961, he took £20—a week’s wages—from my dad by saying that Menzies would win by one seat. However, his win was not a prediction; it was based on comparative economic data and has proved to be correct in every Australian federal election since 1964. Since I have been in the federal parliament, I have refined that raw formula to add up what the margin in seats will be by applying a mathematical matrix. Of course, many of my colleagues here in Canberra are disbelieving of, contemptuous of and horrified at my ability to call anything, but I can tell you that I called George Bush by 100,000 votes in 2000, and I called President Chen in Taiwan by 27,000 votes in 2004, and I got them both right.
In 1993, I got a spectacular result and had immense fun. Labor won against the predictions of the polls. Of the Canberra press gallery—that mob who sit up above us—49 out of 51 got it wrong, and the coalition party room contributed greatly to the Sawford family’s financial assets. Alexander Downer took maybe up to six months to pay his $200, but he paid. Hell, it was good! At the beginning of that 1993 campaign I had a call from Paul Keating. I am sure he was surprised at my seemingly over-the-top confidence that we would win and that we would pick up a couple of seats as well. I told him that that afternoon I was going to the Seaton Baptist Church craft workshop. About 500 people used to go there.
Paul gave me a phone number—I think he was in Queensland—and told me to ring him the next day. I have subsequently called this story the Roslyn Pumpa principle. Roslyn Rennie had grown up in the same street as me, but the family moved and I lost contact. I met her, now Roslyn Pumpa, at the craft workshop. She told me in no uncertain terms that she opposed the GST. In fact, the finger was in the chest, the old Port Adelaide way, and she was saying: ‘Wake up in the morning, Rod, wash the teeth, pay the GST. Have breakfast, pay the GST. Get dressed, pay your GST. Go to work, pay your GST.’ That anecdote became, in my opinion, the basis of the communicative genius of Paul Keating when he told that campaign-breaker of a story in a much more dramatic form at the Toyota factory in Melbourne later that week.
I came into this parliament as a member of the Centre Left faction from South Australia. Although a close friend of Mick Young, I was not an original member of that group or any other. However, there is no doubt that, without their support, I would not be standing here today. Senator Michael Beahan was the federal convenor of the group, and I admired his intrinsic decency. I became a fledgling negotiator for the group and had an early opportunity to meet with both the factional leaders and Prime Minister Bob Hawke. However, I did not cover myself in glory. In fact, quite the opposite. After dinner in his dining room—it was that awful Atkins diet—we withdrew to his office. With his feet up on the desk and a big cigar in his mouth, he snarled in his imitable way, ‘Ah, boys, what’s going on?’ For me, at least, there seemed to be a bit of a lengthy and uncomfortable silence, so I fronted up with this doozy of a comment: ‘Bob, when you conceptualised planning for the 1983 federal election, how did you come up with that trinity of recovery, reconciliation and reconstruction?’ He gave me a very severe look, as he can. I thought that he had not heard me, so I stupidly repeated the statement. On either side of me were Senator Barney Cooney and Senator Bruce Childs. Cooney kicked me in the ankle and Childs saved me further embarrassment by changing the subject. After the meeting, Cooney took me aside and said quite emphatically, ‘You bloody dope! That was Hayden, not Hawke.’ It was a most unimpressive beginning indeed!
The 1993 federal election had a big impact on me in more ways than one. My prediction was correct; I won some money and had some fun. A few days after that election I found myself in the intensive care cardiac unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, hooked up to more machines than you see at the Adelaide Grand Prix. I had the numbers to be a minister in the Keating government but was told by specialists that I could be an active backbencher or a dead minister. Despite numerous inquiries by the media and others, the staff at the QEH and the patients and families of those in the intensive care unit did not give me away. Mind you, I was a bloody slow learner. I was again in that intensive care cardiac unit a few days after the 1996 election, hooked up to those machines. However, it scared me that time. I gave up smoking and I tried to change my then hopeless lifestyle. I did tell one person, though—Leo McLeay. He never betrayed that confidence and, although an unlikely one, that friendship continues today.
When you have been in this place a long time you soon realise that the average stay is seven years and that any time over that is a bonus. I miss many people who have been and gone: Ross Free, David Beddall, Ted Grace, Kay Denman and Michael Duffy. I could go on for a long time. However, I miss two people in particular who are no longer alive. I refer of course to Senator Peter Cook and the former member for Canning, Jane Gerick. This is not generally a chamber of thinking people. This is not a chamber where you hear many insightful observations. In the press gallery, to the right and above, even fewer are usually found—more is the pity.
Cookie and I looked alike and our identities were often confused. A couple of times overseas I was mistakenly identified as Gareth Evans. One funny incident occurred in Singapore in 1994 when our delegation missed the connecting flight to Australia and went to a late night bar, as you do. Next to us were two Kiwi businessmen who were a bit under the weather. One loudly exclaimed, pointing at me, ‘There’s that bastard Gareth Evans.’ I smiled and waved and raised my glass. The other businessman gave me the one-finger salute. I told Gareth upon my return. He did not see the funny side. Cookie thought it was hilarious.
The late Western Australians Peter Cook and Jane Gerick were different. Cook was a thinker and Gerick was an astute observer. I shared lodgings with Cookie for 10 years. We were both sons of Port Adelaide wharfies and shared a love of Port characters and Port humour—bad jokes. Jane Gerick, at great risk to herself, came walking daily with Leo McLeay, Bob Sercombe, Harry Quick and me. Her astute and acerbic comments were always entertaining. She survived that but not her illness, unfortunately.
Human activity and endeavour ought to reconcile the trinity of ideas, process and task or beliefs, relationships and outcomes. That is why the 1983 Labor election campaign was so successful. With double-digit inflation, interest rates and unemployment, the coalition was doomed. The themed campaign of ‘recovery’, the idea or purpose; ‘reconciliation’, the means or process; and ‘reconstruction’, the task or outcomes, captured the mood of the Australian people and was duly rewarded with the most successful Labor government ever.
Of course, 1996 proved to be the exact opposite. It should not have been. The advice given and taken was flawed and the inevitable tragic loss of seats occurred. I will never forget the ignored warnings and the responses of people who should have known better. There is a reason why the Canberra press gallery got their election predictions so wrong in 1993. As I said earlier, 49 out of 51 went for Hewson and the coalition. Only Laura Tingle and Amanda Buckley got it right, and I am sure that they just wanted to be different. On the Friday before the election, I had lunch with Neal Blewett and Chris Schacht. I was up-beat and on top of the world; they were downcast and gloomy. God, they were poor company! The polls had the coalition 10 points in front. The journalists exhibited their weaknesses: their lack of thinking and analytical skills. They will hate me telling you this, but the media play little or no role in determining winners at the federal level. It all neutralises itself. It is very different at the state level—they are very powerful and they do change things.
I was privileged to be a whip for 10 years in both government and opposition. I am proud that during that time very little was leaked to the media. However, I saw and heard things that horrified me and diminished my belief in a number of people here: lying, opportunism, misrepresentation, jumping to conclusions, egos and rumour-mongering. Some of the worst on both sides were people who used religious belief as a political weapon. These people, though they refuse to admit it, would support a theocracy in Australia. Fortunately, they are outnumbered by people here on both sides who have a greater amount of intrinsic goodness.
It is a great pity that over the last 30 years few Australians have been exposed to an effective education which includes philosophy, ethics, ideas, analysis, pure mathematics and science. Education without those things is a recipe for mediocrity, for victim mentality, for celebrity and image over substance and ideas, for spin and untruths rather than integrity, for diversion and division rather than action, for problems rather than solutions, for description rather than exposition and for synthesis rather than analysis. We have all upgraded our technology; we should upgrade our thinking and observation skills. We have not done so.
In conclusion, I thank my family, friends and staff. Aldona, my wife of 39 years, deserves a medal. She will have to be satisfied with a new kitchen and a holiday, I think. My wonderful children are Luke and Daina. Their partners are Linda and Jason, and my beautiful grandchildren are Alex, Olivia and Joshua. They have been a constant joy to me. Families take a few hits when you are a member of parliament. Mine has been no exception. However, their resilience, dogged positive attitude, patience, loyalty and love are greatly appreciated.
I have lost a few acquaintances over my years in politics—as you do. However, I am grateful that the close friends that I began this journey with—Adam, Ira, Robert, Pam, Pat, Joe, Claude, Jean, Bill, Melva, Margaret, Arthur and Robert—are still with me. Thank you. I have also been blessed with outstanding staff. Pauline Mannix, up there in the gallery, served 39 years with three federal MPs: Fred Birrell, Mick Young and me. Luisa Halacas, Gary Orr, Patrick Hansen and Shaisee Johnston have served me well also.
I have not formally studied philosophy but I have a little background in pure mathematics. They are disciplines I would recommend to any prospective parliamentarian or journalist or political author or failed politician. The paradox of Zeno always fascinated me as a youngster. This, of course, is the classical Greek story of Achilles and the Tortoise. It fooled the ancient Greeks and it still fools people today. Achilles can run 10 times as fast as the tortoise. He gives the shelled creature 100 metres start. After Achilles has run the 100 metres, the tortoise is still 10 metres ahead. Achilles runs the next 10 metres and the tortoise is one metre ahead, and so on ad infinitum. Achilles never catches the tortoise. As with many things, it could never be explained by the ancient Greeks. Instead they called it a paradox, Zeno’s paradox, and waited for later generations of mathematicians to explain the theory of infinite series converging on a limiting value. It is a bit like some people’s explanation of faith.
As I said earlier, this House would be more dynamic, interesting and valuable if it included more thinkers and observers. However, too much in politics is fixated with the cult of image and celebrity, anti-intellectualism, the spread of false beliefs and the avoidance of truths and absolutes. Democracy as we know it allows itself to be threatened far too easily. And it is being challenged. At another level, the current inability of governments to deal with meeting the demand for the supply of basic things—water, power, communication—whilst ignoring any reconciliation with population growth beggars belief.
The politicisation of the federal Public Service, the increasing level of corruption in the state public service and the imbalance between the public and private good diminish this nation. So, too, does the production of two-tiered education and health services. Getting into bed with the rich, the powerful, the famous and the influential whilst abandoning the vulnerable and the dependent will not produce a civilised, relaxed and calm society in which children and the aged are protected and the potential of all individuals is realised. Kevin Rudd has said we need an education revolution. We do. But the revolution needs to cover all aspects of political life, not just education.
Being the federal member of an area in which my family has lived for almost 170 years and representing people I generally love and respect has been an undoubted privilege. On the day of my preselection win I was interviewed by a journalist for the now defunct Adelaide News, Craig Bildstien, in Mick Young’s office. Craig now works for the Advertiser. He asked me what I hoped to achieve. I replied—and I do not know where I got this from—‘I have no high-flying ideas but my aim will be to look after the people of Port Adelaide.’ I trust that I have kept my word.
To the Clerks, in particular Ian Harris and Bernard Wright, and all the parliamentary staff who work in this place—in Hansard, the Parliamentary Library, Transport, Catering and so on—I salute all of you for the courtesy and professional services I have always, without exception, received from all of you.
The forthcoming election will be fascinating, and the closest since 1961. I of course hope to see a Rudd-Gillard government, but, whatever the result, all the very best to the select but imperfect few who occupy the seats in this most important House. The challenges of the future are very difficult. I wish you all the skills—in thinking, observation and technology—in your beings to do the very best by the Australian people. They deserve no less.
To what remains of the tiny band of Independents in the Labor Party, which has incidentally decided every leadership ballot whilst I have been here, I have a simple message: when Labor is again successful at the federal level, the Independents or centre or third force—whatever name you want to give them—will be there again. Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later. Thank you all for your loyalty and trust in my convenorship for the past 11 years.
Only five people have been here longer than me on this side of the House. One is Kim Beazley. I have not agreed with Kim on a lot of things; however, we did share a valued friendship with Mick Young and a love of Labor. I wish you and Susie all the best for the future. To Warren Snowdon: thank you for allowing me to have the first maiden speech in the new House. Your manoeuvring on that night was wonderful. I appreciated it and I appreciate the friendship since. To Duncan Kerr: I have enjoyed your enigmatic company both here and overseas, and the exchange of tips at particular races at a particular time will always be well remembered. To Harry Jenkins: I hope you become the Speaker, Harry. Those in the Left should do constructive things. I am only joking. To Roger Price, the other Mr Grumpy on our side: remember the tortoise and Achilles story, Roger. Remember the kalamata olives. I am now the tortoise; you are now Achilles. My peaches and my tomatoes will be sweeter, bigger and more colourful than yours! There is one more. Arch Bevis is on a plane on his way to Brisbane, but I have to make a confession and an apology in this House. I nearly killed Arch Bevis on our first trip overseas together. We were very immature, had never been overseas, and I nearly killed him. How did I do that? Well, how could I ever know that a Queenslander could not drink overproof rum?
See yous all! Good luck. It has been nice to know you.
The chair has been taking a very lenient attitude during the speech of the honourable member for Port Adelaide as it was in the nature of a valedictory.
I take this opportunity to acknowledge the parliamentary career of the member for Port Adelaide. I rise today to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007. It is a very important bill and I acknowledge the contribution of various members on both sides to this debate. The additional funding provided under this bill will ensure that a further three Australian technical colleges can be established in the regions of greater Penrith, north-eastern Perth and southern Brisbane, adding to the existing 25 colleges that have already been announced by the government. The benefit of these colleges to the regions in which they will be established cannot be overstated. They are all areas of skills need, with high youth populations and a strong industry presence. Once fully operational, up to 350 students will graduate from each college every year, and by 2009 we will see some 8,000 to 10,000 students in residence.
These young people will not only achieve their year 12 certificate but will also be up to one-third of their way through an apprenticeship in a trade that is vital to the future of their part of Australia. They will be highly trained, having had the exposure to the latest machinery and equipment—the same state-of-the-art equipment used by industry. They will be highly motivated, having had a high level of tailored support and mentoring that would not be available to them at other schools with a strong academic focus. They will be work-ready, having worked in an industry area for up to two years and having received a specialised education that incorporates enterprise education, small business skills and employability skills.
The member for Prospect last week in this House called these colleges a national disgrace. This simply continued Labor’s 20-year practice of talking down the trades—of denigrating those who wish to pursue a technical career. The campaign being waged by the Labor Party, both state and federal, is the national disgrace. They are simply playing politics with the lives of young Australians. The Labor Party knows that we have struck a chord with the community. We have identified a burning need—something that parents all over this country see an urgent need to address. Labor will do and say anything to denigrate this initiative. In the process, they are denigrating and putting down the young people and their parents who strive to see those wonderful technical talents developed at a secondary level through these colleges.
We also had a disingenuous contribution from the member for Perth, the shadow spokesman for education. Among many other things, the member for Perth claimed that there had been cutbacks to the TAFE sector since 1997. The Howard government has provided record funding of well over $12 billion to the states and territories for TAFE and vocational education since 1996—$12 billion.
How many graduates are you going to have?
The member for Perth!
How many graduates are you going to have?
The member for Perth will desist!
In 1995-96 our Labor predecessors allocated $770 million to TAFE. A continuation of that level of funding would have meant an allocation of some $8 billion over the last 11 years, yet the Australian government has contributed over $12 billion to the funding of TAFE. The member for Perth claimed that only two colleges had met their enrolment target.
How many?
The member for Perth will listen!
How many graduates?
Of course, this is not true. In fact, two of the colleges had to increase their intake to meet the local demand. A further two had more enrolments than originally projected, and there are many others that have a difference of five or less between their enrolment and their target. The fact is that, as at 31 March, the timing of the numbers that are being quoted by the member for Perth and others, a mere five weeks after these colleges had opened—a revolution in secondary education brought about in record time; a mere five weeks—we had over 90 per cent of our target for the full year in those colleges. We did not take into account—
How many graduates?
I will get to your point in a minute. Be patient.
The member for Perth will desist!
The member for Perth did not take into account midyear enrolments or the opening of the Pilbara college, which took place in July. The member for Greenway today recounted how, on a daily basis, there are 10 new inquiries for the technical college in Western Sydney. Despite having started in the face of abuse and demonisation by those opposite, they are getting 10 inquiries a day for next year about enrolments in this college. Parents of primary school students are approaching Australian technical colleges around the country seeking to enrol their primary age students in years 11 and 12. And the opposition sit there and say that there is no demand for these colleges! Students are travelling three and four hours. We had one student from Launceston who went to Perth South, in the city of the member for Perth, to attend that Australian technical college. We are seeing this level of demand around the country. Those opposite are playing at semantics and creating a totally false impression for crass political purposes. We are very much on track with the creation of these colleges.
The member for Perth claimed that only 21 of the colleges are open. Again, that is disingenuous—seeking to create a false impression, a false implication. The Howard government is proud of the fact that we have met our policy promise to open 24 colleges between 2006 and 2008. Twenty-one colleges are already operating and at this stage a further four will be opened next year, making a total of 25. The Audit Office noted that it usually takes three or four years for a new school to be established by a state government, yet 20 of the new colleges were open for business within six to 18 months. I congratulate the local communities and my department for the inspired and extraordinary work and effort that has gone into the creation of these colleges.
The member for Perth then went on to claim that there has not been one graduate. He is parroting on again in the House this evening that this is a shallow, superficial, misleading proposition.
How many graduates?
He knows only too well that these colleges have only been open for six months and that they have been created in record time. What a stupid statement it is to make that there have been no graduates when they have only been open for six months—students are there for years 11 and 12.
How many graduates?
The member for Perth has had a good go. He will desist!
You have had your turn. You have made all your disingenuous statements. Listen to some answers for a change.
Tell us how many you have.
If the member for Perth does not desist, he might find himself out of the chamber!
The member for Perth also claimed that there is an average cost per student of $175,000. That is a nonsense and a total misrepresentation of the facts. When it comes to costs per student, Labor’s inability to understand money and the economy are on full display for all to see. Your naivety on this count is breathtaking. Costs per student cannot be worked out by dividing all costs over the forward estimates, including the capital cost, into the number of students for one solitary year. Capital, as most people know, is allocated over many years and also subject to depreciation. The capital that the Howard government has invested in will be used for many decades to come, and the money that has been set aside for operating costs is in many cases for three calendar years. The capital cost for these colleges is at or below that of comparably sized schools being built by state governments, at around $10 million on average. When it comes to recurrent costs, I have been advised by the colleges that annual recurrent costs will be in the order of $12,000 to $13,000, consistent with the declared costs by the states for other secondary schools in this country.
The member for Perth claimed that this is the only initiative of the government to address the skills shortage. Again, that is patently absurd—and, again, he knows it. The Howard government has provided record funding of well over $12 billion to the states and territories for TAFE and vocational education. In addition to that $12 billion, we have provided a further $12 billion on other initiatives to employers and to young people to undertake vocational and technical training—a total of over $24 billion. The year that we took office, the government, our predecessor, spent around $1 billion. In the subsequent 10 years, we have spent $24 billion, a massive increase—a 99 per cent increase in real terms—on spending in vocational and technical education. As a consequence we have seen, over the last four years, 544,000 people complete apprenticeships. This compares with 30,900 in 1996—30,900 to 544,000.
There is much happening, much being achieved, and the technical colleges are on top of this. They are designed not only to invest in the future and encourage further young people to develop their technical and creative talents at an early age, as well as getting their literacy and numeracy skills developed, but also to raise the status of the trades, something that has been in great peril since the Labor Party embarked on this crusade to elevate academic education by denigrating those young people with wonderful technical and creative talents.
The member for Perth is also confused when he says that the colleges are duplicative. He also criticises them for working with TAFEs. The fact is that from the outset the model has been one of local consortia. It is the great strength of the model. No two technical colleges around the country are the same. Back in November 2004, we issued the expression of interest document. The expression of interest document provided to the public said:
Each Australian technical college will be based on regional industry needs, local infrastructure and current and future economic circumstances. Tenders will be sought from consortia of existing educational institutions, including schools, TAFEs and universities, together with local and national industry. Colleges may be based on new or shared campuses of existing organisations or totally new institutions. Organisations can be expected to include local businesses; industry representatives; schools, government or non-government; TAFEs and other registered training organisations; and universities. The organisation of these consortia will largely be the responsibility of interested individuals and organisations with a commitment to addressing regional skills shortages and local knowledge and links to achieve this in the most effective possible way.
As I have said from the outset, the model was intended to include TAFEs, state and non-government schools, and local organisations to give the most effective outcome, yet we have been criticised for including TAFEs. We have been accused of duplicating when in fact we have gone out of our way to ensure that the resources and infrastructure that exist locally are used to maximum effect for these colleges.
Let me say again, for the member for Perth, that these colleges are not a duplicate of TAFE. TAFE is for postsecondary students. These colleges are akin to the dedicated technical schools that were closed all around this country 20 or 30 years ago. They allow students to complete year 12, which is not a feature of TAFE; to start an apprenticeship, sometimes with the involvement—encouraged by the federal government—of TAFE; and to gain some real-world experience.
The member for Perth also said that the technical colleges have no relationship with state and territory based secondary school systems. What a nonsense—again, a disingenuous statement. Each and every one of these schools is registered by the state and territory, just like the 900 other independent secondary schools in Australia—another example of deliberate misrepresentation. The member for Perth also wants to criticise the government for TAFE—
I call the member for Perth, on a point of order.
He can rant on about misleading all he likes. He can’t say—
You are addressing a standing order?
On the point of order: he cannot say ‘deliberate’ misleading of the House. I ask that he withdraw that. He used the word ‘deliberate’.
If the member did make an allegation of deliberately misleading the House then I would ask him to withdraw that.
I withdraw the word ‘deliberate’, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Thank you.
The member for Perth also wants to criticise the Howard government for TAFE infrastructure. Primary responsibility for TAFE, of course, lies with the states and territories, yet, even taking that into account, the Howard government has invested over $4 billion into VET infrastructure, compared to the $2.5 billion from the states, since 1996.
Then the member for Perth talked about Labor’s plans for technical training in Australia, to create so-called trade-training centres in every secondary school across Australia. He talked about the $2.5 billion to be spent in lots of $500,000, $1 million or $1.5 million in every one of Australia’s 2,650 high schools. Five hundred thousand dollars per school will barely touch the sides.
I opened the renovation of a toilet block at a local primary school two weeks ago which cost over $200,000. How can Labor suggest that $500,000 spent at a secondary school is going to, in some way, create a trade centre when the cost of a lathe or an oven is around $500,000? How will the purchase of a lathe or an oven stuck in a classroom down the back of a secondary school lead to a resolution of the skills shortage? We have heard nothing of that. We have just heard this tricky politics designed to give the impression of something significant—trade centres in every school around the country—when it will barely touch the sides.
Mr Stephen Smith interjecting
The member for Perth will desist interjecting.
What we have not heard is the detail. Which schools are going to get the $500,000, $1 million or $1.5 million? Which schools will have to wait until 2018 for their piece of the pie? Who decides which schools get what? What are the criteria? Are we going to see Latham’s hit list again by stealth? Will schools miss out because they are private schools or because they raise money through fundraising? Where will all the trained teachers for these schools go? On average there would be about 70 teachers per school. Surely, seven or eight teachers would be required for a trade centre of any consequence. That is about 20,000 new teachers with technical and university teaching qualifications. Where are the 20,000 teachers going to come from? Where is the detail? What school funding will cover more than one trade? Are the schools going to cover different trades so that students have to pick and choose? None of this has been thought through. What we have is typical Labor: they tell us what they are going to do but not how they are going to do it. This has not been thought through. This is policy on the run. This is tricky policy designed to give the impression of doing something significant. It allows them to run around the country and make little announcements implying that they are going to create a trade centre in each school for $500,000. What a total joke that is.
These colleges are going gang busters. They are something we are very proud of. We have nearly 2,000 students enrolled around the country in the first six months of the operation of these colleges. We have enormous demand—for example, in Bendigo we cannot keep up with the demand from local businesses. In the last few weeks hundreds of parents and prospective students have turned up to information nights at colleges all around the country. These are a wonderful investment in the future. This is a visionary initiative of the Howard government. We must reach a situation where a high-quality technical education is as valued as a university degree. One of the biggest mistakes we made as a community 20 or 30 years ago was to close the dedicated technical schools around Australia.
The states have failed to meet this critical need because the Australian Education Union will not allow it. They are philosophically and fundamentally opposed to specialisation in schools, and they are tweaking your tail. The unions are spending $30 million on trying to get you back into office and you are doing their bidding. You are stopping any specialisation that might take place in schools—in this instance, technical education. In the meantime tens of thousands of young people born with strong technical and creative talents are condemned to be treated as second-class students in largely academic schools. You know it, and you are doing nothing other than talking down this great initiative. They need an environment where what these young people are good at at secondary school level is celebrated. We need to build self-esteem, self-belief and motivation. They need to feel good about themselves. At the year 11 and 12 level, we need not only the literacy and numeracy skills but also for these young people to feel the self-esteem and the self-belief that comes from these technical colleges. These three additional technical colleges in greater Penrith, north-eastern Perth and southern Brisbane will make an important contribution to the lives of young Australians and to our ongoing skills needs. Hopefully the state governments will follow suit, and hopefully in time those opposite will see the benefit and the great value of providing specialised technical training at a secondary school level. I suspect that the politics behind this initiative will disappear after the next election. I commend the bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Perth has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
Question put.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Debate resumed from 20 June, on motion by Mr Billson:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment (Further 2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007 implements a number of additional measures from the 2007 budget. These include: changes to the pension bonus scheme, improvements to funeral investments, the extension of eligibility for the crisis payment to holders of certain humanitarian visas and the extension of the multiple birth allowance. Labor support these measures and we support the bill because we recognise that senior Australians and families are facing significant pressures due to the increasing cost of living. Therefore, I move:
That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that:
We welcome the changes being made to the pension bonus scheme and to the treatment of funeral investments. We understand how difficult it is these days for pensioners to make ends meet. There have been significant increases in the cost of living in recent years, particularly in essentials such as food and petrol, not to mention the other basics around the home such as phone and electricity bills. Labor have long been a strong supporter of pensions for those Australians who need support. We certainly understand that the pension has to keep up to date with everyday costs.
At our recent national conference we endorsed the following as a key part of our policy platform: we remain committed to providing adequate income support for those who need it. The platform states that Labor will maintain the benchmark of maximum single adult rates of pension to at least 25 per cent of male total average weekly earnings, ensure that basic rates are indexed at least twice a year in line with movements in the consumer price index and ensure that those whose only income is provided through the social security system will not have to pay income tax.
Recently, Labor initiated a Senate inquiry into the cost of living pressures facing senior Australians. We wanted to listen to the concerns of senior Australians by giving them an opportunity to put their concerns directly to the parliament so that we could hear firsthand about the pressures on them—especially those coming from cost of living rises. According to the submissions to the Senate inquiry—and I will first refer to the submissions from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and from National Seniors—the living costs of age pensioner households have seen the highest increase compared to those of other household groups. The latest ABS analysis in the ‘Household, income and labour dynamics in Australia’ survey shows that, over the four quarters from June 2005 to June 2006, living costs for age pensioner households rose by five per cent. For self-funded retiree households, the rise was 4.6 per cent, while the consumer price index rose by four per cent over the same period. Over the eight years to 2006, the living costs of age pensioner households showed an increase of 29.2 per cent compared to the 27.4 per cent increase in the CPI.
Even the submission to the inquiry of the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs admitted that over 25 per cent of senior Australians—that is, over one in four—describe themselves as ‘just getting along’. There was a submission to the Senate inquiry from a National Seniors group in Queensland which looked into the cost of weekly grocery shopping. Buying the items on the list cost $55 two years ago but may cost $75 today at the local supermarket. They went through a number of the common items in most of our supermarket shopping trolleys: bread, margarine, mince, chicken—all of the sorts of everyday items that people buy. The comparison that this National Seniors group from Queensland put together shows just how difficult it is becoming for many pensioners. The Salvation Army highlighted the problem starkly in their submission when they said:
A significant percentage of older Australians presenting for assistance at Salvation Army services are assisted with food and/or food vouchers.
Fuel and utility costs have also hit many senior Australians very hard. From the inquiry we heard that many senior Australians are going to bed early or sitting in cold living rooms to save power. The Australian Pensioners and Superannuants League Queensland Inc. wrote the following in their submission to the inquiry:
The rising impact on the price of fuel particularly petrol has placed an added burden on Pensioners and Superannuants in their ability to maintain an active life and has forced them to rely more on the needs of public transport. This is particularly so for those pensioners who live in remote and regional areas and where the services of public transport is less available.
The league also said:
To keep costs down as a result of rising fuel costs Pensioners and Superannuants during the winter months are either forced to reduce the use of the their oil heating appliance (further impacting on their health) or use alternative heating appliances eg electric which increases the cost of their power.
This is the reality for senior Australians under the current government. The government seems to be saying to senior Australians that they have to turn to organisations like the Salvation Army or other charities for help. Even with this evidence, I have to say that it is extraordinary that we have a Prime Minister who is saying that Australian families have never been better off when we see in black and white before us just how difficult it is, particularly for older Australians.
I will turn to the changes in the bill to the Pension Bonus Scheme. The Pension Bonus Scheme was introduced in 1998 and is designed to financially reward seniors who defer claiming the age pension. A one-off tax-free bonus is paid for each year that a person is eligible for the age pension but does not claim it. The schedule creates a new payment—the pension bonus bereavement payment—which enables the bonus accrued by the Pension Bonus Scheme participant to be paid to their surviving spouse if the participant dies before claiming the bonus. Under current rules no bonus is payable if the participant dies before claiming the bonus. This proposed change is to apply to the surviving spouse. Labor certainly supports this change.
The Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs has advised that 460 older Australians die each year before they can claim their pension bonus, which is worth up to $32,000. We think it is unfair that a bonus rightly earned by an older Australian who participates in this scheme is not able to be passed on if they unfortunately die before claiming the bonus. So, as I say, we support this change. However, I ask the minister why the benefit cannot be passed on to the next of kin if there is no surviving spouse. I also ask the minister why the bonus cannot be transferred effective from the date of the budget. My office was contacted by someone whose husband recently passed away before he claimed the bonus, and she has been told that she cannot receive the payment. I ask the minister in the spirit of compassion to consider changing the eligibility date for the transfer to a surviving spouse—or next of kin if he is willing to consider that—to the date of the last budget when the measure was announced rather than 1 January 2008. There will not be that many people affected, but for those few who would otherwise miss out it would be a generous thing to do in what are otherwise very difficult circumstances.
Schedule 4 of the bill increases the threshold for funeral investments that are exempt from the pension income and assets test from $5,000 to $10,000. The new threshold will also be indexed to the CPI. This schedule also inserts a new provision for determining whether an investment is an exempt funeral investment for social security purposes. Labor supports these changes.
We also support the changes that will increase access to the crisis payment. The crisis payment is a one-off payment equal to the total of a person’s pension or allowance and is available in cases of extreme financial hardship. This bill adds holders of certain humanitarian visas to the eligibility list. As I understand it, the qualifying humanitarian visas will be determined by the minister in a legislative instrument. Once again, Labor supports these changes.
I want to touch on some issues that are also putting significant financial and other pressures on families. I have indicated that many senior Australians are doing it tough, but many Australian working families are also under pressure. With that said, I think we would all agree that, even in testing times, parents are pretty resilient. Those of us who have brought our children up know that you have to go through an enormous range of ups and downs, watching and helping them grow. We all understand that it is not easy, and it is certainly not getting any easier for parents. Labor understand that parents do not want to have to rely on government to help them bring up their children, but parents do appreciate governments giving them choices and making their lives easier when that is possible. We want to make sure that governments offer choices to parents, especially so that they can give their children the best possible start in life.
One of the most difficult things that faces parents at the moment is the stress as they juggle their work and family responsibilities. That is why the Leader of the Opposition has announced that Labor, in government, would establish an Office of Work and Family within the Prime Minister’s department and that this Office of Work and Family would be a focal point at the centre of government for addressing the concerns of families. One of the key tasks of this office would be to provide detailed family impact statements on all submissions presented to the federal cabinet under a Labor government. These assessments at the moment are the responsibility of departments which are themselves developing cabinet submissions together with the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Unfortunately, it seems that the Howard government has not always taken these family impact statements seriously and, as I understand it, in the case of the Work Choices legislation, no family impact statement was completed.
Under a Labor government family impact statements will be given much higher importance. The Office of Work and Family will also assess the economic impact of policy proposals on family wellbeing, the impact of measures on work and family balance, and how proposals affect children’s health, development and general wellbeing. We have announced that a Labor government would publish an annual ‘state of the family’ report, analysing key issues and trends facing Australian families. That report would include looking at critical issues such as the increasing number of parents caring for children and their ageing relatives, the impact of longer periods of education and the educational debt that students now carry on family formation, and measures to assist parents balance work and family responsibilities. These are just some of the areas that we think an Office of Work and Family should focus on.
The recent snapshot, released by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, of how Australian families spend their time shows that parents with children under the age of five are most likely to feel time pressures but that these pressures do not ease all that significantly as their children grow.
A recent study by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found:
Despite a decade or more of economic growth and prosperity, many Australians say they are not living the lives they want. They feel pressured, stressed and constrained in the choices they can make, particularly at key points in their lives.
Members should contrast that statement with the comments that we have heard from the Prime Minister that ‘working families have never been better off’. That, yet again, demonstrates how out of touch this Prime Minister is. The Prime Minister does not seem to understand the impact of the five interest rate rises that working families have had to endure since the last election. To give people an idea of what that means, families with a mortgage on a median-priced Sydney home are now paying $384 a month more in mortgage repayments since the Prime Minister promised to keep interest rates at record lows at the last election.
The other area in which families are facing very significant financial pressure is in childcare costs, which are skyrocketing. In the last year alone they went up by 12.8 per cent. Families have now faced four years of double-digit increases in their out-of-pocket childcare costs. Of course, that is on top of the increases that parents face as they try to put healthy food on the table, whether it be fruit and vegies, or other grocery items. The price of most of those things has increased well beyond the consumer price index. So across the board families are under significant financial pressure. Members on this side of the parliament understand the impact of those pressures on families. We also understand that even though families are facing these pressures they expect governments to do what they can to help and to not be told by the Prime Minister that things are just fine for them.
Another measure in the bill that Labor welcomes is the extra support for large families. Schedule 5 extends payment of the multiple-birth allowance to family tax benefit children from six years to 16 years, or older if they are undertaking full-time study, until the end of the calendar year in which they turn 18. The multiple-birth allowance is an extra component of family tax benefit part A, which is paid if an individual has three or more family tax benefit children and at least three of those children were from one pregnancy. Caring for large families is certainly stressful and I can imagine that dealing with triplets must be extraordinarily demanding.
Those families do a great job, and we understand that they need every bit of extra help they can get. That is why the opposition supports this additional payment. Interestingly, between 1986 and 2004 Australia has had 1,690 sets of triplets, quads or other multiple high-order births. So a large number of children will benefit from this measure, and we think that is a good thing. It was in fact a Labor government that introduced a multiple-birth payment for families with triplets or quads way back in 1985, so we certainly support this extension of the multiple-birth allowance for children up to the age of 16, or 18 if the child is still in full-time study.
As this measure obviously recognises, the special costs of raising multiple-birth children does not diminish once they turn six years old and at the stage when we are getting them off to school. It is not only one of the most significant and emotional times for many parents but it is also a very expensive time. Labor recognises that it is an extremely important time for children’s development. That is why today the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Perth and I announced that a Labor government will work in partnership with the Brotherhood of St Laurence to establish 50 community programs nationwide to give parents the skills and confidence that they need to prepare their children for school. Federal Labor will provide $32.5 million over five years to roll out the home interaction program nationally in disadvantaged communities where children are at risk of falling behind. This is yet another instalment of federal Labor’s education revolution. This is a two-year program for three- to five-year-olds and provides for home tutors, books and associated educational resources to help parents get their children ready for school.
Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to work in cooperation with the Brotherhood of St Laurence to establish the program across the country in 50 communities. It will be established in preschools and in some of the 260 new childcare centres that Labor will locate on primary school sites. We want to ensure that this home interaction program works from those sites. From there the tutors will go out into parents’ homes. Each individual program will have qualified tutors working intensively with approximately 65 families and more than 3,000 families in total. As we have heard from the Brotherhood of St Laurence, this program, which has been operating since 1997, has been very successful. Qualified instructors visit parents every two weeks to provide personal mentoring, tutoring assistance and support, as well as the educational resources that I have mentioned.
One of the important things about this program is that it helps parents to develop confidence in their own ability to get their children ready for school. We all know that parents are the first and most important teachers of our children. This program is so important to ensuring that children who otherwise might not start school at the same development level as other kids get a chance to do well.
Each of these programs will prepare children for the learning they will get at school, and give confidence to their parents, improve parents’ relationships with their children and, most importantly, help parents make a more positive contribution to their child’s education. I am sure that all members of parliament know that the evidence shows that investing early delivers significant social and economic benefits to individuals, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. This leads to better school results, improved school retention and much greater participation in society and the economy, bringing productive benefits to the nation as a whole.
For these reasons, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation recently called on countries to expand and improve comprehensive early childhood learning, especially for the most disadvantaged and at-risk children. Labor have certainly picked up on this evidence and the initiative we have announced today builds on a number of other very significant policies that Labor have announced. We have given a commitment to make sure that every single four-year-old in Australia will have access to a preschool program. We have committed $450 million a year to make sure that those 100,000 four-year-olds in Australia who are missing out on preschool will get access to that very important early learning. We have committed to build 260 new childcare centres on primary school sites, where it is possible, and other community land. We have committed to a national action plan on literacy and numeracy, including individual learning plans; and also we have committed to a national roll-out of the Australian Early Development Index. I think all of these initiatives together demonstrate Labor’s fundamental commitment to making sure that our youngest children do get the best start in life. The announcement today will particularly focus on those who are most disadvantaged.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I rise to support the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment (Further 2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007 as it brings into line a number of initiatives announced in the 2007-08 budget. The budget initiatives in this bill cover significant and diverse areas in the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs portfolio, and are made possible because of the strong economic management of the coalition government. I believe strongly that families will benefit from these initiatives and will welcome them. Older Australians, families with triplets, quadruplets or other multiple births, refugees and migrants are all covered by the initiatives in this bill.
Older Australians at retirement will benefit from changes to the Pension Bonus Scheme. This scheme is one of the great initiatives for older Australians to stay in work and defer claims on the age pension. Currently, the Pension Bonus Scheme offers a one-off tax-free payment of up to around $32,083 for a single person and up to $26,792 for each member of a couple. The coalition recognises the important role people over pension age play in the workforce, and is committed to supporting their choice to participate. From 1 January 2008, the Pension Bonus Scheme will be more flexible, easier to access and have a range of benefits not previously available. For example, people will be entitled to a top-up of their pension bonus in certain circumstances. Topping up is subject to assessment under the income and assets test. For example, a person retires from work and makes a claim for their age pension and pension bonus. That person’s entitlements and/or superannuation are not settled at the time of the grant of a pension and bonus but are settled shortly after. They are assessed for the age pension and the pension increased because their assessed income and assets have decreased in that time. The top-up is the difference between the amount paid and the amount that would have been payable using the higher rate of age pension.
One improvement that takes into account special circumstances, such as the serious illness of a close family member, is the broadening of the discretionary powers that Centrelink and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs have to extend the period in which people must claim their bonus after failing the Pension Bonus Scheme work test. This will mean that late claims can be considered. In addition, Pension Bonus Scheme members who take recreational leave, long service leave or unpaid leave will be able to continue in the scheme as non-accruing members for up to 26 weeks without failing the scheme’s work test. In this bill a pension bonus bereavement payment will be introduced. This means the surviving partner of a deceased Pension Bonus Scheme member will be now able to receive a payment for accrued bonus not claimed before the death of their partner. Under current rules the bonus cannot be paid to them.
The total cost of this initiative is $46.4 million over four years. As from 1 January 2008, the threshold for funeral investments, which are exempt from the income and assets test, will be raised from $5,000 to $10,000 per person or couple. The new threshold will also be subject to indexation in line with the consumer price index. Increasing the means test exemption threshold for funeral bonds to $10,000 should help people make better provision for their funeral arrangements without affecting their income support. It is estimated that following implementation, on 1 January 2008, around 4,100 social security pensioners and close to 3,400 veterans’ affairs pensioners will receive additional income support.
While supporting older Australians is very much in the coalition’s hearts and minds, at the other end of the scale the coalition is helping families with multiple births of three or more children where the children are under the age of six. The multiple birth allowance was introduced in November 1985 in recognition of the extra costs faced by parents following the simultaneous birth of three or more children as well as the indirect costs of reduced workforce participation, particularly while the children are very young. The benefits are worth over $3,000 per year for triplets and over $4,000 for quadruplets. These families are also eligible for the large-family supplement, which is paid at $255.50 a year for the third and each subsequent child in recognition of the challenges faced by multiple birth families and to relieve some of the financial pressure.
From 1 January 2008, payment of the multiple birth allowance will be extended to family tax benefit recipients who have children under 16 years of age and to family tax benefit recipients, until the end of the calendar year in which their children turn 18, whose children are undertaking full-time study. Over 1,000 families with triplets, quadruplets and quintuplets will benefit from this measure. From 1 January 2008, over 300 families currently receiving multiple birth allowance will continue to receive the payment beyond their children’s sixth birthday and an estimated 746 families will start receiving multiple birth allowance for children who are already over six years of age. Eligible families will receive the allowance for up to an additional 13 years. Extending multiple birth allowance will cost an estimated $10 million over four years.
This bill will also make way for essential assistance for newer Australians. It does this by adding a new category of people eligible to receive crisis payments. Crisis payment will, from 1 January 2008, be extended to humanitarian entrants to Australia to help reduce the significant financial burden faced by them during their initial settlement period. Australia does have a compassionate heart and no-one could begrudge these people this type of help when one hears their stories. In my electorate of Greenway, we have many people who have fled from all around the globe to the safety, prosperity and freedom of Australia. Each year around 6,800 humanitarian entrants will benefit from this measure.
The final initiative that I support in this bill is to do with improving the operation of the Assurance of Support scheme. An assurance of support is a form of guarantee. It is lodged at Centrelink by a person or persons in Australia and is used for people who are at higher risk of needing income support in their visit or migration to Australia. An assurance of support protects the interests of taxpayers by being an amount of money available to be used to repay any income support payments accessed by the visa holder for up to two years, or up to 10 years for contributory parent visas. The Assurance of Support scheme has had its administrative difficulties in the past—for example, where there has been a dispute between the person lodging the assurance of support and the visa holder and the assurer withdraws their support; or it could be that the assurer dies, disappears or goes bankrupt and the visa holder is left stranded. This measure is aimed at improving the operation of the Assurance of Support scheme and simplifying arrangements for people seeking to provide an assurance of support. The measure commences on 1 January 2008. An additional $13.1 million over four years from 2007-08 will be provided to ensure effective, efficient and timely administration of the assurance of support program. I commend the bill to the House.
I thank the members who have contributed to the debate. The Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment (Further 2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007 is an important piece of legislation. It does some really positive things for a range of Australians.
Ms George interjecting
It is good to see that the member for Throsby recognises that; I appreciate it. The bill provides the legislative basis for five measures announced in the 2007 budget for the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs portfolio. It furthers the government’s commitment to older Australians by increasing the flexibility of the Pension Bonus Scheme. This has come about because people have asked us to make the system more flexible and to work for them. They like the system—it is enabling them to work up to the age of 70—but they felt there were things we could do. The government has listened and I will outline some of those measures.
In this bill, we have also extended the allowances for multiple births. One woman in my electorate is quoted on the front page of the Courier-Mail as saying that she was so excited she could not sleep all night. It shows you how much it means to people. To have that additional cost is a bit of a difficult thing as a parent. We had two sets of hands, two sets of feet and mum and dad, and when we had our third child—separately—it was wow! To have three come along at one time is a massive effort, and I take my hat off to those parents, who do a fantastic job. The measure I will outline here is very important for that as well.
Lastly, the bill expands the crisis payment to humanitarian entrants to Australia and it simplifies and improves the operation and integrity of the Assurance of Support program.
The Australian government spends more on the age pension than on any other single program—around $24,000 million next financial year in pension payments to around two million Australians. An important part of this program is the Pension Bonus Scheme, which supports older Australians who choose to remain in the workforce beyond retirement age. Older Australians who defer their age pension and take advantage of the scheme may be entitled to a one-off tax-free payment of up to around $32,000 for a single person—when we first introduced this, it was set at $25,000 for a single person—and $27,000 for each member of a couple. It is paid when they eventually claim and receive the age pension.
This bill will make the Pension Bonus Scheme even better and more flexible in four central ways. Firstly, a new pension bonus top-up will be payable to people whose retirement investments are not settled until shortly after grant of their age pension and bonus to get the most out of their bonus. The top-up will be made available to eligible persons if their pension rate increases within 13 weeks after being granted because their income or assets have decreased.
Secondly, a new pension bonus bereavement payment is introduced to allow for any bonus that is accrued but not claimed by a scheme member who dies to be paid to their surviving partner. I recall the member for Hasluck speaking to me about a very distressing case of a spouse who died after completing the five years, or that close to it. The couple went to the doctor and the spouse was told, ‘You don’t have a great life expectancy,’ and unfortunately in this particular case that was only too accurate. The person had fulfilled almost all of their obligations but had simply not had the chance to say to Centrelink, ‘I want to cash in my chips.’ Unfortunately, in that circumstance the person passed away. That is not what this was about; it was about supporting people who made these choices. This flexibility and this change will ensure that those circumstances no longer prevail.
Thirdly, flexibility around non-accruing membership of the scheme is increased by providing the government with the power to make a legislative instrument that will allow members to be recognised retrospectively as non-accruing members of the scheme. This is intended to allow members who are involved in unforeseen incidents, such as natural disasters, to stay in the scheme, despite having failed the scheme’s work test for a period. Lastly, when people do fail to meet the work test, there will be greater discretion for the usual 13-week claim lodgement period to be extended. Therefore, special circumstances, such as a serious illness of a close family member, can be taken into account if a person is late in claiming.
A further measure, which is targeted at older Australians but which will affect the income and assets test for all social security payment recipients, is that the existing social security income and assets test exemption threshold for funeral investments will be increased from $5,000 to $10,000 for individuals and couples. In simple terms, this means that people who choose to invest in this way will not have their investments assessed as an asset when their rate of social security payment is calculated. Unlike the old threshold, the new threshold will be indexed in line with inflation so that it maintains its real value. This measure is also designed to allow individuals or couples to have a second funeral bond, subject to exemption, so that those with existing bonds can take advantage of the new threshold.
Before moving on to other measures in the bill, I would just like to answer some of the criticisms by the member for Jagajaga, who in relation to this issue was making the point of how tough it is for pensioners today. I am the first to say that we should do all we possibly can to help those people who have grown and contributed to the Australian economy, particularly during tougher times—particularly when they were in the workforce and had to put up with the sorts of taxation rates experienced under previous Labor governments, such as 50c in the dollar. Today, after being able to drive down tax rates and help people when they work to keep more in their pocket, the pensioner who is no longer in the labour force does not necessarily see that as benefiting them. They had to go through those tougher times under a much harsher regime of higher taxation under Labor governments.
What we can tell them, and what I can tell the member for Jagajaga, is that one of the really important initiatives that the Howard government brought in very early in its term was to index pensions twice a year to male total average weekly earnings—25 per cent of it. As a result, with the pensioner supplement, the pensioner bonus and the utilities allowance, that equates to a pensioner this financial year having $2,803 more in their pocket than they otherwise would have had. That is an extraordinary difference from where they were and we are very proud of it. A single maximum rate pensioner will be $2,803 better off than they would have been had the old system remained in place under the Labor government. That is about $107 a fortnight. That is real money that makes a real difference.
I would also ask the members who sit opposite, who have suddenly found the plight of seniors to be of concern, whether they could turn their attention to their Labor colleagues. One would hope they would have some influence with their Labor colleagues. Perhaps the Tasmanian members could ask the Tasmanian Labor government what they will do about helping pensioners not have to pay for the new ambulance service. Pensioners and healthcare card holders will not be exempt from that fee; they will have to pay it. They will have to find that money. Sure, the Howard government has given them a $500 bonus and that may help. However, if the Labor Party is really serious about helping pensioners with their costs, perhaps the Tasmanian members could do that. That is a cost of $690. Well may you exhale in such a way, Mr Deputy Speaker Barresi. Furthermore, in Melbourne the cost of water will double over the next five years. That is not something that pensioners can avoid. That is extra money that they will have to find for the absolute basics in life. But it is Labor governments that are doing these things to them.
The Labor government in New South Wales—I am sure that the minister at the table would be interested in this—has slugged families with a $100 rise in their electricity bills. That is according to the Daily Telegraph of 15 June this year. That, of course, will impact on older Australians. They will have to find that money. I think probably the worst thing that the New South Wales government has done is something that as minister you get a lot of letters about—sometimes saying how fantastic it is but sometimes asking for it to be improved—and that is people making use of reduced fees and sometimes free tickets when using trains. The New South Wales Labor government has seen fit to increase the cost of train travel for seniors by introducing a 15 per cent booking fee on CountryLink trains in New South Wales. That will have a detrimental impact both on elderly people or pensioners but also on business. In the rural areas, particularly where they are doing it tough in drought, there is no way that pensioners will be out spending, because of this unnecessary burden that has been placed on them by yet another state Labor government. That means it will cost a minimum of $10 for a single ticket and $20 for a return fare—and for pensioners such travel is supposed to be free. That is the Labor Party’s idea of free.
They are just a few simple things that those who sit opposite can refer to when asking their Labor colleagues: ‘Take the burden off pensioners. Don’t burden them with the cost of ambulances. Don’t burden them with the cost of water. Don’t burden them with the cost of public transport. For goodness sake, they have done their bit; respect them.’
I would now like to turn to families with higher order multiple births—triplets, quadruplets or larger birth sets. They will benefit from the extension, in this bill, of multiple birth allowance. Multiple birth allowance is an additional component of family tax benefit part A for families with three or more children that are born together. It is worth over $3,000 per year for triplets and over $4,000 per year for quadruplets or more—further to the large family supplement of over $250 per year for families with three or more children. Multiple birth families face a significantly increased financial burden over most families, both in the direct cost of raising their children and in the indirect cost of reduced workforce participation. Multiple birth allowance aims to relieve some of this financial pressure. The allowance currently cuts out when a child turns six. Our argument is, ‘Gee, that’s when kids are going to school; three pairs of school shoes and three sets of uniforms.’ That is a time when you actually need it more and not less. So, thanks to the cabinet—particularly to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer—we have been able to deliver this very significant improvement and practical assistance to these people raising large families from multiple births.
So we have listened again, and this is going to be a practical measure that will help people. Therefore, the multiple birth allowance will now continue beyond the age of six and will be paid until the children turn 16 or until the end of the year in which they turn 18 if they remain as full-time students. That is a huge step forward. There are about 1,000 Australian families who will benefit from this extension, and some will continue to receive the allowance past their children’s sixth birthdays, when it would otherwise have stopped.
Another measure in the bill is the crisis payment. It is a one-off payment equal to a week’s worth of income support for people in severe financial hardship in certain circumstances. People recently released from prison, victims of domestic violence and people affected by extreme circumstances such as natural disasters currently may receive a crisis payment. This bill enables newly arrived humanitarian entrants to Australia to be able to qualify for and receive such a payment. The availability of the crisis payment to a newly arrived humanitarian entrant is intended to give extra support to refugees managing the immediate costs of settling in to the Australian community, especially in finding long-term accommodation. Under this measure, we expect about 6,800 humanitarian entrants will be assisted by the crisis payment each year.
I also mention the Assurance of Support program. This will allow entry to Australia by migrants who are considered more likely to claim a social security payment, while protecting government outlays. These migrants are permitted to migrate to Australia on condition that the person providing the assurance undertakes both financial responsibility for their assuree’s support and responsibility for the repayment of the social security payments which may be paid to the assuree during the period of the assurance. This bill will improve and simplify the program’s operation in various ways.
I will make one last comment before I put the bill to the House. It is in relation to the hypocrisy of the member for Jagajaga in relation to Labor’s announcement today. It is about the old adage of putting it out there as though you are a leader when, in fact, you are a follower. Today Labor announced that they would be rolling out the HIPPY program. The HIPPY program is a very good program. We should know—we have been funding it. We have been funding it in a number of communities around Australia, the difference being that the coalition government says to the Australian population, ‘If you have a local problem, you need a local answer.’ We do not say to them, ‘HIPPY is the only answer and you will use the Brotherhood of St Laurence.’ We ask: ‘What is important to you?’
In a number of localities, people have used the HIPPY program. And it is a good program. But, in other areas, people have decided that the HIPPY program does not suit their needs, and they have come up with other alternatives. But, yet again, we see the Labor Party following rather than leading. That is exactly what they are: followers. One would lament where we would go to as a nation if the leaders of this nation—the coalition, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer—were not there for the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister to follow. If we were not there, they would be rudderless. I commend the bill to the House as it contains wonderful measures made possible through the good economic management of the Howard government.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Jagajaga has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Debate resumed from 21 June, on motion by Mr Robb:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Higher Education Support Amendment (Extending FEE-HELP for VET Diploma and VET Advanced Diploma Courses) Bill 2007 amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to extend FEE-HELP assistance to full fee paying students in diploma and advanced diploma courses that are accredited as vocational education and training qualifications and where credit towards a higher education award such as a university degree is available. Labor supports the intent of the bill to extend FEE-HELP assistance to full fee paying students in diploma and advanced diploma courses accredited as vocational education and training qualifications.
Labor supports the bill because it attempts to do two things. Firstly, it attempts to provide relief of the up-front costs associated with diploma and advanced diploma courses. Secondly, by extending the eligibility to FEE-HELP assistance to those courses accredited as vocational education and training qualifications, it removes a possible financial barrier for people pursuing a vocational education and training field of study.
When it was first introduced in 2003, FEE-HELP provided that, commencing from 2005, students would be able to pay for undergraduate or postgraduate fees in full fee paying, non-HECS courses at eligible public or private higher education providers through an income contingent loan. This had the effect of extending eligibility of FEE-HELP to undergraduate students in public universities and, for the first time, extending the income contingent loan facility to private universities like Bond University and Notre Dame University.
It also had the effect of extending eligibility to other accredited higher education providers on the AQF register of recognised education institutions and authorised accreditation authorities, of which there are currently 60, such as the Australian College of Applied Psychology in New South Wales, the Australian Institute of Public Safety in Victoria and Avondale College in New South Wales. In my own state of Western Australia, it also includes the Perth Bible College and the Perth Institute of Business and Technology Pty Ltd.
Historically, Labor have not opposed FEE-HELP. We did not oppose it when it was introduced in 2003 and we did not oppose it when it commenced in 2005. Labor’s higher education white paper, released in September 2006, supported the provision of FEE-HELP to private providers. Prior to the commencement of FEE-HELP, students attending courses undertaken by private providers received little, if any, Commonwealth assistance. The introduction of FEE-HELP to students in these courses provided a means of increasing access to private higher education. However, access to the current FEE-HELP loan scheme is limited to full fee students undertaking studies at an accredited higher education provider. Students undertaking equivalent-level vocational education and training qualifications are not able to access this scheme and, as a result, often pay up-front tuition fees. Labor regard this situation as inequitable. It is also inconsistent with the emphasis increasingly placed on the importance of vocational education and training by business. Labor believe that FEE-HELP is an important instrument in providing assistance through deferred payment of up-front fees to students attending higher education courses at accredited private education providers.
This brings me to the detail of this bill. The bill extends FEE-HELP assistance to full fee paying students in diploma and advanced diploma courses that are accredited as vocational education and training qualifications and where credit toward a higher education award is available. The bill contains a number of proposed amendments. Clauses 1 to 16 and 18 to 55 are technical amendments that extend the act’s operations to the vocational education and training sector. It is expected that around $220 million in loans will be issued over the forward estimates, and the amounts loaned are treated as financial assets and therefore do not impact on the fiscal balance. Clauses 15 and 16 of the bill provide for the appropriation of this money.
Clause 17 is a substantive amendment, which inserts proposed new schedule 1A into the act. This schedule duplicates the relevant parts of the act and makes the necessary amendments to make the provisions applicable to the vocational education and training sector. The effect of this clause is to extend FEE-HELP to allow vocational education and training providers to be able to offer FEE-HELP assistance for diploma and advanced diploma courses. As I have indicated, Labor supports this measure. Unfortunately, the government’s approach to the scope of eligibility for FEE-HELP is too narrow. The effect of the government’s approach will be to restrict access to FEE-HELP to only those vocational education and training qualifications that may give credit to a higher education qualification. It also excludes from FEE-HELP the two most senior vocational education and training qualifications, the vocational graduate certificates and vocational graduate diplomas, by virtue of the fact that these qualifications do not lead to a higher education qualification.
This was confirmed during the inquiry of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education into the legislation. Of the seven submissions to the inquiry, a majority were critical of various elements of the bill. The Australian Council for Private Education and Training, ACPET, which is the national industry association for independent providers of post-compulsory education and training for Australian and international students, including higher education and vocational education and training, noted that, while it was supportive of the overall intent of the legislation, the legislation, in ACPET’s view, did not go far enough. ACPET noted that the effect of the legislation as currently drafted would be to inhibit the intended objectives of the legislation. In ACPET’s view, allowing diploma and advanced diploma courses only as subsets of university degrees will lead to students proceeding to degrees rather than filling the workforce shortages that are seen to exist at the diploma and advanced diploma qualification level. In other words, if the intention of the new measure is to increase the number of students taking diploma and advanced diploma courses as courses which provide access to employment in areas of need then those undertaking qualifications should also be eligible for FEE-HELP.
ACPET was concerned that restricting FEE-HELP eligibility in this way has the effect that only those diplomas and advanced diplomas which have direct equivalent qualifications in a university will be approved. As ACPET stated in its submission:
This is likely to limit the number of new courses substantially because many Diploma/Advanced Diploma level courses have no obvious equivalent or pathway in a university. In many cases there will be no existing university degree courses at all because they will have been areas traditionally covered by the VET sector.
ACPET also expressed concern that the effect of the legislation will be to exclude the two most senior vocational education and training qualifications from FEE-HELP—as I said, the vocational graduate certificates and vocational graduate diplomas—which are part of the Australian quality framework and are regarded as being equivalent to higher education qualifications at the diploma level. The legislation should be relaxed to allow for FEE-HELP to apply to those higher qualifications without the requirement to articulate to a university degree.
In another submission to the Senate inquiry, the International College of Hotel Management was particularly concerned that the proposed changes would mean that students would be able to access FEE-HELP for their first and second years of study because these courses would lead to articulation into a diploma or advanced diploma but would not be able to access funding for their third year because of the exclusion of vocational graduate diploma courses. As the International College of Hotel Management submission stated:
With the changes proposed in the above Bill … Australian students will be able to borrow in their First Year and Second Year, as these courses lead to a Diploma and Advanced Diploma respectively … based on the legislation as presently intended, students would not be able to apply for funding in the Third Year, as Vocational Graduate Diploma courses are not covered by the Bill … the idea that students could borrow for Year 1, Year 2, and Year 4, but not Year 3 is bizarre. It looks like someone overlooked the qualifications of Vocational Graduate Certificate and Vocational Graduate Diploma.
Other organisations had a number of other concerns. Significantly, the state of Queensland, through the Queensland government, expressed concern over the criteria for eligible vocational education and training providers. The Queensland government argued that proposed subdivision 3A of clause 17 defined a vocational education and training provider too narrowly. As currently drafted, the legislation defines a vocational education and training provider as a ‘body corporate’.
The Queensland state government expressed concern that this definition, either advertently or inadvertently, excluded Queensland TAFE institutes, which are not currently, but will be in due course, constituted as corporate bodies. The state government of Queensland submission proposes that the definition be amended to include all TAFE institutes as eligible vocational education and training providers, and that, in the absence of this, there be a minimum three-year phasing-in period to ensure that Queensland students are not disadvantaged. Failing to amend this measure will exclude the more than 7,000 domestic fee-for-service vocational education and training diploma and vocational education and training advanced diploma students in Queensland TAFEs who could potentially benefit from the extension of the government’s FEE-HELP scheme. These students will be excluded by definition if the government does not address this issue.
The government has effectively neglected a significant portion of the non-university higher education sector, namely the VET student body. To reflect these concerns, I will formally move a second reading amendment at the conclusion of my remarks, along the following lines:
... whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
In summary, under the current arrangements, FEE-HELP is available to all students in a course of study leading to a higher education award with an approved higher education provider. Those higher education providers include public universities, private universities, private higher education providers and TAFEs, but only if they are already approved higher education providers. The courses which are eligible are all higher education awards, including doctorates, masters, graduate diplomas, graduate certificates, bachelor degrees, associate degrees, advanced diplomas and diplomas. FEE-HELP is not currently available to TAFEs that are not accredited higher education providers.
Under the proposed new arrangements FEE-HELP will be available to students in a vocational education and training course of study leading to a university qualification with an approved vocational education and training provider that is a corporate entity, all VET providers that are corporate entities, including TAFEs—but only if they are corporate entities—and private vocational education and training providers. The courses which qualify as vocational education and training qualifications include advanced diplomas and diplomas.
I am unsure from the second reading speech of the Minister for Vocational and Further Education as to whether those difficulties to which attention has been drawn are advertent or inadvertent. I simply request the government to examine these measures to enable consideration to be given to them either in this place or subsequently in the Senate. As a general proposition, we support the bill because it moves in the right direction, but we do see a number of unnecessary restrictions which the government might consider or contemplate.
One aspect of this bill goes to full fees for domestic undergraduate university students. I would like to make some remarks about that matter, both generally and in the context of the bill. As the House would know, Labor has a longstanding and well-known position to phase out full fee, domestic undergraduate places in our public universities. This approach, of course, does not apply to full-fee-paying places in private universities, which Labor has never disturbed and does not intend to disturb. In our view, a student should be able to access higher education in a public university according to their merits and not according to their financial means. As a consequence, Labor will phase out all full fee undergraduate places at public universities commencing from 1 January 2009 and will compensate those public universities financially affected as a consequence. Accordingly, in due course, if that policy is implemented on the election of a Labor government, FEE-HELP will not be required for undergraduate places in Australian public universities by virtue of the fact that there will no longer be such full fee places at public universities for undergraduates. Full fee degrees for undergraduate domestic students are these days a costly reality. In 1999, the Prime Minister said:
The Government will not be introducing an American-style higher education system. There will be no $100,000 university fees under this Government.
A quick flick through the latest 2008 Good Universities Guide, published yesterday, shows that there are now 104 domestic, full fee university degrees that cost in excess of $100,000 and two domestic, full fee university degrees at public universities that cost in excess of $200,000. One of them gets close to the current average mortgage for an Australian—in the order of $245,000.
When the government authorised public universities to charge up-front full fees for domestic undergraduate university students, the government required only that a so-called gentleman’s agreement keep entrance rankings for full fee degrees within five per cent of their Commonwealth supported HECS equivalent place. This agreement was never enforced by the government and has effectively been honoured in the breach. There is a simple reason for that. The Howard government has failed to adequately invest in our universities. By not discharging the obligation that the Commonwealth has, our universities have been forced to rely on income from other sources, including from full fee undergraduate domestic students.
The facts generally speak for themselves: Commonwealth recurrent funding to universities has fallen by a third, from 0.9 per cent of GDP in 1996 to 0.6 per cent today; and Commonwealth grants to universities as a proportion of total revenue have decreased from 57 per cent in 1996 to 40 per cent now. The consequence is that there is today a significant disparity between the tertiary entrance score for HECS places and their equivalent full fee counterpart. By way of illustration, I will cite 2006 entry levels. In 2006, the Deakin University Bachelor of Exercise and Sport Science had a 19.75 point difference, from 62.45 for a full fee student to 82.20 for a HECS place; the University of Adelaide Bachelor of Engineering (Aerospace) had a 18 point difference, from 80 for a full fee student to 98 for a HECS place; the Deakin University Bachelor of Nursing had a 14.95 point difference, from 60.20 for a full fee student to 75.15 for a HECS place; and the University of Sydney Bachelor of Behavioural Health Science had a 17.10 point difference, from 71.00 for a full fee student to 88.10 for a HECS place.
Debate interrupted.
As Speaker of the House of Representatives, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my best wishes to Senator Paul Calvert, who has resigned as President of the Senate. Senator Calvert was President of the Senate for the last five years and a diligent and committed senator for Tasmania for the last 20 years. As President of the Senate and a senator for Tasmania, Senator Calvert has upheld the dignity of the parliament at all times and is respected for the way in which he has presided over the Senate chamber and represented this parliament both here in Australia and overseas. On behalf of all members, I wish Paul, his wife, Jill, and their family all the very best.
Also on behalf of the House I would like to extend my congratulations to Senator Alan Ferguson on becoming President of the Senate. Senator Ferguson comes to this role with much to offer, and I know that he too will uphold the highest traditions of a Presiding Officer.
Order! It being 7.31 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
I welcome the opportunity this evening to speak on the sensitive issue of freedom of the press. In doing so I would also like to acknowledge the work of Hannah Colville, who is a gap student from England doing some voluntary work in my office at the moment.
As we all appreciate, media reporting and representation is fundamentally an exercise of power. That is why freedom of the press is so important. It is also why it carries great responsibility. In the lead-up to this year’s election, I think this is an important issue to remind ourselves of. Freedom of the press is about reporting on issues to the advantage of the public at large against vested interests. I remind the House that one of the best essays on this subject occurs in the form of George Orwell’s preface to Animal Farm. I am going to quote selectively from it because it is as true today as it was in the 1940s. He said:
At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.
He went on to say:
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it ... it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect.
I think of a number of issues at the moment that are exceptionally important that I have dealt with in my portfolios during this parliament and that are in danger of falling into this category, including the sensitive issues of forest conservation and climate change.
Not only do we live in a time when there is intolerance of unpopular arguments, but sensationalism and the misuse of information or visual footage is also used often to support a particular view. One example that springs to mind was the misuse of footage supplied by Doctors for Forests to the ABC for use in a news story about tax cuts for timber plantations. The report included statements about the poisoning of native animals, and the footage depicted a dead animal. It did not report that it had been taken out of the fridge and used on a number of occasions previously.
This sensationalist approach to news does a disservice to a public which relies on the popular media—TV, radio, newspapers and, increasingly, the World Wide Web—for information about important political issues. This is the easy way out: an appeal to the lowest common denominator rather than an effort to lift the standard of debate in this country and bring the community along with it.
Another manifestation of this problem is the so-called tabloid focus on ‘human interest’ stories that are either controversial or tragic, or both, and will evoke an emotional response from the public. The more outlandish or distressing the story, the more coverage it receives. Personal tragedies are transformed into media events despite the distress of those concerned and despite the fact that in most cases they do not have any direct impact on readers’ lives, the advancement of society, public policy or accountability. One of the most read stories in the Age in the last couple of days had the headline ‘Shopping trolley prank breaks woman’s neck’—undoubtedly a tragedy for the family involved but not a vital news story.
Media sensationalism can exacerbate delicate situations, deepen personal tragedy and entrench dangerous myths as reality. Instead, what we need is journalism that elevates the standard of debate in the community and challenges popular orthodoxies. In the lead-up to the election, when Australians will go to the polls to perform the very important task of selecting their national government for the next three years, I look forward hopefully—and this would be a change from the events of more recent times—to investigative journalism that gets to the heart of major issues and presents all sides so that George Orwell’s ‘common people’ can make up their own minds and act on their decision.
The media in recent times have been running a campaign about the government adhering to the issues of freedom of information. I also challenge the media this evening to have a look at themselves in the mirror about their own performance with respect to sensationalism and political correctness on some of the issues they have chosen to report on on an ongoing basis, which I do not think have been correct or to the advantage of the Australian community.
I also acknowledge the retirement of Senator Calvert as the President of the Senate and welcome a Ferguson to the President’s role in the Senate—a very good member of the Australian parliamentary Scottish association. I congratulate him on his elevation to this very important position in the other house, even though he is on the other side of the chamber.
I rise tonight to recognise the efforts of some outstanding young people in my electorate of Hasluck, and I would like to acknowledge the presence of three very special young people in the House tonight. These students have been chosen as the Hasluck Leadership Award winners for 2007. They are: Arielle Cooper, from La Salle College, Midland; Jarrod Lomas, from Lumen Christi College, Gosnells; and Matthew French, from Kalamunda Senior High School. I welcome them to Canberra, to Parliament House and to the House of Representatives. As the member for Hasluck, I wanted to provide an opportunity for high school students to better understand the parliamentary process and our system of democracy, to see firsthand our national capital and to discover national politics in an environment in which they are free to form their own impressions. This led to the establishment of the Hasluck Leadership Award, with the kind permission of the Hasluck family. Sir Paul and Dame Alexandra Hasluck are both distinguished Australians and much-respected Western Australians. Sir Paul Hasluck, a well-respected politician, was the first Western Australian-born Governor-General. He commenced his education at Guildford Primary School in my electorate. His wife, Dame Alexandra, was a distinguished writer and historian.
It is important for young people to appreciate the democratic principles and institutions which are the foundation of our society, and I believe that promoting and encouraging leadership qualities in our youth is an important task for all of us. The Hasluck Leadership Award satisfies both of these objectives, and I am proud to contribute to such a worthwhile endeavour. I thank those of my staff and others from my electorate who have made a significant contribution to it. I am pleased with the fantastic outcomes this award has provided to date. It has clearly demonstrated to the electorate of Hasluck how talented, how committed, how responsible and how vibrant so many of our young Australians are in our community and in our schools. There are 12 high schools located within the electorate of Hasluck and each school is asked to nominate one year 11 student who most closely matches the leadership criteria set out by the award.
I am very pleased to name and recognise each of these talented students who were nominated by their schools this year for the 2007 Hasluck Leadership Award. They are: Sarah Foster, from Lesmurdie Senior High School; Tom Wale, from Guilford Grammar School; Philip Beckett, from Governor Stirling Senior High School; Marina Maclean, from Thornlie Senior High School; Matthew French, from Kalamunda Senior High School; Ariell Cooper, from La Salle College; Kirsten Kamperman, from St Brigids College, Lesmurdie; Jarrod Lomas, from Lumen Christi College; Jessica Allerdrige, from Southern River College; and Joshua Oorshot, from Mazenod College.
This year the assessment of each of the nominees was carried out by a panel of four drawn from the Hasluck community. The members of the panel were Helen Dullard, Pat Morris, Andy Farrant and Scott Hollier. I would like to recognise and commend each of them on their contribution to this year’s awards. Councillor Helen Dullard is the Chief Executive Officer of the Hills Community Support Group. She is also a councillor and Deputy President of the Shire of Mundaring. Councillor Pat Morris is the first ever female Mayor of the City of Gosnells. She has served that city very well for over 20 years, including 10 years as mayor. Two years ago Pat was bestowed the title of Honorary Freeman of the City of Gosnells in light of her outstanding and meritorious services to the community throughout the past 20 years. Mr Andy Farrant is the Chief Executive Officer of Country Arts WA, which is the leading regional arts organisation in WA. He has been instrumental in bringing forward and meeting the needs and aspirations of country communities in terms of their cultural pursuits. Dr Scott Hollier is a very special person. He was the chair of this year’s selection panel. He is legally blind. He is the Principal Consultant, Corporate Development and Innovation, at the Association for the Blind of Western Australia. He is a published author and recently completed a PhD thesis entitled The Disability Divide. I would also like to thank the Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon. Julie Bishop MP. She kindly agreed to officiate at the awards presentation night, which was very well attended by parents, family, friends and representatives from each of the high schools. I thank them all, along with our generous sponsors, for their wonderful support.
Homelessness is something that we cannot continue to ignore. On any given night, almost 100,000 Australians are homeless—that is, do not have access to safe, secure and adequate housing. The homeless line our streets and fill our country’s shelters. The prospect of these individuals being able to enter into Australia’s private rental or home ownership market is becoming increasingly unlikely as the prices for homes and private rental properties continue to skyrocket. In the electorate of Hindmarsh, the number of households suffering from mortgage stress doubled between 2001 and 2006. There are now 22.8 per cent of houses with mortgages within the electorate of Hindmarsh that are in mortgage stress—that is, households where mortgage repayments exceed 30 per cent of their total income. With the recent rise in interest rates and the already-climbing mortgage stress throughout Australia, there is cause for alarm. The rising interest rates only add further stress to increasing grocery bills and petrol prices. The average Australian family is doing it tough, even though the Prime Minister claims that Australian families have never been better off.
A report released in July by the St Vincent de Paul Society outlined the pressures facing many Australians in finding accommodation. It claims that many thousands of families are on the edge of homelessness. This pressure on many Australian families has forced them to live in accommodation that is run down, crowded and void of the necessities that most families need in their daily lives. Some families are paying up to 90 per cent of their weekly family income on rent. The situation is hindered even further by the actions of this federal government, which have led to $3.1 billion being taken out of public housing over the last 10 years. Despite this, the government refuses to take responsibility for the decline in public housing, preferring to blame the states. Rather than taking any action to assist with the housing affordability crisis in Australia, the minister prefers to play the blame game. At the same time, the federal minister is putting in jeopardy the 334,000 existing public housing tenants, who may lose their homes as a result of state and territory governments potentially losing all Commonwealth money they have relied on since 1945 when the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement was initiated. States and territories have struggled with declining Commonwealth funding under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement just to do maintenance on public homes, most of which are more than 30 years old. If state and territory governments lose half their income stream they will simply not be able to afford to do maintenance on existing public housing and will have to look at other options.
This irresponsible announcement by the federal minister does not contain one cent of new funding. The reality is that new public housing cannot be built with no money—no matter who is building it. As Labor’s ‘New Directions for Affordable Housing’ discussion paper pointed out weeks ago, insufficient investment by the Commonwealth has meant that the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement has failed to keep pace with community need. While all states and territories have made substantial efforts to maintain or increase their housing stock, federal funding has declined. Labor is not opposed to the involvement of the private sector in the provision of public housing. This is not new, and it happens in many states already.
The Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement was formed for the provision of housing assistance to people requiring access to affordable and appropriate housing. It was designed for the Commonwealth and states to work together. The agreement explicitly states that it is essential to reduce poverty and its effects on individuals, and on the community as a whole. The agreement was initially set up to provide for those in greatest need and at risk of falling into either homelessness or severe financial stress. With the recent interest rate hike, the average home loan of $250,000 will increase by $53 per month. This means many Australian families will have to revisit their budgets and make further cuts to their spending.
Housing affordability is now at critical levels, as is the strain on family budgets. The case studies in the St Vincent de Paul report describe families forced to live in cars, caravans and homeless shelters because they cannot afford rising rents. Young people aged 12 to 18 make up a quarter of the almost 100,000 homeless Australians who live on our streets every night. Young children living in homeless shelters or caravans are often deprived of the basic things in life such as education, good nutrition and a stable home life. The St Vincent de Paul report confirms what Labor has been saying: that the housing affordability crisis has spread to the rental market. Labor has called on the federal government to end the blame game and start showing some national leadership on this issue of housing affordability. (Time expired)
South-east Queenslanders are well and truly responding to the requirement to use less water. In the face of a once in a hundred years drought, the worst set of conditions possible, Brisbane may become the biggest city in the Western world to run out of water. What that will actually mean in its totality I do not really want to imagine, but it is a reality that we have to face with our Wivenhoe and Somerset storage dams at less than 17 per cent capacity. Let us be plain: the Wivenhoe Dam is not really a water storage dam. It is a very shallow and very broad dam—in other words, it is easy for the water to evaporate. Somerset Dam, a far deeper dam and in far narrower terrain, is a purpose-built dam in south-east Queensland. There are also the North Pine Dam and the Leslie Harrison Dam in the bayside suburbs. The Hinze Dam on the Gold Coast is the fullest dam in the whole of south-east Queensland. It feeds the Gold Coast water, but not the city of Brisbane at this stage.
The dam that should have been built in the late eighties and early nineties was the Wolffdene Dam. At the foothills of Mount Tamborine, it would have mimicked the Somerset Dam—a very deep dam with a very narrow exposure to sunlight. The dam was stopped in one of the first actions of the Goss government in early 1990. As all Queenslanders know, and indeed all people in this place know, that was on the advice of the now Leader of the Opposition. Queenslanders are looking for all sorts of solutions as they play their part in using less water than ever before—130 litres per person per day is what south-east Queenslanders are using. So it is extraordinary to think that the Leader of the Opposition is still maintaining an opposition to the best purpose-built potential water supply for south-east Queensland, all because it comes from across the border in New South Wales. The idea of building a dam and looking at what can happen in the Tweed and the Clarence valleys are things we should not rule off the agenda. It is something that the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources has certainly put on the agenda and I think it should be talked about, particularly as south-east Queenslanders are working very hard to make sure that they use less water than ever before.
South-east Queenslanders, per capita, have also taken to water tanks more than anybody else in Australia. They know that the water that can come off their roofs may in fact make a difference. South-east Queenslanders are taking up state government incentives and Brisbane City Council incentives to connect tank water not only to their gardens but also to their toilet systems within their houses. But I read something today that shows just how deep the arrogance is of the Queensland government—and I see that the member for Petrie is in the chamber; she will understand this point very plainly. A report in today’s Courier Mail outlines the fact that the Queensland government could very easily steal the water out of people’s water tanks because people have no legal ownership of the water that falls on the roofs of their houses and makes its way through the pipe systems that they have installed, albeit in some cases with subsidies from Queensland taxpayers and Brisbane City Council ratepayers. The Queensland government will put a meter on people’s water tanks and take control of those tanks. There is no legal impediment to stop that from occurring.
This is something that has been highlighted by the member for Wentworth, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. But it is not just a Liberal cabinet minister in this place who is highlighting this; the Australian Democrat Senator for Queensland, Andrew Bartlett, has also said that he is very concerned about a possible water grab. There are literally billions of litres of water stored in a variety of water tanks around homes in south-east Queensland today.
The Queensland government has failed to invest in infrastructure. It has failed to look forward. It is always looking backwards and saying no. It has failed to do anything, as far as guaranteeing water supply is concerned, for the 1,500 people a week who arrive in south-east Queensland. It has failed to do anything in the face of real efforts by individual Queenslanders. It is absolutely breathtaking. The member for Petrie and I know that the Queensland government is prepared to shut down local government to deny the voice of opposition against their excesses. They cannot wait until they get rid of the member for Petrie and the member for Moreton. They are working very hard to stop us from engaging with local schools, such is their arrogance. They want to desperately grab the water that is sitting in water tanks around Queenslanders’ homes today, and they should stand condemned. The member for Petrie and I will stand in the face of this Queensland government arrogance— (Time expired)
In a typically thoughtful contribution today, the member for Port Adelaide very strongly emphasised his local involvement and background. Similarly, living in Granville and growing up in Guildford, I very much identify with the area where I reside. I think it is very necessary that the few politicians who do not live in the electorates they represent should be mindful of the imposition of their ideas on the residents who do not share their situation. I refer to the recent moves by the state government with regard to increased housing densities in the South Granville area. Historically, I have been a strong supporter of the presence of public housing in my area. I believe that it is better to have a dispersal of people throughout communities rather than have whole suburbs of single mothers and unemployed people who have similar social problems and reinforce each other’s behaviour, and therefore cause social problems. At the outset, I say that I strongly support public housing, and I support the need for greater housing densities and the use of public housing areas in South Granville and Guildford, where we see single blocks inhabited by 70-year-old pensioners et cetera. There is a need to consolidate some of these areas.
However, I do express concerns about a lack of leadership in the way that this will be delivered. People pontificate loudly about the need for increased densities, basically surrendering before the fight starts and conceding the ground totally to the housing department rather than mobilising the resistance of residents and assuring a reasonable compromise in any outcome.
If you look at my area, the people who now talk about the need to have more roads through our area or to widen existing roads so that we can have these increased densities have no understanding of the history of our area. People such as my predecessor, Tom Uren, state member Jim Flaherty, Councillor Paul Garrard and, to a lesser extent, me have historically resisted the encroachment of further roads in our area. We think that Woodville Road, Parramatta Road and also Clyde Street, if anyone knows Sydney, are enough for our area. It is very dangerous for people who do not have the same circumstances and will not be affected by these changes to advocate them.
I want to also refer to the performance of the Parramatta City Council in regard to Woodville Road. I drove down this road the other day. What did I see? I saw a new block between Lackey and Farnell Street, with the total ground floor, supposedly for retail, abandoned, vacant blocks on the corner of Park Street and Earl Street, a derelict house on the corner of Cleone Street, vacant blocks on Linthorne Street and on the corner of Park Street and Macarthur Street.
This is a failure in planning by the Parramatta City Council. The council failed to counter the situation on the main road of Sydney in which a well-advanced tree disappeared to make a retail outlet—John Cootes, a major furniture business in our electorate—better seen by drivers and more visible to prospective buyers. A convenient fire destroyed a historic home at 324 Woodville Road. Once again, I question what the council is doing on these matters.
Every weekend near Kenelda Avenue there are 40 or 50 cars in the streets because of an informal, illegal retail outlet which is not paying rental like everyone else and not paying rates, but there has been no action taken by the council. Along Woodville Road we have decisions being made by planners and councillors who do not live in the area and who have no local contact, and it has become Slumsville, New South Wales, because of the failure of the Parramatta City Council. Just because the general manager receives more money than the Treasurer of this country, you cannot say that he is totally responsible. There should be political leadership in the council to start doing something about these matters.
I rise tonight to discuss once again the very important issue of forestry in my electorate. I mentioned last night that approximately $1 billion each year is contributed via the forestry industry. Tasmania grows unique, select timbers, including Huon pine, myrtle, Tasmanian hardwoods, blackwood—the list goes on. The industry contributes over 20 per cent of total manufacturing employment and 25 per cent of total manufacturing wages and salaries, which make up 24 per cent of total industry turnover. The recently announced Circular Head and Huon veneer mills are an investment of some $32 million.
In 2003-04 the total Tasmanian forest fibre production was over 23 per cent of national production and valued at some $381 million. This figure represents an increase of 65 per cent in value since 1997-98. Since 1997, around $1.4 billion has been invested in the industry. With over 42 per cent of Tasmania’s land mass in either state or national world heritage parks and reserves, the line in the sand has been drawn where the balance is just about right between conservation and forestry. But there is a huge risk.
We had the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rudd, in the electorate only a few weeks ago announcing that he supported the Tasmanian forestry agreements and the policies of the Howard government. The confusion within the electorate is where the shadow minister for the environment stands. This is a crucial issue to people planning for their future, whether they drive a log truck or work in the forestry industry. One only has to look at the Australian Conservation Foundation, which Peter Garrett led for a three-year term and is patron of. He stated after the most recent announcement and it is worth recalling:
The Australian Conservation Foundation has called on the ALP to honour its April national conference commitment to ‘further protection of identified Tasmanian high-conservation value, old growth forests, rainforests and other ecosystems.
One million hectares were protected in total after the last election. There are 100 trees per hectare—that is, 100 million trees which are protected. Yet the shadow minister for the environment is still calling for more. According to the Canberra Times in 2004:
Last week—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Braddon is clearly misleading the House. He knows that the Leader of the Opposition supports the RFAs and he is doing his best to say otherwise.
The member will resume his seat. That is not a point of order.
I continue:
... Mr Garrett played down reports he was—
The member will refer to other members by their seat.
The shadow minister for the environment was:—
... co-author of the ALP forestry policy which was unveiled just days before the election, and committed Opposition Leader Mark Latham to saving large tracts of Tasmania’s old growth forests.
The member for Kingsford Smith—someone aspiring to be a government minister—has described the negotiated regional forest agreements as:
... a completely flawed and discredited process initiated by Government.
The member is also on the record as saying:
The forest industry is not willing to act in a responsible manner. It is attempting to provoke and confront conservationists over the issue.
The member has also previously stated:
All old growth and high conservation value forests across Australia should be immediately protected.
It is of great concern to the people of north-west Tasmania that, on the one hand, we have Mr Rudd making statements that he follows the—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is the same point that you raised previously.
The member for Shortland was quicker than I was. The member for Braddon will refer to the Leader of the Opposition by his title.
In 2004, the member for Kingsford Smith said:
Tasmania has a lot to lose thanks to logging gone mad. The state’s flourishing tourism industry is threatened by consumer reaction to carnage in the forests.
There is distress and uncertainty about the futures of the people of the north-west coast. They are concerned about their jobs, their homes, and even such matters as their kids, future schooling arrangements. It is not only on the north-west coast but throughout all of Tasmania where some 10,000 people rely on the industry for work. On the one hand, we have the Leader of the Opposition making one statement and, on the other hand, the shadow minister for the environment, who would be elected, making other statements. How long is it before the real policy is going to be announced? (Time expired)
Order! It being just after 8.00 pm, the debate is interrupted.
The following notices were given:
to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Health Insurance Act 1973, and for related purposes. (Health Insurance Amendment (Medicare Dental Services) Bill 2007)
to present a Bill for an Act to amend the law in relation to social security, and for related purposes. (Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment (Child Disability Assistance) Bill 2007)
to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000, and for related purposes. (Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (Cape York Measures) Bill 2007)
to present a Bill for an Act about the Higher Education Endowment Fund, and for related purposes. (Higher Education Endowment Fund Bill 2007)
to present a Bill for an Act to deal with consequential matters relating to the enactment of the Higher Education Endowment Fund Act 2007, and for other purposes. (Higher Education Endowment Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2007)
to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust Act 2001, and for related purposes. (Sydney Harbour Federation Trust Amendment Bill 2007)
to present a Bill for an Act to amend the law in relation to social security, and for related purposes. (Social Security Amendment (2007 Measures No. 2) Bill 2007)
to move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, and by reason of the urgent nature of the work, it is expedient that the following work be carried out without having been referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works: Construction of staff apartments in the Australian Embassy compound, Baghdad, Iraq.
to move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, and by reason of the urgent nature of the work, it is expedient that the following work be carried out without having been referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works: Australian Broadcasting Accommodation Project, Brisbane, Queensland.
to move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Rationalisation of ADF facilities and RMAF Butterworth, Malaysia.
to move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: RAAF Base Pearce Redevelopment Stage 1, Pearce, Western Australia.
to move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Fit-out of new leased premises for the Department of Health and Ageing at the Sirius Building, Woden Town Centre, Australian Capital Territory.
to move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Multi Role Helicopter Facilities.
Before I call the member for Fraser, I inform the House that Barry Gwyther is celebrating his birthday today. I am sure members will join with me in wishing him a happy birthday.
I thank my colleagues and the government for their cooperation in allowing me to briefly use this time to table a petition which, through inadvertence, was deemed not to be in order but is now in order. I table the petition from 270 constituents in my electorate.
The petition read as follows—
To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:
The petition of young citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House the many pressing environmental issues likely to face young people, in particular, climate change.
As young Australians we say that climate change is no longer an issue for tomorrow, it is an issue for today. It is time to transform understanding into action. We have a right, along with all species, to a sustainable future and a liveable planet. This right carries on to our children and grandchildren. Climate change affects all aspects of our lives. It impacts on our cultural heritage, including that of the oldest continuous culture on earth. It destroys a fragile environment unique in the world. Weather unpredictability, drought, increasing salinity, coral bleaching, sea level rise, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss threaten our country’s future —and with it, our own.
The unprecedented pace and intensity of climate change becomes more pronounced every year. We recognise that the current extent of climate change is human induced. We no longer have the luxury of continued debate; the time for action is now. As young Australians we are ready to make this change. We call upon all Australians to join us.
This problem is global in dimension and personal in scope: each of us can make change now, and it is our responsibility to respond before it is too late. We see climate change as a threat but also an opportunity to build a more ecologically and socially responsible society.
Climate change poses a disproportionate impact on our Pacific neighbours, less developed nations, and marginalised peoples worldwide. Australia has an obligation to assist these vulnerable communities.
We acknowledge Indigenous Australians as the original inhabitants and continuing custodians of this land and their unique position and valuable knowledge in caring for their country. We are concerned that climate change threatens Indigenous land and Indigenous peoples’ ability to maintain culture. Any climate change debate must include Indigenous perspectives so that land management and environmental practice is respectful of Indigenous culture, heritage and sacred sites.
Economic sustainability and livelihoods depend on our natural environment. We believe the cost of goods and services should reflect their true environmental and social cost, and government subsidies should be directed towards renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. Australia’s economic interest lies upon realising the potential of sustainable innovation.
The solutions to climate change already exist in Australia. We do not need nuclear power; it is too unsafe, too dirty, and too expensive. Similarly, we believe the idea of ‘clean coal’ is a distraction postponing a just transition from fossil fuels to a real clean energy future.
Your petitioners therefore request that the House to commit to:
from 270 citizens.
In my electorate there are more than 15,000 small businesses registered. They generate considerable employment growth. I have always had an interest in the area of small business, bearing in mind that I owned a small business. That is why I was quite happy to accept the invitation of the local chamber of commerce to attend the recent Pollies for Small Business Day. I had the opportunity to spend time with a number of employers who operate businesses at Casula Mall. In particular, I spent time with Daryl Lawson, who owns the Michel’s Patisserie franchise, and Phillip Di Fruncesco, who owns and operates the Donut King facility at Casula Mall.
I would like to thank them for their time in showing a member of parliament around their businesses and in discussing with me the issues they had. Both of these businesses are seven-day-a-week operations. I know full well the issues of balancing business and home concerns as well as balancing business and home finances. Both these gentlemen ran superb operations. They made the point that, quite frankly, it is something you do not take for granted. These businesses are only successful if you work them and work them properly. These franchises had two issues in common—attracting and retaining qualified staff, staff who understood that the delivery of good service was significant in bringing return trade.
These family businesses have put a lot into their community. That is the point I want to make. These people live and work in their communities. Not only are their interests in relation to the business affairs or commercial aspects of their business but also they participate in genuine community development efforts.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Casula Mall Centre Manager, Sharon Bosnajak, for organising my time behind the counter. It is a fine facility out there. Sharon spends a significant amount of time not simply organising affairs at the centre but also assisting those businesses that choose to set up and operate out of Casula Mall. Casula Mall serves the fast-growing area of Liverpool. The area has benefited greatly from having this facility. Moreover, the area has benefited by having people such as Sharon Bosnajak, Daryl Lawson and Phillip Di Fruncesco. (Time expired)
I rise this morning to place on the Hansard the efforts of 12-year-old student Samantha Williamson, who is from my home town of Roma in western Queensland. She recently submitted a petition to me for presentation to the parliament. Unfortunately, the format is incorrect and it cannot be submitted formally. However, I felt the hard work and the efforts of Samantha should not go unnoticed—after all, today’s youth are tomorrow’s future and it is important that we hear their views now.
Samantha’s petition is on nuclear power plants and how she feels they are not necessary in Australia for a number of reasons, which she states at the commencement of her petition. They include the following: fission products are elements of nuclear energy and they are very radioactive, and will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years; there are no safe solutions for getting rid of nuclear waste; this nuclear waste also takes up lots of storage space; radiation can leak into the environment contaminating soil, air, rivers and oceans, which can cause cancer and other diseases; the nuclear plant’s electricity produces substances which can be used for making nuclear weapons; nuclear energy has never been economic, regardless of what you have heard; and all the money going into promoting nuclear energy could be used for solar and wind energy instead, which would be safer and more available. Her final point is quoted from page 8 of a book titled Nuclear Power is Not the Answer:
Nuclear power is not ‘clean and green’ as the industry claims because large amounts of traditional fossil fuels are required to mine and refine the uranium needed to run nuclear power reactors, to construct the massive concrete reactor buildings and to transport and store toxic radioactive waste created by the nuclear process.
Samantha asks people to sign her petition if they do not want to live with these risks. In the short time she made it available, almost 100 people in the Roma community signed this petition, particularly young people just like Samantha.
Unlike the Beattie Labor government—with its forced amalgamations of local governments in Queensland—who will not allow the voice of the people to be heard, the coalition government supports people’s rights and the freedom to speak out and have an informed public debate on nuclear energy. In many respects, the debate is long overdue in Australia. I think it is important to listen to all the arguments for and against nuclear energy so that we can make an informed decision in the future. As such, Samantha Williamson’s feelings on nuclear power plants are now known, along with those almost 100 people in Roma. (Time expired)
The Commonwealth Public Service and Defence superannuation pensions are indexed to the consumer price index, not male total average weekly earnings, as is the case with the age and disability support pensions. On 24 April 2007, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced a CPI change of 0.06 per cent, which meant that superannuation pensions received no twice-yearly increase. While the CPI has risen by 1.2 per cent in the last June quarter, Commonwealth and Defence superannuation pensioners will not gain an increase until January 2008, which is the next assessment date. In the meantime, these superannuants will continue to endure price increases—such as 9.1 per cent for petrol and 1.7 per cent for food in the last June quarter—without any increase in their pension. This simply is not fair.
The Howard government has flatly refused to review the method of indexation, and this is in spite of a Senate select committee having concluded in 2001 that the current indexation method is unfair and is eroding superannuants’ living standards. The committee chairman stated:
Almost 22 per cent of Commonwealth superannuants receive an income from Commonwealth superannuation funds which is less than the maximum age pension.
That was in 2001, and the value of defined benefit superannuation schemes has continued to be eroded since that time compared to the age pension. What proportion of Commonwealth superannuants, what number of senior Australian households, having worked on their superannuation towards an expected pleasant and rewarding retirement all of their working lives are now expected to live on less than the age pension? The Prime Minister tells superannuants that Australian families have never been better off. That is very wrong. Australian families, whatever their age, are doing it tough, and in many cases even tougher as time goes by. Many people in the electorate of Hindmarsh, be they in employment, raising a family or retired, certainly do not share this conclusion of the Prime Minister’s. They will conclude that this strangely expeditionary government is out of touch, has priorities out of balance and a self-perception blissfully out of focus.
When Labor pressed the government on this very issue at the Senate estimates committee hearings in May 2007, the Howard government refused to provide the formula used to calculate the cost of changing the indexation method. This refusal to provide essential information to calculate future Commonwealth superannuation liabilities is an attempt to stymie debate on this issue. This government refuses to be accountable to ex-public servants and military personnel about their superannuation.
I recently had the honour of proposing a toast to Lions International at the 50th anniversary at the Palm Beach-Currumbin Lions Club. In proposing the toast, I was able to pay tribute to an international organisation that continues to serve communities throughout the world and, of course, to pay tribute to Melvin Jones, the man whose dream was to have businesspeople work for the betterment of their communities and the world at large.
Mr Jones, with the support of his own local business group, explored his concept at an organisational meeting in 1917. Twelve men gathered at that meeting and voted the Association of Lions Clubs into existence. They issued a call for a national convention to be held in Dallas, Texas, in October 1917. Thirty-six delegates, representing 22 clubs, heeded the call and elected Dr William P Woods of Indiana as their first president. Melvin Jones, the man whose dream it was to form an international organisation, was named acting secretary, thus beginning his association with Lions that ended only when he passed away in 1961. That was the beginning—a modest beginning that was the foundation for Lions clubs to grow and serve communities throughout the world.
The motto of Lions clubs is, ‘We serve’. That motto represents the community service that Palm Beach-Currumbin Lions Club has given over the past 50 years. Our local communities have been enriched with so many projects undertaken by this wonderful club. Palm Beach-Currumbin Lions has demonstrated great dedication to community causes by contributing both financially and in kind to many worthwhile groups and initiatives. Proceeds from the club’s fundraising activities have provided valuable assistance to charitable bodies at regional and national level as well as enabling the purchase of equipment for local hospitals and organisations. Members have volunteered their time and expertise to conservation projects and the construction of school and community facilities. They have also offered emotional, material and financial support to those affected by illness and natural disasters.
It was a wonderful evening of celebration. A charter member, Mr Bill Freeman, and his wife, Lesley, were in attendance. Bill is still an active member of the club today. The current president, Mr Brian Mattingly, and his wife, Joy, who is the Lioness president, were also there. MC for the night Mr Merv Rose was accompanied by his wife, Jean. Also attending were Lion Terry Gunton and his wife, Lorraine, and Lion Don McHenry and his wife, Lois. The immediate past president, Ewen Munro, unfortunately was in hospital but was represented by his wife, Cynthia. Past president Lion Kevin Foster and his wife, Lyn, past president Kevin Magee and his wife, Joy, Lion Keith Fleming and his wife, Ruth, and Lion Craig Dick and his wife, Joanne, were also there. Lion Harvey Crooks, who does a magnificent job every year organising the Lions Youth of the Year contest, also attended. There is not the time today to recognise everyone who attended, but they know who they are, they know what they have achieved as a club, and I know they will continue to work hard in our local community supporting charitable groups and those in need for another 50 years. Congratulations, Palm Beach-Currumbin Lions on a wonderful 50 years!
I rise today to raise serious concerns I have over community safety, especially for Australia’s senior citizens. In particular, I want to draw to the attention of the House the recent assault on Mrs Rachael Williams, who is one of my constituents. At 91, Mrs Williams is a long-time resident of Broadmeadows. Mrs Williams has lived in the same house, in Cooper Street, Broadmeadows, for close to 60 years, 40 of those on her own. According to her granddaughter, whom I spoke to yesterday, she relishes the independence of having her own place.
Early on Monday morning, Mrs Williams was woken by an intruder trying to rob her house and was beaten around the head several times while still in bed. She was left with multiple cuts and bruises and covered in blood. Like so many others, I was appalled when I heard the news of what had happened to Mrs Williams. This was a truly cruel, callous and senseless attack by a person who should be behind bars. Her granddaughter tells me that Mrs Williams now needs plastic surgery, given the injuries she has sustained, but that the hospital needs to first stabilise her heart, because it is believed she suffered a minor heart attack during the assault. The fact that Mrs Williams tried to fend off her attacker shows just how much of a fighter she really is. Her courage most likely saved her life.
Like the family of Mrs Williams, I too find this attack beyond forgiveness. It says very little about our society if an elderly resident like Mrs Williams can no longer feel safe in her own home. This is the sixth time Mrs Williams has been robbed in the last five months. What adds to the tragedy of this case is that Mrs Williams now faces the prospect of losing her home and her independence. For Mrs Williams, as is the case for so many other elderly Australians, home is familiar. It is filled with many treasured memories of family and loved ones.
This is not the first time an elderly person has fallen victim to a violent crime and I dare say, unfortunately, it will not be the last. I am especially angry that this attack has left elderly residents in Broadmeadows worried for their own safety. This is unacceptable, particularly when, as policymakers, we are trying to provide assistance and support to elderly Australians so that, if they choose, they can stay in their own homes for as long as possible. Most elderly people prefer to do this, and I believe they should be supported to do so. We all have a responsibility to ensure that elderly Australians feel safe. The ordeal suffered by Mrs Williams reminds us exactly why this is the case.
I, and also on behalf of those living in my electorate of Calwell, wish Mrs Williams all the best for a speedy recovery. I also recognise her family during this difficult time. Mrs Williams and her family have shown tremendous courage and resilience, and I want to recognise their courage in this place. They want this attack on Rachael to be made as public as possible in the hope that our community can rally in support of elderly Australians. Although not a pleasant experience, it is a timely reminder that our elderly Australians need to feel safe in their own homes. We need to find a balance between supporting the elderly to stay at home and protecting them in their home. It should be an issue of concern for all of us: family, community and governments.
Last week I announced a further $300,000 over two years in federal funding to allow the Warnervale Family and Community Centre to continue its vital work in our community. This is the third time the federal government has thrown the centre a lifeline after the New South Wales government abandoned it yet again. We provided $269,000 in 2004 and a further $94,000 in 2006 when the centre again faced closure. The centre is one service the people of Warnervale cannot afford to lose, which is why I was so pleased to announce the additional funding to keep it open.
I have visited the centre on numerous occasions, most recently when I went to announce this additional funding. It is always great to see firsthand the work they do. I congratulate the staff and volunteers on the fantastic job they do in supporting the Warnervale community. When the Warnervale Family and Community Centre opened in 1999 it was housed in a cottage, where a small group of volunteers worked two days a week. Over the years the centre has continued to expand, reflecting the growth of Warnervale and the surrounding areas. More and more families are making the lifestyle choice to relocate to the Central Coast. The centre now operates five days a week and provides information and referral services, particularly to new residents; provides for playgroups and leisure groups; and offers parenting courses which encourage residents to become actively involved in our community. The centre also gives Warnervale residents the opportunity to come together as a community to participate in local events.
The Warnervale Family and Community Centre is one of two programs in Dobell to receive funding in the special round of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy and the Local Answers initiative. The parenting and family support program in Wyong Shire also received $80,000 over two years to hold workshops and individual meetings with parents to improve parenting and communication skills and provide information on issues like nutrition and discipline. The funding will also provide additional crisis support through phone and hotline counselling services. Around 2½ thousand parents in Wyong shire are set to benefit from this program. It is the strong economic management of the Howard government and our belief that, at the local level, community organisations are well suited to devising local solutions to local problems that has led to the successful announcement which will continue to improve the wellbeing of families on the Central Coast.
There is one final comment I would like to make in relation to the Warnervale community centre and it relates to the New South Wales Labor government’s complete lack of interest in the centre and the needs of the Warnervale community. They provided the initial funding but since then they have walked away from this centre on a number of occasions—in fact, for the last five years. While I am happy to support the centre’s ongoing work in Warnervale, the New South Wales government have been shifting the blame and responsibility for local issues onto the federal government for far too long. The rapidly growing area of Warnervale is lacking in infrastructure thanks to a state government that are out of touch with the needs of the region. Yet again the state government see no problem with ignoring their obligation to fund this one piece of vital infrastructure in the area, just like they turned a blind eye to Tumbi Creek. (Time expired)
As I come from a regional electorate, the issue of water security is top on my list of priorities. Not far behind this issue is the cost of that water. Despite our recent rain, which has been very much welcomed, Ballarat’s water supply is currently sitting at around 11 per cent. If Ballarat were to endure another lean spring and dry summer, it would be absolutely possible that one of Australia’s largest inland cities would run out of water. This is obviously not acceptable. There is only one viable long-term solution on the table: the goldfields super pipe to secure Ballarat’s water supply. The state Liberal Party has tried to push the idea of pumping water from the Lal Lal reservoir, a ridiculous idea, as Lal Lal could only supply Ballarat with at most two weeks of water—hardly a long-term solution.
Last year on 18 October, the Victorian government announced the construction of the goldfields super pipe, with the understanding that the federal government would jointly fund Victoria’s No. 1 water priority project. The pipeline will provide Bendigo and Ballarat with a reliable and secure water supply. Unfortunately, such infrastructure does cost money and someone has to pay for it. The state government has made its contribution and is expecting the Howard government to make an additional contribution of $90 million. If that is not the case, then the funding for that infrastructure will need to be found from local water rates. The state government is concerned about that and so has moved in fact to cap water rate increases in our district to ensure that they can only increase at most by 15 per cent per year. Premier Brumby said yesterday that the state government wanted to cap water bills at no more than double today’s rate at 2012 but the Ballarat region could miss out. The federal government’s failure to fund the goldfields super pipe extension from Bendigo meant Central Highlands Water needed to find alternative funding and increase bills to cope.
Ballarat has the highest water bills in the state, because the Howard government has not yet committed the $90 million to fund the goldfields super pipe. Families are already struggling to cope with record healthcare costs, interest rates, petrol prices and child care. Why does the Howard government now want to increase the pain by increasing our water bills? The Howard government has also clearly not thought through what increasing the cost of water would do to industries in my electorate like MasterFoods and McCain which use large amounts of water. Would it still be to their competitive advantage to stay in the district that potentially has the highest water rates in the state?
I call once again for the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources to fully fund the goldfields super pipe out of the National Water Initiative. If the federal government has an alternative, let us hear about it. If not, he must announce the full $90 million for the goldfields super pipe. Anything less is unacceptable. Despite how the local Liberal Party is behaving about the goldfields super pipe, this is not a game. It is about people and our district’s livelihood and the cost that people are going to be paying for water. The Howard government must fund the $90 million and match Labor’s commitment of $90 million for the goldfields super pipe today.
I rise to lend my support to the community push for a Hastings Medicare office. I want to talk about, firstly, the need; secondly, the response; and, thirdly, the steps forward. In looking at the need, what we see very clearly is that Hastings is a tremendously important and growing town on Western Port. Numerous young working families have moved in, as well as many seniors and retirees. In addition to that, it is surrounded by good strong towns such as Crib Point, Bitten and Balnarring on one side and Tyabb and Somerville on the other. It is, however, poorly connected by state public transport to nearby Medicare offices in Mornington and Frankston.
Against that background, we see that there is a real need for an immediate turnaround for funds for many of the lower income families in Hastings and the surrounding areas. Whether they are working families, whether it is young families, whether it is pensioners or others, they need to be able to access that portion of their doctor’s payments which they can recover through the Medicare system and they need to be able to do it immediately.
In that context, the community, led by Nina Muller, has developed a proposal for creating a Hastings Medicare office. It is a strong proposal and it is one which I fully support. I am delighted today to be able to present a petition to the House with 1,618 signatures calling for consideration by the Commonwealth for the establishment of a co-located Medicare office with Centrelink in Hastings. I previously discussed this with the Minister for Human Services, the Hon. Senator Chris Ellison, who has been very supportive and indicated that a key factor in the decision would be an understanding that there would be community support and therefore demand and use. We have taken him at his word. He has been tremendously supportive. I am delighted to present this petition.
In that context, the steps forward from here are very simple. I will also see the minister, Senator Chris Ellison, this week, and present an additional copy of the petition to him and then return to the people of the electorate and let them know that we are out there fighting for this Medicare office. I am hopeful that, with the fantastic word of Nina Muller and all of those who have signed this petition and indicated strong community support, we will be able to get a Medicare office for Hastings, for Crib Point, for Bittern, for Tyabb and for Somerville. I thank the House and I commend the proposal for a Medicare office for Hastings.
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of touring a very significant industrial operation in my electorate of Capricornia. It was the QMAG magnesium plant just near Rockhampton. There has been a recent change of ownership for the company and they are entering a very exciting new phase of their operations in looking at some increased research and development and also an expansion.
QMAG operates a magnesite mine at Kunwarara, which is about 90 kilometres north of Rockhampton, and the magnesium production facility I toured was at Parkhurst, just on the outskirts of Rockhampton. QMAG produces high-quality deadburned magnesia and electrofused magnesia for industry and calcined magnesia for agricultural, hydrometallurgical, paper and environmental industries. QMAG also sells raw magnesite for uses in input into other mineral processing industries. The company exports the majority of its production to numerous customers throughout the world as well as supplying a large part of Australia’s requirements for these products. QMAG commenced operations in 1991 and has sufficient magnesite reserves to operate for many decades into the future. The longevity of the operation was recently enhanced by the purchase of mineral rights to an adjoining magnesite deposit at Kunwarara. The operations are state-of-the-art in world terms and the electrofused magnesia and deadburned products are recognised as being amongst the highest quality magnesia products in the world.
The production at QMAG is very efficient, both in terms of its energy use and its greenhouse gas emissions, and it benchmarks very well against its competitors overseas. It produces magnesia with up to 50 per cent less electricity and combustible fuels per tonne of product, and a 70 per cent higher yield per tonne of feed than magnesia plants in Asia, which are the main sources of competition for QMAG.
There are plans by the company to expand its operations, with feasibility studies taking place right now. Naturally, given the nature of the industry and the plans for expansion, one of the issues raised with me was climate change. The most important thing for an operation like QMAG is regulatory certainty. What really shows the neglect of the government is that they have had 11 years to act and show leadership on climate change, but they are still fiddling around and unable to really give any certainty to companies.
Rest assured, the Labor Party will waste no time should we win government later this year. We have committed to developing an emissions trading system by 2010 and, as an indication of our approach to setting up that system, you need only look at the national summit which was held earlier this year which brought together people from business, industry and science. We will work with all sectors to achieve reductions in emissions at the least cost to the economy. I will certainly be working to ensure that QMAG is involved in those discussions should we win government. (Time expired)
I wish to report to the House that the campaign by unions in this current election campaign has reached a new low. It has actually reached its new low in my electorate of Canning. I have heard rumours and other talk about union campaigns in electorates, so I was not really surprised when I received a phone call from a truck driver in my electorate the other day who said that he had been contacted by the TWU and asked how he was voting. The TWU representative, who had identified himself, said, ‘Are you going to be voting the right way?’ The truck driver said, ‘What do you mean by voting the right way?’ The TWU representative said, ‘Are you going to be voting for Kevin Rudd to become Prime Minister? We’ve got to win your seat.’ This TWU truck driver said that he was quite offended because he was a supporter of mine and he had voted for me at the last election, and he found it very intimidating to receive a call from the TWU representative heavying him on the way that he should vote.
It backfired on them because he tells me that he got on the two-way radio in his truck and started telling the guys on the airwaves that he had been heavied and some of them said: ‘Yes, we’ve had the same sort of phone call and we don’t like it. We don’t want to be told how to vote.’ This is a form of push polling, and maybe it should be referred to the Australian Electoral Commission, because people in a democratic country like Australia should choose to vote the way they wish; they should choose to join a union, they should choose to vote in any way they decide. This is not a draconian Third World country; this is a country that allows the freedom for people to choose the way they vote.
As I reported earlier to the House, this is on top of the campaign to support the Labor candidate by the local Australian Workers Union in the southern area of my electorate—a letter from Bill Shorten no less, the current union member who is running for Maribyrnong. Tim Daly says of this fellow in the letter that he is a staunch supporter of the union movement. That is his greatest credential; he is a staunch supporter of the union movement. They are levying these workers $5 a week or $10 a fortnight and you have to send this money electronically. These people are now being rounded up to see if they have been paying their five bucks a week towards the Labor campaign in Canning.
So on one hand you have the union endeavouring to heavy people how to vote and the union heavying people to pay $5 a week. These people have never been better off than on AWAs, of which I have 29,000 in my electorate. These people are getting an average of $200 a week more and they know that they are doing better and they refuse to be stood over by the union thugs in this election campaign. (Time expired)
Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for members’ statements has concluded.
Debate resumed from 13 August.
I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Aviation security is a high priority for this government and remains under constant review to ensure that the regulatory framework is responsive to changing threats to the Australian aviation industry.
This bill contains a range of amendments that are minor or technical in nature. These amendments are the result of industry suggestions and government administrative experience. There are four significant amendments in this bill.
Firstly, the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 is amended so that regulations can be made to prohibit activities or conduct performed outside a security controlled airport that disrupts or interferes with the operations of a security controlled airport or aircraft. The amendment is consistent with requirements from the International Civil Aviation Organisation, of which Australia is a member. The amendment permits regulations to be made that capture disruptive conduct that takes place outside airport boundaries that directly disrupts airport operations or air services.
There is concern in the aviation industry about the increasing incidence of lasers being used to interfere with aircraft, particularly on approach to and on take-off from airports. The Civil Aviation Act 1988 is amended so that a person who threatens the safety of an aircraft, either by laser or by other means, commits an offence.
Secondly, the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 now contains further powers for Australian Customs officers at airports. My officers have worked with Customs to develop a sensible model that implements one of the recommendations from the aviation security report by Sir John Wheeler. In order to improve aviation security, the amendment utilises Customs officers at parts of the airport where uniformed police are unlikely to routinely visit but which are visited by Customs officers. The intention of the amendment is to complement but not replace the law enforcement role.
The implementation of this recommendation demonstrates the commitment of the government to strengthening aviation security.
Thirdly, is an amendment to the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 which will provide, through regulations, for the most senior dignitaries, their spouses and minors to be exempt from aviation security screening. Other dignitaries and VIPs will still be able to apply for aviation security screening exemptions on a case-by-case basis. This change to dignitaries that may be exempt from security screening is limited and reflects a balance between Australia’s international legal obligations and security outcomes.
One amendment includes enhancements to the transport security program regime so that it mirrors maritime security legislation. The sensible enhancements will improve the administration of transport security programs and enhance the existing aviation security regime through:
Finally, the Civil Aviation Act 1988 is amended to enable CASA to introduce a mandatory drug and alcohol regime in the civil aviation industry. This initiative was announced in the 2007-08 budget. The drug and alcohol regime will have two elements: firstly, companies in the industry will be required to have drug and alcohol programs that will be regulated and audited by CASA, will be self-funded, and will involve testing, education and support for their employees.
Secondly, CASA will carry out its own testing program, to test people in the industry, such as private pilots and contractors, who have safety sensitive jobs but who are not covered by a company program, and to satisfy itself that the company programs are effective. To promote compliance, these elements will be supported by a range of potential enforcement options available to CASA.
The drug and alcohol testing regime will foster a safer workplace for civil aviation workers and the public will benefit broadly from a safer aviation sector. It will introduce drug and alcohol testing in the Australian civil aviation industry in line with other civil aviation industries around the world and with other safety sensitive industries in Australia.
I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services to the Main Committee. I only wish he could make his way up here during the appropriation stage of the budget each year so as to enable him to be accountable to the parliament. I know that in the minister’s mind this represents slumming it.
With respect to the Aviation Legislation Amendment (2007 Measures No. 1) Bill 2007, which amends the Civil Aviation Act 1988 and the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004, the opposition support these endeavours, though we will move a second reading amendment highlighting our concerns about lack of proper consultation. Obviously the bill is about strengthening and clarifying a range of aviation safety and security provisions, which the minister has appropriately highlighted during his second reading speech this morning.
In particular, the bill has two primary objectives. Firstly, it ensures that a person who is outside an aircraft can commit the offence of interfering with aircrew or endangering an aircraft or passengers. I note this provision appropriately addresses recent concerns in the community about the pointing of lasers at aircraft approaching or taking off from major airports. The opposition fully support recent government endeavours on this front. It is not something we talk about publicly because we are actually fearful of copycat exercises amongst some of the more foolish members of the Australian community. It is something that the government just has to do in consultation with the aviation industry to try and avoid this very foolish and potentially dangerous act by irresponsible people in the Australian community. Secondly, the bill adds a new part to create the statutory framework to provide for drug and alcohol testing and management—issues which I will seek to address in my remarks.
There are also four changes to the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004. Firstly, to more closely align aviation security legislation with maritime security legislation and make the transport security program processes more flexible; secondly, to provide for the making of regulations to prohibit activities outside airports which could adversely affect airport or aircraft operations, in line with the International Civil Aviation Organisation requirements; thirdly, to provide broader and more effective coverage of potential acts of unlawful interference with aviation, including further powers for Australian Customs officers at airports, in line with the recommendations of the 2005 Wheeler report—which was a well-prepared, independent review of airport security and policing for the government of Australia—and, finally, to provide for the making of regulations that would specifically describe those senior dignitaries and their families who are exempt from aviation screening—something which I as the shadow minister am totally opposed to.
The bill was appropriately referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport. While the committee recommended that the bill be passed, it raised a number of concerns, which I seek to bring to the attention of the House this morning. Firstly, I am concerned about creating an exemption mechanism for senior dignitaries rather than using the case by case mechanism which already exists for security screening. I think that, in the international fight against terrorism, senior dignitaries ought to lead by example and not seek to be exempted from security screening arrangements in Australia, which ordinary Australians and international travellers accept as being part and parcel of how we travel around the globe and domestically at this point.
Several industry participants also expressed concern about these provisions—and perhaps the government should have regard for these concerns because these people are engaged in the fight against terrorism on a daily basis—including Virgin Blue Airlines, the Australian Airports Association and Adelaide airport, which are opposed to any exemption at all. Virgin Blue argued:
… the approach adopted by the government introduces security vulnerabilities and risks to the security framework—
and therefore the travelling public. We should have regard for the views of people who are engaged on a daily basis in the fight against terrorism. Clearly, if a person who is exempt from screening and clearance under legislation can enter a sterile area on board an aircraft whilst in possession of a weapon or a prohibited item, either intentionally or inadvertently, then this poses a risk to security. The committee appears to have reluctantly accepted the advice of department officials, who themselves were acting on the advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Attorney-General, that the amendments are necessary to meet Australia’s international legal obligations in relation to the processing of visiting dignitaries.
In the fight against terrorism, I simply say: let us do what is right for Australia domestically and internationally rather than trying to appease some well-heeled international dignitary who has his or her nose put out of joint because they have to go through the process of security, which every other Australian is expected to do, including politicians—and appropriately so—on a regular basis.
It was pointed out that the changes will not involve a large number of people; it will only create a power to grant an exemption. What is the next exemption? As appears in the second reading amendment, which I will move today, I call on the government to further consult with the aviation industry and unions to take into account their advice before exercising the power to exempt any senior dignitaries from security screening. Of course, such exemptions should only be granted to meet international legal obligations—should we have to have any at all—which were referred to by department officials in their evidence to the Senate committee.
My second concern relates to the introduction of drug and alcohol management and testing programs. I accept that, currently, this is a feature of day-to-day life in many industries. For example, previously, as shadow minister for resources for a couple of years, I went to numerous mining towns where this is a fact of life and so it ought to be. These measures are also appropriately required with respect to the driving of buses and trains in industries such as the public transport industry.
These measures are appropriately required to deliver better safety outcomes to Australian civil aviation and to maintain Australia’s international standing as a leader in aviation safety—something that we have always been proud of and something which we should go out of our way to preserve and protect. According to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau pilot survey on the use of drugs and alcohol, more than 20 per cent of pilots who responded indicated that at some point in the previous year they felt that their safety had been compromised in some way by alcohol, drugs or prescribed medication.
The Hamilton Island air crash in 2002 in which six people lost their lives is believed to have been attributable, at least partly, to drugs and alcohol. Whilst I am broadly supportive of the introduction of drug and alcohol management and testing, I am concerned about the exclusion of certain stakeholders from the consultation process and the development of the detail. In essence, I am arguing that with a fuller consultation process we would have had a better opportunity to actually take everyone with us rather than having to deal with the angst that has been created amongst some stakeholders.
CASA has so far shown some willingness to consult further on implementation details but has not been willing to include the Australian International Pilots Association as formal members of the drug and alcohol project team despite the constructive contributions they have made to the process to date. The Australian International Pilots Association, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots and the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union have all raised issues about the implementation of the drug and alcohol management and testing regime but are broadly supportive of the government’s endeavours. In particular, the AIPA and the LHMU stress the need for an approach based on harm minimisation, education and rehabilitation rather than just punitive measures. Where we have done this in industry, combining the two has proved to be of great success to the employer and the industry and also of great benefit to the workforce and their families. I ask the government to have regard to the second string going to harm minimisation, education and rehabilitation because I think it goes hand in glove with doing proper and thorough testing. I refer to this in the second reading amendment I am going to move. I call on the government to consult further with the aviation industry and the workers’ representatives of the unions and to take into account their advice regarding the practical implementation of the proposed drug and alcohol management and testing regime, because that is what it is about. It is not about a position, but about how you go about implementing it now and taking the workforce with you rather than creating concerns and angst amongst the people on the ground.
The third issue relates to the proposal concerning Customs officers to implement recommendation VI of the Wheeler report, which says:
Given that Customs officers will now be undertaking police-like activities, which I do not question, I think it is important that the powers of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity also be expanded so that it can oversee these activities. Accordingly, I raise this in my speech in the second reading debate as a request for the government to seriously consider. Let me also say that the government could have exercised more haste in acting on the recommendations of the Wheeler report of 2005. I note that there is more to be done with respect to those recommendations. I think the minister should do an audit and report to parliament as to where the full implementation of the Wheeler report is up to. My colleague the member for Brisbane and shadow minister for homeland security will have more to say with respect to this issue.
As we all appreciate, a strong aviation safety and security regime is essential to protect the reputation of the industry and the public which very much supports it. Air travel is safer than other modes of transport per passenger kilometre, and that is not often understood by the Australian or international communities. In 2005, the accident rate was one per 1.3 million flights. The safety of air transport has constantly improved over time and safety will remain the most important driving factor for future aircraft developments.
Aviation, as we appreciate, especially in Australia, is a vital industry not only to Australia but also to the international community. Interestingly, it is an industry that employs more than 50,000 Australians, that contributes around one per cent of GDP and moves 28 million people around the nation every year. It underpins Australia’s $81 billion tourism industry that contributes a further four per cent of GDP and employs another half a million Australian workers directly and almost 900,000 Australians workers indirectly. As we all understand, Australia is a sparsely populated island nation with wide, open spaces and large distances to traverse within the country and to connect us with the rest of the world.
Australia, unlike Europe, does not have alternative transport options or areas that are densely populated and where there are large internal markets for the movement of goods, services and people. Air transport is responsible for 99 per cent of Australia’s international passenger movements each year, with about 18.1 million air passengers entering and leaving Australia. The growth in the industry, for example, is reflected in the fact that the movement of passengers through the Perth airport has doubled over the last three years—obviously due to the resource boom existing in Western Australia and the importance of Western Australia both domestically and internationally to the Australian economy. Further, within Australia, the arrival of low-cost airlines such as Jetstar, Virgin Blue and, now, Tiger have connected Australians to each other and improved access to markets for Australian businesses like never before. We as a community have won as a result of these low-cost carriers. People who never thought about the possibility of flying are now treating it as a realistic opportunity in life.
I also say, because I think it is important that we continue to raise these issues—especially after listening to the early news today in respect of protests next weekend against the further expansion of Heathrow airport—that recent attacks on the aviation industry from those who propose to tax its greenhouse emissions are of great concern to Australia’s future. I consider this is an elitist proposal that would have Australia return to the days when only the rich could afford to travel and it would penalise Australian businesses reliant on air travel to get their product to the world. Adding taxes and limiting access to air travel would send prices through the roof, isolating regional Australia from its city cousins and Australia at large from the rest of the world. This is a concept being heavily pushed in Europe, where distances between destinations are much shorter and rail and road networks provide alternative modes of efficient transport. This is despite the fact that every rail journey in Europe is subsidised by $US3 to $US9, while every air journey contributes $US6 to $US11 to government revenues. The aviation industry actually has a lot to be proud of when it comes to the environment, with innovation and technological advancements to improve efficiency.
I am a little confused as to what part of the bill the member is talking about. Could you refer to it?
It goes to the aviation industry in Australia and its importance to the Australian economy, and the need to have measures to protect it against the threat of terrorism.
I do not think the bill really refers to that, Member for Batman. I think you are wandering from the bill. Could you come back to the bill.
It is drawing a long bow, but the minister understands and appreciates the importance of my comments with respect to these issues. They go to the issue of security in the aviation industry. Because it is an innovative industry looking to the future, it drives economic and social progress. And in terms of the security regime, it is important because it is about the worldwide transportation network, which is essential for global business and tourism. Without a proper security regime, we place global business and tourism at risk. Globally, 25 per cent of all company sales are dependent on air transport and a very efficient security regime. The industry plays a vital role in facilitating economic growth, particularly in developing countries, which have to improve their security regimes. Aviation’s global impact is estimated at $3 billion, equivalent to eight per cent of world gross domestic product, and aviation generates 29 million jobs around the world. Its employment opportunities have actually grown considerably because of the security regime, and the measures that we are putting in place today will create additional jobs in the security industry.
Let us have a further look at the facts when it comes to aviation industry achievements. Whilst we are adding to the cost with the security regime, we have to make savings elsewhere to try and make sure that we are cost efficient—which is also intimately related to this bill, Mr Deputy Speaker, which I think you will appreciate, representing a regional seat dependent on an efficient and highly safe airline industry. Productivity per worker in the industry is very high—3½ times the average for other sectors. There is a highly efficient use of resources and infrastructure. Air transport uses less than one per cent of the land required for transport in the European Union. Air transport covers the shortest distance between two points—generally, 30 per cent below ground transportation means. For decades now, the airline industry has made efficiency improvements of between one and two per cent each year. This might not seem like much, but eliminating a single minute from every flight around the world saves 4.8 million tonnes of greenhouse emissions, which represents a considerable cost and therefore enables us to partly cover the additional costs of the fight against terrorism, as embodied in the provisions of this bill which is before the Committee for debate this morning.
I think this is a big incentive for industry to continue to make these changes, because, as we all appreciate, emissions cost money. With fuel prices at record highs, it is good business to reduce emissions. More so than any industry in Australia, the transport industry has regard, every day of its operations, for the price of oil internationally. It is therefore no coincidence that the financially successful airlines are also often the greenest, as they invest heavily in new aircraft and technologies to burn fuel more efficiently. New aircraft are 70 per cent more fuel efficient than aircraft 40 years ago and 20 per cent more efficient than aircraft 10 years ago. Carbon dioxide emissions have simultaneously been reduced by 50 per cent, while unburned hydrocarbons and smoke have been cut by 90 per cent. Research programs aim to achieve a further 50 per cent fuel and CO2 saving and an 80 per cent reduction in nitrogen oxide by 2020—all therefore enabling the industry to cover the additional costs of security and the fight against terrorism.
The member for Batman will please come back to the point. If he does not, I will have to sit him down. He should know that I am determined to do that.
I am very conscious of the need to look at this bill in an integrated fashion from the point of view of the importance and future of this industry. These are key issues. That is why, appropriately, in the fight against terrorism, the big aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing have regard, in the new aircraft they are inventing, for the additional costs of security that the industry is confronting. That is why, for example, they are now saying that, to assist industry to cover the cost of these security burdens, modern aircraft fuel efficiency of 3.5 litres per 1,000 passenger kilometres, or 67 passenger miles per US gallon, has to be achieved. Interestingly, in terms of the security operation of Sydney airport, we will see within the next six to eight weeks the arrival of the first A380s and the Boeing 787, which have an efficiency target of less than three litres per 1,000 passenger kilometres. They also know that, with bigger planes, there are more security costs because of the security regime covered by the bill before the House today.
The member for Batman keeps using the word ‘security’ but I would like to get him back to the bill.
Security and terrorism go hand in hand.
The member for Batman should understand that I do have the power to sit him down.
And I have about 10 minutes to go, too. Mr Deputy Speaker, I think you are learning from this contribution from the opposition that the air transport industry is very important to the Australian economy. We treat the bill before the House today very seriously, because you cannot have a viable industry without a proper security regime. I have also sought to deal with some of the climate change challenges that confront the aviation industry, because the cost of security represents an additional cost to the industry. The last thing we need, over and above those costs, which are part and parcel of operating in this industry at the moment, is additional unnecessary taxes and policies to shut down Australian industries and destroy Australian jobs via environmental NGOs and Green political parties which have no regard for Australia’s economic future. I know that I have the full agreement of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services on these comments.
The air transport industry will finance the security changes and the associated infrastructure, airport and air navigation services for user charges and also pay taxes to the national Treasury. It is therefore totally misleading to suggest that aviation enjoys taxation privileges when compared to other transport modes. The contrast is starkly illustrated in Europe, where every rail journey is subsidised and every air journey contributes to net government revenue. The entire aviation industry and the travelling public depend on the safest possible approach to our fight against terrorism. But we have to have regard for the costs and the endeavours of others to impose additional costs on an industry which is, more than ever, aggressively competitive both internationally and domestically.
The changes suggested by the government have the support of the opposition, but I will, on behalf of the opposition, be moving a second reading amendment to highlight our concerns about their failure to properly engage with industry in the development of the bill. In doing so, I urge the government to go out of its way to further consult with industry and expressly with the representatives of the workers, the unions—who are committed to the processes—on the implementation of the changes, such as those to do with drug and alcohol testing. We want to make sure that these changes are implemented with proper consultation. There are also some issues from the Wheeler report which the member for Brisbane, the shadow minister for homeland security, will address more fully.
I thank the Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to make a broad-ranging speech on what I regard as a very important industry. It is important not only to Australia but also globally. I ask that he take that message back to his electorate and make sure that they understand the attack on it coming from green NGOs and the European Union. This attack is aimed at crippling the aviation industry in Australia. The European Union is not only about crippling the aviation industry because of a mistaken view about greenhouse emissions. If you go into shops such as Marks and Spencer in Great Britain at the moment, you can see ads suggesting that you should not buy Australian farm produce because there are higher levels of emissions in getting Australian product to market than in getting European product to market. This is a serious debate.
The member for Batman must observe the standing orders. He has been here long enough.
As a person who has always been concerned about regional and rural Australia, I suggest to the Deputy Speaker that he have regard to the broader debate rather than the narrow debate we have sought to confine this to. I commend the bill to the House and formally move the second reading amendment. I move:
That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House condemns the Government for creating an exemption mechanism for senior dignitaries rather than using the case by case mechanism already existing for security screening and calls on the government to:
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment.
I thank the member for Brisbane. The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Batman has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
I am very pleased to be following the member for Batman in this debate. It is fair to say that the member for Batman has been a fierce advocate for Australian industry and for jobs in Australia and that he understands the transport sector better than any other person in this place. It is not surprising that he would make a contribution along the lines that he just has.
I will be addressing principally the matters contained in the second reading amendment just moved by the member for Batman and seconded by me. Let me refer at the outset to the part of the second reading amendment dealing with the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, ACLEI. When ACLEI was created, my colleague in the Senate Senator Ludwig made the point that Labor regards it as a very important addition to the framework of Australian government. We also made it clear that we think all bodies that have law enforcement type activities should be subject to the oversight of ACLEI, not just a narrow group of law enforcement agencies. At the time, reference was made to Customs, and it is that point which is picked up in this second reading amendment. As has been noted, Customs officers are now often armed. They undertake quasi law enforcement activities, not just in airports but more broadly. We have armed Customs officers on vessels in waters around Australia. We think it is appropriate that the government review the operation of ACLEI and ensure that those agencies who in the normal course of their activities behave in a law enforcement way are also subject to the oversight of that law enforcement integrity body.
I am particularly concerned at the fact that this government has been slow to act in providing adequate security for the Australian aviation industry in the aftermath of 9-11. After 11 September 2001, it took the government some four years before they finally decided to bring in someone from overseas to address security issues and to do a full review of the situation. The Australian people could be well justified in asking, firstly, why it took four years for a major review like that undertaken by Sir John Wheeler to occur and, secondly, why it was that we needed to get someone from overseas to come and do the job in the first place.
The government have defined, redefined and rearranged the role of the Inspector of Transport Security. Different ministers have ascribed different tasks to it. We know that the position is filled on a temporary basis. Indeed, it is very temporary; the number of days for which that person has been engaged was put on the public record during Senate estimates. Last time I looked—and I have to confess the figures I saw were for 12 months ago—it was somewhere in the order of about a day a week.
The government spent four years with an Inspector of Transport Security who was well qualified to do the task—a person well suited to the job. There is a significant amount of expertise within the Office of Transport Security, yet four years after the 11 September tragedy there were still major shortcomings in Australian aviation security—so much so that, when Sir John Wheeler delivered his report, it was a chronicle of what is wrong, not what is right.
The government have for some time been claiming that all of the recommendations of the Wheeler report have been implemented. There are statements from ministers going back well into last year where they asserted that. Of course, that is not true. In fact, the existence of this legislation demonstrates that it is not true. More importantly, there are major flaws in our security which were highlighted by Sir John Wheeler in his report but which this government, to this day, have failed to deal with. I want to mention a couple of those. They are serious matters, which Labor has commented on inside and outside this parliament on many occasions, and yet they continue to go unaddressed by this government.
The Wheeler report, in the executive summary, on page xiv, said:
... in the current environment, consideration should be given to more comprehensive security control over regional flight passengers when arriving at major airports such as Sydney because of the risk to larger aircraft and facilities when passengers disembark at the apron.
Elsewhere in the report, at page 50, Sir John Wheeler noted:
... the Review noted the vulnerability of current arrangements as they relate to unscreened passengers on some regional regular public transport aircraft arriving at major airports such as Sydney and Melbourne with access to the apron and parked jet aircraft prior to screening.
It could not be clearer. Two years ago, in two separate parts of the report, Sir John Wheeler told the government what they should have known four years earlier: that it is not a good idea to have people who have never been screened, carrying baggage that has never been screened, hopping off in Sydney, Melbourne and other counterterrorism first response airports—at least the major capital city airports—with no effort being made to determine what they have on their bodies or what they have in their cabin luggage. They could have weapons, explosives or a range of things. No effort is made to check what they are carrying if they happen to arrive on a propeller flight from regional Australia unless there happens to have been a jet plane on the tarmac being loaded at the time they were being loaded.
There are something like 900 flights every week that fit that category. There are about 900 flights a week from regional Australia directly to our capital cities, where passengers get off a flight without having been screened. The screening equipment in most cases is actually at the airport; it is just not used for those passengers. It is not a problem of capital infrastructure. It is not a problem of lack of staff trained for the purpose. It exists in those airports. You can go to Dubbo, Wagga Wagga or Ballina and see that there is equipment in those airports to screen passengers, but the government just do not bother doing it. They do not put in place the requirement that it be done.
Sir John Wheeler told the government two years ago that he thinks this is a problem and that the government should have a close look at it, but as we stand here today it is not being addressed. There is no excuse for that. That is poor management. That is poor leadership. That is incompetence. That is dereliction of duty. The simple fact is that, when it comes to so many of these areas of security, as I commented on a bill before the House just a while ago, the government behave as a picture of panic in slow motion. It is all abuzz, it is all important, but nothing happens. It moves at a snail’s pace. I commented once before in relation to a security matter that the government moved like snails on Mogadon in trying to fix the problem—and this is just another example of it. Why, at the end of 2007, are we even having a debate about the need to fix a problem which Sir John Wheeler said two years ago required some attention?
I have a related concern that mystifies people in the industry as well as the Australian public. The government quite sensibly and properly decided to distribute hand-held metal detection wands to a large number of airports around Australia and ensured that there were some people in those airports trained to use them. That is a good thing. That was something we supported. People have been trained to use them. Yet the government put in place a regulation that makes it illegal for airport operators or airlines to use those hand-held wands unless there is a specific instruction from the head of the transport department to do it. So the wands are kept under lock and key in cupboards in the airports while passengers hop on to planes, carrying bags, without anybody even checking them. If someone goes to the cupboard and gets the wand out, they are breaking the law unless they have an instruction from the secretary of the department to do it. We have raised this in the parliament. I asked a question of the former minister in question time about it, and still that problem exists. When I talk to people in the community about this, they just shake their head with disbelief that such a situation could prevail—but it does. I would be interested in the minister’s response in this debate as to why these things occur. Indeed, the minister might like to tell us why at his own home airport in Taree they do not screen.
There are inexplicable holes. Just recently in the budget the government announced a quite significant cost rollout for checked baggage screening at a lot of regional airports. Why would you do that—and I have no problem with the government doing that—and then allow people to hop on a plane leaving the same airport without necessarily checking their luggage? The government seem to have the view that criminals, terrorists and people who want to do nasty things only fly on jet planes. I seem to remember a few years ago that they thought terrorists did not come on planes at all; they thought they came on leaky boats and pretended to be refugees. Now they think the opposite of that: they do not come as refugees on leaky boats; they come on jet planes only. Most people in Australia have a different view about that and it is time those things were properly addressed.
The industry wants these things addressed because the cost to industry, when these systems fail, is substantial. At the end of last year—if memory serves me correctly, it was around the middle of November—there was a flight from Wagga Wagga to Sydney. The plane was one of those propeller aircrafts for which passengers were not screened. The proper process required them to get off at the tarmac in Sydney—mind you, they could have been carrying weapons, explosives or anything else while they were on the tarmac and could have done what they wanted to do—and be marshalled to a section of the airport where they would go through a screening gate and up into the secure part of the terminal. But a mistake was made and they went through the wrong door. It was realised after they had gone through the wrong door that there were all these people who had never been screened roaming around the secure side of the airport. That resulted in that part of the airport having to be completely evacuated and everybody having to go back through the screening process. I know that the cost of that one incident to one airline was in the vicinity of a quarter of a million dollars. There is a cost to industry because of these poor practices, and there is no excuse for the poor practices.
Very shortly Australia will be playing host to APEC. We already are. There are lead-up activities to the APEC forum on now. Sydney will be host to that. Sydney airport is our major airport. These problems I am describing have occurred at Sydney airport and they continue to occur. There is another problem that occurs at Sydney airport, and it was recognised by Sir John Wheeler too. We had an incident last year at Sydney airport where two vehicles went through a boom gate checkpoint when only one was authorised to do so. The travelling public in Sydney airport were very fortunate because the incident was not a terrorist or serious criminal activity; it was an act of road rage. The first vehicle had a pass and authorisation to go through. The second vehicle, in an act of road rage, followed it. Thankfully, it was only road rage, but you get the point: it could have been something more serious.
This was foreseeable. Not only was it foreseeable, it was something Sir John Wheeler identified. Sir John Wheeler’s report specifically makes mention of the problems of vehicles being able to tailgate through perimeter security at airports. At our largest airport, supposedly our most secure airport, the only thing stopping vehicles entering at the key entry points is a single boom gate, and, like most boom gates, it stays up long enough for more than one vehicle to travel through.
It is nothing like we have here at Parliament House. When it came to protecting precious us in this Parliament House and looking at how we were going to restrict vehicle access to the House of Representatives entrance, the Senate entrance and the ministerial entrance, we did not put in a boom gate that allowed multiple vehicles to enter. We put in bollards that ensured that only one vehicle at a time can pass the security checkpoint. But when it comes to the high-profile area of aviation security, target of choice for terrorists for some years, we do not bother imposing the same sort of security, even when the government’s own security expert Sir John Wheeler puts it in his report as one of the problems that needs to be addressed.
There are other examples I could give of issues that Sir John Wheeler raised in his report that needed review that have not been attended to, but time is up for excuses. Time is up for saying, ‘We have implemented all the recommendations’ when clearly you have not. The government have got to take a reality check on this and fess up to the fact that they have not addressed the concerns that Sir John Wheeler identified. Instead of making excuses or hoping that political spin will see them through, the government need to implement the sensible, practical measures that make the aviation industry safer and more secure. Sadly, they have failed to do that for six years since the world aviation industry started to focus at a new, heightened level on these problems.
Having been in the position of shadow minister for homeland security for a few years now, I take no comfort repeating here today the very problems I have raised inside and outside of this parliament on a number of occasions. I get seriously worried about an incident happening and, for the life of me, I do not know why these things are not fixed. With the best of security, with the best of effort and with the best of management none of us can guarantee that an incident will not occur, and we all understand that. What you can do is make sure that the known problems are addressed, particularly when the known problems can be addressed in a manner that does not impose any significant economic or other costs on the industry or people involved.
The examples I have given all fit that category. These are not issues that are hard to address; they just require a bit of focus. They require some decent management and they require some outcomes. It is time that those problems were fixed, and I would welcome a commitment from the minister that these issues will be addressed. I seriously hope that they have been addressed, at least in respect of Sydney airport over the next month or so while APEC is on. The prospect of somebody with weapons or explosives getting off one of those small aircraft from Wagga Wagga—or from one of the many other regional centres that fly aircraft directly into Sydney—and onto the tarmac on the secure side of the airport, with jet aircraft in the same airport and in the same vicinity carrying heads of government and other people, is alarming.
I would like to be assured that at least these problems have been addressed insofar as Sydney is concerned for the period of APEC. But we need to do better than that. We need to fix these problems systemically, and I strongly encourage the minister to do that. Sadly, the administration of some of these things has been wanting. I have raised in the parliament my concerns about the administration of ASICs. We know from testimony again—and this testimony is 12 months old, so I assume the figure is now substantially more—that around 380-odd ASICs that were lost are unaccounted for. The ASIC is the principal means by which people gain entry. There are things that you can do to ameliorate that, but it is not a good thing to have 300 or 400 of your principal security cards for access to an airport—in the order of 15,000 or 16,000 of them had been issued at the time—gone missing. That does not instil confidence in the community that these matters are being properly addressed.
I remember referring in this parliament to the experiences of one of the private pilots who, from memory, was vice-president of the association at the time and who, when he went to get his aviation security identification card here in Canberra, was left alone in an office and told, ‘Here’s the box; find yours.’ So he picked his out and, as he wrote in the aviation journal at the time, he could have picked up anybody’s or any number. That is the high-security card that pilots, ground crews and others use to get access to the secure side of airports.
This has not been world’s best practice aviation security implementation by this government. It has been appalling. There has been a combination of good luck and good management. I should in fairness say that there have been a number of changes made which have improved security and which the opposition supports. I do not want to paint a picture that people have been sitting on their hands; that is not true. A lot of good things have happened, but there have been inexplicable failures and it is time that the government addressed those failures and gave up the pretence of saying, ‘We’ve done all the things Sir John Wheeler said needed to be done,’ because clearly they have not. We should give up the pretence that political spin alone will see them through on this. This is more important than political spin. This is about people’s safety and security. So get it right, get it right now and please tell me that those things that I have raised are going to be addressed, at least in respect of Sydney, some time in the next week, if they have not already been done in recent days.
I thank honourable members for their contributions to the debate on this bill and I would also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport for their attention and input—in particular, in relation to the screening and clearing of dignitaries and their consideration of a proposed new section for interference with the operations of a security controlled airport by persons outside the boundary of that airport. Aviation security is a very high priority for our government, as we continue to say. It is under constant review to ensure that the regulatory framework is responsive to changing threats to the Australian aviation industry. As has been highlighted by the contributions from the other side, we do maintain the arrangements under constant review. We are responding to the recommendations that have been outlined in the Wheeler review. To date we have spent about $886 million implementing the Wheeler recommendations. Implementation of some aspects of the Wheeler review is going to take some time. It is not just a matter of making a decision, spending the money and then they are implemented on that day. There are issues where agencies are improving their cooperation and improving the sharing of intelligence which will take time to achieve. But certainly we are absolutely focused on implementing those Wheeler review recommendations.
The other aspect that the shadow minister reflected on is the operation of the Office of Transport Security and the inspector in that position. Of course, we want to respond to circumstances to ensure that there are not systemic failings in the system. There are always going to be one-off issues, and the shadow minister referenced one which answered his question with regard to regional carriers coming into Sydney. There was another one in Melbourne yesterday morning where, inadvertently, a contractor in the airport came back through an entry point to hand some keys back to someone but stayed air side, causing a perceived security breach. So the whole place was put on alert to screen everybody on that side in the secure area. Those circumstances will occur from time to time. We need to be prepared to respond to them in that manner, as in Melbourne yesterday and as occurs in Sydney where people arriving from an unscreened circumstance at a regional airport on a turboprop RPT operation are marshalled at the steps of the aircraft. They are accompanied by secure persons from there on a bus into an area that is outside the secure area in the airport.
The shadow minister gave the example of a busload of passengers being delivered through the wrong door. Obviously, the response to that is that everybody in the secure area must be rescreened. Those circumstances may arise from time to time, no matter how much effort is put in. But certainly the intention is that people on regional RPTs who are coming into airports from unscreened regional airports go into an unscreened area. They are not allowed to go into the screened secure area at Sydney airport; therefore, they are not near any of those higher target operations of the jet passenger services.
These amendments are about the continuing job of improving and focusing on our aviation transport security. Firstly, of the four amendments, the Aviation Transport Security Act is amended so that regulations can be made to prohibit activities or conduct taking place outside airport boundaries which disrupt or interfere with the operations of a security controlled airport—in particular, shining a laser device through the airport fence at an aircraft. Examples of this conduct have occurred. It is a highly dangerous act; it is a very irresponsible act. I appreciate the comment made by the member for Batman, who said that we do not want to highlight this in the broader community—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.
Is the member for Lyne willing to give way?
Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker.
By way of supporting what the member for Batman said, can the minister advise me how long the jail term is for people who do these kinds of acts, such as shining lasers into the cockpits of aircraft, or what kinds of measures already exist—Wheeler or not—even in a general way?
I will get some information for you. I will just finish my comments. I am just responding to the issues which have been raised by members of the opposition, particularly the points raised in the amendment, which obviously the government will not accept because we have already addressed these issues. You highlight the significance of this as a current issue. It is only an offence from within the airport boundaries, but certainly it also needs to be an offence from outside. The amendment will also provide a clearer basis for prohibiting conduct within an airport which can lead to serious disruption, such as leaving baggage unattended in a public area of an airport. The new regulation-making power does not extend to disruptive activity which forms part of the normal and usual operations of an airport or airline as a place of business, such as lawful industrial action by airport or airline employees.
The amendment to aviation security screening exemptions for some dignitaries reflects a balance between Australia’s international legal obligations and security outcomes. The amendment will provide flexibility only to exempt dignitaries, most, if not all, of whom would be expected to enjoy privileges and immunities under international treaty obligations that we are already bound to comply with. The actual list of persons who might be exempt will be determined by the government, following consultation and advice from relevant agencies. The amendment that the Labor Party has moved calls for further consultation. That consultation will take place in developing and putting into regulation that list of people who will be exempt from screening. Any airline still has the ultimate right to determine which passengers it will carry and under what conditions.
The Aviation Transport Security Act now contains further powers for Australian Customs officers at airports and implements one of the recommendations from the aviation security report by Sir John Wheeler. Again, in response to one of the amendments which have been moved by the Labor Party, the first amendment to the Civil Aviation Act covers dangerous acts committed by a person on the ground or on board an aircraft, having particular regard to the direction of laser beams at aircraft. The second amendment to the Civil Aviation Act provides new powers to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to enable it to implement a new drug and alcohol regime for the civil aviation sector. This amendment will provide safety benefits for both aviation workers and the broader community by appropriately addressing the risk of impaired aviation personnel.
Lastly, there are also amendments to the Aviation Transport Security Act that include enhancements to the transport security program regime. These amendments are consistent with requirements contained in the maritime regime. One of the comments by the member for Batman was with regard to drug and alcohol testing. I do not think that there would be an area of transport security that is more important than this. This bill moves it down into the general aviation area, and I outlined how that was going to work. The member for Batman made the point that there needs to be broader consultation because there have been experiences in other workplaces. That is fine, and we think that we have undertaken all of that consultation. But the member made the point that it should be on the basis of harm minimisation. We do not believe that. We believe that it should be on the basis of zero tolerance. There should be no tolerance of any abuse of alcohol or drugs, not necessarily just by people who are in command of RPT operations but by people involved in GA operations that might have an impediment if, say, they are operating in and out of the same airport as an RPT operation. There should be zero tolerance in this area as far as drug and alcohol testing is concerned for people who are in charge of aircraft that might have to interact with RPT operations in major airports across Australia.
The other point that I want to respond to—and I have mentioned the effort that the government has put into it and the amount of money that has been spent on responding to the Wheeler review and its 17 recommendations—relates to the last part of the amendment moved by the opposition regarding expanding the powers of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement and Integrity. The government takes the view that the key issue in combating corruption is ensuring that the core law enforcement agencies maintain the highest standards of integrity. Those bodies are free of corruption. They are in a good position to ensure that allegations of corruption in other agencies are effectively investigated. The government is not persuaded that there is a need for the Integrity Commissioner to have a jurisdiction going beyond the ACC and the AFP, but, if there is a clearly demonstrated need, the act provides for jurisdiction to extend by regulation over other Australian government agencies. We are trying to ensure that there is a bit of extra flexibility so that Customs officers who might be working in that part of a secure airport area which is not being covered by the AFP have certain powers to be able to ensure that their security responsibilities can be discharged at that particular point.
In conclusion, in response to the point raised by the member for Melbourne Ports with regard to laser offences, I am advised that the penalties that apply are up to two years imprisonment under the Civil Aviation Act and a $5,500 fine under the Aviation Transport Security Act for offences that occur under that act. Those penalties apply to offences that occur within the boundary of an airport. As a result of this amendment, we are going to extend that so that offences outside of the boundary of an airport can be proved. So there are penalties and compliance mechanisms, and they are two years imprisonment or a $5,500 fine. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.
Debate resumed from 14 June, on motion by Mr Ruddock:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I rise to speak on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2007. In March 2005, the government appointed Anthony Blunn AO, a former Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department, to undertake a review of the regulation of access to communications under the Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1979. The report on the review of the regulation, the Blunn report, was tabled in parliament on 14 September 2005 and recommended that legislation dealing with access to telecommunications data for security and law enforcement purposes be established. The Blunn report included public submissions and consultations with security and law enforcement agencies, the telecommunications industry, privacy organisations and individuals. The Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Act 2006 implemented the first stage of the legislative amendments.
This bill will amend the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, the T(IA) Act, to implement further recommendations from the Blunn report. It will transfer relevant provisions of the Telecommunications Act 1997 to the T(IA) Act and will provide comprehensive and overriding legislation that regulates access to telecommunications data for national security and law enforcement purposes, which Labor welcomes.
The bill also contains a number of additional amendments to the operations of the existing T(IA) Act which Labor supports, including ensuring that interception warrants are available in relation to the investigation of any offence relating to child pornography regardless of the maximum term of imprisonment that may be imposed by state and territory criminal law; widening the definition of ‘exempt proceedings’ to allow disclosures for the purposes of proceedings in relation to the Spam Act 2003 and enabling the use of this evidence in court proceedings; implementing, in part, recommendation 24 of the Blunn report which recommended allowing access to the content of communications for the protection of data systems and the development of testing of new technologies; and a number of other minor amendments that generally improve operational efficiency.
The key purpose of schedule 1 in the bill is to transfer security and law enforcement provisions from parts 13, 14 and 15 of the Telecommunications Act to the T(IA) Act. Schedule 1, item 12 also inserts a new chapter 4, which deals with access to telecommunications data. The amendments establish a regime for particular officers of ASIO or an enforcement agency to lawfully authorise the disclosure of telecommunications data without breaching the general prohibitions on the disclosure of that data that exist within existing sections 276, 277 and 278 of the Telecommunications Act. The new chapter 4 transfers sections 282 and 283 of the Telecommunications Act to the T(IA) Act. The basis for lawful access will depend on whether the authorising body is ASIO, a criminal law enforcement agency or an enforcement agency.
The new provisions distinguish between access to historical telecommunications data—that is, data which is already in existence at the time of the request—and prospective data—that is, data that is collected as it is created and forwarded to the agency in near real time. Access to prospective telecommunications data is only available to ASIO or criminal law enforcement agencies because of the high privacy applications of this type of access. The key amendments are contained in part 1. Those amendments create a new two-tier access regime. The first tier encompasses the traditional access to existing telecommunications data. These agencies are defined as enforcement agencies. The second tier, which would be limited to a narrower range of agencies—that is, the criminal law enforcement agencies—would require a higher threshold of authorisation, allowing for future access to telecommunications data, and that is covered in proposed sections 176 and 180. The need to distinguish between historical and prospective data is a reflection of the advances in technology which enable the use of telecommunications data to provide, amongst other things, location information.
To reflect the increased privacy implications of access to prospective data, three more restrictive conditions are attached to these authorisations: firstly, restricting the disclosure of prospective telecommunications data to an authorised officer of a criminal law enforcement agency for the investigation of offences which attract a maximum term of imprisonment of at least three years; secondly, limiting the time frame for which an authorisation may be enforced to 45 days for criminal law enforcement agencies, under proposed section 180, and 90 days for ASIO, under proposed section 176; and, thirdly, requiring the authorising officer to have regard to the impact of the authorisation on the privacy of the individual concerned.
The bill also deals with voluntary disclosures of telecommunications data by employees of carriers or carriage service providers to ASIO and to enforcement agencies. These provisions make it clear that they only apply in the case of voluntary disclosures and that requests from agencies must be dealt with under proposed sections 175, 176 and 178 through to 180. There are certain safeguards set out in the bill in relation to access to telecommunications data: authorisations must be retained for a period of three years; the head of an enforcement agency must report on the number of authorisations to the minister on an annual basis; and this report must be tabled in the parliament. Transparency provisions of that kind are particularly important in matters like this.
The bill amends the Telecommunications Act by also inserting proposed section 306A. This provision is based on the existing record-keeping arrangements for the disclosure of historical telecommunications data. The proposed section provides for the records of prospective authorisations made under the T(IA) Act that are to be kept by carriers, carriage service providers and number database operators. The bill also provides for an offence for unlawful disclosure or use, including secondary use and disclosure, of telecommunications data.
Schedule 1, item 12, inserts a new chapter 5, which deals with cooperation with interception agencies. It requires carriers and carriage service providers to ensure that communications carried over the telecommunications systems are capable of being intercepted. The bill deals with the obligation on carriers that the intercepted information is capable of being delivered to interception agencies from a delivery point. The Attorney-General’s office advised that, although the above arrangements already exist under the Telecommunications Act of 1997, they are being transferred to the T(IA) Act. The legislation will remain valid within the Telecommunications Act for a transitional period and will then be repealed, although the Attorney-General’s office have not yet specifically identified the length of that transitional period. They may be in a position to provide some further advice today on that.
The Attorney-General may make written determinations on the interception capability of certain carriage services under proposed section 189. The new post of Communications Access Co-ordinator is defined by this bill. That person may grant exemptions to any interception capability obligation under proposed section 192. ACMA can also grant exemptions for trial services under proposed section 193. Carriers also have to prepare and submit an annual interception capability plan in accordance with the bill. The plans will now be lodged with the CAC rather than with ACMA.
The bill also inserts new item 12 in schedule 1, which states that various instruments are not legislative instruments. The Scrutiny of Bills Committee noted that, in each case, the explanatory memorandum states that the reason these exemptions are not legislative instruments is that the relevant documents contain sensitive and confidential information. For example, in respect of the instrument referred to in proposed section 192(4), the explanatory memorandum explains that, if the documents were not kept confidential, the limitations of interception capability and by implication how to avoid interception could become publicly apparent.
However, the committee did point out inconsistencies in the explanatory memorandum, which refers to exemptions granted by ACMA under proposed section 193(1) as administrative in nature. The committee queried:
... why, despite appearing to be very similar provisions, the exemption provided for under proposed new subsection 192(1) is considered to be legislative in character but the exemption provided for in proposed new subsection 193(1) is considered administrative in nature.
Again I invite the minister in his reply to comment on that or the Attorney-General’s office to consider that and provide some advice to the parliament or my office in due course. The Scrutiny of Bills Committee has sought the Attorney-General’s advice as to whether the exemption under the proposed section is administrative and should be subjected to review under the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. We await the Attorney-General’s response.
Schedule 2 amends the act to ensure that the list of serious offences for which interception warrants may be sought includes all child pornography offences, whether or not the penalty for such an offence is imprisonment for at least seven years. Child pornography offences are already defined as serious offences by the act but only where the maximum penalty is imprisonment for at least seven years.
In relation to the Spam Act, the T(IA) Act provides that interception material can be used as evidence in an exempt proceeding. Schedule 2, item 5 widens the definition of ‘exempt proceedings’ to allow disclosures for the purposes of proceedings in relation to the Spam Act 2003. This amendment is consistent with the intention of recommendation 17 of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs report on the bill.
The bill contains several amendments to partially implement recommendation 24 of the Blunn review, which recommended allowing access to the content of communications for the protection of data systems and the development or testing of new technologies. The bill will allow the Attorney-General to authorise interception for developing and testing capabilities, subject to conditions and only by security authority. A ‘security authority’ is defined in schedule 2, proposed section 3, subsection 5(1) as:
... an authority of the Commonwealth that has functions primarily relating to:
The bill also contains provisions concerning the definition of ‘passing over the telecommunications system’ for the purpose of a computer network operated by or on behalf of the Australian Federal Police. People who operate, protect or maintain the network or are responsible for the enforcement of professional standards in the AFP are treated as intended recipients so that their monitoring of outbound and inbound communications is not unlawful. These provisions were inserted by the 2006 amendment and were subject to a two-year sunset clause. The Attorney-General’s office has advised that the two-year sunset clause will also apply to the proposed amendments inserted in this amended bill.
Items 11 and 12 would expand the number of agencies eligible for exemption under subsection 5F(2) and 5G(2) to cover Commonwealth agencies—that is, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity and the Australian Crime Commission; security authorities—that is, ASIO, the Department of Defence and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and eligible authorities of the states—and that would include integrity, crime commission and police forces, as well as the AFP, which is currently exempt. This amendment would increase the number of agencies which can monitor all outbound and inbound communications for the purposes of enforcing those professional standards.
The bill was reviewed by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. The committee handed down its report on 1 August 2007 and made a number of recommendations. I will refer to some of those now. At paragraph 3.77 the committee recommended:
... that proposed paragraph 5(1)(m) of the Bill be deleted to remove CrimTrac from the definition of ‘enforcement agency’.
That was a matter that we looked at with some interest. However, it is not proposed to move an amendment in relation to that. Whilst acknowledging that CrimTrac does not have the investigative powers of a traditional enforcement or security agency, we note that CrimTrac does play a vital specialist role in assisting law enforcement. It is for this reason that we think it should remain within the bill’s definition of an enforcement agency.
CrimTrac is a Commonwealth executive agency set up to develop, involve and manage advanced information systems that assist Australian police to carry out their law enforcement and crime prevention roles. By generating national approaches to information sharing solutions for law enforcement, CrimTrac is able to enhance Australian policing through the provision of high-quality information services that meet the needs of the policing community. Since November 2004, CrimTrac has been brokering Sensis Direct Access information on behalf of all policing jurisdictions and other criminal law enforcement agencies to provide them with pertinent information about telephone subscriptions when investigating, preventing and prosecuting criminal offences. Access to this information is governed by various processes and procedures according to the law enforcement agency requesting the information.
Enforcement of criminal law covers a wide spectrum of activities and depends on the organisation to which the investigator belongs. CrimTrac currently brokers that on behalf of all policing jurisdictions across Australia, including the AFP. In addition, CrimTrac also brokers telecommunications data on behalf of a number of other law enforcement agencies: the Customs Service, the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption, the Crime and Misconduct Commission of Queensland, the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The current application used by CrimTrac is a simple forward/reverse and address based search on behalf of those law enforcement agencies.
By undertaking these activities, CrimTrac ensures that all organisations are legitimately entitled to have access before approving individuals on a case-by-case basis. Access is granted to individuals, not organisations, work units or teams, according to their responsibility and rank.
In addition to this, all jurisdictions and other criminal law enforcement agencies have specific protocols and policy relating to additional approval and security levels. These additional specific protocols and policy relating to additional approval and security have an added authorisation for checks from the commissioned officer level status. Checks made by jurisdictions are subject to full security audit capabilities. All application use is logged to standards accepted by police and law enforcement agencies. This includes security and audit applications that have the capability to recreate what each user accessed, and these can then be recreated for evidential purposes in court.
As a result of the CrimTrac agency brokering of information from Sensis Direct Access, CrimTrac ensures that the jurisdictions and other law enforcement agencies are not required to commit to the development, establishment and ongoing support costs associated with the individual interfaces. That is a sensible thing which we support. In addition to this, CrimTrac, on behalf of the jurisdictions and other law enforcement agencies, has been in a better position to negotiate competitive transaction costs through the economies of scale. Their brokerage of information to law enforcement agencies is done via appropriate security level classifications within the AFP network, with the server being housed within the Defence Computer Bureau. In fact, CrimTrac has taken almost one year to establish and develop that current interface. The system has been used in all jurisdictions and has clearly proved beneficial. We therefore think its inclusion in the bill is appropriate.
The committee also recommended that the determination of the communications access coordinator under proposed subsection 183(2) address requirements for the consideration and documentation of privacy issues by authorised officers. We are not proposing to move an amendment in relation to that matter. The committee acknowledged that the department’s concern that seeking to provide that guidance within the bill is likely to be impractical given the range of circumstances confronting officers was a fair point, and we have taken that on board. Also, the committee recommended that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security incorporate into his regular inspection program the oversight of the use of powers to obtain prospective telecommunications data by the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation.
We note that the IGIS has broad powers to incorporate oversight of these matters contained in this bill, and indeed the advice we have received from the Attorney-General’s office is that these powers are not impinged upon in any way by this bill. The committee itself noted advice from the department that the existing powers of the IGIS would permit such inspections. Having not long ago met with the IGIS, I am confident that his office will continue to monitor and inspect not only these matters but all significant activities of ASIO, and we are not proposing to proceed with an amendment on that matter, either.
The committee also recommended that the Attorney-General’s Department arrange for an independent review of the operations of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 within five years. The committee accepted the view of the government that it is unnecessary to amend the bill to require such a review—though I would anticipate that the parliament, irrespective of the election outcome, would want to keep a close eye on the operation of this bill and may well want to have a look at it somewhere in the time frame that the committee recommended. However, we accept, as the committee did, the point that is being made and we are not proposing to move an amendment in respect of that matter. The measures that are contained in the bill are, in the view of the opposition, fair and reasonable in the circumstances, and we support the bill.
The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2007 is important legislation. It is representative of the demands that government must meet in protecting the Australian people in the war on terror and in protecting the younger side of our community from the activities of those who distribute child pornography via telecommunications, which leads to attacks on children and other most despicable things.
The legislation is also the result of the government seeking expert advice on these matters from a leading international expert, Mr Blunn, who recommended the processes that this bill will put in place. The advice was that it has now become apparent that what was once a small part of the Telecommunications Act, in which there was a provision for interception, now requires an entire act. This will enable our various law enforcement agencies wider access to telecommunications, accepting that telecommunication has come a long way from a hardwire telephone and accepting that what was once required by law enforcement agencies to track down some criminal doing theft or fraud is now required for other things. Suddenly, we are looking at people who are prepared to use terrorism against the community, and they have to communicate from time to time.
It is interesting that the advent of mobile telephones has been good news and bad news for law enforcement authorities and agencies. Once one knows, through interception, whom one wants to know the whereabouts of, mobile phone can give that information. On the other side, through the use of prepaid SIM cards and this matter attracted public attention just recently—criminals and people planning terror can give themselves not so much a false identity as almost a vacuum of identity. That is the phrase that comes to mind.
It was quite amazing to me that the media approach was focused upon where a certain SIM card was left in the United Kingdom by a person who was here in Australia. It was suggested that maybe it was in a car that burnt to pieces. One might wonder where you were going to find it in that vehicle. But I did not think that was the problem. The problem was that the card was still in existence after 12 months. It certainly was not kept for 12 months to expend the accumulated cash value that was in the card, because if that was the case it would not have lasted very long. Clearly, it was being retained by someone who wanted to make phone calls that would be difficult to trace by interception. It is worth putting that matter on the record.
This bill will complete the circumstances of transferring certain provisions from the Telecommunications Act to special legislation—that is, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, otherwise referred to as the T(IA) Act. I am advised by the explanatory memorandum that this bill will transfer those relevant provisions at the conclusion of this matter. I welcome the support of the opposition in this matter. People obliged to use these powers will have a single act to which they can refer. They will be able to see in the fairly clear provisions the impositions or controls that are placed upon them to ensure that privacy is protected to the extent that people are entitled to protection.
I see from the explanatory memorandum that the bill will:
The EM continues:
This Bill will also improve the effectiveness of the Australian telecommunications access regime by:
One can see how important that particular provision is when one considers the speed, the rapidity, with which the technology of the telecommunications industry advances. The EM continues:
That, of course, has significant reference to child pornography, which I have mentioned already. Might I say, the more that we are able to control spam when we are trying to do our daily business, the more pleasant I will find it. I am not one of the leaders in computer adequacy. However, with two offices 1,000 kilometres apart, I rely on both of them feeding information into my computer, from which I am able to print letters and all those things. The first thing I have to do is clear the spam, although I have been helped with regard to no longer receiving pornographic spam because, apparently, I now have a blocker on the computer which takes away a lot of those things. More particularly, as the second reading speech advises us, the main area of focus of the legislation is child pornography—and so it should be. That is just the lowest of the low. Unfortunately, as I have said, that in itself leads to direct attacks on young children, and that is just unbelievable.
The explanatory memorandum tells us that the bill will also improve the effectiveness of the telecommunications access regime by:
It is interesting to note that the financial impact statement says that there will be no cost to the taxpayer with regard to these matters, but no doubt the telecommunications companies will find costs involved in assisting law agencies in this regard.
As I said, this is not the sort of legislation that should be controversial. We all regret this increasing invasion of public privacy, but it is always the case of the lesser of two evils. The world has changed so much in recent times that there is no doubt that we must give our law enforcement agencies the legislative power necessary to engage with criminal and terrorist elements, as they have been doing. It is worthy of note that there are cases before the courts at present that are based almost entirely on interception. Fortunately, the agencies were able to identify the people whose phones they had intercepted and, it appears from media reporting, accumulate a large body of evidence to present to the courts. It is also a matter of some of the provisions existing in the act prior to these amendments relating to the rules by which an interception can be approved. It is not laissez faire; it is a situation where approvals must be granted. This amendment adds to the reporting requirements—that is another matter of importance. It is a case of making sure that the agencies have speedy access to an interception regime, but that there is a process that ensures that it is not abused.
I strongly support this legislation. I have already said that I welcome the contribution of the opposition on this matter. I trust that the provisions in this special legislation are such that they will assist our agencies in protecting the Australian community.
With the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2007, we are trying to achieve a single comprehensive legislative regime dealing with telecommunications information and enforcement processes. The bill transfers key security and law enforcement provisions from the Telecommunications Act to the interception act. The transferred provisions relate to access to telecommunications data—the provision of regulating telecommunications industry interception obligations. In doing so, the bill creates a clearer regime for accessing telecommunications data for national security and for law enforcement purposes. I am sure we do not have to stress that point.
Following on from the original bombings in London and the more recent wave of largely foiled bombings and the event in Scotland, where an attempt was made to breach airport security, British enforcement agencies were able to track down a number of the people responsible by way of their phone calls. These phone calls gave the police and security people the opportunity to nail people who were known associates of the bombers and would-be bombers. We need to have a regime in Australia that allows us to act decisively and promptly when we have a similar circumstance. I know that the Dr Haneef matter is somewhat contested but, nevertheless, the fact that his SIM card was made available to someone else was able to be detected. I suppose it shows, if nothing else, that our security enforcement people are able to link up certain people and at least test whether they are part of a network that could cause mayhem in our country or in a country friendly to ours, such as the United Kingdom.
As I said before, this bill represents the second stage of the government’s legislative implementation of recommendations from the Report of the review of the regulation of access to communications under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. The review was conducted by Tony Blunn AO and is known as the Blunn report. It talks about comprehensive and overriding legislation dealing with access to telecommunications data for security and law enforcement purposes. It talks about the basic elements of the telecommunications interception act that relate to privacy and access to real-time communications and recommends that that should be incorporated into and form the basis of such legislation, which should also incorporate relevant parts of the Telecommunications Act.
The bill gives effect to these recommendations. As I have said, we have all seen enough examples in recent times in our own country and overseas to, if nothing else, illustrate the importance of having the various instrumentalities of government and security able to do this. On that basis, I commend the legislation to the Main Committee.
I first thank the member for Hinkler. He has spoken extremely constructively and helpfully and has demonstrated a degree of versatility that ought to be practised by us all. I also thank the member for Brisbane, who spoke as well. I note that the member for Brisbane has indicated—unlike he did in another place on another bill—his support for this measure and for the approach that the government is taking to recommendations from the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. I will speak to that in a moment. I also thank the member for O’Connor, who emphasised the importance of these powers in the current law enforcement and security environment. I welcome his contribution.
The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2007 implements recommendations made in the Report of the review of the regulation of access to communications, by Tony Blunn, a very distinguished former secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department who has held other senior offices as well. He recommended in that report the development of a single, overarching legislative framework for regulating access to telecommunications interception, stored communications and telecommunications data. To do this, the bill that we are speaking to takes the existing relevant provisions of the Telecommunications Act that enable carriers to disclose communications data to law enforcement agencies and transfers them to this bill.
The bill also makes important amendments to the interception regime to allow the use of telecommunications interception to assist in the investigation of all offences relating to child pornography. This change reflects not only the seriousness of those offences but also that these offences are overwhelmingly committed via the internet and can only be combated through access to telecommunications.
The bill has been considered by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills and the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. I thank both of those committees for their work. The member for Brisbane raised in debate the query posed by the scrutiny of bills committee and invited me to respond. I have in fact responded to the committee, which has published my reply in its reports, but I note that the member for Brisbane usually does not seem to find this material when it has been in another place. I encourage him, as I did in another debate, to better prepare himself. The committee, as I told them in response, occasioned me to amend the explanatory memorandum to clarify that the exemptions to interception capability granted either by the communications access coordinator or by the body known as ACMA are not legislative in character. I also made some minor revisions to that explanatory memorandum to provide clearer examples of lawful secondary disclosure of telecommunications data and a distinction between the content of communications on the one hand and telecommunications on the other. I have also advised the committee that the power to grant exemptions is already reviewable under the AD(JR) Act. I wrote my signature on this explanatory memorandum, which I table, but I did it while I was walking. It is not that I was having a stroke or a heart attack or something else while I walked—but it is my signature.
I have also considered the recommendations of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in relation to ensuring appropriate privacy protections. I note that the committee recommended that the CrimTrac agency be removed from the list of agencies included in the definition of enforcement agencies. I do not agree with this recommendation, and I note that the member for Brisbane has reached the same conclusion. CrimTrac assists the Commonwealth, state and territory agencies in criminal investigations and, in its role as a provider of national security information, acts as the coordinating agent to obtain telecommunications data for other enforcement agencies. Negotiating access arrangements on behalf of a number of agencies results in economies of scale and more efficient use of resources. I also note that CrimTrac has always been an enforcement agency under section 282 of the Telecommunications Act 1997, listed under its previous name as the National Exchange of Police Information. CrimTrac is not a new addition to this definition.
The committee also supported the use of the communications access coordinator’s determination-making power to issue guidance to agencies on how to take privacy into account. The bill requires the communications access coordinator to consult with the Privacy Commissioner when developing this guidance, ensuring that privacy issues are given full consideration. The government agrees with the committee’s views on the roles of the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security. The Inspector General has extensive legislative powers to oversight the activities of intelligence agencies and will be able to use these powers of inspection and review in relation to access to prospective data by ASIO without the need for additional legislative provisions.
The fourth recommendation of the committee is that the Attorney-General’s Department arrange for an independent review of the operation of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 within five years. The government does not support this recommendation, not because regular review is not important for the interception regime but, rather, because the act is already subject to ongoing review and will continue to be so.
Finally, this bill is a significant step in modernising Australia’s laws for accessing telecommunications information for law enforcement and national security purposes. Mr Blunn concluded that the current distribution of functions between the two acts is complicated, confusing and dysfunctional. This bill clarifies and simplifies the law, consolidating several legislative regimes into a single act. This consolidation will provide a single, clearer regime for law enforcement agencies to use in the performance of their very important functions, and I commend the bill to the chamber.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.
Debate resumed from 8 August, on motion by Mrs De-Anne Kelly:
That this bill be now read a second time.
On behalf of the opposition, I welcome the opportunity to address the Maritime Legislation Amendment Bill 2007. The intent of the bill is very straightforward. It follows a process of consultation and seeks to achieve the integration of the Australian Maritime College, based in the seat of Bass in Tasmania—historically, a Labor Party initiative—with the University of Tasmania. I am pleased that the bill includes funding conditions on the University of Tasmania for five years. The objective is clearly to ensure that the Australian Maritime College continues to play a significant role as a national provider of maritime training education following the integration.
From the opposition’s point of view, and following consultation with the industry and the maritime unions, that objective is very important. We have a huge problem on the skills front with respect to our seagoing workforce. In one way or another, we have to do more to increase the attractiveness of working in the industry and to encourage people to pursue a career in the maritime industry. This is important because we have to provide a framework which ensures the integration does not dilute the AMC’s standing and, historically, its important role as a key VET provider in Australia. The Maritime College must also retain the flexibility to adapt itself as a national regional maritime VET provider. Under the integrated model it is therefore important that funding arrangements do not mean that it is forced to increase its focus on foreign fee-paying students, as has occurred in recent years to too many tertiary education institutions, especially in regional Australia.
This concern has been partly addressed in the bill by imposing funding conditions on the University of Tasmania for five years and by requiring the minister to conduct a review of the integration before the end of the five years. I would hope that the House committees are involved in that review. Importantly, I note for the benefit of the Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport and Regional Services that that would be an appropriate job for that committee to undertake over that five-year period. Whilst it is not in the bill, it is a requirement that the university also include industry stakeholders in the development of the Maritime College business plan, following integration. That is also important because, historically, industry stakeholders have played a very important role in the nurturing and development of the Australian Maritime College. We should go out of our way to ensure their ongoing hands-on involvement in trying not only to guarantee the future of the college under the umbrella of the university but also to lift its importance, especially with respect to domestic training in Australia. That is one of the concerns the industry and the unions have expressed to me in my consultation relating to the bill before the House today.
Interestingly, some stakeholders have also put to me that graduates leave the Maritime College with a good theory base but with little practical experience. There is therefore a need to address a wide range of issues, including transferability from the Navy to the merchant marines; pilot training that includes seagoing experience; and port-specific training that addresses a wide variety of maritime conditions in Australia. Those are just a few examples of where we think there is scope to improve the performance of the college, based on recent experience.
These are some of the issues that could perhaps be addressed if stakeholders were included in the development of the Maritime College business plan. I will move the second reading amendment, to be tabled this morning, so as to also address in passing some concerns, as well as others, relating to the serious skills shortage in the maritime industry and the need for far-reaching training reform at a national level.
The second reading amendment that I will move later draws heavily on the resolution, approved by the Labor Party’s national conference, involving consultation with marine engineers and the Maritime Union of Australia in April this year. It was a very constructive discussion aimed at trying to find solutions to some of the training problems that confront the maritime industry in Australia in the 21st century. These unions, representing workers and also the views of many employers in the industry, are concerned about the skills crisis in the maritime industry and are therefore proposing sensible policy responses to address this problem after what we consider to be a decade of neglect by the Howard government.
This is important because you also have to think about the importance of the maritime industry and coastal shipping, not just international shipping, and the growing challenge confronting Australia on the freight task. Australia’s freight task is set to double by 2020 and our most important transport priority for the future is to make intermodalism work and to plan supply chains to take advantage of the different strengths of road, rail and shipping in the freight task, in association with the aviation industry. That is why a federal Labor government will focus national transport spending on not only national road and rail networks but also their integration with air, sea and inland ports to create a national intermodal transport network. That goes to the issue of making sure that we also improve our performance on training, because you are going to need a bigger workforce to confront this growing freight challenge.
A national freight logistics plan is long overdue and needs to include the shipping industry—something that has been absolutely neglected by the Howard government. The Howard government has basically said that we should vacate the field as a nation, following the last decade. Shipping, as we all appreciate, will not be able to fulfil its potential in Australia’s national freight task if there are no trained crew, engineers, pilots or officers to work in it. This is an attractive industry to work in; it just needs some government support because employers, union representatives, the workforce and their families are highly committed to the industry and they want better leadership at the national level.
It is the view of the opposition that our national infrastructure transport priorities have to focus on three things, including the issue of training, because without training and a skilled workforce we cannot achieve these three things: firstly, productivity gains in our key export supply chains, like wheat lines, coal and iron ore, and rail and ports; secondly, integration of our land transport system with air, sea and inland ports to improve productivity and general freight movement; and thirdly, easing urban congestion in our major cities. The best thing the Australian government can do to ease these urban congestion issues is to invest in freight corridors to take traffic off commuter roads and passenger rail lines. There are staggering statistics that 85 per cent of containers entering and leaving Sydney are destined for the Sydney basin itself and that 80 per cent of those containers are moved by truck between Western Sydney and Port Botany along the M4 and M5.
Let us put an end to this so-called argument about competition between road, rail and shipping. The best interests of the city as a whole have to come first, and the freight task is going to represent ample opportunities for all transport modes in Australia. There is also a clear need to further upgrade dedicated rail freight infrastructure, improve crane, road and rail freight handling at Port Botany and expand the debate beyond the current government’s focus on labour productivity to also look at the need to actually invest in some modern capital equipment, such as an increase in the number of cranes at some of our port facilities. That would be an integrated approach to increasing the efficiency of road, rail and shipping transport infrastructure.
I raise these issues because I think it is important that we have a broad debate about these issues. Labour reform in the maritime industry is important, but I think the bill does not address many of the training concerns that need to be dealt with beyond the integration of the AMC and the University of Tasmania. The important thing will be that the AMC now works with the unions and the industry to ensure that maritime training needs for the future are met. Let me say that, compared to international container movement rates, there is still potential for further productivity gains in Australia, but the big emphasis should now be on more cranes with trained crews at ports and easing other infrastructure capacity constraints.
Unfortunately, the government cannot see beyond its ideological war with the maritime unions to address these more pressing and challenging problems, which are raised with me on a regular basis by industry in criticism of the government’s very narrow approach to productivity on the waterfront, with a total focus on the workforce rather than also looking at the broad challenges going to the infrastructure bottlenecks which are a huge productivity barrier to the future of the maritime and seagoing industry in Australia. I say that because forecasts for growth in Australia’s international maritime cargo trades are staggering.
I simply say to my colleagues in Victoria: the sooner you make a decision on the deepening of the Melbourne harbour the better, because it is now not just a barrier to international vessels going to the Port of Melbourne; they also will not go into the ports of Brisbane and Sydney until we get the Port of Melbourne right. That is an absolute priority for the Victorian government to sort out sooner rather than later, in the same way that the Australian government has some challenges with respect to some of these infrastructure bottlenecks that are its responsibilities around Australia.
That is important. Let us think about it. The Australian international container trade will almost triple by 2020, so time is not on our side with respect to some of the port facilities and the associated rail and road infrastructure. Also, there is going to be an ever-increasing important debate about intermodal facilities in key capital cities such as Sydney and the absolute priority of the development of the Moorebank facility. Just as the tardiness of the Victorian government in making a decision on the deepening of the Melbourne harbour is important, there is also a requirement for the New South Wales government and the Australian government to get their heads together to get on with the development of the Moorebank intermodal facility.
This is important because bulk facilities at Australian ports present another looming challenge. Increased motor vehicles trades with specialised port requirements must be addressed over the next decade, including relocation from inner harbour areas to regional ports such as is occurring, for example, with the port of Wollongong. Grain exports are by their very nature unpredictables but could increase by 50 per cent—another challenge for the Australian community, because I think we effectively have a meltdown of the wheat rail infrastructure in a number of key states at the moment. For example, in Western Australia, if we are not careful, we will see 1,000 kilometres of the rail system—currently operated, effectively, by Babcock & Brown—falling into disarray sooner rather than later unless there is urgent government action at a state and federal level in partnership with the private sector. I could go on to refer to iron ore, coal and alumina exports, which all present challenges to the Australian community. With the growth in trade, I could also point to our requirement to not only sort out the Maritime College and its new partnership with the University of Tasmania but to also sort out a broader approach to training in Australia to guarantee that we have a trained workforce in place to meet the growth in the freight task that is going to be part and parcel of the challenges confronting Australia in the future.
We have to streamline training in this industry and create modern opportunities. Hopefully, the bill before the House is about going part way to achieving that end objective.
Interestingly, the bill also authorises the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to share its information with other Australian state and territory government agencies and other parties for the specific purposes of maritime domain awareness, maritime safety, protection of the marine environment and efficiency of maritime transportation. This is interesting because there is currently no specific legal authority for AMSA to share information gathered for its purposes with other parties. The clarification of its powers will hopefully enhance maritime safety and security, protection of the marine environment and efficiency of maritime transportation.
Our examination of the bill found no direct financial impact from this bill. The 2007-08 budget includes a figure of $61.4 million, representing the consolidated net assets that will be gifted to the University of Tasmania as a result of the integration.
On behalf of the opposition, I indicate that we support the bill. Obviously there are some riders embodied in the review after five years and also the requirement for the industry to be involved in consultation to make sure that this transfer of responsibilities is a success.
This bill has not been without controversy. It follows a long period of review in Tasmania and some local concerns in and around the operation of the Maritime College in the seat of Bass in Tasmania. I express the dismay of the opposition that the member for Bass, Mr Michael Ferguson, did not regard this bill to be of sufficient urgency and national importance for him to find time to come and address the Main Committee and the House on the bill. I commend the bill to the House. The second reading amendment lays down some of the things—such as consultation and the streamlining and strengthening of training—that should occur in Australia as part and parcel of this initiative. On behalf of the opposition, I move:
That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House condemns the government for neglecting the skills, training and certification crisis in the maritime industry over the last eleven years and calls on the government to:
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Batman has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
I rise to oppose the amendment but I support the spirit of some of the member for Batman’s initiatives. I, too, have a great interest in maritime training. In an earlier manifestation, I helped put together the first TAFE Maritime College in Bundaberg. It is still there. It has moved from East Bundaberg to Burnett Heads. I might add that the current minister has a million-dollar grant available to put a ring road around Burnett Heads that will facilitate activities at the port and also at that marine college and other facilities in the port precinct.
It is very important that we have training for our maritime sailors and the tradesmen associated with them. There needs to be an integrated approach to training. All the Maritime Legislation Amendment Bill 2007 does is bring two tertiary institutions together. It is not a difficult thing, but I would like to reinforce the point that maritime training is very important. In Bundaberg we have a naval cadet unit called the TS Bundaberg. A lot of the young people who go through that course end up at the Australian Defence Force Academy or go on to careers in the Navy, but a lot of them go to Launceston. A son of my best friend had his access into that industry through the cadet unit. It provides a focus for people who want to have a life at sea other than that in the Navy.
It has always been a surprise to me that we—probably the most distant nation from anywhere else in the world—are not a nation of sailors. You would think that we would be, but sadly we are not. Anything that we can do to reinforce the spirit of effective training is a good thing. I am sure that the reason for combining these two institutions was to create more tertiary gravitas there, which I hope will flow on to the young people who do courses at Launceston.
I would like to touch on two other matters that are marine connected and that the member for Batman touched on. One of the other matters is the importance of getting freight from our ports into the basins, particularly the basins of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. On our recent inquiry into the great freight task, as we called it, of the arterial road and rail systems of Australia and into their connectivity to the ports, we expected that there would be a lot of pressure for hubs at places like Shepparton, Parkes, Moree and Toowoomba. But strangely—and this confirmed something the member for Batman said—the pressure was for internodal hubs in the outer metropolitan basins of those three leading capital cities. One of the sad things is that we have enclosed our ports with too much development. This is not said as a criticism of any particular government; it has just been a trend of state and federal governments in the past not to reserve land around the ports. Brisbane is lucky in the sense that freight can move into the maritime environment by going east into Moreton Bay, but the others are pretty much constrained—as is the corridor into the port of Brisbane, which is very much constrained.
So the member for Batman makes a good point, but the matter is addressed in the report that we have recently issued. I am sure that the minister will take that into consideration when he looks at the report. In this particular report the committee said, ‘Let’s not go again and recommend more studies.’ Transport, in its four forms in Australia, has been inquired into endlessly—particularly the maritime aspects of it—so I think it is now time for action on these things. I think that will improve the efficiency of our maritime industry. It will improve the efficiency of our exports. It will give us, I think, a bigger maritime industry, and perhaps a shipping industry will develop. This highlights the even more important role that the new integrated Launceston tertiary institution will have in Australia’s future.
I thank all members who have made a contribution to the discussion on the Maritime Legislation Amendment Bill 2007. To sum up, the bill will enable the integration of the Australian Maritime College with the University of Tasmania to proceed. The integration is strongly supported by both organisations as a means to facilitate greater leveraging of capabilities, broaden course offerings and generate cost reductions through the rationalisation of facilities. They are all objectives that I am sure all members would support. Certainly those members who I have listened to in the last half hour in the chamber have alluded to them. This will ensure that Australia and the region continue to have access to a world-class maritime research, education and training institute.
The bill repeals the Maritime College Act 1978, under which the college was established and currently operates, and transfers all assets and liabilities from the college to the university. In return, for a period of five years the university will be subject to conditions on certain funding it receives from the Commonwealth under the Higher Education Support Act 2003. These conditions will ensure that the college continues to operate as intended after it is integrated into the university. I will come to some of the conditions in a minute.
The bill also authorises the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, AMSA, to share its information with other Australian state and territory government agencies and other parties for the specific purposes of maritime domain awareness, maritime safety, protection of the marine environment and efficiency of maritime transportation. This information includes data from a new, international, long-range identification and tracking system for ships, which comes into force on 1 January 2008. Information from the new system will be distributed to other government agencies through the Australian Maritime Identification System, AMIS. AMSA receives vessel movement information from other sources, which also is to be fed into AMIS for distribution to other government agencies to improve whole-of-government maritime domain awareness.
There is currently no specific legal authority for AMSA to share with other parties information gathered for its purposes. In addition to the benefits to Australian government agencies in sharing in AMSA’s information sources, states and territories, port authorities and coastal pilot service providers could use AMSA’s information to improve navigation safety, environmental protection and transport efficiency, including in such areas as vessel traffic management and port infrastructure planning and operations. The information will be released only for the purposes specified in the bill, and its release will be subject to internal written procedures and written agreements with relevant parties that will specify the conditions on which the information is to be released and how it is to be handled to ensure compliance with relevant privacy and information laws.
On the first part of the amendment with regard to the Australian Maritime College, and to respond to some of the aspects of the shadow spokesman’s amendment, I inform the chamber that in this amendment, at item 17, the bill provides that one of the conditions on the university—and I mentioned that those conditions apply for five years—is that the AMC have a board that includes persons with expertise in the shipping industry and knowledge of seafarer issues, shipping safety and seafarer certification. The condition, to be in place for five years, requires the Minister for Transport and Regional Services to be satisfied that the AMC is continuing to meet its maritime certification in education, training and research objectives. This is the sentiment behind the opposition’s amendment and, as far as the government is concerned, that is certainly reflected in that condition that will be applied to the university with the transfer of these responsibilities so that there remains not just representation on the board but fundamentally a continued focus on seafarer issues, shipping safety and seafarer certification. I commend the bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Batman has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.
Debate resumed from 9 August, on motion by Dr Stone:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I rise to continue the remarks I commenced on Thursday, 9 August on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (OHS) Bill 2007. I was given leave to table the complete list of workplace accident victims honoured on the CFMEU wall of remembrance in New South Wales. Construction, by its very nature, is hazardous. However, these hazards can be reduced by effective management. The bill we are debating today takes a positive step in that direction. Of course, the best prevention of accidents is by the workers themselves. Every worker wants to return home safely at the end of the day, and their families want them to return.
Unions have a long history of ensuring that workers are trained and supervised in a safe manner. They have ensured, when no-one else cared, that there were occupational health standards in place across industry. Since 1902 the building unions have campaigned to ensure workers’ safety on site. This has included campaigns for weight-lifting limits, compulsory safety helmets and hard hats, the banning of asbestos and the banning of lead paint and organochlorines, to name a few major campaigns. Unions introduced full-time safety officers and have relentlessly promoted the need for safety committees. Unions have taken the responsibility for ensuring safety training is available to workers. Unions have led the charge to ensure there are industry standards and regulations to reduce workplace accidents.
I must now ask: given the critical nature of occupational health and safety, why single out the building and construction industry? Surely this government is concerned for the health and safety of all Australian workers. Why is there a need for separate legislation for this specific industry? It is legislation that was prepared for political purposes. It is complex, conflict-driven legislation which is based on false assumptions that will not assist the industry or its consumers. This government’s agenda is clearly fixated on crushing the union movement. The approach of confrontation that was so aptly demonstrated on the waterfront was extended to the building industry and then to other industries through the so-called Work Choices legislation.
In the building and construction industry the government introduced the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Let us consider the powers of that body. The ABCC can issue a notice to anyone they believe is in possession of information that can assist them with a prosecution of a building industry participant. The worker has 14 days notice of an interview. The worker cannot refuse to attend the interview. The worker cannot refuse to answer their questions. A lawyer representing the worker can be present. The worker must hand over any documents that the ABCC requests to further their investigation. This is a mandatory process and there is only one penalty for failure to cooperate: six months jail. In addition, there are penalties imposed if the worker reveals the content of the interrogation process.
The ABCC decided to prosecute 107 individual building workers for allegedly participating in unlawful industrial action on a building project in Perth. These workers face individual fines of up to $22,000 under the current building legislation. Some face an additional $6,600 fine for allegedly ignoring an Industrial Relations Commission order banning strikes. The irony of this case is that the company involved chose not to sue their own employees while they were suing the union. The company see no merit in dragging their own employees through the courts. This could be perceived as a malicious action on behalf of the ABCC. The actual merits of the case are irrelevant. This smells of retribution. This is the result of legislation singling out a specific industry. We are witnessing a concerted attack on unions and union members in this country. This attack commenced with the waterfront dispute, it continued with the Cole royal commission and it will continue while this government remains in office.
I would like to return to the words of Andreia Viegas, the widow of one of those killed on a worksite. Mrs Viegas provided a succinct description of what workers are facing today under the government’s industrial relations laws. On 26 October last year she said:
These laws attack the right of entry of trade union officials, stopping them from cracking down on safety problems in dangerous workplaces. They limit the ability of union officials to investigate and rectify safety issues. This is despite the fact that trade unions’ do more to campaign against workplace deaths and injury than any other organisation in this country.
If the government were really serious about occupational health and safety in the building and construction industry, it would abolish its unfair industrial action laws for the industry. These laws mean that, for a worker to prove that he or she is faced with a situation that they think is unsafe, they risk fines of up to $22,000 to prove to a court that there was an imminent risk to their health or safety.
There are serious issues in the building industry that we have to confront as a community. It is about time that the government stopped being consumed with crushing the union movement and the state and territory governments and started to think about a serious reform agenda. This bill is a small step in the right direction and Labor will support that move. But it leaves unanswered the many other issues which face the building and construction industry. It does not address the need for tougher penalties for corporate insolvencies involving ‘phoenix’ companies. These are companies that leave employees, revenue authorities and other creditors unpaid when they are wound up. It does not address the security of payment for employees when companies are deliberately ‘sunk’ for tax evasion purposes. It does not address non-payment of employee entitlements. It does not address the exploitation of illegal immigrant labour. Trade unions are and always have been about workers looking after each other. This government has provided a separate set of laws for one industry, purely for political purposes.
I would like to conclude by quoting from one of the submissions to the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education. The committee reported on the draft of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Bill 2003. This bill enacted recommendations from the Cole royal commission. Included in its terms of reference was item 2(b), referring to the consistency of the bill with Australia’s obligations under international labour law. The preface to chapter 3 of the final report included a comment from the CEPU (Plumbers Division) taken from page 21, and I will quote it in full here. To my way of thinking, it is a precise summing up of the broad issue which underlies this government’s approach to the building and construction industry—notwithstanding Labor’s support for the bill now before us. The quote reads as follows:
Apartheid is an emotional term but does bear out the wrong done when a discrete group within a community is treated differently to the rest. Whether that different treatment is based on race, or religion, or income, or location, it is unjust. The fact that it is based on industry, as is the case in the present instance ... does not remove the vice in treating one section of a class less or more favourably than the rest ... the rule of law showers us all. Those proposing this legislation understand that, unless there is a valid justification, it is wrong to identify a particular industry for special treatment.
Commissioner Cole, in his final report into the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry, stated that it was universally accepted—by governments, by employers and by unions—that OH&S is of fundamental importance to the industry. Between 1998-99 and 2001-02 there were 189 fatalities in the building and construction industry. Statistics show that people working in the industry are more than twice as likely to be killed at work than the Australian all-industries average. It is interesting to reflect on that in light of the comments from the member for Banks, whose only interest a little while ago seemed to be in ensuring right of entry to union officials rather than ensuring that the safety issues on sites were addressed, particularly when you consider that statistic I quoted from the Cole royal commission. The statistical information annexed to the report clearly shows that the safety record in the industry is poor. Commissioner Cole further stated:
The likelihood of suffering a workplace related injury or fatality is greater for workers in the building and construction industry than for workers generally. The only industries where the risk of injury is higher are the maritime, agricultural, forestry and fishing, mining, and transport and storage industries. In only the transport and storage industry is there a higher risk of a fatality.
The building and construction industry workforce comprises a broad range of people, from young apprentices to fully qualified tradespeople, including plumbers, plasterers, electricians, form workers, painters, steel fixers and many others; both skilled and unskilled labourers; operators of plant such as bobcats, cranes and heavy earthmoving equipment; along with a myriad of other people all working on the same site, including foremen, supervisors and managers at all levels. Each person on site is entitled to expect the workplace to be a safe place to work. However, the very nature of construction and building sites means that there is a level of risk. Everyone associated with the industry must be prepared to accept responsibility to ensure that risk is reduced to an absolute minimum.
We expect when we attend work each day that we will return home to our families safely. Sadly, each year for approximately 50 people working in the construction industry this is not the case. On current statistics, building and construction workers are more than twice as likely to be killed at work than the all-industries Australian average. The rate of serious injury is about 50 per cent higher. These statistics demonstrate that this is not a matter that should be exploited. Occupational health and safety is a critically important issue that, if not taken responsibly, will result in serious injury and possible death. Yet the CFMEU for too many years have acted in a less than responsible way in addressing safety on building and construction sites, all too often using safety as an opportunity to pursue wage or site claims that have nothing to do with site safety and everything to do with exploitation, disruption and harassment.
For many years I worked on building and construction sites cutting and drilling concrete, so I appreciated the safety risks that existed at that time and I took every necessary precaution. I also recognise the improvements that have occurred in the industry over recent years. Unfortunately, we do not see any improvement in the exploitation of health and safety issues by the CFMEU in Western Australia on site or in their public stance. It is disappointing that they continue to misrepresent their role and intent, which seems to be all too easily demonstrated in their misleading advertisement which was recently slammed by the Australian Building Industry Commissioner, John Lloyd. He said:
It is most unfortunate that the CFMEU has chosen to exploit occupational health and safety in this manner.
Such a blatant misrepresentation of the facts only serves to undermine the efforts of many in the industry to reduce its unacceptable rates of death and injury.
The Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act establishes the powers and functions of the Federal Safety Commissioner and provides for the establishment of the Australian government’s building and construction industry occupational health and safety accreditation scheme. The scheme was developed in response to a recommendation by the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry. It was designed to allow the government to use its influence as a client and as the provider of capital to improve the construction industry’s occupational health and safety performance. Currently, the scheme seeks to improve occupational health and safety standards in the building and construction industry by requiring the accreditation of persons entering into building contracts with the Commonwealth or Commonwealth authorities. The effect of the amendments would be that the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth authority is required to take appropriate steps to ensure that such persons are also accredited for the duration of the building work.
Until the government moved to ensure changes to the building and construction industry, Australia’s approach to workplace safety was ad hoc. Based on the recommendations of the Cole royal commission report, the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 received royal assent on 12 September 2005. Section 3 of the act sets out the main objectives, but put simply it aims to provide an improved workplace relations framework for the building and construction industry to ensure that building work is carried out fairly, efficiently and productively for the benefit of industry participants and the Australian economy as a whole. It legislates the government’s response to the Cole royal commission’s report, specifically the important occupational and safety measures such as the establishment of the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, along with the establishment of the Federal Safety Commissioner to oversee an accreditation scheme that contractors undertaking Australian government funded work will be required to comply with.
Workplace health and safety is an important issue for all Australians. Those working on construction and building sites deserve as much protection in the workplace as any other worker, which is why the promotion of work safety practices is a key aspect of this government’s initiative. It has promoted the development of the National Occupational Health and Safety Strategy and has worked diligently to encourage its adoption by all Australian governments and peak employer and employee bodies. It provides an integrated approach for workplaces to be free from work related death, injury and disease.
This government leads the way in promoting an environment in which employers and employees are encouraged to take a cooperative approach to identifying and eliminating hazards that can cause injury or death. Its approach is based in prevention rather than punishment after the incident. This fosters a workplace environment which promotes safety rather than allocating blame, which differs greatly from the occupational health and safety legislation introduced by the New South Wales Labor government. In 2005 the New South Wales government’s Occupational Health and Safety (Workplace Deaths) Act was enacted. The objects of that act were: (a) to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 to make it an offence for a person who owes a duty of care under part 2 of that act to engage in reckless conduct that causes death at a workplace; and (b) to amend the Criminal Appeal Act 1912 to provide for a right of appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal where a person has been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment by the Industrial Relations Commission in court session for the proposed new offence.
Employers face up to five years jail and a $165,000 fine if they are convicted of causing an employee’s death through recklessness. These laws place employers and employees in what can only be described as an adversarial workplace setting. After extensive criticism and review of that act, the New South Wales government circulated a draft bill last year aimed at relaxing those laws. Law firm Allens Arthur Robinson published an article in the May 2006 edition of their Workplace Relations Publication Focus, which states:
... the Draft Bill adopts a more realistic and practical standard that does not penalise those acting reasonably and responsibly.
Occupational Health and Safety legislation will not be effective if it is too tightly prescribed or regulated.
The Cole royal commission identified some 20 occupational health and safety regulations that the industry has to comply with, in addition to a further 34 other regulations which have some implications for the industry. Commissioner Cole best sums it up, and I quote:
The result is a fragmented, disjointed and uncoordinated system of occupational health and safety and regulation which, when applied on a national industry such as the building and construction industry, is inequitable, wasteful and inefficient.
Whilst workplace health and safety is primarily a matter within the jurisdiction of the states, it is not easy to understand why a worker in one state should be exposed to a lesser or different safety regime to a worker in another state.
The aim must be to have a regime of the highest possible standard applicable uniformly throughout Australia. The statistics show that the risk of injury is materially different in different states and territories.
In addition, there were numerous and differing codes of practice operating in each jurisdiction. Aside from the inconsistency and volume of the state based regulatory regimes, the regulations and codes that underpin the principal acts are generally prescriptive and process driven. This places a significant compliance burden on businesses of all sizes. A trend towards increasing occupational health and safety regulation is unfortunately evidence that the states have failed to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses. Reform must be undertaken on a consistent basis across all jurisdictions.
The national occupational health and safety accreditation scheme for construction work aims to protect workers from hazards associated with construction work. It provides an example of how the government is encouraging consistency in regulation. The adoption of the scheme will remove inconsistencies across Australia and mean that the same standards will apply for all construction work regardless of where it is being carried out. The government is committed to promoting greater national consistency in occupational health and safety.
It is a little over a year since the establishment of the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner. The commissioner uses the government’s purchasing power and influence as a client to bring about better occupational health and safety outcomes on federal government funded construction projects Australia wide. The Federal Safety Commissioner has developed an occupational health and safety accreditation scheme for government construction projects, requiring all successful tenderers for federally funded building and construction work worth over $6 billion to be accredited. Some 64 builders have now received accreditation. This ensures that another recommendation of the Cole royal commission has been implemented.
This bill reflects the Australian government’s commitment to improve the occupational health and safety performance of the construction industry and to develop a culture where work is performed safely as well as on budget and on time. By making accreditation under the scheme a requirement for builders on construction projects for which the government has contributed significant funding, the government will be able to further drive the cultural change that is needed in the construction industry.
The amendments to section 35 of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 will provide clarification that the scheme is only intended to apply to builders who actually perform building work, and will provide that steps must be taken to ensure that those same builders remain accredited while undertaking building work for which scheme accreditation is a requirement. By simplifying the process for engaging federal safety officers, the bill will also assist the Federal Safety Commissioner in more effectively administering the scheme.
I am very concerned with the remarks of the Australian Labor Party only last month that they would abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. It is also interesting to note a headline in the Weekend Australian a few weeks ago, stating ‘Union boss awaits return of ALP glory days’, and I will quote from the article by Paige Taylor:
Knowing that should Labor win the next federal election, his nemesis—the only authority in 20 years to rein in his hardline and volatile union—will be destroyed. And Mr Kevin Reynolds as West Australian Secretary of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, along with his colourful deputy, Joe McDonald, will again have total control over almost every major construction site in the booming West Australian capital and right across the state. It is a daunting thought. Along with the powerful Labor candidate and ACTU leader Mr Greg Combet, Kevin Reynolds and others plan to run Australia. Indeed Mr Combet is credited with saying ‘We should return to a time when the Unions used to run this country.’
Let us look at Labor’s record in the state of Western Australia, where Mr Reynolds is one of the most influential factional players in the Labor Party. Within 24 hours of being elected, the WA Labor government neutered the WA Building Industry Task Force that had effectively addressed the excesses of union intimidation, thuggery and a culture of lawlessness, improving productivity and reducing industrial action. Now we find that police stations across the state are being closed down because they do not have enough policemen. They have abandoned the graffiti task force, which has seen a huge increase in graffiti in electorates like Hasluck. They have also closed regional and community hospitals across the state.
Can we believe Labor when they say they will retain the ABCC? No way! Clearly the building and construction industry in Western Australia and all other states needs the ABCC. Indeed, it is worth reflecting on the Econtech report, The economic impact of the ABCC. The report estimates that, as a result of the ABCC, GDP is 1.5 per cent higher than it otherwise would be, the CPI is 1.2 per cent lower than it otherwise would be, and there has been a real increase in consumption of 0.8 per cent. The report concluded that the ABCC has influenced an average fall in construction costs of 5.2 per cent and a rise in construction activity of 2.9 per cent—a great result for an organisation that Labor, at the direction of its union masters, will do away with.
The Australian Building and Construction Commission has the power to investigate contraventions of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005, the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and the Independent Contractors Act 2006, including issues relating to workplace agreements, federal awards and orders of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. It can also initiate legal action against those alleged to have contravened those acts. It can also refer allegations of breaches of other laws to relevant agencies or authorities, such as the Federal Safety Commissioner, the police, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations or the ACCC.
In an article published in the Sunday Age on 22 April this year, the Master Builders Association chief executive, Wilhelm Harnisch, said:
... what we fear will simply come back is unfettered right of entry by union bosses and heavyweights and thugs.
We saw the previous speaker, the member for Banks, argue strongly to ensure that union organisers and union shop stewards have unfettered right of entry. That was more important to him than addressing the safety issues. The article also said:
We’ll get back to a ‘no ticket, no start’ situation. The biggest risk is the reintroduction of pattern bargaining and the inflexibilities that imposes on employers—one deal done for the whole town. They pick off the vulnerable contractor, and that becomes the benchmark other contractors are effectively bullied into adopting.
Under the commission’s surveillance and other changes, he said, building costs had been reduced by 20 per cent to 25 per cent and long delays to big projects almost eliminated. The AXA project in Docklands and Eastlink are ahead of schedule.
That is because the union excesses of the past have been somewhat curbed. I think a 20 or 25 per cent reduction in building costs is probably very conservative. I am sure that the costs on union building sites in Perth were over 40 per cent above those sites where non-union labour was used.
There are currently 75 building and construction matters being investigated by the ABCC, with some 130 finalised. It is no surprise that the Labor opposition intend to abolish the Building and Construction Commission because it is efficient and effective and achieves an honest outcome, having changed the culture and productivity significantly for the better. The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows the incidence of industrial disputes has fallen to a new record low. The key statistic for cracking the level of industrial disputes is ‘working days lost per thousand employees.’ The rate for the year ending September 2006, the first full year of the operation of the ABCC, was a very low 1.6 working days per thousand workers, as opposed to the corresponding quarter in 2005, prior to the ABCC, when it stood at a much larger figure of 37.4. That is a huge reduction. When you look at the figures from the September quarter of 1996, you see that a massive 263.9 working days were lost per thousand employees. Do we as a country really want to go back to pre-1996 days when the unions used to run the country?
These figures demonstrate that it is little wonder that union membership is declining, because working families in Australia would rather work than be bullied into industrial action to massage the ego of some union organiser or their Labor Party puppets. Just who are the Australian Labor Party appealing to with their plan to abolish the effective Australian Building and Construction Commission? I commend the bill to the House.
The previous contribution was obviously wide ranging, with expertise with regard to graffiti et cetera, but I will try to keep slightly closer to the legislation. On one level, it obviously deals with some rather uncontroversial areas: ensuring that people are accredited under the scheme; the time for entering the contract of building work; extending the accreditation requirement for direct and indirect funding arrangements; clarifying that section 35(4) of the act overrides Commonwealth provisions to the extent of inconsistency et cetera. But I want to join the previous speaker with regard to his citation of the views of the President of the ACTU. Greg Combet was obviously speaking in rather broad terms when he said that he is going to return Australia to the time when the trade union movement controlled the country. Unfortunately for Greg Combet, unfortunately for the real world, we are in a very different circumstance in this country and internationally with regard to the labour market. We no longer have 1,500 people in my electorate employed in the asbestos industry at James Hardie and Wunderlich. We no longer have the same numbers of workers with that sense of solidarity and connection at Australian Gypsum down the road. We do not have plants like Bradford Insulation and we do not have a painting industry with employment of the size it once had.
We do have a casualisation of the workforce. Internationally, we are the country with the highest proportion of people in casual employment—not the highest in Oceania, the highest in the world. We have a situation where many people now work at home. As I said earlier, the workforce is essentially in small employment sectors. The trade union movement, if anything, has had to reorganise itself so that it can try to recruit people. I do not really care if Greg Combet used this very broad phraseology in his wish; the reality is that it will not happen with all the will in the world.
However, one point I make to the previous speaker, the member for Hasluck, is that Greg Combet might still stand by his words. That does not seem to be the case with the previous speaker’s great friend and associate, Mr Len Buckeridge, a person well known in conservative politics in Western Australia and a person who makes the same kinds of comments as the previous speaker with regard to industrial relations. Mr Buckeridge is becoming somewhat more reticent, somewhat less vocal, about some previous views he expressed. In May 2003 he gained some notoriety by saying that the solution to Australia’s industrial relations problems was to kill a few trade union officials. This is a person who is closely associated with the previous speaker and closely associated with the coalition and its drive to put down industrial relations conditions in this country, to smash workers’ rights, and, at the very least, if not put down their wages, to make sure that in a period of labour shortages their ability to organise and recover real wage increases will not happen.
Mr Buckeridge is very unwilling to stand by his words. I had the Parliamentary Library recently contact his office about those remarks at the HR Nicholls Society. This was the response of Mr Buckeridge’s secretary:
We do not appear to have a copy of the notes for the speech given by Mr Buckeridge at the above conference and he has asked me to let you know this.
Sincerely
P Castley for: LW Buckeridge
This guy made outrageous comments in the confines of the HR Nicholls Society and someone recorded it. That is his real view. That is what he is saying to a group that is driving industrial relations changes historically in this country: that the solution is to kill trade union officials. As I say, Mr Buckeridge is always available to make comments supportive of this government’s industrial relations policy, but perhaps he is a bit worried that that comment actually went public.
On one level this is an uncontroversial bill. The only controversy is that the government legislated in 2005 and we thought that was the end of the road—that they had got it right—but they have come back here two years later with amendments to the original legislation, which was supposedly the greatest thing since sliced bread. We see a significant number of amendments now. There is no real reason why they failed to pick up on these points earlier. Basically it is incompetence in regard to the ministry. As I say, it is uncontroversial in one sense, but the broader agenda was perhaps the question of the royal commission.
We had the previous speaker bemoaning the fact that the opposition might get rid of the ABCC in a few years time. I actually think that would be a good decision because, quite frankly, looking at this organisation, $60 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent on a series of allegations for which very few people have been charged. There is innuendo, allegation and backdooring to journalists about individuals but very few prosecutions. In the same period there has been the death of one worker every week in the building industry—an area that this commission was not very interested in. End of story. They were not interested in that matter and not interested in tax evasion. They spent $60 million of taxpayers’ money, slightly more than the current advertising campaign to defend their industrial relations system. As I say, 23 union officials recommended prosecutions against them. It did not occur in most cases. That is the genesis—the excuse—for this kind of legislation to drive down workers compensation rights in this country.
Of course, that is accompanied by gestures to push people onto Comcare. We know that in that case there is no workers compensation coverage when travelling to and from work, during ordinary recess breaks or for temporary absence from work, unless the absence is at the direction of the employer; there are tighter definitions of injury, stress and disease to deliberately restrict employee rights; there are lower death benefits for dependants—that is, widows and partners; maximum lump sums under Comcare for permanent disability are capped at $142,000 et cetera. So the background to this is the attempt to restrict the union’s ability to organise and their right of access to the employees.
I had the privilege last night of attending the launch of a video, by Joe Loh, called Constructing Fear. It deals with Australia’s secret industrial inquisition, otherwise known as the Cole royal commission, and the role of the ABCC. One of the cases shown was about a six-year-old kid who was confronted in his front yard and quizzed about his father by about a dozen or so inspectors. He was asked, ‘Did your father really go to the doctor’s today?’ and that kind of thing. People are hauled in to appear before these bodies and they are not able to tell their families what occurred. They are basically forced to give evidence and they face prosecution and jail if they do not give evidence. It really does sound like a parallel to the terrorism laws in this country—except that the reasons are not anywhere as good as the reasons for having antiterrorism provisions.
So the background to this very placid legislation, which on the surface is uncontroversial, is essentially the broader agenda that we saw coming out of the royal commission, where we had a former university law school associate of the Prime Minister, a very reliable hand, to deal with these matters—and, of course, another hand who is quite reliable from the ABCC, a person who worked for Kerin and, 100 years ago, for Peacock, the former Leader of the Opposition.
What we have here is a broad agenda to basically diminish the rights of people in this country to talk to employees on work sites, to diminish right of entry—and I heard the previous member talking about the member for Banks supposedly advocating unfettered access. Of course, he did not say that. Of course there have to be restrictions. Of course you have to be mindful of the way an industrial situation occurs. You cannot just have people walking in there every day of the week on no pretext. I will tell you something: they have actually got better things to do, quite frankly, than to go in there for no good reason.
As I said earlier with respect to Comcare, we know there has been a reduction of conditions, but it is interesting to note the safety activities of various bodies around Australia. In 2005-06, Comcare—this glorious operation that everyone should be under—had 32 inspectors, compared with 312 in New South Wales and 207 in Queensland. Its workplace visits totalled 189, compared with 3,960 in the ACT. Its safety prohibition and improvement notices totalled a massive 22, compared with 21,286 in New South Wales. That is the kind of oversight that they are supposedly going to have in order to protect people from injury. Those figures are publicly available. I want to cite the comments of Steve Mullins, the OH&S officer of the ACTU, in a speech on 16 February this year. He said:
It is worth noting at this point that the ILO estimates more than 6700 Australian workers die every year from occupational injury and disease. Access Economics puts the figure at 4500.
ABS statistics show more than 477,000 workers suffer some form of injury or illness at work each year.
I would have thought that when we know something works to reduce these appalling injury, disease and fatality statistics, the government would encourage that activity.
In contrast, the government are basically trying to minimise activity to stop this. They are basically arguing that we have to have productivity and we cannot have it hindered by union officials coming on the site, and that we cannot have effective OH&S committees because they might restrict unsafe conditions.
We need more than slogans from the Minister for Workforce Participation, who said on 29 March this year that we need cultural and behavioural change. We are not going to have cultural and behavioural change when people’s rights are restricted. The only way you are going to get effective workplace safety is if the workers on the site have some say about what is occurring, if they have the ability to police the situation, if they can actually stop jobs when they are unsafe. Now the government has placed the onus on workers to establish that a situation is unsafe; otherwise they could face legal impediments.
In conclusion, the previous member was all over the place about police numbers in Western Australia and, whether they have graffiti units et cetera. The fundamental issue here is the attempt by this government to restrict the ability of workers on the job to organise so that they can ensure safety in their job, so that they can reduce this horrendous figure of one person killed every year in the building industry, and so that they can make sure that they have minimal conditions to protect themselves.
I do note the emotionalism of the member who is scheduled to speak next in this debate. He was famed for being the most hardline person on industrial relations in the parliament. In recent years he has become somewhat jealous of the previous speaker, who has in a way outgunned him as the hardline proponent of these kinds of things in the government. But perhaps that member will not be here in the next parliament and he will again be able to ride the horse as the main advocate in this area.
Debate (on motion by Mr McArthur) adjourned.