Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr McClelland.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Family Law Amendment (De Facto Financial Matters and Other Measures) Bill 2008 introduces significant reforms to allow opposite-sex and same-sex de facto couples to access the federal family law courts on property and spouse maintenance matters on relationship breakdown.
This bill is long overdue, and gives effect to an agreement between the Commonwealth, states and territories made as far back as 2002. The bill follows the enactment of legislation by a majority of states referring necessary powers to the Commonwealth.
The reforms will provide greater protection for separating de facto couples and simplify the laws governing them. The reforms will also bring all family law issues faced by families on relationship breakdown within the federal family law regime. The federal family law courts are the specialist courts in Australia with vast experience in relationship breakdown matters. They also have procedures and dispute resolution mechanisms which are more suited to handling family litigation arising on relationship breakdown.
The bill is consistent with the government’s policy not to discriminate on the basis of sexuality. The bill applies to both opposite-sex and same-sex de facto couples. This bill amends the Family Law Act 1975 and related legislation to create a Commonwealth regime for handling the financial matters of de facto couples on the breakdown of their relationship. By providing a consistent and uniform approach for de facto relationships, this bill will alleviate the administrative and financial burden currently faced by de facto couples as a result of multiple de facto regimes applying across the states and territories. It is also a more effective use of court resources, legal aid and the like.
The current state and territory de facto property settlement and spouse maintenance laws are far from uniform.
De facto couples currently have different rights in different states and territories. This is unsatisfactory as it is not uncommon nowadays for families to move across state or territory borders, or to have property or other financial resources in different states and territories. These reforms will provide a national and uniform system.
Also, where de facto couples have children and their relationship breaks down, currently they can find themselves with children’s issues in one of the federal family law courts and property issues remaining in a state court.
This will mean couples having to run parallel proceedings in two court systems, placing unnecessary additional costs and inconvenience on de facto couples, as well as an administrative burden on the federal and state court systems.
Clearly this is not the most efficient and effective way to resolve these matters.
I am glad to say that this bill will address and resolve these issues.
The bill enables federal family law courts to deal in the one proceeding with both financial and child related matters arising for separated de facto couples.
De facto couples will be able to obtain a property settlement, split their superannuation interests and make financial agreements, all recognised and enforceable by the federal family law courts.
Most states agreed in 2002 to provide the Commonwealth with a reference of power concerning the financial matters relating to the parties of a de facto relationship arising out of the breakdown of that relationship. Since that date, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania have passed legislation referring power to the Commonwealth. In the ACT, the Northern Territory and Norfolk Island, the Commonwealth will rely on its power over territories to apply the new legislation in those jurisdictions.
The bill will require parties to demonstrate a geographical connection such as residence in a state that has referred power or a territory to gain the benefits of the new approach.
I will now briefly outline some of the key aspects of the approach to de facto financial matters introduced by the bill.
What relationships will the bill cover?
Before a court can make an order, it will need to be satisfied that the de facto relationship lasted for at least two years, that there is a child of the relationship or that a party to the relationship made a substantial contribution to the relationship and it would cause serious injustice not to grant an order. The bill also extends to couples whose relationship both satisfies the definition of ‘de facto relationship’ in the references of power and is registered under state or territory law.
Declarations
A major difference between a marriage and a de facto relationship is establishing when a de facto relationship has commenced or ended. With marriage, it is very clear when a couple have commenced their marital relationship because of the ceremonial requirements and declarations made before witnesses and authorised celebrants.
Equally, it is usually easier to determine the end of a marriage because of the formality of divorce.
In the case of a de facto relationship, identifying whether a relationship existed, and when it was on foot or not, can be more difficult. To assist the courts and the parties in these situations, the bill provides courts with the ability to make a declaration about a range of important characteristics of a de facto relationship.
There are other benefits for de facto couples under the new national regime as well.
De facto maintenance and property orders
The bill will allow a court to make orders for the maintenance of one of the parties to the de facto relationship, or an order declaring or altering the interests or rights of a party to a de facto relationship in respect to property.
Superannuation splitting
For the first time, the bill will allow de facto couples to split their superannuation interests in the event of a breakdown in that relationship. This will enable recognition of the important contribution many de facto couples make over the course of their relationship to each other’s superannuation to be reflected in the proper apportionment between them of what they have accumulated for their retirement. This is an important benefit that has been available under the Family Law Act for married couples since 2002, but not for de facto couples.
Binding financial agreements
De facto couples in participating jurisdictions will also be able to enter into binding financial agreements. These allow parties to enter into agreements about how they will distribute their property or financial resources or maintain each other in the event that their relationship breaks down. Agreements will be possible before or during a de facto relationship, or after it has broken down.
Other amendments
The bill makes a number of other minor amendments to improve the effectiveness of the Family Law Act.
Full details of the measures contained in this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum to the bill.
This much needed reform will give separating de facto couples the same rights as divorcing couples under the comprehensive Commonwealth family law system. It provides a consistent approach to de facto property disputes across state and territory borders.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Farmer) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr McClelland.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The main purpose of this bill is to amend the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (the TIA Act) and Surveillance Devices Act 2004 (the Surveillance Devices Act) to ensure officeholders can validly authorise others to act on their behalf in performing certain legislative functions.
The bill also implements several technical amendments.
This bill does not alter or expand any powers of security or law enforcement agencies in relation to telecommunications interception, stored communications, access to data, or surveillance devices.
Conferral of Powers
Both the Telecommunications Interception Act and the Surveillance Devices Act contain several definitions that are intended to confer power on designated office holders to authorise others to act on their behalf.
For example, in relation to the Australian Federal Police, the term ‘certifying officer’ in subsection 5(1) of the Telecommunications Interception Act includes the Commissioner and a Deputy Commissioner of Police. The term also includes a senior executive AFP employee who is a member of the AFP and who is authorised in writing by the Commissioner of Police.
Reference to an officer being authorised in writing also appears in the terms ‘certifying person’ and ‘member of the staff of a Commonwealth Royal Commission’ in subsection 5(1) of the Telecommunications Interception Act and the definitions ‘appropriate authorising officer’ and ‘law enforcement officer’ in subsection 6(1) of the Surveillance Devices Act.
In the Hong Kong Bank case Hong Kong Bank of Australia Ltd v Australian Securities Commission (1992) 108 ALR 70, the Full Federal Court considered that a similarly worded provision in the Corporations Law could not be read as providing the source of power for the relevant authority to make the authorisation referred to in the provision. Rather, some other source of power, such as an express authorisation making power, was needed.
While the relevant definitions in the TIA Act and the Surveillance Devices Act can be distinguished from the section examined in the Hong Kong Bank case, there is some risk a court could find that the affected provisions do not, in themselves, confer power to make an authorisation but merely provide a definition. This could mean that actions taken by a purportedly authorised person are invalid.
Such an outcome would undermine the effective operation of the acts and could expose persons who believed they were acting in accordance with the legislation to legal challenge.
The bill addresses this issue by inserting express authorisation powers in order to establish a clear and separate legislative basis for office holders to make authorisations and also for authorised persons to perform the functions associated with their designated role.
The bill also ensures the validity of actions taken by authorised persons under the existing provisions by inserting new sections that treat persons authorised to act under the current provisions as if they had been authorised under the act as amended by this bill. These provisions will ensure that all authorisations whether past or present are made on a consistent legislative basis.
The bill does not expand interception and surveillance powers available to agencies, nor does it increase the range of office holders who are authorised to undertake certain functions under the TIA Act or the Surveillance Devices Act.
Technical amendments
The bill also includes several technical amendments to the TIA Act that will improve the effective operation of the act by updating references in the act to the Victorian Office of Police Integrity and correcting drafting errors. Again, these amendments do not expand the powers of law enforcement or security agencies.
The Victorian government is in the process of establishing the Office of Police Integrity as a stand-alone authority under new legislation. In order to preserve the capacity of the office to exercise its powers under the TIA Act once the new Victorian act is proclaimed, this bill will substitute references to the current act with the details of the new legislation.
The bill also corrects two drafting errors.
The first is to substitute an incorrect reference to the term ‘certifying person’ with the correct term, ‘certifying officer’.
The second removes a reference to several sections of the TIA Act that were repealed in the 2006 amendment act.
These technical amendments will ensure that the TIA Act is clear and relevant in the obligations and powers it confers on telecommunications carriers and law enforcement agencies.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this bill will ensure that the legislative framework for obtaining telecommunications and surveillance based information necessary for law enforcement and national security purposes is relevant, clear and effective.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Farmer) adjourned.
I 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: Multi role helicopter facilities.
The Department of Defence proposes to provide a range of helicopter shelters, operational facilities, simulated buildings and maintenance facilities to support the introduction of the multirole helicopter aircraft. The proposed facilities and infrastructure will be located at RAAF Base Townsville, the Army Aviation Centre at Oakey, Gallipoli Barracks at Enoggera in Queensland and HMAS Albatross at Nowra in New South Wales. The project will involve a mix of new facilities, refurbishment and adaptive re-use of existing facilities. The estimated out-turned cost of the proposal is $168.7 million plus GST.
In its report the Public Works Committee has recommended actions for the Australian government. The Department of Defence has acknowledged this recommendation and notes that it is a matter for the Australian government. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is expected to commence in late 2008 with completion by late 2010. On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee for its support and I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I 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 Darwin redevelopment stage 2, Darwin.
The Department of Defence proposes to undertake stage 2 of the redevelopment of RAAF Base Darwin in the Northern Territory at an estimated out-turned cost of $49.8 million plus GST. RAAF Base Darwin is a major military air base in the Northern Territory. The base primarily supports overseas deployments and transit operations as well as major Defence exercises.
This is the second redevelopment planed for RAAF Base Darwin and seeks to address aged, substandard and dysfunctional infrastructure and facilities which do not comply with current standards. The redevelopment project will involve a new logistics headquarters, office accommodation, a fuel farm, a mechanical equipment workshop, a vehicle wash bay and demolition of redundant facilities.
In its report the Public Works Committee has recommended that these works proceed. Subject to parliamentary approval the construction phase will commence in 2009 and be completed in 2011. On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee for its support and I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I 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: Robertson Barracks redevelopment, Darwin.
The Department of Defence proposes to undertake a redevelopment of Robertson Barracks, the home of the Army’s 1st Brigade. The works now proposed are required to meet the requirements of the Australian Army in a complex strategic environment and to meet the requirements of the government’s Hardened and Networked Army initiative and introduction of the Abrams tank fleet. The works consist primarily of extensional replication of existing facilities. The estimated out-turned cost of the proposal is $72.1 million plus GST.
In its report the Public Works Committee has recommended that these works proceed subject to the recommendations of the committee. The Department of Defence accepts and will implement these recommendations. Subject to parliamentary approval the works would commence in early 2009 with the objective of having them completed in 2011. On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee for its support and I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I 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: Hardened and Networked Army (HNA) facilities at Edinburgh Defence Precinct.
The Hardened and Networked Army initiative, which was approved by government in December 2005, greatly strengthens the Army’s protection, mobility, firepower and communications, allowing operations in more complex, dangerous and uncertain environments. The initiative will increase options for the government in terms of both the combat weight of the force that can be deployed and the duration that forces can be sustained on operations.
As part of this initiative, the 7th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment—7RAR—is being re-raised as a mechanised infantry battalion. The battalion currently occupies temporary facilities in Darwin but will be based at Edinburgh Defence Precinct, Adelaide, along with supporting artillery, combat engineer and logistics troops. The Hardened and Networked Army Facilities project at Edinburgh Defence Precinct, at an out-turned cost of $623.68 million plus GST, will provide working accommodation, training facilities, urban warfare training facilities, a driver training area, a vehicle wash point and common user facilities for both Army and Air Force, including health, messing, fitness and community facilities. The project will deliver a high priority Defence capability requirement. It will also deliver economic benefits for South Australia and provide a popular posting location for Army personnel.
In its report the Public Works Committee has recommended actions for the Australian government and the Minister for Defence. The Department of Defence has acknowledged these recommendations and notes they are respectively matters for the Australian government and the Minister for Defence. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is planned to commence in late 2008 and be completed by December 2011. On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee for its support and I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I 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: Enoggera redevelopment stage 1 project, Gallipoli Barracks, Brisbane.
The Department of Defence proposes to undertake the first stage of the redevelopment of Gallipoli Barracks, Enoggera, at an estimated out-turned cost of $80.2 million plus GST. The main components of the proposed works include a new combined mess, office accommodation and upgrades to some engineering services. The proposal will significantly enhance the base support facilities and provide a safer and more effective work environment for personnel based at Gallipoli Barracks.
In its report the Public Works Committee has recommended that these works proceed. Subject to parliamentary approval, the works would commence in late 2008 and be completed by 2011. On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee for its support and I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I 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 Tindal redevelopment stage 5.
The Department of Defence proposes to undertake stage 5 of the redevelopment of RAAF Base Tindal near Katherine, in the Northern Territory, at an estimated out-turned cost of $58.7 million plus GST. RAAF Base Tindal is part of a chain of airfields stretching across Northern Australia from Learmonth in Western Australia to Townsville in northern Queensland. It is the home base for No. 75 Squadron, a tactical fighter squadron equipped with FA18 Hornets. It is also a staging base for exercises conducted in the area.
This proposal will be a mixture of new facilities, refurbishment and extension to existing facilities and will include upgrades to the base engineering services, aircraft maintenance facilities, warehousing, new fuel tanker maintenance and liquid dry oxygen facilities as well as catering and messing improvements. The proposed project will improve the operational and support capabilities assigned to the base, correct limitations and deficiencies with existing facilities and infrastructure and enhance the working environment for base personnel to an acceptable level. It will address occupational health and safety issues and facilities which no longer meet Australian and Defence standards.
In its report the Public Works Committee has recommended that these works proceed. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is scheduled to commence mid next year and be completed in late 2011. On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee for its support and I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I 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: Airborne early warning and control aircraft facilities, RAAF Base Tindal.
The proposal will provide new infrastructure at RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory to enable the new airborne early warning and control aircraft to operate effectively from the base. This new capability will be an integral part of a layered Australian Defence Force air defence system. The airborne early warning and control capability will enhance surveillance, air defence, fleet support and joint operations in defence of Australia’s sovereignty and her national interests.
The aircraft will be home based at RAAF Base Williamtown in New South Wales and will use RAAF Base Tindal as a forward operating base. The first aircraft are scheduled for delivery in July 2009. The proposal will provide new taxiways, aprons, shelters, hydrant refuelling and associated infrastructure. The estimated out-turned cost of the proposal is $64.2 million plus GST. In its report the Public Works Committee has recommended that these works proceed. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is expected to commence in early 2009, with completion in late 2010. On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee for its support. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I 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: Construction of the Australian Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, China.
On 29 June 2006, the then Prime Minister, the Hon. John Howard MP, announced that Australia would participate in the Shanghai World Expo 2010. This will be the first major world exposition since Aichi, Japan, in 2005 and will take place between 1 May and 31 October 2010. In addition to the $61 million being provided through the budget, the government will seek an estimated $22 million in funding through corporate sponsorships and partnerships with the states and territories. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has portfolio responsibility for this project and will manage Australia’s presence at the expo. In terms of the potential to assist Australian business and raise Australia’s profile in a strategic market, this expo represents a unique opportunity, eclipsing in scale any previous expo, including Aichi. It is therefore essential that Australia’s presence at the expo be commensurate with our economic and strategic interests in China.
The proposal is to construct a new temporary pavilion with appropriate public exhibition areas and capacity to host VIP, business and cultural programs that make up the Australian participation at the expo. The design process created a concept for a well-designed purpose-built pavilion that will showcase Australia to the Chinese public, compares favourably to our marker countries and provides a platform for helping Australian business succeed in the Chinese market. Subject to parliamentary approval, a single contract will be awarded for the construction, exhibition production and technical operation of the pavilion. Contracts will need to be signed by mid-September 2008 to achieve construction commencement this calendar year.
The construction program requires the base building to be complete and dust proof in the technical areas by mid-September 2009. Practical completion and occupation is scheduled for 1 March 2010, with commencement of the expo on 1 May 2010. The estimated cost of the proposed works inclusive of GST is $49.38 million and includes construction and other related elements such as architecture, consultant fees, project management, supervision, exhibition, furniture, artworks, whitegoods and site office expenses. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I 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: Fit-out for the Australian Federal Police of the Edmund Barton Building, Barton.
The Australian Federal Police is the major instrument of Commonwealth law enforcement. Its role is to enforce Commonwealth criminal law and protect Commonwealth and national interests from crime in Australia and overseas. The AFP has established a strategy to integrate all of its headquarters functions in a single site within the Australian Capital Territory to achieve business efficiencies and optimise its security and risk management requirements.
The AFP currently holds leases across 16 sites in the Australian Capital Territory to perform its national role in what are essentially commercial leases. This is not suitable for the AFP’s long-term operational requirements. The majority of the headquarters functions are located in six sites that will be relinquished as part of the co-location to the Edmund Barton Building. Under current planning, there are some other headquarter elements in the remaining building that will also co-locate to the Edmund Barton Building.
The Edmund Barton Building consists of 40,000 square metres of office space, including public and support spaces, which is sufficient occupancy space for approximately 2,200 staff and accommodates the AFP workforce complement of headquarters personnel. The Edmund Barton Building fully meets the AFP requirements. It will be fully refurbished to an A-grade building with new engineering services to enable the environmental target to be achieved. The fit-out will include office space, core storage, a conference centre, a forecourt cafe facility, basement storage and, subject to review by the AFP, childcare facilities.
The proposed fit-out is estimated to cost $115 million plus GST. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction would commence in November 2008 and be completed for occupancy progressively from July 2009 to the end of 2009. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the committee’s report entitled Review of the re-listing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.
by leave—The Kurdistan Workers Party is also known as the People’s Congress of Kurdistan, Kongra-Gel, KADEK, Kongra Gele Kurdistan, the New PKK, the Kurdistan Labour Party, the Kurdish Freedom Falcons, the TAK, the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress, the Kurdish Liberation Hawks and the KHK. The PKK was originally listed in Australia as a terrorist organisation in 2006. On 18 September 2007, the Attorney-General advised the committee that he had decided to relist the Kurdistan Workers Party as a terrorist organisation for the purposes of section 102 of the Criminal Code Act 1995. Following the election, the regulation was tabled in the House of Representatives and the Senate on 12 February 2008. The original disallowance period of 15 sitting days for the committee’s review of the listing began from the date of the tabling. Therefore, the committee was expected to report to the parliament by 20 March 2008. However, in this the 42nd Parliament the committee first met on 13 March—it was not constituted until that time—and all members of the parliament will therefore understand that it was not possible to meet that deadline. Members of the committee nonetheless felt it important to consider the matter and to provide a report to the parliament, as is the responsibility of the committee. Notice of the inquiry was placed on the committee’s website. Three submissions were received from the public. The committee also wrote to all premiers and chief ministers inviting submissions. No submissions were received from any state or territory objecting to the relisting. Representatives of the Attorney-General’s Department, ASIO and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade attended a private hearing on these listings.
The committee heard from ASIO that the PKK maintains its capacity to undertake significant terrorist attacks. The PKK continues to commit attacks against civilians and tourists in Turkey despite periodic ceasefires. These attacks are committed with the intention of advancing what might be seen by some as Kurdish interests, particularly for those living in Turkey, and in order to coerce the government of Turkey and terrorise sections of the public. There is no reason to believe that the PKK has relinquished either its intent in this matter or its capability to undertake these activities. In view of this, the committee does not recommend to the parliament that the regulation be disallowed. I commend the report to the House.
Debate resumed from 24 June, on motion by Mr Albanese:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Last night I indicated to the House that significant oil spills overseas have demonstrated that the maximum amount of compensation afforded under the current protection of the sea legislation scheme is insufficient. For example, in the Nakhodka oil spill off the coast of Japan in 1997, the Erika spill off France in 1999 and the Prestige spill off Spain in 2002, the funds available under the existing scheme proved insufficient, with claimants unable to get the full amount of their approved compensation.
Australia has itself suffered a number of marine incidents involving oil tankers. The most notable incidents involved the Princess Anne-Marie off the Western Australian coast in July 1975, when approximately 15,000 tonnes of oil was spilt, and the Kirki off the Western Australian coast in July 1991, when approximately 18,000 tonnes of crude oil was released after the bow fell off the vessel. In the latter incident, serious pollution of the Western Australian coast was avoided due to the combination of severe weather conditions and the effects of the Leeuwin current in dispersing the 7,900 tonnes of oil lost during the initial stages of the spill off Cervantes and Jurien Bay. While the clean-up costs in the above incidents fell within the limit provided for under the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage and were consequently paid by the oil tankers’ insurers, a large spill of heavy crude oil from an oil tanker in an environmentally sensitive area could necessitate extensive clean-up and restoration costs which might require drawing on the IOPC Funds. This figure, of course, could increase substantially in areas involving, for example, extensive commercial fishing or tourism interests, where potential claimants may seek to recover compensation for loss of income. Such a figure could exceed the IOPC Funds limit. In order to tackle this problem, the supplementary fund protocol creates a third tier of compensation for damage resulting from spills of oil from an oil tanker so that the maximum amount payable increases to 750 million special drawing rights, which is approximately A$1.3 billion, per incident.
Let me now make some remarks about schedule 2 of the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. Australia is a party to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships 1973, which is known as MARPOL. It has implemented all six technical annexes to MARPOL. They deal respectively with prevention of pollution by the discharge of oil, noxious liquid substances in bulk, harmful package substances, sewage, garbage and air pollution from ships. The legislation giving effect to MARPOL in Australia is the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983. The amendments here make miscellaneous amendments to the requirements for maintenance of garbage record books.
In October 2006 the International Maritime Organisation adopted a revised annex III of MARPOL which was about prevention of pollution by harmful substances carried by sea in packaged form. The revised annex III will enter into force on 1 January 2010. The annex was revised to harmonise it with the criteria for defining marine pollutants which had been adopted by the United Nations transport of dangerous goods subcommittee, based on the United Nations’ globally harmonised system of classification and labelling of chemicals. This bill makes the necessary amendments to implement this change as from 1 January 2010.
In July 2007 the International Maritime Organisation adopted an amendment to annex IV of MARPOL which extended an existing provision regarding the discharge of sewage to include sewage originating from spaces containing living animals and adopted a recommendation on standards for the rate of discharge of untreated sewage. This amendment will enter into force internationally on 1 December 2008. An amendment is necessary for Australia to continue to meet its international obligations.
The bill also substitutes a new definition of the term ‘Australian port’, to mean a place appointed, proclaimed or prescribed as a port under the Customs Act 1901 or under a law of a state or territory, in the Marine Navigation Levy Collection Act 1989, the Marine Navigation (Regulatory Functions) Levy Collection Act 1991 and the Protection of the Sea (Shipping Levy Collection) Act 1981. It is becoming more frequent for ships to load and unload offshore without entering a port. Ships calling at offshore installations and ships unloading cargo offshore gain the benefit of Australia’s ship safety and environment protection services and the national aids to navigation network. However, as they do not call at Australian ports, they may seek to dispute their liability to pay the relevant levies for these services. This amendment will put beyond doubt that a place adjacent to an installation or indeed a place to which a ship comes for the purposes of unloading cargo, even if that place is not immediately adjacent to land, can be a port if it is so prescribed under the Customs Act 1901.
Australia is fortunate to have jurisdiction over 14 million square kilometres of marine area. This is almost twice the size of our continental land mass, so Australia’s oceans are massive and important things indeed. They extend from Antarctica to near-equatorial waters, and we have one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world. The states and territories have jurisdiction over marine areas out to three nautical miles from the coastline, and the Commonwealth has jurisdiction beyond those waters to the 200-nautical-mile boundary of the exclusive economic zone. Our oceans are vitally important to us for recreation, for commercial and recreational fishing and for their multitude of plants, animals and fish, many of which are unique to Australian waters. Our oceans play a major role in our economic life as a base for shipping and transport and by supporting fisheries, aquaculture and tourism.
Our oceans are subject to a number of threats, not just those from oil tanker spills. The 2006 State of the environment report set out the continued degradation of marine habitats and our presently unsustainable fisheries management. There are a number of things that I believe need to be done to set our oceans on a path to sustainability. I believe we need a national oceans act that declares biodiversity protection, ecological sustainability and ecosystem based management as key objectives and works towards those objectives through enforceable regional marine plans. Progress has been too slow on regional marine plans and we should get on with the development of these plans. They should help achieve a national representative system of marine protected areas which ensure that no-take marine protected areas in which fishing is not permitted are established in each marine ecosystem.
No-take areas serve as a refuge where fish stocks can be built up, and they are an important safeguard against the chronic overfishing which is imperilling many of the world’s fish species. Bureau of Rural Sciences fisheries status reports have painted a bleak picture, describing two-thirds of Australia’s fisheries as either overfished or uncertain. We need a specific audit of the state of Australia’s fisheries under the National Land and Water Resources Audit. We should ensure that Commonwealth and export trawl fisheries develop and implement turtle excluder devices and other bycatch reduction initiatives in longline fisheries. Longline fishing in areas and seasons that are of high risk to albatrosses and other seabirds should be limited to night setting.
Australia should develop regional partnerships to extend the present efforts to protect fisheries and marine life in Antarctic waters, including the pursuit and apprehension of illegal fishers in the Southern Ocean. We should pursue cooperatively with other nations the creation of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean to protect the global marine heritage on Australia’s doorstep. A comprehensive approach to marine protection includes safeguarding our oceans from pollution, from shipping and from land based activities. Water quality needs to be protected from impacts from nutrients, sedimentation, sewage and stormwater disposal and coastal shipping practices. We could have a marine pests initiative. Such an initiative would improve controls on ballast water discharges and build on existing activities by the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service through the national system for the protection and management of marine pest incursions.
Then there is the impact on the sea of its interface with the land—the beaches and the shore. The Marine Coastal Community Network has done much to raise community awareness of these issues, and I notice that in its latest publication there is a report concerning the state of beaches and the impact of four-wheel drive vehicles on those beaches. This report indicates that beaches are not marine deserts, as is falsely assumed by the majority of beach users. They are highly dynamic ecosystems that host a great diversity of life, are a habitat for species not found elsewhere and provide irreplaceable ecosystem services—for example, water filtration, nutrient recycling and nursery habitat for fishes. They are not resilient to vehicles, which substantially modify the habitat of the intertidal fauna, displacing large volumes of sand. As a result, if the invertebrates get crushed under tyres, beaches subjected to heavy vehicle traffic support significantly fewer species at much reduced densities. This has an impact on the ecosystem because those creatures recycle nutrients, break down organic matter such as stranded algae and seagrass and are food for birds and fishes. So, due to their role in transferring energy from plants up to fishes and birds, it means there is a reduction in the diversity of invertebrates which reverberates up the food chain. Fewer shorebirds and fewer fish may therefore be the consequence of driving cars on our beaches. Effective management of coastal ecosystems needs to include sandy beaches as living ecosystems and reduce the impacts from widespread human interference such as that involving four-wheel drive vehicles.
Then of course there is the impact of climate change on the oceans. Just in the past week there has been a report which has found:
Oceans have heated up much more rapidly in the past four decades than scientists had thought.
As reported in the Age:
An Australian and American research team found that between 1961 and 2003, the rate of warming of the upper ocean layers was about 50% higher than it was estimated in last year’s report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Scientist Catia Domingues, of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, said her team’s finding helped solve a problem for climate researchers, who had not been able to fully explain why sea levels had risen so rapidly in this period.
They said, essentially, it was the result of ‘expansion of the warming oceans’. The article continued:
The CSIRO team reviewed millions of measurements of ocean temperatures, taken from instruments probing the upper 700 metres of the ocean, to assess the contribution of the thermal expansion of the upper layers to overall sea-level rises.
Contributions from melting glaciers, melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, and thermal expansion of the deep ocean were also analysed.
It is also reported that they are now looking to work out whether the global sea rise is accelerating. Findings from ocean-mapping satellites suggest that between 1993 and 2003 sea levels rose by an average of ‘slightly more than three millimetres a year’ compared with the sea level rise of 1.8 millimetres a year during the previous part of the 20th century.
This suggests that our oceans may be very different in 50 years time. Ocean temperatures are warming. The pH—the acidity—is decreasing and sea levels are rising. The impact of climate change on Australian marine systems needs to be a concern for the general public, for scientists, for managers and policy makers. Clearly, there is a need for better research in this area, cross-disciplinary and cross-organisational research networks and integrated data archiving, in order that we understand this phenomenon better. It is important that the parliament understand the impact of climate change on our oceans and on the Australian environment more broadly and that we take the measures that are needed to mitigate climate change, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and also adapt to the inevitable impact on oceans, on beaches and on Australian life more broadly.
I rise to support the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and, might I say, what a great piece of legislation it is, not only for my electorate of Flynn but also for Australia generally. By way of a brief outline, the bill is intended to: implement the protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage, described as the supplementary fund protocol, schedule 1; introduce amendments to the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983, the MARPOL amendments, schedule 2; and amendments relating to shipping and marine navigation levies, schedule 3. The Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 will implement the supplementary fund protocol, introduce amendments to the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 and amendments relating to shipping and marine navigation levies.
By way of background, Australia is currently part of a two-tier liability and compensation scheme applying to pollution damage resulting from oil spills from oil tankers. Under the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage 1992, the tanker owner is strictly liable to pay compensation to a maximum amount, which is determined by the size of the tanker. Owners of tankers registered in a contracting state carrying more than 2,000 tonnes of oil as cargo are required to maintain insurance to cover liability under the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage 1992. This tier is provided by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, which provide compensation for substantiated claims in excess of the shipowner’s liability for the incident. The IOPC Funds are financed by levies imposed on receivers of oil in countries which are contracting parties to the given convention which established the funds.
Under this two-tier system the maximum amount of compensation available for a single incident is currently only about $350 million—not nearly enough. There have been several major international oil spills where the IOPC Funds proved to be insufficient to provide full compensation to all claimants. A supplementary fund protocol was adopted in 2003 by the International Maritime Organisation, the IMO, to create a further source of funds for compensation in the event of damage caused by an oil spill. The protocol entered into force internationally on 3 March 2005.
This bill under the consideration of the House implements the protocol of 2003 whereby the supplementary fund protocol creates a third tier of compensation for damage resulting from spills of oil from an oil tanker so that the maximum amount payable increases to approximately $1.3 billion per incident. The supplementary fund will be financed through levies on public or private entities in receipt of more than 150,000 tonnes of contributing oil per year in contracting states. Levies will only be collected after an oil spill occurs and after the first two tiers of compensation are exhausted.
Australia is also a party to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. The legislation giving effect to this is the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983—the POTS act—and the Navigation Act of 1912. The amendments to the POTS act make miscellaneous amendments to the requirements for maintenance of garbage record books and allow regulations under the POTS act to prescribe penalties of up to 50 penalty units. The purpose of the amendments to the Marine Navigation Levy Collection Act 1989, the Marine Navigation (Regulatory Functions) Levy Collection Act 1991 and the Protection of the Sea (Shipping Levy Collection) Act 1981 is to make the definition of ‘Australian port’ consistent in these acts and to amend the definition of ‘collector’ in the Protection of the Sea (Shipping Levy Collection) Act 1981.
As I said at the commencement of my speech today, this is ‘great news’ legislation not only for the electorate of Flynn but also for Australia generally. The legislation is to ensure that if there is pollution damage resulting from an oil spill from an oil tanker then adequate, proper, just and reasonable compensation will be available. There have already been a number of high-profile, high-impact oil tanker incidents: the Nakhodka off the coast of Japan in 1997, the Erika off the coast of France in 1999 and the Prestige off the coast of Spain in 2002. The maximum compensation afforded by the two conventions to which Australia is currently a party has proven to be insufficient to provide full compensation for all claimants. The legislation before the House will increase the maximum amount of compensation available for a single incident from about $350 million to $1.3 billion. The passing of this bill will ensure that compensation to Australian victims following an oil spill from an oil tanker incident is maximised and that adequate financial resources are provided for clean-up and restoration of Australia’s marine environment.
In addition to providing for the payment of compensation costs, this bill will also play an important role in the protection of the marine environment. This is an absolutely critical piece of legislation for the electorate of Flynn and for Australia generally. Already, warning bells have been ringing very loudly in our ears and warning shots have been fired across our bows. To date, Australia has suffered a number of marine incidents involving oil tankers, including the Princess Anne-Marie off the Western Australian coast in July 1975 when approximately 15,000 tonnes of oil were spilt, and the Kirki off the Western Australian coast in July 1991 when approximately 18,000 tonnes of crude oil were released after the bow fell off the vessel. Serious pollution of the Western Australian coast was avoided due to the dual combination of severe weather conditions and the effects of the Leeuwin current in disbursing the 7,900 tonnes of oil lost during the initial stages of the spill off Cervantes and Jurien Bay.
I am well qualified to speak on this bill, I believe. I have witnessed firsthand the damage and destruction an oil spill can inflict on a community, including its environment. In January 2006 in my electorate of Flynn a major oil spill occurred at the port of Gladstone. It was Queensland’s worst oil spill in more than 30 years. Authorities worked for days to contain the spill in Gladstone Harbour, on the central Queensland coast where I live, after 25,000 litres of heavy fuel poured from a coal carrier. The clean-up cost millions of dollars. It had the potential to be a tragedy for the area’s marine life. The area is frequented by dugongs, crocodiles, seabirds and turtles. That incident showed to Australia how easily these things can happen. According to reports, a tug accidentally rammed into a Korean bulk carrier in Gladstone Harbour and ruptured its fuel tank. Through the outstanding efforts of all concerned in the clean-up of that major oil spill, a major economic and environmental catastrophe was thankfully averted. But it just showed the community of Gladstone, in my electorate of Flynn, and Australia generally that, as we go about our business, things can quickly go horribly wrong.
I will leave that incident aside and return to the proposed bill. This bill will never prevent human error, failure to comply with safety standards, wanton disregard for the law or acts of terrorism. What it will do is provide a just, adequate and equitable compensation regime for those aggrieved and affected by an oil spill disaster.
My electorate of Flynn includes within its boundaries the magnificent Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is the only living organic collective visible from earth’s orbit. The Great Barrier Reef, which is off the east coast of Australia, is included in the electorates of Flynn, Capricornia, Dawson and Leichhardt—all represented, may I say, by fantastic Labor members: Trevor, Livermore, Bidgood and Turnour. It is one of the wonders of the natural world. It is the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, and it was declared a World Heritage area in 1981.
The reef is scattered with beautiful islands and idyllic coral cays and covers more than 300,000 square kilometres. The Great Barrier Reef system consists of more than 3,000 reefs, which range in size from one hectare to over 10,000 hectares in area. I have spent much time on this reef. I have fished on it, I have snorkelled on it, I have scuba dived on it and I have holidayed on it. It is a beautiful place and every Australian should visit it. In recent years, I have gone out in September on a charter boat, the Gray Scout, owned by Kev Benn of Gladstone. He is a wonderful skipper. The trip is organised by Croc Thomas, and Hanso, Crossy, Rowy and a number of other great blokes. I have a great time on this reef fishing and swimming, and on occasions we see whales. The Swains Reef is a beautiful place on the Great Barrier Reef. I will not get there in September this year, because of parliament. But I wish them a safe and happy trip.
From being out there, I realise what a great disaster it would be if there was an oil tanker spill there. Corals make up the various reefs and cays. The coral has over the years brought many ships to grief, including Captain James Cook’s Endeavour. One of the most famous wrecks is that of HMS Pandora, which foundered in 1791. There are 30 shipwreck sites known in the marine park. Just imagine if we had 31 and it was an oil tanker.
The World Heritage area of the Great Barrier Reef hosts many habitats or native environments where animals and plants live. The Great Barrier Reef abounds with wildlife, including dugong, green turtles, varieties of dolphins and whales, more than 1,500 species of fish, 4,000 types of mollusc and more than 200 species of birdlife. More than two million people visit the reef each year, generating billions in tourism dollars and making tourism a major earner for the Australian economy. Just imagine if we were to wake up one morning to learn of a major spill of oil on the Great Barrier Reef. As a regular visitor to the reef and a fierce advocate of it, I say ‘perish the thought’. The cost of restoring the environment would be enormous. With the wind and the tides out there, it would be a catastrophe. I honestly shudder to think of the cost of an environmental clean-up, let alone the significant loss to tourist resorts, dive boat operators, commercial fishers, recreational fishers, tourism operators and charter fishing vessel operators.
I am proud to speak on this proposed legislation. It provides an economic and environmental safeguard—a safety net, so to speak, in economic terms—to those potentially affected. I pray deep down in my heart and from the very bottom of it that I never witness the need to use this legislation. I commend this bill to the House on behalf of the people of Flynn and the Australian public generally.
I rise to support the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. The purpose of this bill is to implement the protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage—the supplementary fund protocol—and to introduce amendments to the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983, the MARPOL amendments, and amendments relating to shipping and maritime navigation levies.
Australia is party to two conventions which establish the international liability and compensation regime for pollution damage resulting from spills of oil from oil tankers: the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage 1992, or the civil liability convention, and the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage 1992, or the 1992 fund convention. These conventions establish a two-tier scheme to provide compensation for loss or damage resulting from a spill of oil from an oil tanker.
The burden of compensating victims for oil spills is shared in the first instance between the shipowners and their insurers. If the moneys available are insufficient, the outstanding compensation is provided by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, the IOPC Funds, which are financed by levies on cargo owners—that is, the oil-receiving identities. Under this two-tier scheme, the maximum amount of compensation available for a single incident involving spills of oil from an oil tanker is 203 million special drawing rights, which is approximately $350 million. The SDR is a unit of account defined by the International Monetary Fund. The value of the SDR varies from day to day in accordance with changes in currency.
Following a number of high-profile, high-impact tanker incidents, including one off the coast of Japan in 1997, the Erika off the coast of France in 1999 and the Prestige off the coast of Spain in 2002, the maximum compensation afforded by these two conventions has proved to be insufficient to provide full compensation for all claimants. In Australia, given our extensive coastline and strong environmental perspective, the compensation available under the IOPC Funds may not cover a major incident such as those experienced by Japan, France or Spain.
As a result, the supplementary fund protocol was adopted in 2003 by the International Maritime Organisation, the IMO, to create a further source of funds for compensation in the event of pollution damage caused by an oil spill from an oil tanker. The supplementary fund protocol entered into force internationally on 3 March 2005. The supplementary fund protocol creates a third tier of compensation for pollution damage resulting from spills of oil from an oil tanker, so that the maximum amount payable increases to up to 750 million SDRs, which is approximately A$1.3 billion per incident. The supplementary fund will be financed through levies on public or private entities in receipt of more than 150,000 tonnes of contributing oil per year in contracting states. Levies for the supplementary fund will be collected after an oil spill has occurred and after the first two tiers of compensation are exhausted. The supplementary fund protocol does not impose additional costs on the shipping industry, as the cost is borne by the oil-importing entities.
Australia’s accession to the supplementary fund protocol will ensure that compensation to Australian victims following an oil spill from an oil tanker is maximised and that adequate financial resources are provided for clean-up and restoration of Australia’s marine environment. This is absolutely vital for a country like Australia with such a vast and expansive coastline. We are all familiar with the story of the Pasha Bulker, the huge coal carrier which ran aground in Newcastle during severe weather in May last year and caused a major spectacle in that city for several weeks. While the Pasha Bulker was not an oil tanker, that ship had on board 760 tonnes of fuel oil and smaller quantities of diesel and other lubricating oils to operate its machinery. Luckily, in the case of the Pasha Bulker, time was on the side of salvage crews, who, despite some damage to the ship’s hull, were able to empty most of the fuel oil and other potential pollutants from the vessel before spillages occurred at Nobbys Beach.
Members of this House may take issue with my saying that the seat of Dobell has the most beautiful beaches in the whole of Australia. For that reason this bill is absolutely vital—to make sure that these pristine beaches, which stand out amongst many great beaches in Australia, are protected. In the future we may not be able to avert a major environmental disaster so easily. From Newcastle, which is just to the north of the seat of Dobell, stretching south along the coastline right through my electorate, there is a constant and long queue of ships waiting to off-load their cargo. We often see up to 48 vessels waiting along the coastline in front of my electorate. These vessels carry similar quantities of bunker oils to that of the Pasha Bulker. The likelihood of other weather events, accidents or equipment failures aboard the many coal vessels, oil tankers or general cargo ships that ply the Central Coast waters each year along the coastline of Dobell and its neighbouring electorates mean that we are potentially at risk of major maritime oil spills.
Increasing importance is being placed on the future of Dobell as a tourist destination. From beautiful Wamberal in the south, through to Forresters Beach, Shelley Beach, Toowoon Bay and Soldiers Beach in the north, our pristine beaches are the area’s jewels and Australia’s jewels in terms of beaches. An incident involving an oil spillage or something similar anywhere along the beautiful coastline would be disastrous for the lifestyle and economy of my electorate in terms of the effect it would have on tourism. The seat of Dobell has almost twice the national level of unemployment, and tourism is one industry that provides vital employment for people living within the electorate. The impact economically of an oil spill on the tourism industry in Dobell cannot be overstated.
I must stress that my constituents take their lifestyles very seriously. Not only do we take pride in some of Australia’s best beaches, with a healthy level of participation in ocean swimming and surf-lifesaving; we also have one of the country’s highest per capita rates of recreational fishing. Our waters need protection. Our surf clubs on the Central Coast are part of the Dobell culture. Almost all kids who grow up on the Central Coast join a surf-lifesaving club at some stage and participate in the nippers and other activities there. Surf-lifesaving for people who live in my electorate is far more than a sporting activity. It is an activity that brings together and binds our community and provides support for each other in hard times and in good times. If we were to have oil spills that were in some way to threaten the functionality of these surf clubs, that would have a disastrous social impact on people who live in my electorate. The Central Coast has had a proud record in surf-lifesaving. The advent of RVs, which you now see at most surf beaches around Australia, were primarily pioneered at Soldiers Beach at Norah Head in my electorate. Surf-lifesaving has played a very important role in the development of the sense of community that we have on the Central Coast.
I can let the House know that, as a member of Surf Life Saving Australia who actively and regularly patrols beaches, I can attest firsthand to the important role that surf-lifesaving plays in the lives of people who live on the Central Coast and for the many hundreds of thousands of tourists who come to the Central Coast to enjoy the best beaches in Australia.
The Rudd government has already embarked on several initiatives to improve and protect the environment. In my electorate, this includes $20 million for the Tuggerah Lakes Estuary Management Plan, which aims to clean up the lakes system and restore it to the environmental showpiece status that it deserves. Thousands of Central Coast residents live around the lakes and use them for recreational purposes on a daily basis. Visitors from both within Australia and overseas regularly benefit from holidays by the lakes at such popular destinations as The Entrance—and, of course, it is named The Entrance because that is where the Tuggerah Lakes meet the ocean. That shows the vulnerability of the lakes system to an oil spillage, should one occur.
Commercial fishermen draw some of their livelihood from the lakes, and the area is known for its sweet-tasting school prawns in particular, which even in these times of record inflation can be bought for about $14 a kilo by the lakes’ edge. Areas of the Tuggerah Lakes system are natural habitats for hundreds of species of migratory birds, some of them threatened. Substantial areas of bush reserve, which contain a vast variety of flora and fauna, interface with Tuggerah Lakes and its smaller surrounding waterways. Much of the Tuggerah Lakes Estuary Management Plan—which, as I said, the Rudd government has contributed $20 million to over the next five years to ensure that the lakes are returned to a pristine condition—focuses on ensuring that the run-off and the flow from other waterways into the lakes are clean. Restoring the lakes system is a vital program for the region’s natural environment and tourism industry. The federal government is working closely with Wyong Shire Council to ensure that this aim is met.
The estuary management plan is also an important project for the constituents of Dobell, many of whom at both the council and the community level have a strong involvement in the process and take great pride in the natural features of our lakes system. We have many volunteer organisations that regularly participate and assist in ensuring that our lakes system is kept in good condition, and the $20 million from the Rudd government will help to ensure that the lakes system is restored to the pristine condition that we know it should be in.
The environment is a priority on the Central Coast and the federal government has recognised this. The Rudd government chose to highlight its commitment to the environment with the launching of the $100 million Caring for our Coasts plan by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, at North Entrance, an area that is itself facing tough coastal erosion issues. In fact, both at Wamberal in the south of the electorate and at Norah Head in the north we have houses that have been threatened by coastal erosion. Again the federal government will work closely with the local council and with community bushcare and dune-care groups to ensure such areas receive the best care.
On a wider scale, our comprehensive plan to tackle climate change also includes ratifying the Kyoto protocol, substantially increasing the mandatory renewable energy target, making every Australian school a ‘solar school’ and committing $500 million to the development of clean coal and low emissions technologies through the National Clean Coal Initiative. The Central Coast will also benefit from other Rudd government initiatives, including practical measures to improve household energy efficiency. Among these are generous rebates for solar power systems, solar hot water and rainwater tanks, as well as low-interest loans for families to undertake practical water and energy efficiency measures in their homes.
If we look at the effect that climate change could have on my electorate, we see that we are bordered on the east by the coast and have a large lakes system in the middle. Houses, residences and the community are built around the lakes and between the ocean and the lakes. If climate change is not addressed properly, if we do not properly address environmental concerns, it has been shown by some modelling that, rather than the east coast and the eastern area of Tuggerah Lakes being where the vast majority of people will live, the coastline will move to the western side of Tuggerah Lakes. Already we have had major flooding of many houses. The June long weekend last year saw my electorate become the subject of tidal surges and storm flooding that affected many residents. In fact I can report to the House that the member for the state seat of Wyong, Mr David Harris, and I are holding a picnic this Sunday to offer our congratulations and to bring a greater sense of community to all the people who rallied together at this time last year against the impact of the flooding in my electorate.
It cannot be overstated just how sensitive and vulnerable the environment is along our unique Australian coastline and in the electorate of Dobell in particular. Offering adequate compensation for any major oil spill and enforcing responsibility and accountability in the maritime industries, both in Australia and abroad, are essential. Australia is a party to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships 1973—MARPOL—and has implemented all six technical annexes to MARPOL which, respectively, deal with the prevention of pollution by the discharge of oil, by noxious liquid substances in bulk, by harmful packaged substances, by sewage, by garbage and by air pollution from ships. The following legislation gives effect to MARPOL in Australia: the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983—the POTS act—and the Navigation Act 1912. The amendments to the POTS act will implement changes to annexes I, III and IV of MARPOL, make miscellaneous amendments to the requirements for maintenance of garbage record books and allow regulations under the POTS act to prescribe penalties of up to 50 penalty units.
This bill will improve the robustness of Australia’s maritime environment regulatory regime and provide clarity and consistency across existing legislation. Without this amendment, the pristine beaches of Dobell, the beaches surrounding this country and the waterways, such as Tuggerah Lakes, will continue to be at risk from oil spillages. This is a risk that we cannot allow to continue. As part of a suite of measures that the Rudd government has introduced to protect our environment and the economy in these areas which would be so adversely affected by such spills, this bill must be supported. In conclusion, when the risks are considered, Australia must have proper regulation, legislative protection and adequate compensation in the event of any major maritime accidents or disasters that might affect our precious coastline. For these reasons I commend the bill to the House.
The Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 establishes a supplementary fund to provide additional compensation to victims of oil spills. These amendments give effect to the 2003 protocol to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage. The amendments reflect article 2(2) of the protocol, giving the supplementary fund legal personality in Australia, and article 7, which gives Australian courts jurisdiction to entertain an action against the supplementary fund for compensation. The importance of these amendments lies in their embrace of a multilateral framework for the protection of our seas. They provide certainty to the shipping and oil industries and ensure that our fragile marine environments are provided for in the event of a spill. They continue the strong Labor tradition, from Evatt through to Gareth Evans, of engaging with the United Nations on issues of international significance, such as in this case a consistent approach to compensation in the aftermath of an environmental disaster.
Australia has long recognised the need to provide adequate compensation for damages resulting from oil spills. Under the 1992 International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage, to which Australia is a party, liability for damage resulting from a tanker spill lies with tanker owners and their insurers, known as protection and indemnity, or P&I, clubs. Subject to a number of specific exceptions, this liability has been strict, and the onus is on tanker owners to prove in each case that any of the exceptions should operate. Owners of tankers carrying more than 2,000 tons of oil and registered in a contracting state are required to maintain insurance to cover any liability under the convention. If the amount covered by the owners’ insurance is insufficient to meet the damage caused by the spill, the excess will be covered by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund 1992. This, too, is limited so that the combined amount payable by the tanker owners and the IOPC does not exceed $350 million.
The supplementary protocol provided for in the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 will introduce a third tier of funding. The maximum amount payable will increase to 750 million special drawing rights, or SDRs, per incident. SDRs fluctuate with exchange rates, but the 750 million equates at present to approximately $1.3 billion.
Given that Australia has in excess of 32,000 kilometres of coastline and a sensitive marine environment with many species of aquatic life unique to Australia, such as the giant cuttlefish and the Australian fur seal, these reforms are vital to protect our marine environment and economy. The increase reflects the reality of the modern oil spill. Over 6,000 claims for compensation were lodged in the aftermath of the Erika disaster off the coast of Brittany in December 1999, and the total compensation and clean-up cost of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska totalled billions of dollars.
The supplementary protocol will be financed through levies imposed on oil importers in the aftermath of a spill. This spreads the responsibility for the damage of a major spill between the shipping industry, which carries most of the burden under the current structure, and entities in receipt of more than 150,000 tonnes of contributing oil per year in contracting states.
The national interest analysisreports that the cost to the Australian taxpayer will be negligible as a result of this levy mechanism. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has already informed the House of the massive Nakhodka, Erika and Prestige oil spills on the coastlines of Japan, France and Spain respectively. I would like to add to that the Hong Kong tanker Hebei Spirit, which was wrecked in December last year when 10,000 tonnes of crude oil affected 375 kilometres of the western coast of the Republic of Korea. Should a similar incident occur along the Great Barrier Reef, an area as large as the coastline between Cairns and Townsville could suffer extensive and irreparable environmental damage. A spill of the magnitude of the Hebei Spirit would be an economic as well as environmental disaster. As we have heard in this debate already from members representing seats in Queensland who have sections of the Great Barrier Reef as part of their coastlines, the reef has very real economic importance. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority estimates that visitors to the far northern section of the park alone numbered 8,545 in 2006 and similar numbers in 2007. The local economy is dependent on these visitors, and an oil spill would have a disastrous effect on families that run businesses that cater for tourists visiting the marine park. The increases to the maximum amount payable under the supplementary fund are made with these potential massive losses in income in mind.
My electorate of Isaacs includes a stretch of beautiful beaches in Port Phillip Bay between Carrum and Mentone. Despite the best efforts of the Port of Melbourne Corporation to protect Port Phillip Bay from shipping related environmental damage, the possibility of an incident involving oil spillage cannot be excluded. On 4 January 2006, just to give one example, the oil tanker Desh Rakshak, owned by the Shipping Corporation of India, sustained holes in a water ballast tank on the port side while entering the heads of Port Phillip Bay, inbound for Geelong. I understand that the tanker was under experienced pilotage and in compliance with depth restrictions, and a disastrous spill was averted. However, the effect of such a spill on the beaches, lifesaving clubs and sensitive coastal ecosystems in my electorate would have been considerable.
The amendments will also update Australia’s commitment to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships 1973, which is given effect by the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983, also known at the POTS act. The POTS act protects our coasts and waterways from noxious pollutants associated with ships. The amendments that are before the House today seek to harmonise our national criteria for defining marine pollutants with the criteria adopted by the United Nations Subcommittee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods. Given the extensive global trade in chemicals, the need to develop national programs compatible with the international community is recognised in these amendments. Harmonisation is essential to enhance the protection of human and environmental health and guarantee the safe transport of hazardous chemicals. It also provides an internationally comprehensible system for hazard communication. Harmonisation will help to facilitate Australia’s international trade by making our system more compatible with the outside world.
Schedule 3 of the amendment bill changes the definition of ‘Australian port’ so that ships unloading cargo offshore may be compelled to pay for their use of services, such as the national aids to navigation network. Services such as our navigation system are second to none. The aids to navigation network has an extensive network of global positioning stations which allows for greater integrity of positioning in areas of high marine traffic or environmental sensitivity. As amended, the act will define a port as a ‘place appointed, proclaimed or prescribed as a port under the Customs Act 1901’ so ships will no longer be able to avoid liability for the use of such services.
The purpose of these amendments is to provide compensation in the aftermath of an oil spill and, in doing so, enhance our social and economic resilience to coastal disasters. With an estimated 1.2 billion people worldwide living within 100 kilometres of a coastline and 50 per cent of the world’s population likely to do so by 2030, it is essential to safeguard Australian coasts with the amendments introduced by this bill, which I commend to the House.
I rise to speak in support of the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, which is a very important bill for our country in meeting its international obligations, in securing and protecting its vast waters and the vast seaborn ecosystem which exists within them, and, importantly, ensuring that there are adequate funds available for the restoration of the environment and for the compensation of those affected in the event of a major oil spill.
This bill has three schedules. The first enacts the supplementary fund protocol. This adds a third tier of compensation to the existing international system of compensation which in its totality will increase the amount that can be paid in the event of a major oil spill from about A$350 million to A$1.3 billion. Schedule 2 puts in place the MARPOL amendments—MARPOL is an acronym used for the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships—which amend requirements for waste management and increase the penalties for breaches of those requirements. Schedule 3 of the bill provides for amendments to the existing shipping and marine navigation acts, providing for definitional amendments so that there is consistency in a number of terms, particularly the term ‘Australian port’, throughout our maritime legislation. The intent of all of these measures is to provide much greater clarity and certainty in Australian maritime law. Importantly, what they will also do is ensure that there is adequate financial compensation available in the event of an oil tanker spill.
Before I go into the substance of the bill, I wish to welcome students from the Epping West Public School who are in both galleries above us. I very much welcome them to parliament today and to Canberra and hope that they enjoy their visit and learn a lot. This is a very important debate for them to be listening to.
The Rudd government views this legislation as very important for the protection of our marine environment. As an island state, obviously the entirety of our border is coastline, and those waters form very much a part of the heart of our national identity. Our country is ‘girt by sea’. This legislation is also very important for our economy. The Australian commercial fishing industry, for example, enjoys the third largest fishing zone in the world—a fishing zone which is a consequence of the large coastal area that we have and the 200 nautical mile area extending from our coastline, which gives us a fishing zone of 11 million square kilometres. Commercial fishing is the fifth largest food-producing industry in Australia. It is worth approximately $2.2 billion to our economy—$1.5 billion in exports.
Tourism is also a very important industry for our economy. In 2005-06 the tourism industry in Australia was worth $81 billion. It amounted to 4.6 per cent of the total Australian workforce and it contributed to over 11 per cent of Australia’s exports. From the point of view of regional Australia, where my electorate is, tourism is a very important sector because 47c of every tourism dollar is spent outside Australia’s capital cities. In the year to 30 April 2008 there were 5.6 million international visitors in Australia and, of those, 60 per cent went to a beach at some point during their visit, which highlights how important the sea is to our tourism industry.
Geelong is a town which is very much based upon water, both in terms of our bay and our proximity to the surf coast. Aquaculture is an industry which has long been associated with Geelong, but it is an industry which is growing at a rapid rate right now. Aquaculture in Geelong employs 470 people and contributes almost $70 million to the regional economy. In addition to aquaculture, tourism is very much becoming a major theme for Geelong’s future. It is an incredibly large industry in Geelong right now and it is one of the fastest growing industries in our region. In the year ending March 2008 there were 2.1 million overnight stays by visitors to the Greater Geelong region. In the year ending March 2008 domestic visits were up by 3.3 per cent and international visits were up by 10.3 per cent. Tourism contributes almost 7,000 jobs to the local Geelong economy and amounts to 5.8 per cent of the total employment in the Geelong-Otway region. Again, the relevance of water to tourism in Geelong is very clear: 55 per cent of domestic visitors to Geelong and 41 per cent of international visitors to Geelong enjoyed a visit to a local beach during their time in Greater Geelong.
The Great Ocean Road is one of the major tourist attractions not only for our local region but for Australia. It is one of the great motoring drives in the world, and Geelong is very much the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. Torquay, about 20 minutes from Geelong, is described as the home of surfing—arguably the international home of surfing. Billabong, Rip Curl and Quicksilver all have a very strong presence in Torquay, and Torquay is home to the famous Bells Beach.
In a sense highlighting the significance of the coastline to Geelong is a recent initiative of the Department of Defence, and I note the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement, the honourable member for Charlton, has just entered the chamber. The HMAS Canberra is currently in Geelong being demobilised. The HMAS Canberra is going to be taken to the coastal side of the Bellarine Peninsula, where it will be sunk, and it will become a major scuba-diving attraction for our region.
Geelong is very much based on Corio Bay. Indeed, Corio Bay is why we are where we are, with the establishment of the port of Geelong on Corio Bay in the mid-19th century. Whereas for much of the last few decades in a sense Geelong has turned its back on the bay, in recent years we have started to realise how important and how beautiful the bay is and the role that the bay is going to play in our future. The development of the waterfront along the city edge of the bay has become one of the most impressive things about Geelong. The common which exists on the city waterfront has become the heart of public life in Geelong, being the base for a number of public events and for a number of markets. It has become very much the centre of community life.
Indeed, the city of Geelong has a north-fronting aspect to the bay, which is something unique in Victoria. It is bordered on one end by Cunningham Pier. Cunningham Pier is a very historic pier. When Australia was said to ride on the back of the sheep, in fact the great majority of wool that was exported from Australia left from Cunningham Pier. At the other end of the common is a proposed development of the old Yarra Street Pier. Both of these will contribute greatly to the aspect of Corio Bay.
If you go further around Corio Bay to the north you will find Osborne House, a very historic building which sits on a hill and has perhaps the best view over Corio Bay. There are plans in this precinct for a public performance area, a marine maintenance facility, restaurants and accommodation. From all of this it is clear how important Corio Bay is to Geelong. Without a doubt it is the key asset of our city. From the Osborne House development through to Eastern Park, we are going to see Geelong face the bay once more, incorporating it very much into our lives.
A major theme for the future of Geelong is becoming a lifestyle-tourism city. With its raised peninsula, the hills around the bay and its proximity to the surf coast, it is a place that people come to visit. It is also a place where people who intend to work in Greater Melbourne can live. Being a lifestyle-tourism based city is very much a key to Geelong’s future.
This bill is important for the people of Geelong not only because that is part of our future but also because of another facility which is housed on Corio Bay—that is, the Shell refinery, one of the largest refineries in the country. We in Geelong are very lucky to have Shell as part of our city. For more than half a century Shell has been a very important contributor to the local economy and a very important contributor to local jobs. It is a good corporate citizen and it is now very environmentally sensitive, particularly about its refinery. Growing up near the refinery, I am perhaps a bit biased, but I think there is a certain industrial aesthetic to that refinery, being particularly beautiful at night—but perhaps that is just me. Importantly, what it means is that there are a number of oil tankers which are sailing our waters on a regular basis. The Helcion, the Helix and the Zemira are ships owned by Shell, all of which represent cutting-edge technology; we are lucky to have those ships plying our waters. There are also other ships which go through our waters, which have, for example, Panamanian or Liberian registration.
The shipping channel actually hugs the coastline on Corio Bay, coming within a few hundred metres of the attractions which I have just described. So, whilst of course the events that we are talking about are incredibly unlikely, were the worst to occur it would be critical for Geelong that we have in place the appropriate legislative infrastructure to provide for adequate funds to restore our immediate environment and to compensate those who are affected. It does not take much imagination to see that, were there to be a significant oil spill in Corio Bay, or indeed along the Surf Coast, it would be absolutely devastating to the community of Greater Geelong, which is why this is such an important bill for our community.
This bill is a reflection of the Rudd government’s commitment to addressing environmental issues. In that sense it does stand in stark contrast to the behaviour of government in the Howard years—a government which did not sign the Kyoto protocol; a government which continually questioned the existence of human caused climate change; a government which was reactionary in its approach to water management; a government which had a myopic focus on nuclear power as being the only solution to our woes. Currently we see the Liberal opposition flip-flopping all over the place in terms of its position on a national emissions-trading policy. Indeed, the member for Wentworth, when he was the minister for the environment introducing into this House the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Bill in August last year, cited it as a first step in the phased introduction of a carbon-trading scheme, and he said that it would be:
... the most comprehensive emissions trading scheme in the world, broader in coverage than any scheme currently operating anywhere.
And yet we saw in the House over the last couple of days the now spokesperson for the environment during question time starting to raise a fear campaign about an emissions-trading scheme being implemented by the Rudd government. It indicates that the Liberal opposition have no credibility at all when it comes to the issue of the environment or the issue of climate change. That does stand in stark contrast to the Rudd government, which wants to build upon its environmental credentials. This bill is very much a part of that.
This bill, as I said at the outset, provides for three schedules. I particularly want to go into schedule 1, which really is the heart of the bill. It deals with the increased compensation available in the event of a major oil spill. Schedule 1 adds to the existing two-tier liability and compensation scheme which applies in Australia a third tier which is currently operating in the international system for compensation. There is important history which I want to take you through which explains the development of these tiers.
The International Maritime Organisation is a specialised UN agency and the body responsible for developing measures to ensure secure shipping and clean oceans, free from ship-borne pollutants. Since 1969 it has developed and redesigned conventions to meet these purposes. The 1969 civil liability convention, including the 1971, 1976 and 1984 protocol amendments, first gave rise to the establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage. That fund capped liability payments at an amount roughly equivalent to A$50 million. The 1969 convention was superseded by the protocol of 1992 and that, including the 2000 amendments, provided for the current two-tier system which operates in Australia today.
The first tier is the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage. In essence, this provides the conditions by which oil tanker owners themselves are liable to pay compensation in the event of an oil spill. It also provides the level of insurance that they need to take out. But obviously that insurance has a limit—it is capped. For that reason, a second tier was put in place—the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage. That provides for compensation above the liability limits of the oil tanker owners’ insurance policies. That fund is financed by contributions by contracting states, and ultimately that fund is capped at about A$350 million.
As other speakers in this debate have indicated, there have been a number of instances of oil spills around the world where the environmental damage and the compensation bill as a result of that have been well in excess of that $350 million limit. The Nakhodka spill in the Sea of Japan in 1997, for example, resulted in a compensation bill of around $500 million. The Erika spill off the coast of Brittany in France in 1999 resulted in a $1.2 billion bill. The Prestige spill off the coast of Spain in 2002 also involved a compensation bill in excess of the limits at that time.
Australia has had its own share of incidents over the years. The member for Isaacs referred to a potential spill which could have occurred from a ship entering into Geelong waters. The Princess Anne-Marie off the coast of Western Australia in 1975 had a spill of almost 15,000 tonnes of oil. The Kirki, again off the Western Australian coast in 1991, spilled approximately 18,000 tonnes of oil. On that occasion environmental damage was only avoided due to very favourable weather conditions. One is left to only imagine what the impact would be were there to be a serious oil spill along the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Sydney or, of course, from the point of view of my electorate, in Corio Bay itself. For these reasons it is very important that we put in place this legislation.
This legislation implements the supplementary fund protocol, which increases the liability in the case of a very significant oil spill from about A$350 million to A$1.3 billion. This is done by levying public and private entities in contributing states—public and private entities who themselves receive over 150,000 tonnes of oil per year. Importantly, that levy would only be struck in the event of a major oil spill which extended beyond the current liability limits. The new protocol came into force in March 2005, and, were this bill to pass this parliament and ultimately become enacted, Australia would be, relatively speaking, a world leader in relation to this. There are a number of countries which are already parties to the supplementary fund protocol but we would be among a leading group, and that is also obviously important in terms of encouraging other countries to do the same.
In the time left to me I will briefly mention the remaining parts of this bill. Schedule 2 of the bill involves an improvement to the MARPOL convention. MARPOL, as I said, is an acronym for the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. Australia has implemented all six annexes to MARPOL by way of the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983, by the Hawke government, and the Navigation Act 1912, by the Fisher government. This will involve implementing changes to annexes I, III and IV of MARPOL which will provide for provisions regarding the upkeep of garbage record books and increasing the penalties prescribed under that legislation.
Finally, schedule 3 gives consistency to the term ‘Australian port’ through a range of pieces of legislation in our maritime law which will be important in terms of reducing the scope for disputes over what constitutes an Australian port in an era where there is increased ship loading and unloading that occurs offshore. In summary, this is an important bill in terms of increasing the amount that can be paid in the event of a major oil spill. It builds upon the Rudd government’s environmental credentials. It is very important for our country, which is so reliant on our coastline and our water. (Time expired)
The Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 before us today implements very important objectives. Firstly, it is intended to implement in Australia the protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage. Secondly, the bill seeks to introduce amendments to the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983. Thirdly, the bill has some amendments relating to shipping and marine navigation levies. I will shortly outline some of the detail of each of those objectives and their importance. However, before I do so I want to touch on some of the background regarding the regulatory and commercial aspects of the international shipping industry because it is important to understand in context the need for the changes that are the subject of the legislation before the House.
The shipping industry is responsible for more than 90 per cent of global trade—that is, the carriage of it—and it is subject to intense global competitive and commercial pressures. It is also the subject of an international regulatory regime that is unfortunately largely ineffective. The bulk of the regulatory environment for international shipping is set by international bodies which have nation states as their members. The regulatory framework is therefore subject to some of the same shortcomings as other areas of international legal regulation—namely, problems relating to enforcement by nation states. The most important international agency that oversees the regulation of shipping activities is the IMO, the International Maritime Organisation, which is an agency of the United Nations. The IMO currently has 167 member states and three associate members, with Australia of course being a member state of the IMO. The fundamental role of that organisation is defined as the protection of the marine environment and the safety of life and property at sea. Its aim is to achieve safe, secure and efficient shipping on a clean ocean.
Another agency of the United Nations that relates to the international shipping industry is the International Labour Organisation, which helps determine the employment conditions of seafarers and deals with occupational health and safety issues. These matters are largely spelt out in what is known as convention 147 of the ILO. While these two international bodies help establish the basis for and definition of the regulatory environment, enforcement, as I noted before, is left to member states. In shipping, the flag state is the country in which a ship is registered and which undertakes the responsibility for the implementation of international conventions and agreements relating to that ship. I will say a little bit more about the responsibilities of a flag state in a moment, because therein lies some of the fundamental weaknesses of the regulatory environment. There are also bodies called classification societies, which sometimes, at the behest of a flag state, perform the work of a flag state in ensuring compliance with certain regulations.
The state where the port is based—that is, where the ship is visiting—is called the port state. It is permitted under the international system to inspect visiting foreign ships to ensure that they are in compliance with international regulations. While port state control is important, it remains a secondary measure to the responsibilities of a flag state in ensuring regulatory compliance. In Australia the functions of the flag and the port state are met through the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, AMSA. AMSA works to ensure that Australian flagged ships comply with international standards and that foreign vessels trading in Australian ports meet their requirements. Apart from these bodies, the shipowner, or the charterer in a lot of cases, maintains the overall responsibility for the safe operation of their ships.
That, in brief, is the regulatory environment in which the matters before the House should properly be seen. But it is not just the regulatory environment at an international level which is relevant; it is also the commercial environment in international shipping. Like many other international industries, shipping is subject to intense commercial and competitive pressures, but these pressures in the international shipping industry have been added to, if you like, and driven by the weakness of the regulatory environment that I have described. Shipping companies and owners experience immense pressure to cut costs as they increasingly face lower financial returns for their activities in a weak regulatory environment. These lower financial returns have led shipping companies to look at ways in which they can increase their margins in the face of increasing international competition. Perhaps the most common method for doing so is through the use of flag of convenience arrangements.
Flag of convenience arrangements have led to a degrading of ship standards, poor treatment of ships’ crews, environmental damage and an inability to meet the original intent and purpose of the current international regulatory standards. Flags of convenience are offered by some states at a lower cost and with some significant incentives added for shipowners to flag their ship in a particular state. The concern with this practice is that it has also inevitably involved, at best, an inability to enforce international regulations and, at worst, a blatant attempt to avoid such scrutiny. Classification societies attached to flag of convenience states often contribute to the problems of poor compliance monitoring.
The issue of flags of convenience was, of course, brought to the attention of many Australians in the early 1990s following a trilogy of parliamentary reports made at that time, under the Keating government, on ship safety. These reports were titled Ships of shame.
Mr Pyne interjecting
Peter Morris had a close involvement with the member opposite—
I think I’ve been here too long!
who now notes that he has been here too long. We would have to concur with that comment on the part of the member for Sturt.
Tongue in cheek!
We tried to do something about that!
We will help him out at the next election and pension him off! The work that was carried out by the parliamentary committees at that time in the Ships of shame reports was extremely important in exposing, not just within Australia but at an international level, the shortcomings of the flag of convenience arrangements. The Ships of shame reports were damning in their views of flag of convenience shipping and the resultant problems. I am not sure whether I paused a moment ago to recognise the work of the former member for Shortland, the Hon. Peter Morris, who played an important role and continues to this day—I saw him only recently—to take a very close interest in the international maritime industry and this particular issue.
The issues canvassed by the committee work in the Ships of shame reports included the fact that flags of convenience had led, amongst other things, to the operation of unseaworthy ships; the use of poorly trained crews, crews with false qualification papers or crews unable to communicate with each other or with Australian pilots; inadequate, deficient and poorly maintained safety and rescue equipment; beatings and abuse of sailors, including crew members being starved of food—and I have personally seen circumstances where this has occurred and where seamen have not even had fresh drinking water on their vessel—and being forced to sign dummy pay-books indicating that they had been paid much more than they actually received while also often being required to work long periods of overtime; poor ship safety; and, as a consequence, environmental damage.
Since those reports were published quite some time ago now—the better part of 15 years—it is unfortunate to report that nothing much has really changed in the international shipping industry. These findings were, and still are, not only disturbing but also a disgrace. It is a disgrace that these practices occur, and in my own working life, along with many others, I have worked very hard to try and eradicate them. I worked as an official of the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia, now the Maritime Union of Australia, and dealing with problems generated by flag of convenience shipping was a large part of the work that we undertook.
To help deal with these problems of flag of convenience ships, there are some well-known and very worthwhile international campaigns, such as that conducted by the International Transport Workers Federation, that call for there to be a real connection between a flag state and the ship in question and, of course, for the improvement of the international regulatory environment. I would like to briefly take the opportunity that I have in speaking to this bill to recognise the work of the ITF—the International Transport Workers Federation—and its member unions internationally, including my own union, the Maritime Union of Australia, of which I am a life member. In very difficult circumstances, many people work hard to try and improve the conditions for international seafarers and to avert the environmental damage caused by flag of convenience shipping. Within Australia, the environment where this work is to be done is very difficult. Under the former Howard government, as I recall, one of the very early acts of the then workplace relations minister, Peter Reith, was to strengthen some provisions of the Trade Practices Act in a way that made it even more difficult for people trying to help flag of convenience ship crew members achieve some justice once their ship visited a port within Australia. So it is a hard environment.
The problems I just outlined are still in existence today. I would like to make it very clear that I strongly support the eradication of those practices and condemn those practices by shipowners and some of the flag of convenience states. It does not take much of a stretch of the imagination to see how these problems can lead to very serious accidents within our waters—and, of course, in international waters—and to serious environmental damage. Indeed, it has happened before. In one of the more recent experiences, on 21 July 2001 the bow section of an oil tanker known as the Kirki actually fell off the ship—it broke off—just off the coast of Western Australia. The Kirki, at the time, was loaded with approximately 82,600 tonnes of light crude oil. The damage to the structure of that ship was caused by corrosion that, believe it or not, had not been picked up in any of the inspections by the flag state or the classification society acting on their behalf. Of course, it was a flag of convenience ship. This type of neglect and failure of the regulatory system puts the lives of crew at risk and, in this particular instance, threatened the health of the Western Australian marine environment.
Another way to help reduce the fallout from these problems associated with flag of convenience ships is to have a strengthened compensation and liability scheme, which is one of the features of the bill before us today. I will now turn to some consideration of the current liability and compensation scheme arrangements that are in place. In Australia, we have a two-tier scheme to provide compensation for loss or damage resulting from a spill of oil. This scheme is based on our obligations, firstly, under the 1992 protocol to the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage, known as the civil liability convention, and, secondly, under the 1992 protocol to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage, known as the fund convention. Basically, the operation of this system allows for the burden of compensating victims for oil spills to be shared, ensuring that adequate compensation is paid. In the first instance, the liability falls on the shipowners and their insurers. Under this tier, the tanker owner is strictly liable to pay compensation to a maximum amount, which is determined based on the size of the tanker. If the compensation available through this method is inadequate, the outstanding compensation is provided by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, which are financed by levies on cargo owners receiving more than 150,000 tonnes of contributing oil. Under this two-tiered scheme, the maximum amount of compensation available is approximately A$350 million.
The bill before us today establishes a third tier in our compensation system. A number of recent and high-profile tanker incidents demonstrated that the maximum compensation afforded by these two conventions and reflected in our system was wholly inadequate. To deal with this issue, the supplementary fund protocol was adopted in 2003 by the IMO with the purpose of creating a further source of funds for compensation in the event of pollution damage caused by an oil spill from an oil tanker. This protocol entered into force internationally on 3 March 2005. Unfortunately, notwithstanding our obligations under the various conventions I have outlined, the previous government was—I think I could, at most, generously say—rather tardy in ensuring that we entered into our obligations under this new protocol.
In recognition of our strong maritime interests, the importance of a healthy and sustainable marine environment and our international obligations, the government is now giving effect to this protocol through the bill which is before us today, and it is overdue. The protocol, as I said, creates a third tier of compensation for pollution damage resulting from spills of oil from oil tankers so that the maximum amount payable increases from $350 million to up to approximately $1.3 billion per incident. This fund will be financed through levies on public or private entities in receipt of more than 150,000 tonnes of contributing oil per year in contracting states. Levies for the fund will be collected after an oil spill has occurred and after the first two tiers of compensation are exhausted. It should be noted here that the fund will not impose additional costs on the shipping industry as the cost is in fact borne by the oil-importing entities. This new amount will help ensure that Australia is able to adequately compensate any victims of an oil spill in our marine environment, an extremely important commitment when the international regulatory environment for flag of convenience shipping in particular remains so inadequate and there is a continuing risk of such environmental damage.
The bill also allows Australia to meet its obligations as a responsible international citizen with regard to marine pollution. As the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government said in introducing the bill, Australia is a party to the IMO International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships 1973, the convention known as MARPOL. We have implemented all six technical annexes to MARPOL which, respectively, deal with the prevention of pollution by the discharge of oil, noxious liquid substances in bulk, harmful packaged substances, sewage, garbage and air pollution from ships. Recent changes to annexes I, III and IV of MARPOL will now be reflected in the Australian legislation which gives effect to our commitments under that convention—that is, the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983. Amongst other things, these amendments include extending an existing provision regarding the discharge of sewage to include sewage originating from spaces containing living animals, adopting a recommendation on standards for the rate of discharge of untreated sewage and the updating of criteria for defining marine pollutants which will be based on the UN globally harmonised system of classification and labelling of chemicals. Those are extremely important amendments to the relevant legislation because, when these ships are in port, significant environmental damage can occur by the ejection of those substances.
Under schedule 3 of the bill, a new definition of ‘Australian port’ and ‘collector’ is also provided for. These new definitions have been necessary to ensure that existing loopholes for the collection of levies are also closed. They also reflect changes in the way some shipping is operating. As the minister stated in introducing the bill, it is becoming more frequent for our ships to load and unload offshore without entering a port. Ships calling at offshore installations and ships unloading cargo offshore gain the benefit of Australia’s ship safety and environment protection services and the national aids to navigation network. We therefore need to ensure that these installations now fall under the definition of an Australian port so that there are no disputes over the liability to pay levies. This amendment will allow for a place to which a ship comes for the purposes of unloading cargo, even if that place is not immediately adjacent to land, to be defined as a ‘port’ if so prescribed under the Customs Act 1901, and that is an important loophole to close.
In conclusion, as an island continent Australia has a significant economic, social and environmental interest in the protection of our maritime environment. The measures in this bill provide a greater strengthening of the compensation and liability schemes for oil pollution in that environment. I am very pleased to support these measures today. They are extremely important in the context of an international shipping industry where there is still very weak regulation and where there is a great risk of environmental damage. I commend the measures in the bill to the House.
Australians love the beach. More than 80 per cent of us live within 100 kilometres of the beach. In Queensland, from where I come, we love the Sunshine Coast, Hervey Bay, the Great Barrier Reef and even the Gold Coast, which the people of my home town of Ipswich often call ‘our beach’. We love the beach. We fish there, we swim there, we take our families there and we holiday there. The thought of an oil spill on any of those beaches in Queensland is an environmental nightmare to all of us who come from the sunshine state. The costs associated with fixing up or cleaning up an oil spill are influenced by many factors: circumstance, location, the types of products which are spilled, the timing of the spill, whether any environmentally sensitive areas have been affected and the total amount of the oil spill. The most important determining factor is often location. Getting response and manpower to the extremely remote locations where some oil spills take place can be very costly.
As I said, we Australians love our environment, and oil spills have significant impact, with wildlife rehabilitation, beach clean-up and shoreline restoration, and we just do not want this to happen on our shores. The best and most cost-effective management of any clean-up operation is to invest expeditiously in personnel, machinery and energy to ensure that the oil is kept away from the beach, the rocks, the shoreline or any other sensitive area. Where oil hits the shoreline the cost of clean-up can be as high as 90 to 99 per cent of the total cost. The cost of offshore oil removal can average approximately US$7,350 a tonne. If oil hits the shoreline the cost can go as high as US$147,000 or even, some experts say, as high as US$294,000 a tonne. The cost of dispersants can be horrendous and the impact of the cost complex and hard to quantify. Estimating the actual cost is a very imprecise science and it is a very labour-intensive and time-consuming operation to clear shorelines.
As we debate this bill I am reminded of probably one of the most horrendous environmental disasters when it comes to oil spills, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. On 24 March 1989 the oil tanker ran aground, spilling 250,000 barrels—about 10 million gallons—of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. That particular clean-up operation, if I could call it that, gives a textbook analysis of what not to do in terms of time response, ineffective use of communication channels and a refusal to accept responsibility. The end result was that the clean-up cost the company US$2.5 billion and Exxon was compelled to pay out US$1.1 billion in various settlements. In fact it is interesting to note that a US federal jury fined the company $5 billion for recklessness.
So it is very propitious that we have this bill before us today. I acknowledge that, whilst we are raising a third tier of compensation, it does not go quite so far it could address an Exxon Valdez oil spill, but it is certainly a vast improvement on our current compensation regime. The regime is governed by and under the auspices of the International Maritime Organisation. Compensation for oil pollution damage caused by spills from oil tankers is governed by an international regime developed under the IMO.
The framework for the regime was originally started in 1969 with the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution, commonly known as the 1969 civil liability convention. Then of course there was the 1971 International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage. The old regime, if I can put it like that, was amended in 1992 by two protocols, and the amended conventions are commonly known as the 1992 civil liability convention and the 1992 fund convention. The conventions came into force on 30 May 1996, and the 1971 fund convention ceased to be in force as of 24 May 2002.
In May 2003 a protocol to the 1992 fund convention, known as the supplementary fund protocol, was adopted, which provided the third tier of compensation by establishing an International Oil Pollution Compensation Supplementary Fund, commonly known as the supplementary fund. The supplementary fund is financed in a similar way to the 1992 fund, and the supplementary fund protocol entered into force on 3 March 2005 and applies to incidents which occurred on or after that date. It has been left to the Rudd government to implement legislation which provides for that, and the most charitable thing I can say is that the Howard government certainly did fail in that regard—in treating this issue as a very serious one. You would have thought that in that time legislation could have been introduced into the House.
Under article 1 of the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution 1992—or the civil liability convention—a ship is defined as:
... any sea-going vessel and seaborne craft of any type whatsoever constructed or adapted for the carriage of oil in bulk as cargo provided that a ship capable of carrying oil or other cargo shall be regarded as ship only when it is actually carrying oil in bulk as cargo and during any voyage following such carriage unless it is proved to have no residues of such carriage of oil in bulk aboard.
So it is a very comprehensive definition of a ship. Oil also has a very comprehensive definition, and so it should. It talks about oil meaning:
... any persistent hydrocarbon mineral oil such as crude oil, fuel oil, heavy diesel oil, lubricating oil ... whether carried on board a ship as cargo or in the bunkers of such a ship.
So it covers everything you could possibly conceive as well. Pollution damage is also described in a very comprehensive way, and I commend the drafter of the convention. It means:
... loss or damage caused outside the ship carrying oil by contamination resulting from the escape or discharge of oil from the ship, wherever such escape or discharge may occur providing that the compensation for impairment of the environment other than loss of profit from such impairment shall be limited to costs of reasonable measures of reinstatement actually undertaken or to be undertaken.
So the convention applies to oil damage caused.
There are some exceptions, of course. It does not apply in the case of war, hostilities, civil war, insurrection, natural phenomena or acts of omission caused intentionally by a third party. So no claim can be made under the civil liability convention except in accordance with the convention. It is trite to say that but it is actually the case: you have got to make an application here. The owner of a ship registered in a contracting state such as Australia and carrying more than 2,000 tonnes of oil in bulk as cargo shall be required to maintain insurance or other financial security such as a guarantee from a bank or a certificate delivered by an international compensation fund in sums fixed by applying the limits of liability prescribed in the convention. A certificate attesting to the insurance or financial security in force has got to be provided—the name of the ship, the port of registration, the names and principal place of business of the owner, the type of security, the names and principal place of the insurer and the period of validity. The official language has to be specified and, if it is not in English or French, it has to have a translation, of course. A certificate has to be carried on board a ship in such circumstances as well.
A claim can be made against the insurer as well under this particular legislation. And, to protect people in the circumstances, there is a limitation period of three years from the date the damage occurred, and no case can actually be brought after six years from the date of the incident which caused the damage. So it is as it were a very comprehensive code and it makes a big difference when it comes to claims for oil damage.
The second convention, the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage 1992, is in fact a second tier. One wonders why there were two conventions in the same year, but it is really a top-up—if I can put it like that—and we are used to top-up insurance in Australia. There are a lot of different professions where that applies—whether law, medicine or whatever it is—and it is similar to that. It effectively tops up the compensation. The convention says:
... the Fund shall pay compensation to any person suffering pollution damage ... if ... such person has been unable to obtain full and adequate compensation for the damage under the terms of the 1969 Liability Convention ...
The protocol of 2003 provides for the supplementary fund. It was done because a number of the contracting states considered it necessary, as a matter of urgency, to do so and they believed at the time—and I think they were right to believe this—that victims of oil pollution damage needed to be compensated in full for their loss or damage. There are also a number of other difficulties faced by victims where there is a risk of compensation not being adequately provided for. There are a lot of people involved. It is not an exact science; it is very difficult to quantify. It is not a simple process to quantify the amount that should be provided for in terms of damages suffered by a contracting state.
This bill is an important reform the Rudd government and demonstrates the government’s understanding that an effective liability and compensation scheme is critical to a comprehensive marine pollution response regime. It will increase the amount of compensation available from about $350 million to $1.3 billion, and I look forward to the day when that is actually increased. It is necessary to consider that in the future. I urge the IMO to think about that in the future.
We join other parties—most Western countries, including France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, and Japan—in this regard. I note the comments from the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, who proclaimed in his second reading speech that this bill was important from a global perspective.
When the 2003 protocol fund was established, the IMO proclaimed that the supplementary fund would:
... ensure, for the foreseeable future, that victims of oil pollution damage will be fully compensated for their losses.
It is an important reform, and the supplementary fund adds enormous sums of money to the two-tiered system. The bill before us today recognises that the ceiling figure that is currently in existence is manifestly inadequate, especially considering the several major oil spills which other speakers have referred to—and I will not go through those. That has proved to be inadequate in the circumstances; $1.3 billion seems a lot of money but, when you consider what impact an oil spill would have on places such as the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast or the Great Barrier Reef, it is not a lot.
The supplementary fund is financed through levies on public and private entities in receipt of more than 150,000 tonnes of contributing oil per year in contracting states. It is pertinent to note that those levies will only be collected following an oil spill incident and after the first two tiers of compensation have been exhausted.
I commend the government for proposing this amendment. The idea of an oil spill on our coastline is too horrible to contemplate. It is good environmental policy to prepare ourselves for such a disaster. A significant oil spill would devastate our sea’s fragile marine ecosystem, and oil spills could result in damage to wildlife, economic loss and impacts on the health of people on the coastline. You can also imagine the cost to our economy of such a spill. Some in this chamber would be aware, as other speakers have noted, of spillages we have seen around Australia. Reference has been made to the Princess Anne-Marie in July 1975 where 15,000 tonnes of crude oil spilled; and 18,000 tonnes of crude oil were spilt by the Kirki after the bow fell off the vessel. These were very frightening incidents. I remember them vividly. They both occurred off the coast of Western Australia. I was at school when the Princess Anne-Marie was off the coast of Western Australia, and I remember the discussions we had in our classroom in relation to it. An econightmare was on our shores. The clean-up costs associated with these instances did not exceed the limit, but they were paid by the oil tankers’ insurance funds.
In considering any oil spill which may occur and what may happen, one only has to think of the fishing industry. Commercial fishing is an important venture off the coast of Queensland and other states. Imagine the damage that would cause to commercial fishing off the coast of Queensland. The costs would be horrendous.
Impacts from oil pollution vary based on the type of oil and the amount discharged. The lighter and more refined oil typically disappears quickly from the water column, while the heavier oil may sink and persist in the marine environment in sediments and beach sand. However, all oil spills have a dramatic impact on the natural environment. Oil smothers marine life. Typically, when an oil spill occurs it does not just affect the animals and the organisms at the bottom of the food chain. Oil can bio-accumulate and affect organisms much higher in the food chain and impose costs on the coastline communities and increase the cost of food and costs in our economy generally. Sea animals and birds can be harmed—their feathers and food can be coated with oil—and chemical contaminants can get into our river systems as well.
There are other schedules to this particular bill. Australia is a party to MARPOL, as the member for Corio said. We are implementing six technical annexes, which deal with the prevention of pollution by the discharge of oil, noxious liquid substances in bulk, harmful packaged substances, sewage, garbage and air pollution from ships. In Australia, the legislation giving effect to MARPOL is the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1993 and the Navigation Act 1912. There are amendments to those acts under this legislation before us today.
The bill amends the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1993 and the ship levy legislation relating to the definition of Australian ports and how the levy is to be collected. The new definition will prescribe that an Australian port is a place appointed, proclaimed or prescribed as a port under the Customs Act 1901, under a law of a state or territory, in the Marine Navigation Levy Collection Act 1989, in the Marine Navigation (Regulatory Functions) Levy Collection Act 1991 and in the Protection of the Sea (Shipping Levy Collection) Act 1981. This is important because it ensures that ships that may unload and load offshore will not be able to dispute liability concerning the relevant levies. Currently, not all ships enter ports to load or unload. Many stop at offshore installations and unload offshore. In doing so, these ships still gain the benefit of our ship safety and environment protection services and the national aids to navigation network. This amendment bill will ensure that these ships enjoy those benefits and are liable to pay the levies, despite not entering a port. The bill makes it unambiguous. Any place adjacent to an installation or indeed a place to which a ship comes for the purposes of unloading cargo—even if that place is not immediately adjacent to land—can be considered a port under the Customs Act 1901.
I concede that the bill before the House will not stop shipping accidents occurring. But it is important to ensure that, in the event of oil pollution, victims are able to obtain prompt, adequate and effective compensation. The Rudd government is committed to the protection of life and property at sea and to the preservation of our marine environment. Many will remember last year’s Pasha Bulker incident off Newcastle and the frightening nightmare that was before us on that particular occasion. We managed to avoid a major ecological disaster. Every day, Australians watched and listened. It was on the news all the time. Fortunately, we managed to avoid that particular nightmare. But it was a cautionary tale, and we cannot afford to be complacent when it comes to protecting our seas.
The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government said on 18 June 2008 that this bill can be summarised as a plan for ‘the unthinkable’. While an oil spill off our coast may be unlikely, the Pasha Bulker experience proves that it is imperative that we are vigilant and prepare for all scenarios and circumstances. This bill is an important piece of legislation that will ensure that in the event of a spill there will be adequate compensation. It will strengthen the framework of our nation’s maritime environment protection. That is good practice. It is good for the Australian community, it is good for our beaches and it is good for our coastlines.
This may be the first time that I have spoken before you, Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, in your new role. Congratulations. I listened very intently to the member for Blair and the member for Charlton and very much enjoyed their contributions to this debate. The Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 is about a fair and realistic compensation framework for oil spill accidents at sea. It is about protecting the environment and protecting parties affected by oil spillages from tankers at sea. It brings Australia into line with an international regime that includes countries such as France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. It establishes improved arrangements and a more realistic payment regime for an international compensation fund to pay for the damage and losses sustained by people and interests affected by oil spills. This is important legislation.
Oil tankers carry a very large percentage of the world’s oil around the globe. Over half of the oil consumed in the world is transported by sea; thousands of millions of tonnes are transported every year. Every day of the year—right now, at this moment—hundreds of millions of tonnes of oil are floating on top of our oceans contained within giant steel tankers. I would ask people to think about this. The world has a shipping industry that we all know has rogue elements—shipowners who cut corners. While many shipping owners do the right thing, following best practice safety and maintenance regimes, many ships are still ‘ships of shame’.
We have a growing demand for oil, and more oil floating on our seas every day as a consequence. We have an inherently dangerous environment—the ocean environment. We have an increasingly unstable environment, with all the world’s experts saying that we are going to experience more severe weather events. We have an industry in which it is relatively easy to not report accidents. We have an industry in which it is in the business’s financial interest not to report incidents; incidents often go unreported and shipowners often get away with it. On top of this, when an accident occurs it is in an environment in which the results are largely uncontrollable. It is not like a land spillage, where an accident occurs within a relatively stable environment. The oil spills into the ocean, and where it lands is in the lap of the gods. There are all these factors.
What does this say to us? It says that we must be extremely vigilant, we must have the best regulatory regimes possible and we must keep improving them. That is what this amendment bill is about. It is trying to bring us into a more realistic compensation environment. It will increase the penalties for oil spills by increasing the total amount of compensation that can be paid. We currently have a two-tier compensation environment. The first tier is the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage. The second tier is the International Convention on the International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage.
Under the first tier, compensation is payable by oil tanker owners and/or their insurers. Under these arrangements, tanker owners are able to limit their liability, with the liability limit depending on the size of the tanker. If the compensation costs resulting from an oil spill exceed a tanker owner’s liability limit, then compensation above that limit is payable by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds. However, the amount of compensation payable by the IOPC Funds is itself limited so that the maximum amount payable by the tanker owner and the IOPC Funds is approximately $350 million. This amendment bill introduces a third tier to the compensation payment regimes, called the supplementary fund protocol, so that the maximum amount payable increases up to $750 million per incident, which is approximately A$1.3 billion. This amendment bill toughens the regime on compensation damages and says to shipping owners, ‘If your ships are dodgy and if you take risks, then you are going to have to pay for it if an accident occurs.’ I think this amendment bill sends a very important signal to the industry.
Many people think that these sorts of events, when ships spill large quantities of oil, are relatively rare but they are not. They are common events and are in fact everyday events. The international tanker owners publish figures. According to their own figures, well over half a billion tonnes of oil have been spilt into the sea. That statistic of half a billion tonnes of oil spilt into the sea, of course, includes only those spills that have been reported. In these statistics, the international tanker owners do not take into account anything under seven-tonne spillages. All of those little six-tonne spillages are not counted. Call me a pedant, but I cannot understand why that is the case. I guess it is a measure of where the industry is at. I guess it says something to all of us about the industry. To me it says we have a fair way to go with shipowner attitudes when no spillage under seven tonnes gets reported in the industry’s statistics. Imagine if I were to dump 6.9 tonnes of oil on the top of this parliament. Imagine if I were to dump 6.9 tonnes of oil onto the floor of this House. Would that be reportable? Mr Deputy Speaker, I think you might pull me into line and report me to Mr Speaker! I expect that I would get ejected from this chamber, probably for life.
Another source of statistics on oils spills is the United States National Research Council, which has estimated the amount of oil entering the sea from different sources as totalling 3.2 million tonnes worldwide annually. The NRC estimates the total spillages from tankers at around 960,000 tonnes. Tanker operations account for 22 per cent of this, followed by tanker accidents with 13 per cent of that amount. Significantly, tanker accidents, along with offshore installations, account for most of the world’s largest oil spills. It really is important to put in place regulatory regimes that ensure there are fewer oil spills and ensure shipowners and their insurers know that there are serious penalties payable in compensation when incidents occur. The oil production and transportation industry is one of the world’s largest, most profitable and most important industries. It is a big dollar industry. We have to make it in the financial interests of the oil industry that it does the right thing. We have to make the penalties for spillages such that it is far cheaper for the oil not to spill. The penalties and compensation regime has to say, ‘You spill it—you lose big time.’
It is critical that Australia becomes a party to the supplementary fund protocol, because our ratification will add support to the protocol and encourage other countries to follow our lead. This bill goes together with the Protection of the Sea (Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage) Bill 2008, which this government also introduced into this House during the autumn sitting. That bill makes sure compensation is available for everyone who suffers damage or loss as a result of leakage of bunker oil from a ship other than an oil tanker. Australia is a party to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships 1973, known as MARPOL, and has implemented all six technical annexes to MARPOL. These annexes deal with the prevention of pollution by the discharge of oil, noxious liquid substances in bulk, harmful packaged substances, sewage, garbage and air pollution from ships.
People often think that these big oil spills will not happen here. They think they happen in far-off places that do not affect us. But in fact we have already experienced a number of spills. Some of these spills have had very severe impacts on our local environment, and some could have been catastrophic. In 1975 the hull of the tanker Princess Anne-Marie cracked wide open 300 miles off the Australian coast and the ship lost 14,800 tonnes of oil. More recently, the Kirki got into trouble off the West Australian coast and lost 18,000 tonnes of crude oil. There have been numerous spills around Australia on a lesser scale. During one reporting year, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority received 349 reports of oil discharge sightings, including 28 accidental spills resulting from incidents such as grounding, collisions and tanker overflow during bunkering.
We have been dead lucky with a number of the major spills. Save for different weather, the beautiful coastline of Ningaloo Reef or Cape Naturaliste and all their amazing marine wildlife could have been smeared with oil, resulting in untold losses and damage to those environments. The people of Tasmania—and I note the member for Franklin is here—and the creatures that live in the marine and near-shore environment of the Tamar River were not so lucky in 1985 when the Iron Baron came to grief on Hebe Reef. Three hundred tonnes of bunker fuel oil escaped, impacting shorelines around Low Head. Very serious impacts on wildlife, particularly little penguins, resulted.
I would point out that the odds of a local oil spill are of such an order that the federal department of the environment has put in place specific national response plans for pollution of the sea by oil and, in fact, has undertaken major national oil spill response exercises. Major oil spill catastrophes have occurred very close to our shores. South Korea last year suffered its worst ever spill. Thousands of tonnes of oil spread along a pristine coastal region south of the capital, Seoul. Almost 9,000 troops, police and volunteers using shovels and buckets desperately tried to clean up the enormous slick. Tourism and aquaculture, a major Korean industry, took a massive blow. One hundred and sixty marine farms out of a total of 445 were severely damaged. Environmentally, it was a disaster.
Imagine if this sort of accident occurred along the Great Barrier Reef, one of Australia’s most environmentally fragile areas and one of our economy’s biggest money earners. The Great Barrier Reef is worth billions to our economy. Shipping traffic in the Great Barrier Reef includes over 7,000 voyages made by over 2,000 ships every year.
I have some real concerns about what could happen in my own patch. Imagine the impact on our regional economy if we had a major oil spill off the Great Ocean Road. The impact on the region’s reputation and on the environment would be very significant. Because of the importance and uniqueness of the biodiversity along Bass Strait and adjacent to the Great Ocean Road we have a number of declared marine national parks. The impact of a major oil spill on the wildlife and biodiversity in this marine environment and particularly on the intertidal zones, which are most affected by oil spills, would be catastrophic. We have already had spills of some significance in my area. Back in December 1995, an oil slick measuring approximately seven nautical miles long by 200 metres wide was reported about seven nautical miles off Cape Otway lighthouse. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority initiated and coordinated the response, which included the spraying of an estimated 800 litres of oil dispersant over the slick. An oil tanker registered in the Bahamas was sighted in the vicinity.
This legislation will provide much more appropriate protection for the business operators and for the costs of environmental remediation work should an oil spill accident take place. It is a thoroughly worthwhile and necessary piece of legislation. I would like to put my concern on record in this parliament that we need to keep a very close watching brief on this industry because of its potential to do so much damage. I acknowledge that the industry is trying to improve its record. Total volumes of spillages seem to have been reduced over some time, even if you factor in the large number of unreported and under-reported spillage incidents. This bill, which goes to compensation, is very important, but we need to continue to address the most crucial issue—that is, reducing oil spills. It is exactly the same as the old health adage: prevention is better than cure. We need to keep addressing this fundamental point. We need to improve tanker standards and compliance checks to ensure that this industry is at an international best practice standard. That said, I thoroughly recommend this bill to the House and welcome Australia joining with the international community to better address compensation in this important area of commerce. My region’s economy, that of the Great Barrier Reef, that of the surf coast and that of the Bellarine Peninsula, all of which would be substantially threatened by oil spills, depend on strong government legislation to ensure that there are appropriate mechanisms in place to clean up oil spills when they occur, to ensure that appropriate compensation is paid when incidents do occur and, of course, to ensure that incidents do not occur. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, I know that this is an area that you have great interest in and I know that you have spoken on shipping legislation on many occasions in this parliament. I know that you are committed to ensuring that our marine environment is protected and that our shipping industry continues to grow and prosper in a safe way. My electorate of Shortland is a coastal electorate and as such is very vulnerable to pollution of the sea by ships traversing the coastline. I have expressed my concerns about this on many occasions in the House and I have taken great interest in shipping and shipping activities around the coast of our great island nation. As a member who is concerned about the protection of our coastline and pristine beaches, I know that one of the greatest threats to our beaches and marine life is pollution caused by oil spills emanating from ships traversing our coastline.
We often forget that the seas around our nation are actually highways for ships that are carrying goods around our coastline, delivering from one port to another and also delivering overseas. Particularly with our export of coal at such a high level at the moment, we really need to make sure that we make the commitments that are included in this legislation before us today.
The Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 is intended to implement the supplementary fund protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage in schedule 1, introduce MARPOL amendments to the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 in schedule 2 and implement amendments relating to shipping and marine levies in schedule 3.
In this House we have discussed many of the MARPOL amendments over a long period of time. There have been a number of them and the Australian parliament has signed up to a number of them. Schedule 1 amendments of this particular legislation commence on a date set by proclamation, because an instrument of accession of a protocol needs to be lodged with the Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organisation following the passage of the bill through parliament. Schedule 2 amendments commence on various dates. Items 1, 2, 5 and 6 commence on the day when the act receives royal assent, and items 3 and 4 commence on 1 January 2010 and December 2008 respectively. This legislation follows another piece of legislation, the Protection of the Sea (Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage) Bill 2008, which we discussed earlier this year. A number of members made contributions to the debate on that bill in the House.
I became interested in shipping and the impact that it has on our coastline and nation when I spoke to my predecessor in this parliament, Peter Morris. Peter Morris was a previous transport minister. He chaired the Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure in the House of Representatives when they brought down the Ships of shame report, as well as ICONS, when they prepared a report on shipping from an international perspective, Ships, slaves and competition.
The Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government of this parliament have been looking at shipping and they are currently conducting an inquiry into coastal shipping policy and regulation. I understand that they are moving towards the end of that inquiry at the moment. In the report, the committee is going to look at the nature and characteristics of the Australian shipping industry and international and coastal trade. It will review the policy and regulation arrangements in place for the coastal shipping sector and it will also assess strategies for developing an adequately skilled maritime workforce in order to facilitate the growth of the Australian shipping sector.
I might add at this point that unfortunately, over the years of the Howard government, our maritime shipping industry and the industries that are associated with it have been on the decline. The previous government did not have a commitment to a sustainable Australian shipping industry. With us being an island nation, as I have already mentioned, I believe that it is incredibly important that we embrace the opportunities that a strong shipping industry can provide to us as a nation and not limit our thoughts to the actual ships but include all the onshore industries that are associated with them and maybe follow the lead of the United Kingdom, which has reinvested in a UK shipping industry.
The committee will also consider the effect of coastal shipping policy on the development of an effective and productive freight transport system, taking into account issues such as environmental and safety impacts and competitive neutrality between coastal shipping and other modes of transport. When we are looking at it from an environmental perspective, which brings us back to the legislation we are discussing here in the parliament today, it is very important for us to sign up to the MARPOL protocols. This legislation will allow us to do that. The final point of that House of Representatives inquiry that is underway is to look at coastal shipping from defence, maritime safety and security, environmental sustainability and tourism perspectives.
That is a very important inquiry that has been taking place within this parliament. For a long time—and I know, Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, that this has been of some concern to you—there has been the issue of continuing voyage permits and single-voyage permits, which really flourished under the previous government. These permits have allowed foreign-flagged ships to traverse the shores of our country with crew from various countries. One example of this is a ship I visited a few years ago at the port of Newcastle, the Angel III. That was flagged as a Greek ship and had a Burmese crew. A number of issues were raised when I visited that ship and I think those issues continue today. I know the committee conducting the current inquiry has looked at those issues.
That is why these protocols are so vital—because they do afford protection to our environment. It is really important from a global perspective that Australia becomes a contracting party to the supplementary fund protocol, because our ratification will add support and will encourage more countries to be part of it. The simple fact that not all countries have signed up to this protocol, and with us having these foreign ships traversing our coastlines, really shows how important it is for more countries to be involved.
Australia is one of many countries to have signed up to the protocol. Other countries have already made that commitment, including France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. When we have a Greek ship such as the Angel III travelling, as it was at the time, around our coastline, it puts responsibility on the shipowner to ensure that if there is an oil spillage they will be responsible for cleaning it up—and that the financial means will be there to allow that to happen.
Compensation costs resulting from oil spills will often exceed a tanker’s own liability limit. Compensation above that limit is then payable by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, known as the IOPC Funds. The amount of compensation payable by these funds has limits on it. The maximum amount payable by a tanker owner in the IOPC Funds is, as at 22 May this year, approximately $350 million.
It is important that I refer to the fact that there have been significant spills from oil tankers overseas in the past, and I know other members have mentioned them in their contributions to this debate. There was the Nakhodka oil spill off the coast of Japan in 1997, the Erika spill off the coast of France in 1999 and the Prestige spill off the coast of Spain in 2002. The amount available under the two-tiered system was insufficient and the claimants could not be fully compensated.
In my own region last year, the Pasha Bulker was grounded off the coast of Newcastle. I would like to acknowledge the fine work of the rescue workers, as has been mentioned in the House this week, in their efforts at that time. It was a situation where, if things had deteriorated further, we could have had an oil spillage of enormous significance in my own region. It is when you are faced with a situation like that that you realise the implications and the vulnerability of our seas, our marine environment and our coastline. It is at times like that that you understand why we as a parliament and we as a nation are prepared to make the commitment to sign up to the protocol that we have before us today.
For many years in the Shortland electorate, on a daily basis, coal was taken on the MV Wallarah from Catherine Hill Bay, where there was a mine that is no longer operating, to the coal loader. We had confidence in that ship because it was an Australian owned and operated ship with Australian crew, a rarity at the time. At any time, though, even with its high safety standards and such wonderful crew and it being Australian owned, it could have been subject to an incident that might have led to pollution of one sort or another. It would have had an enormous impact on the environment between Catherine Hill Bay and Newcastle. It would not only have affected the marine life; it would have affected the beaches and had an enormous impact on the fishing industry and on the tourism industry.
Without funds being available to deal with such an incident, to make sure that the oil spillage was properly cleared up and that there was proper compensation, it could have been quite a nasty situation in my own area. That could be replicated in every coastal electorate around Australia. I see the member for Leichhardt in the chamber. His electorate includes—
The Great Barrier Reef.
the Great Barrier Reef, as he rightly interjects. The Great Barrier Reef is one of our major natural treasures. It is also one of our most fragile environments and, as such, is exceptionally vulnerable to impact from oil spillage. Just imagine what a major oil spillage would mean for that wonderful marine environment, the Great Barrier Reef.
This legislation can increase the maximum compensation available for a single incident from $350 million—as I referred to when debating the previous legislation that went through parliament in May this year—to $1.3 billion. Australia’s accession to the supplementary fund will ensure that compensation to Australians following an oil spillage from an oil tanker is maximised and that adequate financial resources are provided for the clean-up and restoration of Australia’s marine environment. This bill will also play an important role in the protection of the marine environment.
I believe this is good-news legislation which ensures that, if there is pollution damage resulting from spillage from an oil tanker, adequate compensation will be available. Over and above that, I would like to emphasise the importance of making sure that we have a safe, viable Australian shipping industry, one which has controls in place to ensure that our fragile marine environments are protected, one which makes a commitment to the skills of a viable marine industry and one which makes a commitment to using the highways traversing our coastline in a safe and secure way.
I rise today to support this important legislation, the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, which, as the member for Shortland has rightly pointed out, will ensure that there is sufficient compensation available if, by chance, there is an oil spill from an oil tanker in Australian waters. This legislation will increase the maximum amount of compensation available for a single spill from $350 million to approximately $1.3 billion. Australia is currently party to a two-tiered liability and compensation scheme applying to pollution damage resulting from oil tankers under which the maximum amount of compensation available is only $350 million. It is not surprising then that there have been several major oil spills where the current two-tiered system of compensation proved insufficient to provide full compensation to all claimants. Some examples of that are the Nakhodka off the coast of Japan in 1997, the Erika off the coast of France in 1999 and the Prestige off the coast of Spain in 2002, where the maximum amount of compensation afforded by the two conventions currently in place, to which Australia is a party, proved to be insufficient. So this legislation, which will increase the maximum amount of compensation available, is very important.
If you look at our coastline in tropical North Queensland and Cairns in the seat of Leichhardt, where I am from, and the Great Barrier Reef, or you travel up through my electorate to the Torres Strait or further around to the Northern Territory and the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, you will see beautiful waters where the impact of an oil spill would be devastating. Down the Western Australian coast there are significant oil and gas fields and significant movements of shipping, which again place our coastline at risk. That $350 million would not go very far if these coastlines were impacted. There is beautiful coastline in South Australia. Everybody knows of the beautiful experiences people have on the Great Ocean Road. Imagine the impact of an oil spill from a tanker down in that area or even on the beautiful beaches on the northern and southern coasts of New South Wales. These are pristine areas of Australia. We need to ensure that we have in place legislation that enables proper compensation if there is an oil spill from an oil tanker.
As the member for Leichhardt, from the great city of Cairns, and as a representative of tropical North Queensland I am going to spend most of my time talking about the benefits of this legislation to the Great Barrier Reef because of the potential threats to the Great Barrier Reef from oil spillages. Currently, as I understand it, we are party to two protocols that put in place compensation of $350 million but we entered into another protocol which was brought into force internationally on 3 March 2005. It is the third protocol that this legislation specifically deals with. It raises the amount of compensation available to approximately $1.3 billion per incident. The supplementary fund, the amount between $350 million and the $1.3 billion approximately, will be provided through a levy on both public and private entities receiving more than 150,000 tonnes of contributing oil per year in contracting states. In plain English, we are talking about not having this fund come into force unless there is a need for compensation beyond the $350 million and, if it were, it would be in place on only larger oil-producing companies—BP, Caltex, Mobil—or some of our large miners like BHP, Alcan or possibly Rio Tinto. This levy would not be put in place to raise these additional funds until after the first two tiers were utilised up to $350 million. If it were necessary, it would not impact on small business but on large businesses directly involved in utilising large amounts of oil or directly involved in the sale of large amounts of oil.
Although $350 million, which is the amount available for compensation at present, sounds like a large amount of money, it is not a large amount of money if you look at the impacts of an oil tanker spill on a place like Cairns and tropical North Queensland. This is an economy that is very much built on tourism. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, when introducing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 recently, estimated the value to Queensland of tourism to the Great Barrier Reef to be $6 million. In my seat of Leichhardt, of which Cairns is the centre, Tourism Tropical North Queensland estimates the value of tourism to be over $2 billion. We have welcomed 2.3 million visitors per year to tropical North Queensland, and they alone spend $821 million. When you add the flow-on effects from that, there is a contribution to the local economy of more than $2 billion. Tourism provides approximately 30,000 jobs directly and indirectly; it is a very significant industry in Cairns and tropical North Queensland. It is based on more than two million people coming from all around the world to my region to see icons like the Great Barrier Reef—icons that would be significantly impacted if we were to have a major oil tanker spillage in the region. It would have flow-on effects on not only the environment—which would be tragic—but also the local region and the local region’s economy. When we talk about the value of tourism alone in my region, $350 million would not go very far. It is extremely important that we put in place this legislation to ensure that there is sufficient money available to properly compensate people.
Business tourism in my electorate is valued at $100 million as a direct result of business visitors. We have 920 business events, bringing more than 70,000 delegates to the region, every year. They come up there because they want to not only do business but also enjoy our beautiful environment, and the Great Barrier Reef is a very important part of that. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority describes the Great Barrier Reef as one of the richest, most complex and diverse ecosystems in the world. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park begins at the tip of Cape York in Queensland and extends south almost to Bundaberg. The area is larger than Victoria and Tasmania combined and stretches more than 2,300 kilometres along the north-east coast of Australia. It is a significant environmental icon. It is an extremely valuable environmental icon, and we need to ensure that we have resources available to protect it from the risk of oil spills.
I have had some wonderful experiences on the Great Barrier Reef. Members may not know that prior to entering politics I spent some time considering my future. As part of that, I took 12 months off from work and spent several months sailing from Townsville across the top of Australia around to Broome. I spent a significant amount of time cruising through the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef.
Ms Plibersek interjecting
It sounds like the Minister for Housing would love to come up and experience and enjoy some of that.
When I retire!
When the minister retires, she would be most welcome to come to Cairns and tropical North Queensland. I am sure I could put her in touch with some bareboat charter people so that she could enjoy some of the experiences that I am about to describe. I had the opportunity to travel in a 32-foot Miller and Whitworth yacht—which is a wonderful yacht, designed and built in Western Australia—up through the Great Barrier Reef with my good friend Gary Rogers. Swimming with manta rays off High Island, just off Innisfail and Cairns, is a wonderful memory. We spent time up at Lizard Island, snorkelling on the reefs, doing a little bit of line fishing and eating mackerel every night. It was very, very nice. We had no freezer, so we ate freshly caught fish.
These are the sorts of experiences that we are talking about protecting as part of this bill. By putting in place this compensation framework, we make sure we send the right messages to large oil companies and freighter companies who are transporting fuel in the area. My mention of eating mackerel and snorkelling is very pertinent to this bill. These are wonderful experiences to have. Going north of Lizard Island we have Princess Charlotte Bay and then Margaret Bay. This is the northern route of the Great Barrier Reef: the northern inner route of the shipping lanes. There are significant numbers of large vessels more the 50 metres long that transit this route every year. I will speak about that in more detail later. My experience of travelling through that area in a 32-foot yacht is that you come across large freighters and oil tankers. At the same time, you come across trawlers, recreational fishers and a range of leisure craft. They are not in large numbers, but they are negotiating a channel inside the Great Barrier Reef in difficult circumstances, with winds above 30 knots and sometimes up to 40 knots and where sections of the channel are only a few hundred metres wide. These create significant risks of oil spillages. The Great Barrier Reef is a fantastic icon from not only an environmental point of view but also an economic and a way-of-life point of view. I know plenty of people in my part of the world—whether they are out sailing on the weekend or out doing some recreational fishing—will appreciate that the parliament is putting this legislation in place not only to ensure that there is sufficient money in place for compensation but also to send a message to those companies that we take the risk to the reef very seriously.
There was a review of ship safety and pollution prevention measures in the Great Barrier Reef undertaken back in 2000, and a report was brought down in July 2001 which provides very useful information in relation to ship movements along the east coast of Australia, particularly in relation to the Great Barrier Reef. There are two routes down the coast. The inner route extends north-south from the Torres Strait to Gladstone between the Great Barrier Reef and the Queensland coast. The northern section of that route obviously borders my electorate and runs up to another great part of my electorate—the Torres Strait. The Great Barrier Reef runs up to border it, and there are tremendous reef systems through there that are also at risk because those ships enter through the Torres Strait into that inner zone. There are pilotage issues and there is great risk to the Torres Strait from oil spills when ships enter through the Torres Strait and traverse down through the inner route.
There is also an outer route that commences at the eastern limit of the Torres Strait, the Great North-East Channel, continues southwards through the Coral Sea and rejoins the Queensland coast near Sandy Cape, south of Gladstone. The outer route was surveyed and charted to international standards in 1997, encouraging a greater number of vessels, particularly oil tankers, to use the outer route. Some of the larger vessels use the outer route, but there is still a lot of use of the inner route by larger vessels. There are a couple of reasons for that. It is a shorter distance, so economically it makes sense for companies in the shipping business to travel that way, but also the weather conditions are much tamer within the inner route. They can be quite severe and you can get some short chop in those areas, which I have experienced, but larger vessels manage to cope with that. Regulations allow them to carry more cargo through that inner route because of those calmer conditions. So there is an inner and an outer route and, between them, the report found that there was not any difference in terms of risks and safety.
To come back to the amount of shipping that actually traverses the Great Barrier Reef region, there are approximately 6,000 movements of vessels in excess of 50 metres in length that run down the east coast. That is understandable when you look at the number of ports that we have along the east coast of Queensland. Queensland is obviously one of the major economic drivers of the great nation of Australia, and tremendous amounts of resources come out of the great state of Queensland. Resources come out of places like Cape Flattery, Cairns, Mourilyan, Lucinda, Townsville, Abbot Point, Mackay, Hay Point, Port Alma, Gladstone and Bundaberg. These are all major ports down the east coast of Queensland, and it is not surprising that there are 6,000 ship movements across this area.
Looking specifically at the numbers of oil tankers that traverse the east coast of Queensland, between five and 10 per cent of shipping movements are oil tankers, so we see significant numbers of oil tankers moving up and down the east coast of Queensland. They are carrying either refined product to service Queensland ports north of Brisbane or ballast. If we take five to 10 per cent of 6,000, we are looking at between 300 and 600 oil tankers heading north through this region each year. There are considerable risks associated with that.
If we look at some of the statistics available through the review of ship safety and pollution prevention measures report we find that, during the period 1985 to 2000, there were 11 collisions and 20 groundings within the inner route of the Great Barrier Reef, which represents over two incidents each year. We are talking about incidents happening not irregularly within that route and we are talking about large vessels. Two incidents a year might sound like a relatively small rate, but it is not. There are more than 2,500 ship movements in the northern region, which borders my electorate, every year. There is considerable risk of ship groundings within the region that I am talking about.
The largest contributing cause of all incidents was human error. We can do all we like in terms of technology, and it certainly helps to improve safety, but the reality is that there is always a human factor when it comes to ships travelling down the east coast of Queensland. Human error accounts for 57 per cent of the incidents. It is the reason for most of the incidents that happen. This is above international standards, which place human error as accounting for around 48 per cent of incidents. I suggest that it is not because Australian pilots or seafarers traversing Australian waters have less ability but because the risks are higher because of the difficulty of the inner channel, particularly the narrowness of the inner channel, and also the sea conditions in existence.
As I mentioned earlier, as part of the review there was a study commissioned by Det Norske Veritas, DNV for simplicity, to ascertain whether there was a reduction in risk by pushing ships into the outer route, outside the Great Barrier Reef, coming down through the Coral Sea. That report effectively found there was no difference in risk. With an incident outside the reef, we have the strong high-pressure systems that regularly traverse the southern part of Australia pushing south-easterly winds, and any spill would be most likely driven back onto the reef. It is also a long way to go, if there is an incident, to undertake a clean-up. It makes the clean-up more difficult and there is essentially a greater risk to the environment. It has been found that there is no real difference in risk between ships travelling down the inner and ships travelling down the outer route of the Great Barrier Reef, according to the DNV report that was done as part of that study. I found that most interesting because you would think by pushing ships to the outside it would reduce the risk, but that is not what the independent report found.
There are real risks to the Great Barrier Reef, which not only is an environmental icon in Australia but also creates the wonderful lifestyle that we enjoy in tropical North Queensland. It is a wonderful icon environmentally and it creates tremendous lifestyle advantages for those people living in Cairns, the north and all along the Queensland coast. I am sure the member for Longman will talk about some of those experiences as well.
This bill will lift the amount of compensation available from $350 million to $1.3 billion. The tourism industry, on which my electorate is so dependent, is such that the $350 million compensation that exists in the current two protocols would not go very far. We do need to introduce this legislation and ensure that we have the legislative framework to support the international protocol that we signed up to back in 2005. This legislation will ensure that those tourism operators in tropical North Queensland, who may be impacted by an oil spill from a tanker at some stage in the future, have the wherewithal to be properly compensated. The legislation sends appropriate messages to oil companies that they need to ensure that their vessels are well maintained and that every risk assessment is done to reduce the likelihood of an oil spill in tropical North Queensland and all around Australia.
Listening to the member for Leichhardt just before me, I think that he has probably done more for North Queensland tourism than the infamous ‘Yo! Way to go’ advertising campaign of the 1990s. I am very pleased to speak on the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, which, importantly, implements the supplementary fund protocol. I do not necessarily intend to talk much today about the IMO protocols, the civil liability convention or the like. Many speakers before me have done that. I want to talk about a number of things; one of those is this nation’s maritime tradition. The infamous assertion by the minister for transport of some years ago, Mr Anderson, that Australia is a shipper nation, not a shipping nation, has done great disservice to our country. Our country is a maritime nation. I repeat, it is a maritime nation, although you would not know it given the parlous state of our Australian shipping industry. I think there are only about 43 ships registered under the Australian flag at this time.
As other speakers have indicated—including Mr Truss, the Leader of the Nationals, when he spoke earlier in this debate—virtually all of our imports and exports are transported to and from this country by sea. What we are not saying is that they are transported to and from this country by sea in ships that are generally owned by people overseas, who make no economic contribution to the coffers of this country. Apart from the bulk carriage of material in supply chain operations and the carriage of oil and petroleum products, for instance, around the coast, very little of our domestic freight is carried by sea. I note that today the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government is announcing record rail freight results for Australia in the past 12 months, so maybe we should be doing something about that. Our railways and our roads are always congested and our sea lanes are quite clear. You could pretty much say they are ‘traffic free’. As a nation, as I said a moment ago, we do not derive anything like the benefits that we could or, indeed, that we should from having a strong, vibrant Australian maritime sector. I note the member for Shortland, I think it was, spoke about that a little earlier.
However, the attitude of the former minister for transport is an accurate indication of the attitude of the former government, who did, at best, very little to prevent the dismantling of what was once an efficient Australian ship owning and operating sector. The government has, of course, asked the all-party House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government to undertake inquiries in relation to coastal shipping. I am a member of that committee and have had a lot of opportunity as a consequence to talk with people involved in the shipping industry. We will obviously have a lot more to say about that when the committee reports.
I want to, if I may, just briefly pick up on a couple of comments from the member for Wide Bay, the Leader of the Nationals, who is the only opposition speaker to have taken part in this debate. The member for Wide Bay indicated at the beginning of his contribution that this legislation has been brought on because the government has run out of legislation of substance. I would point out to him that this is legislation of substance. It may be a small bill but, as you will have gathered from the number of speakers from the government side who have wanted to talk on this bill—about the effects that it could have on their electorates and the effect of not joining in this third tier, as we call it, of protection for Australia in the event that there is an oil spill—this is something that is important. The member went on to say that we have every reason to be a signatory to international maritime conventions which ensure adequate compensation is available in the event of an oil spill in our waters. A little further on he said, ‘We take our responsibilities to the environment seriously and we are in a position to lead by example.’ They were in a position to lead by example on this in 2003 when the members opposite were in government and they chose not to take the opportunity to lead by example. In fact, they have left it to those who followed to lead by example on this issue.
The eastern coastline of Bribie Island, which is the eastern boundary of my electorate of Longman, is actually the north-western boundary of the port of Brisbane, one of the major ports in this country. Brisbane is a busy port—and increasingly so. I think they have invested about $1.1 billion in Brisbane, and I thank the members of the Port of Brisbane Corporation for a tour that they provided us with recently and some discussions about their plans. It is the closest container port to the Asia-Pacific rim. In some cases, the sailing time can be up to five days quicker. There are 50 shipping lines serving Brisbane and, in 2006-07, 2,632 shipping calls were made at the port. Importantly, amongst the major exports from Brisbane is refined oil. Amongst the major imports to Brisbane are crude oil and refined oil, just the kinds of products that we are talking about here today. Importantly, in relation to the port of Brisbane and its location in respect of my electorate, all ships that enter Brisbane port sail past Bribie Island, travelling firstly down the North West Channel and then on to the Spitfire channel. They all pass Bribie Island and, for us, there is serious concern that there could be a marine accident for a vessel approaching or departing the port of Brisbane.
In fact there has been such an accident. If we go back to 29 October 1981, the Anro Asia ran aground at the northern end of Bribie Island. This is not a tanker; it is a roll-on, roll-off container vessel. But if a roll-on, roll-off container vessel can run aground on the northern end of Bribie Island so can a tanker. Despite the fact that bad weather hampered the clean-up and retrieval operation, we were fairly lucky. Some oil did reach the shore and had to be cleaned up, but fortunately the efforts of the authorities at the time prevented oil from crossing the Caloundra Bar and going into Pumicestone Channel.
We, of course, have some local understanding of what is possible because there have been a number of oil spills around the coast of Australia. I want to refer particularly to the first recorded oil spill in Australia—a vessel called the Petriana, which ran aground in Port Phillip Bay in November 1903. There were a couple of things about this spill that were interesting. The first is that the oil that escaped from the Petriana was described at the time—and I am sure that environmentalists of today will be appalled to hear this—as:
... a film of great beauty, radiating all the colours of the rainbow, spread from Sorrento Back Beach to Point Nepean ...
This description went on to say that the foul-smelling oil contaminated the beaches for months afterwards.
The other interesting piece of Australian history in relation to this particular oil spill is a matter relating to the crew of the vessel. When the captain, his family, the officers, the cabin boy and the crew were evacuated from the vessel after they discovered that they were unable to refloat it, there was a national controversy. I say this noting that there are some students in the gallery today who may or may not have been given information in their education about the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and what was called the White Australia Policy, which prohibited immigrants of non-European descent from entering the Commonwealth. The crew of the Petriana, who were Malay and Chinese, were placed aboard a Japanese steamer and sent to Hong Kong. There was quite a bit of controversy at the time, but I think I will give the final word on that one to the captain of the Petriana, Captain Kerr, who wrote at the time:
If this treatment of my crew is a fair specimen of your humanity, it is about equal to the worst barbarity of other nations, and if it is forced on you by your laws, I regret to say they are a disgrace to the British Empire.
It took a long time, but we finally got rid of that particular blight on Australia.
There are a couple of other spills that I would like to mention, particularly as they have a certain pertinence to matters that were talked about by the member for Leichhardt—that is, the major oil spills on the coast near some of the tourist islands of the Great Barrier Reef and in the Torres Strait. In 2001 the Pax Phoenix ran aground near Holbourne Island in the Whitsunday group and discharged oil. The Pacific Quest spilled oil near Border Island near Hayman Island—I am sure a number of people have enjoyed holidays on Hayman Island—and again we were relatively fortunate there. In March 1970 the Oceanic Grandeur sank in the Torres Strait.
Obviously there are any number of examples of oil spills in the world. In fact, using the modern research technology called Google, I called up a list of major oil spills. I have 14 pages of references here, starting with the Torrey Canyon in 1967 and going through to an oil slick in the Suez Canal in December of 2004. So there is quite a history of oil spills.
There has been a tendency, I believe, in the contributions today to demonise the oil tanker industry, and I am not sure that that is entirely warranted. It is easy enough to pull out information that says that the majority of man-made oil pollution in the ocean has come from land based activity, such as the rupturing of pipes, while public attention has focused sharply on tankers. I think most of us would be relatively familiar with the situation during the first Gulf War where retreating Iraqis opened the pipes and allowed probably 1½ million tonnes of crude oil to spill into the ocean there. Closer to home, in Brisbane we were much concerned back in 2003 by an oil spill at the Santos terminal, where about 1½ million litres of crude oil leaked from a ruptured pipeline. Fortunately, we were able to respond appropriately to that incident and look after it.
The point I am making is that, whilst the bill that we are talking about deals with tankers, we need to be aware that transporting oil and petroleum products by tanker is statistically fairly safe. The losses from tankers in the 1980s and 1990s amounted to 0.01 per cent of the product that they carried. I cannot think of any endeavour that would not think that that was a pretty good safety record. I am sure there are plenty who would like it as a safety record. But the problem with that 0.01 per cent is that it can make a hell of a mess and it is very visible. We all recall the kinds of things we saw when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska.
The member for Leichhardt spoke a great deal about the Great Barrier Reef. As a Queenslander—indeed, as an Australian—I know that we are all very fond of that iconic environmental area. As the member said, annually there are approximately 6,000 ship voyages through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. At any one time there are about 40 to 50 ships within the park. As he indicated, there have been about 33 incidents in the period since 1987. None of those incidents resulted in an oil spill; however, they easily could have done so. They would have had devastating, catastrophic, economic and environmental effects on the marine park and would have taken several years of work to overcome.
The oil tanker industry hold many annual conventions, one of which is Spillcon—I think it was biennial in Australia once upon a time but may now be triennial—where they discuss technology, techniques and the means of avoiding the incidence of spills.
As the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government is here and paying very close attention, I want to raise one particular issue in relation to the legislation that he may want to cover in his concluding remarks. The information that we have received, and indeed it has been commented on a couple of times during the debate, is that levies from the supplementary fund will only be collected after an oil spill has occurred and after the first two tiers of compensation have been exhausted. That sounds very reasonable, as if that would be the situation. However, after doing some research, I found that the IMO, on their website, say:
Annual contributions to the Fund will be made in respect of each Contracting State by any person who, in any calendar year, has received total quantities of oil exceeding 150,000 tons.
So the IMO are talking about an annual contribution, but the information that we have talks about a contribution that occurs only after there has been an oil spill.
While oil tanker spills are not a major issue for us, I was taken by one of the slides from a presentation on aerial surveillance given to Spillcon 2007 by Anneliese Caston from AMSA. It was a nice, coloured slide of Australia observed from the air, with white dots indicating where oil spills had been observed. In this place, I will be understood if I say that the picture makes Australia looks like a strange shaped lamington, because there are lots and lots of white flecks on the outside. There have been a large number of oil spill incidents around the country, and we need to be aware that tankers, whilst a part of that problem, are improving their industry and are less of a problem than they used to be. In fact, over the seventies, tankers averaged 24 spills a year; in the eighties, just under nine; and, in the nineties, just over seven.
Hundreds of millions of gallons of oil have spilled onto coastlines around the world since the dawn of the supertanker. Techniques have improved, but even in calm weather a complete clean-up is impossible. Any spill is a potential environmental disaster for wildlife and for human life, particularly for those who depend on tourism and the ocean for their living. Anything we can do to make sure that the effects can be mitigated is worth while. I commend this bill to the House.
in reply—I would like to thank members for participating in this important debate on the Protection of the Sea Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and thank all members of the House for supporting the bill. Fortunately, there have not been any oil spills in Australia on the scale of some that have occurred overseas. To date, the two most significant incidents involved the Princess Anne-Marie, off the Western Australian coast in 1975, when approximately 15,000 tonnes of oil were spilt, and the Kirki, off the Western Australian coast in 1991, when approximately 18,000 tonnes of crude oil were spilt. Australia has comprehensive arrangements in place to respond to an oil spill, yet, in spite of the dedication and professionalism of the men and women involved in response activities, there is still the potential for significant pollution damage and for this to affect a range of industries and our environment.
The bill creates a third tier of compensation for damage resulting from spills of oil from an oil tanker so that the maximum amount payable increases to 750 million special drawing rights, which is approximately $1.3 billion, per incident. The bill ensures that compensation to Australian victims following an oil spill from a tanker incident is maximised and that adequate financial resources are provided for clean-up costs, economic loss and property damage, and to help with the natural recovery of Australia’s affected marine environment. It also amends the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 and the Navigation Act 1912, giving effect to the MARPOL amendments, and amends ship levy legislation relating to the definitions of ‘Australian port’ and ‘collector’.
This is good legislation for our environment. It is unfortunate that it sat on the books of the previous government for three long years and was not enacted. For too long, many of the issues in the transport portfolio just sat on the desks of ministers, with no action taking place. This government is committed to a comprehensive transport strategy. That includes making sure that the impact of transport, including maritime, is given proper consideration. This legislation, when joined with the Protection of the Sea (Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage) Bill 2008, which was previously carried by this House, does just that. I commend the bill to the House.
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.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for requested amendment announced.
Bill returned from the Senate with a requested amendment.
Ordered that the requested amendment be considered immediately.
Senate’s requested amendment—
SCHEDULE A
(1) Schedule 6, page 34 (after line 16), after item 9, insert:
9A Paragraph 2(1)(b) of Schedule 3
Omit “reportable fringe benefits total”, substitute “adjusted fringe benefits total”.
9B Clause 4 of Schedule 3
Repeal the clause, substitute:
4 Adjusted fringe benefits total
An individual’s adjusted fringe benefits total for an income year is the amount worked out using the formula:
where:
FBT rate is the rate of tax set by the Fringe Benefits Tax Act 1986 for the FBT year (as defined in the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986) beginning on the 1 April just before the start of the income year.
reportable fringe benefits total is the amount that the Secretary is satisfied is the individual’s reportable fringe benefits total (as defined in the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986) for the income year.
9C Application
The amendments made by items 9A and 9B apply in relation to the 2008-09 income year and later income years.
I move:
That the requested amendment be made.
This request from the Senate is to enact the government’s proposed amendments to ensure that employees in the charitable and not-for-profit sector will not lose up to $100 a fortnight from 1 July. The government’s amendments to the bill make sure that employees in the charitable sector are not hurt by the previous government’s 2006 budget measure that changed the definition of income for family assistance law. The government’s amendments will restore the use of the net value of reportable fringe benefits in the definition of adjusted taxable income for family assistance. This will ensure staff in not-for-profit organisations will not suffer a loss of family tax or childcare benefits of up to $100 a fortnight after 1 July this year if their circumstances have not otherwise changed.
Up to 85,000 Centrelink customers are expected to benefit from this decision. Once this amendment goes through the parliament, Centrelink call centre staff will be able to advise affected customers of the new arrangements. Once the legislation is passed by the Senate, Centrelink will issue an IT systems change to make sure that net fringe benefit amounts are used and will adjust customers’ records accordingly.
Centrelink will make every effort to make sure that payments are maintained; however, I would say to all customers who have been affected that these are complex changes, so if any families are unsure they should contact Centrelink or their Family Assistance Office. The government and the charitable and not-for-profit sector have only recently become aware of the potential impact of the changes to family assistance law that were due to come into effect on 1 July and we have acted very quickly to make these changes.
Both public benevolent organisations and other charities are working with some of the most disadvantaged people in our community. We certainly value their work very highly and that is why we wanted to move these amendments through the parliament as quickly as we could. Time certainly is of the essence here, otherwise we will see staff working in these charitable and not-for-profit organisations losing up to $100 a fortnight from next week. So it is urgent that this change to the law be made. I certainly look forward to the support of the opposition to make sure that these very significant impacts on families will not take place. I commend the amendment to the House and ask that the bill be passed immediately without further amendment.
I am happy to support the motion moved by the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to the Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (2008 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2008. This amendment is designed to remove an unintended consequence of legislation that was passed in 2006 with the full support of the then opposition. The problem in question was so unintended and so unanticipated that it was actually reinforced by the current government’s budget legislation, which to that extent will also be corrected by this bill that we are now proposing to pass.
As the minister has said, this is a complex piece of policymaking. It is easy for governments to do things which have unintended ramifications. I suspect that this is not going to be the last time that these issues will be discussed in this parliament. I would not be at all surprised to find the government coming back into this House in the not-too-distant future to talk about changes that were announced in the budget to the treatment of salary sacrifice superannuation for the purposes of family assistance eligibility, but I digress somewhat. The fact is that this particular piece of legislation is dealing with 2006 changes and subsequent changes in 2008 and, because of the consequences that were not intended, the legislation before us should certainly be passed swiftly.
Question agreed to.
Debate resumed from 18 June, on motion by Mr Garrett:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The coalition supports the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. It gives me great pleasure to speak on this legislation. It is in fact almost overwhelmingly our legislation. The previous government, when in government, completed a review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act and Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in 2006. The coalition cabinet then released a response accepting all the recommendations contained within the report. The bill is therefore largely and overwhelmingly the result of this and almost wholly the work of the coalition government.
I want to deal with this bill in two phases: firstly, putting the Great Barrier Reef in its broader social, environmental and historical context; and, secondly, dealing with the specific provisions within the bill itself. First, turning to the importance of the Great Barrier Reef—this majestic zone—to Australians, it is interesting to chart just how far we have come as a nation, as a people, and as custodians of the environment in our attitude towards the Great Barrier Reef, which is truly one of the world’s modern natural wonders. The reef is the world’s largest, and arguably the world’s most complex, ecosystem. It comprises not one continuous reef but approximately 2,900 individual reefs. It includes about 760 fringing reefs around islands or along the mainland. There are also 900 islands and quays within the boundaries of the current marine park. In short, the reef is one of the most visually spectacular and richly diverse ecosystems on the planet. We are its custodians. We are its managers. We are proud to have this responsibility and we work on a bipartisan basis across this chamber on this profound responsibility.
In 1969, however, the Queensland department of mines received an application to mine limestone on Ellison Reef, and legislation was drawn up to govern the granting of offshore oil exploration permits. In 1969 an oil company was granted a permit covering the entire reef. Soon afterwards, though, concern began to grow about the potentially catastrophic impact on the reef of any major future oil spill. The Royal Commission into Exploratory and Production Drilling for Petroleum in the Area of the Great Barrier Reef was held between 1970 and 1974. This resulted in the banning of petroleum drilling and a recommendation that a statutory authority be set up to protect the reef and regulate research and development within its boundaries and within its vicinity. At the same time, a committee of inquiry into the national estate deemed the reef to be of World Heritage standard and found that the Queensland and Commonwealth governments had a responsibility to preserve and manage the reef. It was a far-sighted act. It was early, visionary work by people who cared about our environment. If we play a small role today in continuing that work, this House is doing a service to and honouring those who took early action to protect the majesty of the Great Barrier Reef.
These recommendations subsequently received bipartisan support and resulted in the enactment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. Over the following 25 years or more, additional sections of the reef were progressively proclaimed to be part of the marine park. In 2004 the coalition government consolidated all sections into a single unit and introduced integrated zoning with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan of 2003. It was not without controversy. It took considerable leadership on the part of the then government. It took considerable leadership on the part of successive environment ministers, David Kemp and Senator Ian Campbell, but it has, I believe, made the long-term future of the Barrier Reef sustainable. It was strong work, it was courageous work and it was visionary work. I commend those two ministers; the Prime Minister of the time, John Howard; and all of those departmental officials and others who have worked to achieve this outcome for taking that step.
In order to get a sense of the impact and importance of that step forward in the period 2003 to 2004, it is worth while understanding the extent of the various marine park zones before 2004 and afterwards. The marine park zone, which is coloured green on all of the maps, prior to 2004 was 4.6 per cent of the marine park. Post 2004 it was a third, or 33.3 per cent. The buffer zone—the olive green zone—was 0.1 per cent prior to 2004 and was increased to 2.9 per cent as a result of the changes in 2004. The habitat protection zone, which is the dark blue zone, was 15.2 per cent prior to 2004 and became 28.2 per cent as a consequence of the changes. The area that decreased was the general use or light blue zone, which decreased from just under 78 per cent to 33.8 per cent. The important thing is that it was the marine park area, buffer area and habitat protection area as well as a small increase in the conservation park area which made this change. That was a gift from one generation of Australians to all future generations of Australians and to people throughout the world. It was an act of profound importance, and I pay tribute to all those who advocated for it and who brought it into being.
The park now covers around 98 per cent of the World Heritage area, and an additional one per cent is covered by the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Great Barrier Reef Coast Marine Park. The reef is one of Australia’s most internationally recognised tourist icons—if not, along with Uluru and the Opera House, Australia’s most recognised feature. Its value to the Australian tourism industry is immense—close to $6 billion a year. Recreational and commercial fishing generate hundreds of millions of dollars more in income. It would be difficult to overestimate the reef’s importance to Australia—to our sense of self, to our sense of who we are, to our belief in the environment and to our passion for this area—as well as its economic significance, its cultural significance to Indigenous Australians and its interconnected nature with the entire natural marine ecosystem.
Against that background, while the Great Barrier Reef has been well served by the Great Barrier Marine Park Act 1975, as the previous government found, it was in need of work in order to fill in some gaps and modernise it. In particular, the former Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, oversaw much of that transition, which delivered on a coalition election commitment to review the act and improve the performance of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. The review consulted with a wide range of stakeholders with a diverse range of views. It held 36 consultations, considered 227 submissions and produced the basis for the changes which are incorporated in the act today.
I want to turn to the legislation itself. As I said earlier, the coalition support this legislation as it is—in fact, it is our legislation in large part. The previous, coalition government completed the review in 2006 and released a response accepting all of the recommendations. Proposed changes included updating the act to reflect the fact that the Great Barrier Reef had been World Heritage listed and the fact that the coalition government had introduced the EPBC Act, and to close any gaps in emergency management powers. The new act also picked up the coalition cabinet’s decision to move beyond a criminal penalty only system to allow for greater flexibility of enforcement options, such as reef recovery or civil penalties for breaches such as fishing on an unintended basis in no-take zones.
In addition, the bill expands the number of board members from three to five in line with our recommendations. One of those places, in line with the government’s policy, will be filled by an Indigenous representative under this legislation. We do not oppose that; we accept that and endorse that. In the Senate, however, we will move to ensure that there is an appropriate opportunity for industry representation as part of those five members.
I should note that there are also two other points which we wish to raise. Firstly, the timing of this bill’s introduction serves to highlight the fact that the Rudd Labor government’s legislative program is in disarray. I do not actually blame the department or even the minister’s office for this. I think they have acted in good faith. We were informed that the bill would lie on the table and not come in until after the winter break, and then the bill was brought forward at short notice. That is not catastrophic or a significant problem; it is simply an indication that there is a broader issue here in that the government have no legislative program for this House and they have had to bring forward a bill which would have been available to industry, the community, environmental groups and others to assess over the coming months. Secondly, the Rudd government need to ensure that there is, as I said, at least one person with tourism and other industry skills and experience on the board of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
Overall, we are exceptionally supportive of this legislation. We think it is our legislation. There are a couple of changes in a couple of areas, but we are proud of the work which has been done on the coalition side. I want to acknowledge the great work of those within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the work of all of those who contributed to the 2006 review and the work of the department. Many people have worked on this legislation for many years. It is detailed, technical and a tribute to their work. Ultimately, the Great Barrier Reef is part of our environmental heritage and part of who we are as Australians, and it is our responsibility to protect it. We are custodians, along with Indigenous representatives, of this magnificent area of our water, our undersea and our marine life. It is a great honour to support it and to be able to say that, effectively, this is our legislation which we brought to this place—and, if there is bipartisan support, that is a good thing. That is why the coalition give our wholehearted support to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008.
The member for Flinders pointed out that the Great Barrier Reef is not one single reef but 2,900 individual reefs. Indeed, it covers an area of over 340,000 square kilometres. While he was saying that, I was reminded of just what an inane and absurd proposition had come from the former Minister for Small Business and Tourism, the member for McEwen—the suggestion that the Great Barrier Reef should be protected from global warming through the erection of shadecloth. She proposed to turn the Great Barrier Reef into the ‘Great Barrier Roof’ and cover those 2,900 individual reefs.
This year, 2008, marks the International Year of the Reef, an activity of the International Coral Reef Initiative, designed to continue the global focus on the importance of coral reefs to the health of the planet. The International Coral Reef Initiative hopes to strengthen public awareness regarding the understanding of threats facing our reefs and what we can do to counter those threats and take action on management strategies for conservation and sustainable use. This is an international partnership between governments, international organisations and non-government organisations to assist in preserving coral reefs and related ecosystems.
I take this opportunity to praise and support the work of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and also of others like James Cook University and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, which I think do an outstanding job in researching and monitoring the health of the Great Barrier Reef and making us all more aware of its importance, its outstanding attributes and the various threats to it. The marine park established under the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act is now one of the largest protected marine areas in the world. It covers an area in excess of 340,000 square kilometres. It is widely recognised around the world as a model for marine management and conservation. These legislative changes in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 do not change the marine park’s zoning, but they do ensure that it delivers a high level of protection for the Great Barrier Reef. This is to be achieved through recognising the World Heritage status of the Great Barrier Reef; through applying a new, streamlined environmental impact assessment process; through an improved enforcement and compliance regime providing a wider range of enforcement options tailored to the circumstances; and through addressing gaps in emergency management. I believe that these legislative changes will form part of a robust, comprehensive framework for protecting the Great Barrier Reef.
The purpose of the bill is to establish a modern, robust regulatory framework that provides capacity for efficient and effective protection and management of the Great Barrier Reef into the future. We will now see a more modern framework for administration of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act and management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park that is aligned and integrated and that does not duplicate the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act or other legislation. We look forward to more streamlined environmental impact assessment and permitting processes; to an enhanced capability for investigation and evidence collection for a wider range of enforcement options, giving us a more targeted approach to enforcement; and to encouraging responsible use of the marine park as well as establishing new emergency management powers.
The changes proposed by the bill, as has been pointed out, address the findings of a 2006 review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act. That review found that the act has served its purpose well over the past 30 years but needs to be updated and better integrated with other legislation in order to provide an effective framework for the protection and management of the Great Barrier Reef into the future. It is the intention that, as a result of these changes, we will have a comprehensive framework for securing the long-term protection of the Great Barrier Reef with a future-focused regulatory framework. It has been pointed out that the marine park act is now starting to show its age and that substantial updating is required to put in place a regulatory framework capable of meeting the challenges of the next 30 years and beyond.
This bill will update the act to reflect modern realities and approaches to environment protection and management. It will encourage responsible and ecologically sustainable use of the marine park by ensuring that appropriate incentives are in place and that management tools are available. We will get integration and alignment of the marine park act with other relevant legislation, notably the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and also the relevant Queensland legislation. This should reduce regulatory and administrative red tape and facilitate a more consistent and integrated approach to environmental regulation and management by both the Australian and the Queensland governments. The bill also enhances the capacity of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to respond to emergency incidents presenting a risk of serious harm to the environment of the marine park; it introduces an environmental duty, requiring marine park users to take reasonable steps to avoid or minimise any environmental harm associated with their use of the park; and it addresses a specific Labor election commitment to restore an Indigenous member to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
As I have had occasion to say previously, we should be under no illusions about the threats facing both the Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs right around the world. One of the most significant steps taken in relation to the Great Barrier Reef in recent times was that, back in 2004, a network of no-take marine reserves, protecting over 100,000 square kilometres of coral reef, was established on the Great Barrier Reef. Closing such a large area to fishing was socially and politically controversial, and I can well remember the previous member for Dawson, the previous member for Leichhardt and Queensland coalition senators attacking the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority over this issue. Given that, it is perhaps worth noting that there has been some work done to assess the effectiveness of the new reserve network. Researchers from James Cook University have found that there were significant increases in density of the major target species of the reef line fisheries in marine reserves in just two years and that the increases were consistent over an unprecedented scale, exceeding 1,000 kilometres. Their findings were that, after 1½ to two years of protection, the density of the primary target of reef line fisheries, coral trout, increased significantly in the no-take areas of Palm Island and the Whitsunday Islands—by over 60 per cent. There was also some evidence that the reserve areas are capable of replenishing stocks and of acting as nurseries for the fished areas. It is a point well worth making, because it was the controversy surrounding that issue which gave rise to the review, which has in turn given rise to this bill. It is good news that the no-take marine areas are working.
I also want to draw the attention of the House, as I have done previously, to the definitive work done by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network back in 2004. That report is titled Status of coral reefs of the world 2004. I use the example of the Caribbean to give the parliament something of the flavour of what is occurring in coral reefs around the world, and this definitive work concludes:
Evidence is emerging of a definite, consistent and long-term decline in the status of coral reefs of the Caribbean. These are the conclusions of a group of researchers at the University of East Anglia, England, who analysed monitoring data from 263 sites from 65 separate studies spanning 3 decades ... The regional pattern of decline is alarming; with coral cover decreasing from more than 50% on average in 1977 to approximately 10% in 2001, i.e. a loss of 80% in 25 years.
… … …
Virtually all sites showed a decline in coral cover over the study period.
There was a massive loss in coral cover during the 1980s, particularly in Jamaica and northern and southern Central America.
According to a 2006 report, Coral reef conservation, approximately 20 per cent of the world’s coral reefs have been destroyed and show no immediate prospect of recovery. Of those remaining, one-quarter are under imminent risk of collapse and another quarter face long-term threat of collapse. In the magazine Science, in May last year, Terence Hughes, who is director of the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Townsville, indicated that if carbon dioxide emissions are not curtailed:
... we’ll eventually see reefs dominated by sea anemones and algae.
In other words, the coral will be gone. The biggest danger for reefs is bleaching and, despite the merits of various conservation initiatives, unless climate change is addressed these gains from local measures and local initiatives will be erased.
It is quite clear that coral reefs around the world are under massive stress and are suffering from a whole range of problems: issues of governance, awareness, political will, increasing populations, poor capacity for management and lack of resources. I believe that it is our obligation to ensure that this does not happen to the Great Barrier Reef. I think it is impossible to overemphasise the importance of the responsibility that we have—the duty that we have—to protect the Great Barrier Reef. We simply cannot sit idly by and allow its situation to deteriorate.
I noticed in the latest edition of the publication by the Marine Coastal Community Network called Waves that some work has been done on the Keppel region of the southern Great Barrier Reef. This lies at the mouth of the Fitzroy Rover catchment. The article states:
The region is made up of extensive fringing inshore coral reefs around 15 continental islands, east of Rockhampton in central Queensland. The Keppel region has a history of multiple disturbance regimes in the past, including coral bleaching and flood. In summer 2006, a severe bleaching event caused the loss of 37% of the live hard coral cover on reef flats and slopes in the region.
The article goes on to report:
Along with bleaching, temperature-induced ocean acidification may threaten the carbonate accretion capacity of the main coral species that form the structure of the Keppel Islands inshore reefs. The added threat of increased fishing pressure, coastal development and agricultural practices along the Fitzroy River make the Keppel reefs a priority for management intervention that enhances their capacity for resilience and regeneration.
It is good to learn:
A local community group, in conjunction with the Fitzroy Basin Association, has recognised and responded to the threats faced by the Keppel Islands fringing reefs by securing funding to map and monitor the reef biodiversity. The emphasis of the monitoring will be on reefs that are considered important to the local community and on those that are resilient to flood and bleaching. By engaging local divers, snorkelers and boaties, the community reef monitoring program is encouraging stewardship of reef management.
The situation facing the Keppel reefs is the kind of situation, writ large, facing the whole of the Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs around the world.
There was a report earlier this month in the Age about John Veron. He got the nickname ‘Charlie’, which stood for Charles Darwin, as a kid because he was very interested in wildlife. His first dive was at the age of 18, and he says:
... the intensity of life—
underwater—
made the surface world seem suddenly pale.
I think he is right about that; it is a fantastic thing to go underwater and see the richness, diversity and intensity of life there. Dr Veron has logged 7,000 hours diving all the major reefs of the world. I understand that he discovered almost a quarter of the oceans’ identified coral species and he has compiled a catalogue of books, including the three-volume Corals of the world. But his latest book is different. It is called A Reef in Time: The Great Barrier Reef from Beginning to End. It is not a chronicle of the life of coral reefs, as his previous books have been. It is an anticipation of their death. Unlike the careful jargon that we have come to associate with scientists, it is:
... an impassioned, anguished eulogy delivered by a dear friend of the imminently deceased.
In the article Dr Veron says:
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, more than 25 million years in the making, is “an icon primordial wilderness” ... the greatest structure created by life on earth.
Dr Veron also says that once he would have considered the idea that it could die within the span of a generation or two as preposterous. He now says:
Twin assailants, both creatures of climate change, threaten the reef.
Dr Veron says that the first of those is the warming of the water, which causes the event we refer to as coral bleaching and which is quite well known. He says that the worst bleaching events that we have seen so far will become commonplace by 2030 and that by 2050:
... the only corals left alive will be those in refuges on deep outer slopes of reefs. The rest will be unrecognisable—a bacterial slime , devoid of life.
Bad and all as that is, he says:
The even greater threat is ocean acidification—the dissolving of carbon dioxide into the sea, forming weak carbonic acid. This is the climate change frontier to which science is swinging increasing focus, as alarm grows at the threat it poses to marine ecosystems and to human food supplies and economies.
What we have seen happening is the ocean’s appetite for carbon dioxide being exceeded and the chemistry changing. The acid levels can create conditions where the capacity of marine creatures to produce their calcium carbonate skeletons is threatened, and the consequences of this he describes as nothing less than ‘catastrophic’. He says that in the past there were five great extinction events that wiped out much of life on earth and that coral reefs were hit hard by all five of them because they were so closely linked to the carbon cycle. In the past these changes were not the result of human activity, but the issue now is that events which were previously stretched over time frames of billions of years are now happening at a rapid speed because of the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He is extremely concerned about what he has seen. He says:
We are seeing the beginning of the global demise of reefs in the mass bleaching of corals ... by 2030, the worst year of bleaching we have had so far will be an average year, and by 2050 it will be a good year.
Dr Veron goes on to say:
If we do not curb the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases effectively and within a decade, the Earth will enter an era (around mid-century) that will result in so much environmental chaos that humans will no longer have the capacity to keep on doing as they have done in the past.
Given that, it is certainly a matter of concern to me that we have seen statements from the opposition, including from the member for Flinders, who spoke previously in this debate, seeking to get a scare campaign going about emissions trading and effectively undermining much of the work that has been done to protect the Great Barrier Reef in the past and all the work that we need to do in the future to secure the Great Barrier Reef and other Australian icons from the impact of climate change. This is a good piece of legislation. It results from a review carried out back in 2006. It takes the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority into the modern era, and I commend it to the House.
I rise to also support the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. I agree with the previous speaker, the member for Wills, and also the member for Flinders that this is very good legislation. It carries on the work of the coalition government, which was of course long committed to making sure that this magnificent wonder of the world, the Great Barrier Reef, survived. We have here an evolution in the legislation to protect and manage the Great Barrier Reef, one of the most important ecosystems and tourism destinations in Australia.
The Great Barrier Reef, while one of the wonders of the world, is hugely vulnerable. The member for Wills has, very rightly, just described the great threats to the reef at this time. Those threats of course include overfishing, climate change impacts and the hole in the ozone, which has caused UV problems—like bleaching—for quite a number of years now. There is the coastline run-off and other pollutants. There are the marine accidents that can occur, like an oil spill. And of course there are the introduced predatory species like the crown-of-thorns starfish, which can do, and is already doing, enormous damage—though some feel it is now somewhat under control, particularly in some parts of the reef. This reef is an enormous geographic extension along the east coast of Australia and it is many millions of years old. It is very much in need of active, ongoing management if we are to try to reduce the impact of some of the detrimental effects already occuring, like climate change and ozone layer depletion.
The Howard government undertook a review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act back in 2006. This review was very comprehensive and met a key election commitment of the Howard government to review and improve the act’s management arrangements for the reef. In 1975 we saw the first Commonwealth legislation to establish and manage the marine park. This was passed unanimously by the parliament of the day, a great act of bipartisan agreement.
In 1981 the Fraser government announced the successful listing of the reef on the World Heritage List. Over the next 25 years, over 33 sections of the marine park were formally proclaimed as protected. In total, the marine park is now 1½ times bigger than the state of Victoria, covering over 244,400 square kilometres. It also generates many billions of dollars in tourism trade annually, and that in turn supports some 350,000 people. It is unique and one of the world’s oldest coral reefs, and successive Australian governments have sought to protect it.
In March 2007 the Howard government, with the support of the Labor Party opposition, passed the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment Bill 2007. This bill implemented the key, urgent issues improving on the 1975 act, which was indeed showing signs of age. This included provision for the zoning plan process and for improvements in transparency and accountability. The changes to the zoning plan were initially for seven years; they will be extended to 10 years by this bill.
The House may be interested to know that the model developed to manage the reef is now considered international best practice and is emulated for other important reefs in the world. In 2004 an American legal commentator noted that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park was an example of a ‘successful large-scale marine zoning project that allows for commercial use, recreational use and conservation’. This is a ringing endorsement of the work undertaken by the Howard government which is leading the way for reef management and protection into the future despite the enormous challenges of climate change, the growing pressures of human visitation and offshore demands, and the ongoing nutrition entering the marine environment.
This bill is important; we have to get it right. The first act, over 30 years old now, served this unique ecosystem well but it requires regular updates. While the opposition remain disappointed with the speed at which this legislation is being introduced into the parliament—because we believe there was more than passing interest from the industry and stakeholders wanting to comment further on the act—we support the bill in this place today.
This bill aims to establish a modern and robust registry framework that provides for the efficient and effective protection and management of the Great Barrier Reef into the future. The changes proposed by the bill are a response to the findings of the 2006 review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act established by the coalition. That review found that the act had served its purpose well but needed to be updated and better integrated with other relevant legislation, in particular the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, in order to reduce red tape and confusion and to close loopholes—in other words, to provide a more effective framework for protection and management of the reef.
Since this act was first passed in 1975 there has been a significant change in the scale, scope and nature of the challenges in securing the long-term protection of the reef—and I have already listed some of these. The initial act focused on the establishment of the marine park, and of course that has been well and truly achieved. Today a new focus is needed to manage the impacts of climate change on the reef along with those other human related pressures, like the growing tourism and the potential for accidents. We need to ensure common user provisions for the reef for tourists, residents and businesses but always ensure that at no time is the reef itself compromised.
Schedule 1 establishes a new objects section in the act. This reflects the changing focus of the act away from establishing a marine park to providing for ecological sustainability and best possible management practice. It identifies long-term protection of the environment, biodiversity and heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef as now being the primary objects of the act. The schedule also requires the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority—or GBRMPA, as we commonly refer to it—to have regard to the new objects and the principles of ecologically sustainable use and the protection of the World Heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef.
Schedule 2 makes amendments to the GBRMPA itself. It establishes a requirement for one member of the authority to be an Indigenous person. Given there are more than 70 traditional owner groups along the coast from Bundaberg to the Torres Strait, it is important they have input into the future direction of the reef and marine park. For example, the issue of Indigenous hunting of marine species using non-traditional methods requires sensitive consideration and discussion. It is just one of the many issues that our Indigenous original owners are concerned about, and they need to be at the table discussing the best ways to proceed.
The schedule also provides for the GBRMPA to conduct business outside of formal meetings, subject to an appropriate governance framework. On this point the coalition is also keen to see industry representation on the GBRMPA. Last week I met with the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators, AMPTO. They are one of the key representative bodies for tourism operators on the reef and the adjacent coastline. Members of such bodies could and indeed should make a very valuable contribution to policy formulation and the management of the park. A healthy, properly managed reef is essential for the success of the tourist operators, and it is important that we take on board the views of the evolving and changing industry.
Schedule 3 makes changes which will require the GBRMPA to publicly consult on any proposal to proclaim an area part of the marine park or to remove an area from the marine park by way of proclamation. It also updates the matters that must be considered in developing zoning plans and plans of management to build in better integration with relevant Commonwealth and Queensland legislation, particularly the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. This schedule provides that a World Heritage management plan is not required under section 321 of the EPBC Act or a national heritage management plan under section 324X of the EPBC Act. This will improve integration and alignment of the two acts. It will remove the confusion, it will close loopholes and it will reduce the red tape and bureaucracy, especially given that 98 per cent of the marine park falls inside the World Heritage area.
Schedule 4 declares the marine park as a ‘matter of national environmental significance’ under the EPBC Act. As a consequence, the environmental impact assessment and approval requirements of the EPBC Act will apply where an action inside or outside the marine park has, will have or is likely to have a significant impact on the environment in the marine park itself. Further provisions will establish a single, integrated environmental impact assessment process under the EPBC Act.
Schedule 5 updates investigation and enforcement provisions to ensure that the provisions for the marine park are in line with those of the EPBC Act. It is about harmonisation, and that is of critical concern when too much time and energy can be lost in integrating parallel pieces of legislation which, at the end of the day, have the same objectives.
Schedule 6 goes on to make a number of changes to existing offence provisions of the GBRMP Act and establishes equivalent civil penalty provisions for most of those offences. It will not be the case in the future that someone who accidentally drifts a few metres across the marine park boundaries is in fact seen to have committed a criminal offence. The schedule establishes two new offences. One relates to the operation of a commercial fishing vessel in a zone where fishing is not permitted except for the purposes of transiting or anchoring in an emergency or as a result of an accident. The other provision relates to making a false or misleading representation concerning a person’s liability to pay a fee, tax, levy or other charge in connection with entry and use of the marine park.
The original marine park act was groundbreaking legislation. It was important at a time when little was known about the long-term management and sustainability of something as complex and amazing as the Great Barrier Reef. The original legislation provided for reasonable use to coexist with conservation, making the Great Barrier Reef a truly multiple-use park. This is important, but it also brings with it an enormously complex task in managing the various and sometimes competing interests of those who know and love the reef or earn an income from it.
Extending over 2,300 kilometres along the Queensland coast, the reef includes 2,900 individual reefs, 900 islands and cays and 70 distinct bioregions. These bioregions contain great biodiversity, including 30 per cent of the world’s soft corals, 30 per cent of Australia’s sponges and six of the world’s seven species of marine turtle. And they are the breeding areas and migratory routes for humpback whales and dugongs.
When the coalition signed off on the World Heritage listing of the marine park in 1981, the reef became internationally recognised as an outstanding example of the major stages of the earth’s evolutionary history, a significant example of an ongoing ecological and biological process, a superlative natural phenomenon and a source of important and significant habitats for in situ conservation of biological diversity. As we have already heard, however, the reef is now facing extraordinary threats, in particular due to climate change. It would be both an ecological and a human tragedy if on our watch we saw this reef destroyed.
This bill is an important part of managing the reef and doing all we can to make sure that generations to come enjoy the extraordinary biodiversity and sheer beauty of the reef. I repeat: the coalition supports this bill. It carries on the work of the Howard government. The first act lasted some 30 years. It has evolved to give us one of the best managed ecosystems in the world. But it is unfinished business, and we need to make sure that in the years to come we continue to have a bipartisan approach to what is one of Australia’s most important custodial tasks—seeing that the Great Barrier Reef survives. I commend the bill to the House.
I rise in support of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. This bill, as other members have stated, is an important step in the ongoing conservation and protection of the Great Barrier Reef. It fulfils part of the election commitment of the Rudd Labor government to genuinely tackle sustainable measures for the protection of our environment. As a Queenslander I am proud of the magnificent natural resource that we have on our doorstep and understand the importance of conserving and protecting such a resource.
The Great Barrier Reef has significant environmental, social, economic and cultural values. In introducing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 into parliament, the Australian government stated that protection of our unique Barrier Reef is of paramount importance to Australia and the world, and conservation and protection of the Great Barrier Reef will be the paramount aim of the authority in all zones of the marine park. This act, in providing for reasonable use to coexist with conservation, established a multi-use approach to management, with an overarching conservation objective. This concept has underpinned management of the marine park. The benefits of protecting our environment are immeasurable. Decisions made by all levels of government must take all necessary steps to balance the environmental, social, economic and cultural values. These values do not necessarily need to be in conflict with each other.
The Howard government did not believe in this approach. They believed in fear campaigns, alleging that any positive move to address climate change would result in economic pressures. In opposition they continue to follow this approach. We the government take a different approach. We believe that the protection of our environment is important. Tackling climate change is one of the most nationally and internationally challenging areas, but it is something that must be done in a responsible way. This challenge must be faced head-on. There is no time to waste in our willingness to take issues to the nations of the globe. By signing the Kyoto protocol, Australia can now be regarded as a nation that is helping with the solution as opposed to one waiting for an answer.
I acknowledge the work of the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, who has immediately taken a proactive role in her diplomatic discussions with other countries on this important issue. I also acknowledge the work of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, the Hon. Peter Garrett, for his work on this bill and other important initiatives on the environment.
When we talk about the environment, we cannot do so without talking about climate change. Areas such as the Great Barrier Reef must be considered in the context of the changing nature of the environment due to climate change. Eminent scientists throughout the world have already reported on evidence of climate change resulting from elevated greenhouse gas concentrations. Since the beginning of last century, air temperature has increased by 0.6 degrees Celsius on average worldwide. In Australia, 2005 was the hottest year ever recorded. The temperature was 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than the average over the previous 30 years.
Levels of greenhouse gases continue to increase and therefore temperatures around the world continue to rise. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that the average global temperature will rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius by 2100. The Australian Greenhouse Office has worked with scientists to develop models that predict the future climate of Australia. They predict that Australia will warm by one to six degrees Celsius by 2070, a slight variation from the global average. We have already set out our plan for responding to this challenge: reducing carbon emissions, adapting to climate change we cannot avoid and helping to shape a global solution.
To tackle the threats to the Great Barrier Reef, including the effects of climate change and declining water quality, the government has committed $2 million to a reef rescue plan. The rescue plan will help protect one of the world’s great natural wonders, while benefiting local conservation and Indigenous groups, agricultural production, tourism, fishing and aquacultural industries.
What does this mean for the Great Barrier Reef? Changes in the climate that will directly impact the Great Barrier Reef include increased water temperature, increased sea level, increased severity of storms and cyclones, ocean acidification, changed rainfall and run-off and changes to the El Nino southern oscillation. The ecological consequences of climate change will be serious. Mass coral bleaching, which is caused by sustained high water temperatures, has already begun to increase in frequency and severity. The range of other potential impacts on the Great Barrier Reef are numerous, with many only just coming to light.
The Rudd Labor government is genuine about tackling climate change. That is why in the government’s first budget we have delivered $2.3 billion in funding to tackle climate change through initiatives across government over the next four years. Australians understand that climate change is one of the biggest challenges we face as a nation. The impacts of climate change threaten both our economic prosperity and our way of life.
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 for Petrie will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.
I inform the House that the Prime Minister will be late to question time today as he is attending the funeral of Mrs Jane McGrath with the Leader of the Opposition. I will answer questions on behalf of the Prime Minister until he arrives in the House. The Minister for Sport and Minister for Youth will also be late to question time as she is with the Prime Minister, and the Minister for Health and Ageing will answer questions on her behalf until she arrives.
My question is addressed to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. I refer to the minister’s statement in the House yesterday that:
The transport sector ... must be a part of any climate change strategy.
Did the minister attend the recent cabinet meeting at which, as reported by Dennis Atkins in the Courier-Mail today, the option was examined to ‘not include fuel transport until at least 2012 in the emissions-trading scheme’?
I thank the member for Wentworth for his question. I am happy to talk about climate change at any time because, unlike those opposite, I have had a consistent position on climate change. Since I arrived in this chamber I have been talking about climate change. Since I arrived in this chamber I have been saying that to address climate change we need a whole-of-government response. That of course must include a response that looks at transport. Transport produces about 14 per cent of our total emissions and therefore we need to consider transport as an option. But there has been some confusion from those opposite about transport and climate change. Last night I watched The 7.30 Report. Forget Grey’s Anatomy; last night we had ‘Greg’s Anatomy’ all over Kerry O’Brien’s desk as the member for Flinders dissembled on climate change. He argued that, yes, climate change was important and, yes, transport should be considered as part of it but, no, the opposition are not really sure what their position is. That is what the member for Flinders said. Then I thought: The 7.30 Report is a tough gig sometimes with Kerry O’Brien and it might get better overnight. So I listened to AM this morning.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It was a very specific question and I do not see any part of it referring to alternative views.
Order! There is no point of order. I will listen very carefully and the minister knows he is obliged to be relevant to the question.
I certainly am being relevant, Mr Speaker. The question was about climate change and transport and I am happy to talk about climate change and transport. When those opposite do interviews—whether it is on The 7.30 Report, sweating more than a sumo wrestler in a sauna, or on AMafter having listened to those interviews, I have no idea what their position is.
Mr, Speaker, I raise a point of order. We are asking for the minister’s view, not his opinion of someone else’s view.
Order! There is no point of order. I will listen closely to the minister. The minister will bring his answer to a conclusion.
The fact is that the shadow minister has at least six positions that he has put forward on climate change—more positions than the Kama Sutra.
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The member was not asked for alternative policy.
Order! There is no point of order. I will listen very carefully to the minister and I suggest that he comes to his conclusion.
Come in spinner—the man who wants to address climate change from space! That is their solution.
Order! The minister will ignore other members and get back to the question.
When it comes to transport, we on this side of the House are taking action. We have the green car plan and we have cleaner fuels. We on this side of the House understand the need to address transport and climate change in our cities. Whether it be the urban congestion of cars going nowhere and emitting greenhouse gases or the public transport in our cities, we are addressing transport and climate change across the board.
Mr Speaker, on relevance: the honourable member could at least refer to the cabinet meeting which I asked him about.
Order! There is no point of order. The minister has the call and he will bring his answer to a conclusion.
I was quite happy to talk about what we are doing on transport and climate change. What I will not do—and they know I will not do it, as they did not—is discuss cabinet meetings. They know that. They know the question is out of order. They know that I would be breaching the law to talk about what happens at cabinet meetings. My position on climate change is very clear, as is the position of the Rudd Labor government. We will take action—as we did with the first act of this new government, which was to ratify the Kyoto protocol. We will take action, we will continue to take action and we will do this to redress the 12 years of inaction and denial from those opposite.
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline for the House why it is important that we address climate change in a consistent, economically responsible way?
I thank the member for Petrie for her question. It is a very important question, because members on this side of the House understand that climate change is the biggest economic challenge the global community faces. Delaying action on climate change will cost our economy dearly. The Stern review estimated that if we do not act the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least five per cent of global per capita consumption now and forever. It is that serious.
The Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change has stated that delaying action will increase the impact of climate change on the community and the likelihood of a disruptive shock to the Australian economy. The business roundtable also stated that the longer we delay acting, the more expensive it becomes for business and for the wider Australian economy.
As the infrastructure minister was saying before, had those on the other side of the parliament acted some time ago—some five years ago—when a submission on emissions trading was taken to the cabinet, this country would be a lot better off. We must deal with this issue—it is urgent—and the best way to deal with this issue is through an emissions-trading system. So when it comes to climate change we need to act with resolve, we need to act with courage and we need to act with consistency.
All we have had from the member for Flinders is flip-flopping around—joined of course by the member for Wentworth. The member for Flinders has had six different positions in two years. In November 2006 he said he was opposed to an emissions-trading scheme, calling it the wrong way to tackle climate change. Then, in June 2007, he supported the Howard government policy to introduce an emissions-trading scheme. Then of course, in February 2008, he was opposed to an emissions-trading scheme again. In May 2008 he said:
Perhaps the most important domestic policy in recent years has been the decision by the Howard government that Australia will implement a national carbon trading system.
Think about that. That was in May 2008, but this is what we got from the member for Flinders in June 2008. On Radio National he said, ‘The answer is simple, we have not made a decision yet.’ That is what he said on Radio National in May.
And of course we had his final position out there on the doorstep this morning. We had the shadow minister and member for Flinders out there saying that he was going to walk away from it again. He said there was going to be no commitment prior to 2011—he was going to delay the start date. So he is for it, then he is against it, then he is for it and then he is against it. This is what he said. He said this this morning on the doorstep: ‘We will look at the timing following Garnaut.’ This is a guy who has made a career criss-crossing the country in his hemp underpants pretending to be the green conscience of the Liberal Party. So we have had three policies every year—six policies in total.
This morning I noticed a quote in the Australian that there would be ‘a lot of push-back’ in the party room over the need for an ETS. I say to those opposite who are pushing back that you will not have to wait long because you will get another position from the member for Flinders. We on this side of the House take climate change very seriously. It requires courage and it requires consistency and that is what will be delivered by the Rudd government.
I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon members of a study visit from the National Assembly of Vietnam. On behalf of the House I extend a very warm welcome to the members.
Hear, hear!
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong. I refer the Treasurer to page 50 of the interim report on emissions trading in which Professor Garnaut recommends against compensation to Australian electricity generators, who are disproportionately disadvantaged by emissions trading. Does the Treasurer acknowledge that Professor Garnaut’s recommendations would destroy precious jobs in the Latrobe Valley power industry?
I thank the honourable member for his question. The first point to be made is that Professor Garnaut’s recommendations and his report are just that. This government has a green-paper process in train, which will be completed when the green paper is published at the end of July. It will canvass all of the options in the presentation, preparation and decisions that will be taken on an emissions-trading scheme. We will take advice not only from Professor Garnaut but also from the Treasury modelling and we will present all of the options in our green paper.
We will take our decisions in the national interest. We do not necessarily have to agree with every recommendation that was put forward by Professor Garnaut. We will take our time to consult widely with the community, we will take our time to look at the most objective evidence that is available and we will take our decision in the national interest—in the interests of the whole of the Australian people, including those in the member for McMillan’s electorate.
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Will the minister update the House on the latest information about why action is required to help farmers prepare for climate change and how this has become more urgent?
There is no doubt in the climate change debate that Australia, and our farmers in particular, is in a worse position because there was a delay of more than 10 years in responding to the issue. For the last decade, the contribution of those opposite to the challenge of climate change was to delay—to deny that there was a problem at all. And, when the evidence became overwhelming, they said, ‘Let’s just delay any response.’
We were waiting and waiting, and now I notice that on the front page of today’s Australian there is a key engagement going on from the members opposite in this debate, which is to ask the question: ‘Do you reckon we could delay even longer? Do you reckon we could now delay beyond 2010—to 2011, 2012 or maybe 2013? How much longer can we continue to delay any sort of response about helping farmers prepare for climate change?’ I wonder how much longer they will continue to fail to understand that the truth is that, with every year we delay our response, it just gets harder. How much better would it be now for farmers had there been responses to climate change a decade ago? Or should we keep waiting? Would they like to continue delaying? Should we perhaps keep waiting to act until 2020, when extreme fire danger days are predicted to increase by between 15 and 65 per cent? Should we keep waiting until 2030, when Australian production of key commodities is set to fall by nine to 10 per cent? Do those opposite think we should keep waiting until 2050, when south-western Australia is projected to have 30 per cent less rainfall during winter and spring? Perhaps we should wait until 2070, when the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology have predicted there will be 80 per cent more drought months for those same areas. Should we just keep on waiting for more major weather events—whether it be the next extreme flood, the next Cyclone Larry or the next seemingly endless drought?
You see, when you wait to respond to climate change, it is not just that the problem does not go away; the problem actually gets worse. That is why we are committed to research and development as part of the four-year $130 million Australia’s Farming Future initiative, to be directed towards research which helps prepare our primary industries for the challenges of adapting to climate change and reducing the sector’s emissions and to deal with the fact that under every projection for climate change we get told we will have longer and deeper droughts, we will have higher temperatures, we will have more major weather events and we will have an increased proliferation of pests, weeds and diseases. That is under every projection that is looked at.
The research needs to include issues like the following. How could we improve soil carbon levels, and what is the potential to trade improved soil as an offset? How can we reduce methane emissions in livestock, through options like changing their feed, breeding differently, increasing growth rates and immunising to protect against the microbes which make the methane in the guts of cattle? How could genetically modified crops possibly form part of the jigsaw in dealing with a more variable climate—for example, through adaptation, through drought-resistant grain varieties, through the mitigation of emissions or through varieties which require lower levels of fertiliser? The cost of doing nothing is so much greater than the cost of taking action now. Our farmers would be in a much better position if this research had begun a decade ago. This government, in preparing for Australia’s farming future, says that the days of preparing for that future—the days of delay—are over and the days of acting have arrived.
Order! I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon Mr Jim Lloyd, a former minister and member of this House for the electorate of Robertson. On behalf of the House, I extend a warm welcome to him.
Honourable members—Hear, hear!
My question is directed to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. With the price of diesel now rising to $1.90 a litre and decimating the fishing industry, what does the government propose to do to assist this industry through its current crisis?
I am aware that the honourable member has made comments to the media today about some of the diesel rebate issues and some of the impacts that is having on the fishing sector. I think the issue to which he points is a significant one to the extent that, in the fishing industry, one of their prime inputs is the cost of fuel. This is one of those areas where the issues of climate change, fuel prices and food prices all intersect. These are challenges being faced around the world. What we have seen is that the increase in fuel prices around the world has gone onto the input prices throughout agriculture, throughout fisheries and throughout forestry. The specific example of fisheries goes very much to the fuel question, which goes to the issues that have been reported in the press and on the radio today. The issues which go to agriculture include those inputs plus the interrelated issues of fertiliser.
In relation to the issues referred to in today’s media concerning the rebate—which I mentioned earlier—I am not going to pretend that any of the improvements there provide some sort of complete solution for the fishing industry. I am not going to pretend that having some policy levers providing some level of relief actually put the industry in a positive frame at the moment. They are facing very real difficulties. There are areas where there can be limited assistance given by the government, but at the same time we all have to be completely up-front about the fact that our primary producers, because of world oil prices and world input prices, are facing extremely tough times.
My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. As the minister has advised the House on the role of transport in strategies to avoid dangerous climate change, can the minister give further comments on actions that should be a part of such a strategy?
I am pleased to again get a question about transport and climate change, and I thank the member for Forde for his question. We know that infrastructure and transport have to be a part of the climate change strategy. That is why we included reference to climate change as a consideration in the Infrastructure Australia legislation. We know, for example, that our national freight task is due to double in the next 20 years and we know that we have to improve efficiency in roads and rail.
Today, with the ARTC, I launched a new digital system that will cut travel times for both passenger and freight trains going from Sydney to Brisbane by 45 minutes. Members might ask: how can that occur? It is because, previously, we had a staff and token technology system which had operated since the 1890s—1850s technology operating since the 1890s. What trains would have to do every 20 kilometres between Casino in New South Wales and Acacia Ridge in Brisbane was stop. The driver would have to get out, grab a widget like the one I am holding—this is the Casino to Kyogle loop widget—put it in and make sure that it was registered on a machine that stood some five feet high. The fact is that stopping every 20 kilometres for 15 minutes is extraordinarily inefficient.
That is why the government are taking on the economic reform challenge when it comes to transport. What we did today was launch new digital technology that completes the track so that it can be controlled from Newcastle. What we are doing is moving from the dinosaur age to the digital age, and we need to do that across the board. We know that, in May, rail freight volumes were the highest in our history—the greatest amount of freight carried by rail in our history.
These are the sorts of practical measures that we need if we are going to address climate change. This morning I also chaired a meeting of the working group of the Australian Transport Council looking at a national strategy when it comes to rail, shipping and road safety to get harmonisation and make sure that we get efficiencies, whether they be in road or rail.
This new digital technology is part of the $2.1 billion that is being invested to bring rail into the 21st century. Those opposite sat back and denied climate change, denied the need for economic reform and did nothing about it. We on this side are taking practical action to make sure that we address all of these issues. That will not only benefit us with regard to climate change but also have substantial benefits for our economic productivity.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister confirm that an emissions-trading scheme will increase the cost of petrol for Australian households?
It is pretty interesting to look at the whole debate on climate change and on emissions trading, because last year we had many contributions on this debate, including by the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard—
What about answering the question?
It goes directly to the question. Mr Howard told the Melbourne Press Club—I presume, representing the Howard Liberal government—on 17 July last year:
Now we must position Australia for a low carbon future. We face a major new reform challenge in designing an emissions trading system and setting a long-term goal for reducing our emissions in the absence of a global carbon scheme.
These decisions will be amongst the most important Australia takes in the next decade.…
Reducing carbon emissions will mean higher energy and petrol prices. Australians need to understand that.
That was the former, Liberal Prime Minister of Australia last year. Therefore I would draw the attention of those opposite, firstly, to the position adopted by the former Prime Minister in announcing the position of the government then and, secondly, to the position which was put forward by the member for Wentworth, which is that—
The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The member for North Sydney.
The last Prime Minister had the courage to say it—
Order!
why won’t this Prime Minister have the courage to say it?
The point of order is, I assume, on relevance. The Prime Minister is addressing the question. I remind the Manager of Opposition Business that there is no way that the construction of the question can demand a yes or no answer. I call the Prime Minister.
I’m sorry, but—
Order! No, the Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. If the Manager of Opposition Business wishes to refer to the chapter in House of Representatives Practice on questions, he will see that very point discussed. I call the Prime Minister.
Furthermore, on 3 June last year, the former Prime Minister said:
Significantly reducing emissions will mean higher costs for businesses and households, there is no escaping that …
That is what the former Prime Minister had to say. Then we had the member for Wentworth as environment minister representing what I understood was Howard government policy but not Liberal Party policy. That was the position that we had from the member for Wentworth yesterday.
The government recognises the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport, which currently comprise around 14 per cent of Australia’s total emissions. By bringing transport fuels into the Australian emissions-trading system, consumers will be given greater incentive to improve the energy efficiency of their transport choices.
So let us just put all of this into context. The former Prime Minister said in the middle of last year, when the coalition spoke of their intention to introduce an emissions-trading scheme, that action in these areas would increase energy costs. Furthermore, they said that they would include transport within the emissions-trading scheme. And yet we have an entire question time strategy—the new chapter in the fear campaign being launched by those opposite—about the impact of emissions trading on petrol prices. We have a very clear-cut process to unfold an emissions-trading scheme in Australia: (1) we are going to have a green paper later, in July; (2)—
Opposition members interjecting—
Well, this is a considered way in which to develop public policy, because it is a serious public policy challenge for the future: (1) we are going to have a green paper in July; (2) by the end of the year we anticipate having a white paper in response to that, and we will canvass all of the relevant matters concerning the future of the emissions-trading scheme in those papers.
Of course the position adopted by the former Prime Minister is right. If you adopt a position of acting on climate change it does have an impact on energy prices. That is just the truth. He said it then; we say it now. What is the difference between us and them now? We have a plan of action to deal with this in the future. Those opposite have decided that this is a matter which they intend to turn into short-term political advantage. Those opposite are committed to a fear campaign. What we have is a return of the climate change sceptics, a return of the Kyoto sceptics, from a party which will do anything and say anything in order to obtain political advantage. Our government has a plan of action on climate change; you have nothing but short-term political opportunism.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline the importance of an emissions-trading scheme for Australia’s future and any backward-looking positions on emissions trading that currently exist?
I thank the honourable member for her question. I draw honourable members’ attention to the report released today by the Queensland government on the effects of climate change in Queensland. I would ask coalition members who come from Queensland to pay particular attention to what this report has to say. The report, Climate change in Queensland: what the science is telling us, compiled by the Queensland government’s Office of Climate Change, outlines the potential impacts for Queensland in a number of areas. These include (1) a tendency for less rainfall, (2) more severe droughts, (3) sea levels rising, (4) more intense tropical cyclones and (5) increased risk of storm surge. Climate change, therefore, as a consequence of these impacts, represents not just a direct environmental assault on the planet and on our country—and in this case the analysis relates to Queensland—but consequential economic effects as well.
Remember that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that temperatures could go up by 2.5 degrees and that would of itself result in an impact on global GDP of between 1.5 and two per cent. That is a most significant impact when it comes to the overall performance of the global economy. Those opposite continue to argue that somehow this does not represent a fundamental economic challenge for Australia to get right for the future and for the world to get right for the future. We say that this is a fundamental economic challenge and that it requires, therefore, a considered policy response.
If you look at Australia, you see that the economic costs that would be borne would obviously fall to Australian farmers, the tourism sector and our key export industries, and there would be higher insurance premiums and public health outcomes. Look at the impact, for example, on our natural heritage and the consequential impact which would then flow to Australian tourism. The CSIRO estimates that if temperatures rose by between two and three degrees then 80 per cent of Kakadu’s freshwater wetlands would be lost due to rising sea levels. Furthermore, according to the CSIRO, under those circumstances almost all of the Great Barrier Reef would be bleached. On top of that, the Queensland climate change report released today reminds us of the value of the Great Barrier Reef—over $4.9 billion in tourism and employment for around 60,000 people—and the danger it faces from climate change. That is the impact on our natural environment and the consequential impact also on tourism.
If you turn then to agriculture, ABARE’s analysis estimates that a changing climate could reduce wheat, beef, dairy and sugar production by an estimated nine to 10 per cent by 2030 and by 13 to 19 per cent by 2050. ABARE also finds that exports of these key commodities could decline by as much as 63 per cent by 2030 and as much as 79 per cent by 2050. Furthermore, CSIRO estimates that flows into the Murray-Darling would fall by 10 to 25 per cent if temperatures rose by between one and two degrees. Therefore, we have the overall economic impact, the impact on our natural environment, the consequential impact on tourism and, flowing through from that, the cost also to Australia’s primary producers and our exports in that sector as well.
Then there is public health. The potential cost there is significant. According to the Climate Institute in the CSIRO, a one- to two-degree increase in temperatures will lead to the southwards spread of malaria-receptive zones and 1,200 to 1,400 more heat related deaths a year in major population centres. On top of that again, a two- to three-degree increase in temperatures would cause the spread of dengue fever transmission zones as far as Brisbane.
We take these technical reports seriously. The government listens to what the science is saying. The government pays attention to what these reports say about the economic cost to Australia, the cost in particular to agriculture, the cost in particular to our tourism sector and the cost to public health over time as well. That is why Australia needs a forward-looking strategy to deal with climate change. That is why we have established a half-billion-dollar Clean Coal Fund; that is why we have established a half-billion-dollar Renewable Energy Fund; that is why we have established a quarter-billion-dollar Clean Business Fund; that is why we have a commitment to increase the renewable energy target for the country; and that is why we have a commitment, unlike those opposite, to introduce an emissions-trading scheme, because an emissions-trading scheme is a core part of providing the market based responses for dealing with the overall challenge of greenhouse gas emissions into the future.
An emissions-trading scheme will help Australia transition to a lower carbon economy, an economy which can then also participate in environmental industries of the future. The government will use revenue from the ETS to help Australians, households and business cope with the costs and invest in cleaner energy options. The government will assist families, pensioners and carers, including low-income households, to adjust to any impact of carbon prices. At the same time, we will be helping Australian families to take practical action in their own homes to use energy more efficiently and to save on their energy bills.
These are practical courses of action. We have an integrated strategy concerned with the investment in new technologies, the promotion of renewable energy, the implementation of an emissions-trading scheme as well as arrangements contained within that scheme to ease any transition burden for households and for business.
I was also asked about what alternative views exist on this matter. I would simply ask those opposite one question: would they consider their responsibilities to the nation in constructively engaging in this debate about Australia’s environmental and economic future as opposed to the campaign of fear which they have launched this week? It is a fear campaign which is designed purely to advance their own political interests, from a party which increasingly shows itself prepared to do anything and say anything in order to gain a political advantage or to gain a headline.
I conclude with this. Those opposite, barely 12 months ago, stood up and said to the nation that they would (a) implement an emissions-trading scheme and (b) they would include transport. And 12 months later what are they doing? They are simply cutting and trimming because they see some political advantage in so doing. We have a clear-cut plan for the future to deal with this. Those opposite are caught on the horns of their own political dilemma and are internally divided. The member for Wentworth has yet to give us any explanation as to why he has not stood up to the Leader of the Opposition and maintained the integrity of the position which he put forward on behalf of the Liberal government of Australia barely 12 months ago.
My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. I refer the minister to his comment in the House yesterday that:
... we are reducing the rate of growth in government spending from five per cent per annum to one per cent per annum.
Why does spending growth go up by 5.5 per cent the year after and why would spending growth by Labor of 5.5 per cent not be inflationary?
I thank the member for Dickson for his question. This question was in fact asked by the shadow Treasurer, the member for Wentworth, some weeks ago, and I will give the same answer. You are not quoting comparable statistics—you are not quoting the comparable figures from the two different measures that are available. I would suggest to the member for Dickson that before he takes up these issues he should actually consult the budget papers and get the correct figures.
The government has a serious inflation challenge that it is dealing with in the course of the budget. The opposition—apparently it has another position on inflation today—is trying to block significant initiatives through the Senate. We have reduced the rate of spending growth that we inherited from the previous government from around five per cent per annum to one per cent per annum for the 2008-09 budget. That is putting substantial downward pressure on inflation and interest rates.
The minister will resume his seat. I call the member for Dickson on a point of order.
If it is of assistance, I can table statement 10 from the budget papers, which shows 5.5 per cent—
Order! The member for Dickson will resume his seat. That is not a point of order.
Now you have the figures, why don’t you answer them?
Order! The member for Dickson has asked his question. The minister is responding to the question.
It is very difficult to work out what the opposition’s view of the world is. Apparently a five per cent real growth budget last year was not inflationary and did not matter, but now it is suggesting that something of the same dimension, which it incorrectly suggests is going to occur next year, would be a problem. Perhaps it would be good for all concerned if the member for Wentworth, the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Dickson got together and actually confronted the question of what their macroeconomic management position is—the position that they adopt with respect to the size of the surplus, what the budget projections should be, and what position the opposition should be taking with respect to macroeconomic management and the fiscal settings—instead of contradictory sniping, taking one position today and the opposite position tomorrow. It would do everybody in this House and public debate in this nation a great service if the Liberal Party, which for so long has prided itself on being supposedly the great economic manager of this country, would actually take a position on the question of economic management.
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer explain why the irresponsible political games being played in the Senate are creating confusion and threaten to punch a hole in the surplus that we need to fight inflation?
I thank the member for Lindsay for his question. The government has built a strong budget surplus of $22 billion. It is absolutely essential to fighting inflation and putting downward pressure on interest rates. Of course, those opposite are intent on punching a huge hole in that surplus which is so essential in the fight against inflation and putting downward pressure on interest rates. As we know, they are currently delaying measures in the Senate worth something like $284 million. But it gets worse, and it gets worse by the day. Last week the opposition blocked measures worth $25 million a month which are needed to fund the Rudd government’s Teen Dental Plan. I can give the House an update on the opposition’s latest act of economic vandalism. Last night alone in the Senate the opposition opposed measures that will cost the budget $117 million.
Shame!
Shame! That is quite a night’s work, isn’t it—$117 million? Among the measures they blocked was a new compliance regime to stamp out rorting of welfare benefits. And, as a consequence of their action in the Senate, employees in the charitable sector could lose up to $100 a fortnight because the opposition may block a bill containing Labor’s urgent amendments to protect employees from the Howard government’s 2006 FBT changes. That will be on their heads. That is the extent to which they are prepared to be bloody-minded and to punch a hole in the surplus. The opposition’s blocking of these measures will prevent the government from undertaking simple checks to determine whether individuals satisfy the income test for the Commonwealth seniors health card—checks that they themselves undertook when they were in government. This is an opposition that do not know where they are going. They certainly do not understand the inflation challenge that this country faces. We understand disciplined economic management; they do not. We understand cracking down on welfare rorts; they do not. Their rank opportunism is vandalising the budget in the Senate and putting at risk the fight against inflation.
Order! It has been brought to my attention that we have in the gallery today the Hon. John Herron, a former senator—for which he is forgiven!—but, more importantly, a former Australian government minister. On behalf of the House I extend a very warm welcome to him.
Hear, hear!
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the recently released Senate report on ready-to-drink alcohol. Does the Prime Minister support an increase in the legal age of drinking from 18 to 21?
I find it remarkable that in this whole debate about binge drinking and what governments can productively do to bring this problem back under control we have a clear choice between the two sides of politics: a government prepared to act and those opposite prepared purely to play politics with this, and politics of the lowest common denominator. That is the bottom line here. We have a policy to deal with binge drinking. We have more to do on this front. It is a problem brought to the government’s attention by police commissioners, health authorities and various state government authorities across the country. The last time I looked—and it is a position also on the question of the tax measure as it relates to alcopops—the position we have taken on alcopops was completely endorsed by the former senator in the gallery who has just been referred to; namely, former Senator John Herron—
Mr Hockey interjecting
The more Joe shouts out loud the more we know Joe does not like to hear it. That is basically the bottom line. We believe that these measures can be conducted currently within the set of arrangements which apply to the legal drinking age in Australia. We have no plans for changes on that score. We will, however, have much more to say on the whole question of dealing with the challenge of binge drinking. But I go back to the first premise: we take the advice from the police commissioners and the health authorities seriously. We are acting on the problem of binge drinking. Those opposite say, ‘Don’t worry about it. You can’t do anything about it. Simply tolerate what’s occurring at present,’ and in fact at the edge say, ‘Well, there’s not really much of a problem at all.’ There is a very clear alternative here: a Labor government with a plan of action on binge drinking, with still much more to do, and those opposite who are content to sit idly by, do nothing and simply engage in opportunistic politics on the way through. Frankly, on this they stand condemned.
My question is to the Minister for Families, Housing and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Will the minister explain what action the government is taking to help workers in the charitable sector? Are there any threats to this assistance being provided?
I thank the member for Hasluck for her question, because she, like other members of the government, was deeply concerned when just a few weeks ago we were made aware of the impact of a change to the definition of income used by family assistance law that was made by the previous government. This was a change made by the previous government about two years ago. In its 2006-07 budget, the previous government announced changes regarding the treatment of fringe benefits. If this measure is not reversed, it will have a devastating impact on the charitable sector. Families could face being up to $100 a fortnight worse off.
At the time that the measures were introduced, many in the not-for-profit sector and the Labor opposition were not aware of the impact of these changes, and the previous Howard government certainly made no effort to publicly explain the impact on the not-for-profit sector. The government have moved quickly. We have moved urgent amendments to restore the use of net reportable fringe benefits for the calculation of income in family assistance law for things like family tax benefit and childcare benefit. The amendments are being made to a budget bill under my portfolio that is currently before the Senate. What we saw last night from the opposition, in what can only be described as a petty political stunt, was them moving to block other elements of this very important budget bill in the Senate. ‘Why?’ you might ask. They say that it is because they oppose simple checks on whether people are still eligible for the Commonwealth seniors health card.
I want to share a little bit of history on this very important issue. The previous government actually undertook a compliance check back in 2006 on this question of eligibility for the Commonwealth seniors health card. There was in fact data-matching of names and addresses between the tax office and Centrelink conducted by the previous government. They identified 28,000 cardholders with income above the qualifying income limits, and the previous government subsequently cancelled those people’s cards. So when they were in government they were prepared to do the things that are necessary to make sure that only those who are eligible for the card actually keep their card, but now they are in opposition, of course, all they want to do is play petty politics with a very important bill.
The previous government’s measure in fact only found about 70 per cent of the ineligible cardholders, and it was not an ongoing measure. The proposal that is in this very important bill in the Senate will provide an ongoing regular checking mechanism. These are just compliance checks that are currently used in other parts of the social security system for other family assistance payments—checks that are all about making sure that eligibility for assistance means that only those who are eligible get that assistance. What we are seeking to do is collect tax file numbers to make sure that only those who have income under the cut-off point actually get to keep the Commonwealth seniors health card and retain the use of that card. Nothing could be fairer than that. When they were in government they thought that this was a fair approach. Now that they are in opposition, all they want to do is play silly games with what is a very, very important piece of legislation.
The opposition’s amendments to this bill are unacceptable to the government because we want to protect the integrity of the social security system. I will just repeat what the Treasurer said a few moments ago: blocking this bill will put at risk the changes to fringe benefits that will make sure we can protect workers in the church and charitable sector. So time is of the essence. If this bill does not get through the Senate, we will not be able to make sure that people in the church and charitable sector are not up to $100 a fortnight worse off from next week. So we do need an urgent change to this law. Now is not the time for the opposition to play silly political games in the Senate. What we need is for this bill to get through the parliament so that we can protect people in the church and charitable sector, who are doing such an important job in our community.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his announcement of ‘strike watch’. Instead of just watching, will the Prime Minister call on the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association to end this damaging Qantas strike action?
I would have thought that the member for Curtin would have listened to my answer yesterday which said that the current action, which is protected industrial action, occurs under their existing legislation. Therefore, under those circumstances, what should they have done with their laws in the past—under that logic—to have prevented this protected industrial action? I would suggest that those opposite reflect long and hard on the laws under which this protected industrial action is occurring. Secondly, what I would say is that the Australian government of course urges all parties engaging in industrial disputation to exercise restraint. These are difficult times for people to negotiate their way through collective agreements which are up for renegotiation. We all have aggregate and macroeconomic responsibilities as well. But, on the question of this particular matter and the circumstances under which this protected industrial action occurs, I would have thought that the shadow minister for workplace relations would have known what her own laws were.
The last thing I would say is this: it would be very useful, if the member for Curtin asked another question on this, to clarify once and for all whether, if and when those opposite are returned to political office as the government of Australia, they will restore Work Choices. Will they restore AWAs? The position we were left with as of the last time this matter was debated in this chamber was a clear understanding, here in this chamber, that Work Choices was on its way back. Let us have some clarity from them on Work Choices; let us have some clarity from them on budget discipline; let us have some clarity from them on the question of the emissions-trading scheme; let us have some clarity from them on the question of means testing when it comes to income support payments; let us have, for once in the period that they have been in opposition, clarity on a core policy challenge for the future. On this, as with everything else, they are six of one and half a dozen of the other, are on both sides of the fence and cannot make up their mind.
My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Will the minister inform the House of the importance of consistency in economic management? Why is it vital for the government’s budget measures to be passed by the Senate?
I thank the member for Deakin for his question. The government’s budget has three critical aspects that are designed to tackle the very serious inflation challenge facing Australia: first, a very substantial surplus, nearly $22 billion, designed to dampen public sector demand; second, the creation of three long-term infrastructure investment funds, with over $40 billion, that are designed to put investment into the economic capacity of the country for the longer term; and, third, tax cuts that will help ordinary working families deal with the price pressures that are resulting from the inflation problem. Unfortunately, the opposition is delaying and obstructing budget measures in the Senate. We have just heard of one example. That threatens the government’s strategy to deal with inflation, both in the short term and in the longer term. It threatens the ability of the budget to put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates generally, but it also threatens the flow of money into those long-term investment funds.
We saw this morning something of an insight into the underlying rationale behind the opposition’s position on the budget. There was a very interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald by the member for Wentworth. It appears that the focus group report is finally in, and he is quick out of the blocks with a few of those crucial words that no doubt have come out of the focus group, like ‘leadership’, ‘competence’ and ‘confidence’. There are a couple of interesting quotes that I would like to read to the House in this article:
Confidence has to be based on consistency and competence—a real ability to deal with the big issues and take decisive action.
In criticising the government and the government’s economic management stance, he says:
Where is the consistency? Where is the predictability?
Unfortunately for the member for Wentworth, not everybody sees him as quite the paragon of consistency that he clearly regards himself as. He has something of a track record of inconsistency. He used to be a republican leader; then he cuddled up to the monarchists. He used to support having transport as part of an emissions-trading scheme; now he opposes transport being in a scheme. He opposed cutting the fuel excise; now he supports it. He came to Canberra as a great supporter of getting rid of discrimination against same-sex couples; now he is participating in an effort in the Senate to block the government’s efforts to do precisely that. So, if consistency is the member for Wentworth’s strong point, he clearly has a bit of a problem with some of his weaker points.
Unfortunately, his approach has infected the rest of the opposition. They have been in opposition for only about six months. They have had one position on bringing back Work Choices. They have had two positions on the reform of alcopop taxes: first they were for; then they were against. They have had three positions on means testing the baby bonus: first they were against it; then they were for it; then they were against it again. They have had four positions on inflation: first it was a fairytale; then it was a challenge; then, again, it was a charade; then, again, it was a problem. They have had five positions on fuel excise and petrol: zero, five, 10, 20 and a special mystery formula being worked on by the member for Tangney that no doubt will be revealed in due course. Finally, they have had six different positions on pensions—so many that I do not have time to outline them. They have not quite got to the partridge in the pear tree, but they are getting there.
Consistency does matter. Consistency does matter in economic management and it does matter in fiscal policy. The budget is consistently targeted at addressing the inflation challenge that Australia faces. It is targeted to address that challenge through a very substantial surplus to put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates, through large investment funds that will enable Australia to invest in the economic capacity in the longer term that will help us to put downward pressure on inflation in the future and, finally, through a $55 billion package for working families and working people, at the centre of which are very substantial tax cuts. I very much welcome the opposition’s discovery of the virtues of consistency. I will welcome it even more when they start acting in the same way.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his previous answer and his invitation to use the existing laws to end this strike action. Prime Minister, will you use the powers available to you under section 498 of the Workplace Relations Act to end this Qantas strike action that is damaging the Australian economy?
Firstly, this protected industrial action occurs under the existing industrial relations laws of the previous government. Secondly, those negotiations are underway. It is regrettable that industrial action occurs. It disrupts the economy. The government accepts that. The government recognises that. More broadly, on the question of the impact on tourism, the government remains committed to acting with the tourism sector to ensure that the best support for the Australian tourism industry is provided.
I say to those opposite that I do not recall them in the past ever waving their hands in the air when protected industrial action occurred under these laws on previous occasions. They did not. Therefore, I would suggest that there is a gross inconsistency in the position they are adopting on this matter. I think the nation would be serviced very well if the alternative government of Australia could answer clearly once and for all: are they still the party of Work Choices? Are they still the party of AWAs? Are they still the party which strips away penalty rates and overtime from working families and working Australians? I would suggest in the absence of any answer to the contrary that their answer to that is still, ‘Yes, yes and yes.’ It would be very useful for the Australian nation to know formally from the Leader of the Opposition whether Work Choices is still the position of the Liberal Party of Australia.
My question is to the Assistant Treasurer. Will the Assistant Treasurer outline to the House measures taken by the government to secure Australia’s place as a financial hub?
I thank the member for Chisholm for her question and recognise her longstanding experience and interest in the financial sector. Australia has great potential to be the funds management hub of Asia, but that potential has been held back by the previous government’s failure to give Australia a competitive tax regime and to remove other impediments which stop the Australian funds management industry competing on a level playing field. If we can attract more funds to be managed in Australia, we will be creating well-paid, interesting jobs for our young people and promoting financial services and exports. The Australian funds management industry has several advantages over our competitors. They have built up great skills since the Keating government introduced compulsory superannuation, and we have the fourth largest pool of funds under management in the world.
Funds under management in Asia are growing exponentially, but the Australian industry is not capitalising on that growth because the shackles of an uncompetitive tax regime have not been taken off. But I am pleased to report to the House that last Thursday night the Senate passed legislation which reduces Australia’s withholding tax rate. Despite the reservations that were expressed by the shadow Assistant Treasurer in this House, the Senate passed the legislation last Thursday. I am pleased to report that Australia will go from having the highest withholding tax rate in the world to one of the lowest, in three years. We will go from being one of the most uncompetitive tax regimes in the world to the most competitive in the course of three years.
But it is not just the uncompetitive tax rates when it comes to the Australian funds management industry; there is also the complexity and burden of Australia’s tax regime. It is vital that we have a simple and transparent tax regime for Australia. The rules that apply to managed funds are burdensome and complex, but the government has begun to reform the part of the tax act which applies these burdensome and complex rules to the funds management industry. We are moving to correct the worst anomalies in this part of the tax act.
In the longer term, we need a specifically designed tax regime for the funds management sector. Other countries have done it. The United States has done it. New Zealand has done it. Canada has done it. The United Kingdom has done it. But the previous government simply failed to do it. We are doing it. The first reference of the new government to the Board of Taxation was a specifically designed, purpose-built funds management tax regime.
But there is more to do. We need to work with the sector to identify areas that are holding back the ability to compete. I am pleased to inform the House that in Sydney on 31 July the federal government and the New South Wales government will be holding a financial services hub summit, which will be opened by the Prime Minister, to build on the work that this government have already done which the previous government failed to do over 12 years, to work with industry, academics and government to determine what else needs to be done to build on the work and reform we have already embraced in six months in office. More has been done in those six months than was done in the 12 years of the coalition government.
It falls to government to take long-term, tough decisions to build Australia’s economic future. Cheap populism will not build a financial services hub and cheap populism will not create well-paid and interesting jobs for Australians, but serious policy development will. That is what the previous government failed to do. That is what we will continue to do.
My question is to the Prime Minister and relates to the need to introduce an emissions-trading scheme by 2010, the current explosion in world oil prices and the consequent impacts on consumers and the Australian economy. Prime Minister, given that the market is delivering the same economic and efficiency signals to motorists as the fuel excise was partly intended to do, would you consider, as part of your plan of action, referring existing fuel taxation arrangements and proposed emissions-trading fuel charges to the Henry taxation review with a view to downsizing the current fuel excise to such a level to cover road construction, maintenance and air pollution costs but not the consolidated revenue collection component of the existing excise? Prime Minister, would it not be more pertinent to have a fuel taxation policy that sends transparent messages in relation to greenhouse gas emissions and road maintenance rather than just adding to the pre-climate-change taxation system we currently have?
I thank the member for New England for his question, because he takes these matters seriously. He seeks to seriously reflect the concerns which he identifies in his community. These are legitimate questions to be asked. On the first point that he raises, which is how these matters can be best deliberated, including the taxation treatment of fuel, the Treasurer has already indicated that these matters are subject to inquiry as part of the Henry commission. Therefore we await with interest its deliberations on this matter. Also the Treasurer has indicated that the Henry commission may report sequentially over time between now and when it is due to complete its final report by the end of next year. So these matters should be considered in their totality, which is one of the reasons why the Treasurer, I and the cabinet agreed that it would be appropriate to consider this through that particular form.
Secondly, the honourable member refers to the overriding effect of the current global oil shock. As the honourable member knows, this is the greatest oil shock the world has seen in 30 years. It is of a similar order of magnitude to the ones that we saw in the early seventies and the late seventies. Therefore, the price signals it is sending out to the entire economy, as the member anticipates in his question, are of themselves huge.
The question we need to address, however, in the case of emissions trading is: what do we do in terms of Australia’s future between now and 2050? How do we construct a long-term climate change regime and a regime which affects the long-term reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across that spectrum of time? That is the negotiation which we are currently conducting globally with other partner economies around the world, because we all know that, if the country is to be serious and the world is to be serious about bringing down greenhouse gas emissions, what we do independently, nationally, as Australia is one thing, but we represent a small percentage of global emissions. What we do in partnership with other states is critical. What is on the table with other states is: how do we actually construct a system of global caps on greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2020 and 2050 and as a globe compact on that? Irrespective of the intermediate fluctuations in oil prices by other factors, including supply and demand factors in the Middle East, energy efficiency measures and the rest, this regime has to be constructed for its own intrinsic environmental merit. That is the regime which has been negotiated through Kyoto. That is what we are seeking to negotiate through Kyoto Plus.
So I would say in response to the honourable member’s question, which is a serious question: this has to be done on a disciplined basis for the long term, beyond the current impact of price fluctuations of this global oil shock. The final thing I would say on the global oil shock itself—not directly relevant to what the member has just asked—is that every government the Treasurer, I and others have been speaking to around the world in recent days is wrestling with the parallel challenges of how to deal with this on the one hand at the same time as dealing with their long-term obligations to the planet and the next generation when it comes to bringing down greenhouse gas emissions and avoiding the environmental and economic consequences I referred to in my earlier answer to a question.
The member for Shortland—Newcastle, sorry!
Thank you, Mr Speaker, I think! My question is to the Minister for Employment Participation.
Order! I feel obliged to give a very humble apology. The Leader of the House is prompting me.
My question is to the Minister for Employment Participation. Will the minister inform the House about measures to improve the employment services system to help address the nation’s skills shortages?
I thank the member for Newcastle for her question. She knows how important it is to have an effective employment services system in this country to help job seekers and indeed to help employers. The government is committed to getting more Australians into work. But we also want to alleviate the skill crisis—the skill crisis, of course, that was ignored by those opposite. We know that there were 20 warnings from the Reserve Bank of Australia and there were warnings from the Business Council of Australia, and the previous government did nothing to attend to this particular crisis.
While I was reviewing the employment services system, among others I spoke to employers and their peak employer bodies to find out what was missing from the current Job Network system. I am afraid I have to tell the House that I discovered that what was missing was exactly what employers needed—that is, work-ready employees with the skills to fill existing vacancies.
In response to this particular problem, the government’s new employment services system will be more effective for employers, particularly small business. It will provide the flexibility to tailor assistance to the individual needs of the job seeker. We must aim to ensure they really are ready for work when they turn up at the employer’s door. That is why the Rudd government, through the Productivity Places Program, is committed to massively boosting training places for job seekers in specific skills employers need.
Over the next five years we are rolling out 238,000 training places for job seekers at an expense of $880 million. Employment providers will be required to develop a strategy to meet the needs of local employers, like employers in Newcastle and other areas of the country, and will be rewarded with higher outcome fees where the provider has worked with the employer to fill the vacancy. The government will also be investing in employer brokers who will work with employment service providers and registered training organisations to connect industries that need staff with appropriately qualified job seekers. We have already received, I am glad to say, some positive feedback about these plans from employer bodies. In their submission on the proposed new system, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry have said:
ACCI welcomes the Australian government’s new employment services model and the greater emphasis on meeting industry demand and the provision of employment services.
They went on:
ACCI commends the new employment services model in tying incentive payments to placements made by employment service providers that replaces the former model of making a payment regardless of how the employment outcome is achieved.
We are very happy with those comments made by ACCI and others who have responded to the new model announced by this government. This approach stands in stark contrast to that of those opposite. As we know, they sat back for 12 years and did nothing with respect to the skill crisis in this country. The previous government thought they could sit back—like a lot of Tory governments do—and let the commodities boom fix the problems of this nation. They failed to attend to this particular matter. The Rudd government will not fail in that regard. We will be focusing on this issue. The government is modernising its employment services system by changing the focus to skill up the workers, to engage with employers and, indeed, to provide real incentives for providers to get people into jobs that industry need to fill.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister consider accompanying me to the Coorong and the Murray lower lakes to personally examine the economic, environmental and social tragedy that is unfolding in that part of Australia?
In response to the honourable member’s question, I already had long discussions with the Premier of South Australia here in Canberra last week. We are currently discussing when both of us will visit not only those lakes but other challenged areas along the Murray, as it affects South Australia. Furthermore, once the parliament rises, I will be making an early visit to Western Australia to speak with the Premier of Western Australia about the challenges concerning WA gas. Unless I am wrong, I do not seem to remember a single question being asked in this place from those opposite about one of the greatest crises facing the WA economy in recent years—that is, what has happened to the WA gas industry.
Mr Speaker, on indulgence, I remind the Prime Minister that we support what his government is doing in relation to the crisis in Western Australia.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline the importance of COAG to driving a strong and fair national reform agenda for Australia’s future? How will this deliver for Australians with disabilities and their carers?
The government was elected on a platform of building a stronger Australia, a fairer Australia and an Australia capable of investing in this country’s future challenges in order to secure a future for the nation. That is why, as we embark upon the period ahead, we have a big agenda of reform ahead of us. We have a program of economic reform and we have already referred in question time today to the large amount of work which will be done through the Henry commission. We have long-term tax reform. Remember the call out of the 2020 Summit that it is time, after a quarter of a century, to look at a root and branch review of the tax system, and the other call from the 2020 Summit, which is how we go about establishing a seamless national economy and a seamless national market. Work is now underway by the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy, together with his state and territory colleagues, on doing something about the huge regulatory burden faced by businesses across this country operating in different jurisdictions.
Another part of our economic growth agenda is this: with an eye to the future, identifying those future sectors of our economy which can be the growth platforms of the 21st century, I draw honourable members’ attention in particular to the remarks made by the Assistant Treasurer in question time today, because the financial services sector is a huge growth platform for the future. Our funds management industry—courtesy of Keating government superannuation reforms, which have resulted in a trillion dollars currently under management in the Australian funds management industry—I am advised, is the fourth largest by quantum in the world. The challenge we face for the future is how to platform that into a new export business for Australia. We on this side of the House, in six months, have engineered a set of tax reform proposals, the likes of which were never dreamed of, let alone advanced, by those opposite after 12 years in office—on the withholding tax, a reduction from 30 per cent down to 15 per cent and down to 7½ per cent. These proposals are designed to enable our funds managers to become new export businesses for Australia, taking advantage of the time zone advantage we have with the huge economies of East Asia and the retirement pension funds which are going to emerge from those economies.
We also have a big reform agenda on emissions trading, one which the government is determined to prosecute and which those opposite are simply determined to oppose. Then we have a further reform agenda, a third big reform agenda in COAG: the reform of the federation itself. This is where many of my ministerial colleagues have been active with their state and territory counterparts in recent weeks and months to bring about reforms of direct relevance to working households, pensioners and carers across the country. For example, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs recently, on 30 May, concluded an agreement on a $1.9 billion funding boost to disability support services. This is a major initiative. This new partnership with the states and territories will deliver more than 24,500 additional disability places, including 2,300 in-home support services, 2,300 supported accommodation places, 9,900 individual support packages and 10,000 much needed respite places in the range of forms which currently exist across the country. These are big reforms engineered through the architecture of a cooperative federalism as part of our federalism reform agenda.
These are very important changes for so many Australians who depend on us making the Federation work, rather than simply turning it into a platform for further exercising of the blame game which characterised the political modus operandi of the previous government. In the spirit of cooperation with the states and territories, we have also sought to complement what states and territories are currently doing in relation to provision of autism services. I draw attention today to an important announcement made by the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, and the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services, the member for Maribyrnong, of a new program, a $190 million package of services, to support children with autism.
Under the four-year Helping Children with Autism package, to be rolled out from next month, an estimated 9,000 children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder will be eligible to receive up to $12,000 over two years before—and this is the critical bit—they go to primary school. Parents will now be able to choose the early intervention measures that best suit their kids, from a range of authorised service providers. Through this package we will be providing some 40 new autism advisers across Australia to ensure that this advice is provided in those early, critical stages of a child’s development when autism has first been diagnosed. Furthermore, for those who have direct concern for rural and remote Australia, families in these areas will be eligible for an additional $2,000 to help their children benefit from early intervention services. This is a very good package of reforms. It is designed to help those mums and dads struggling with the challenges of kids with autism and the particular needs that they have. The new package of support for families with children with an autism spectrum disorder is designed to complement the existing activities of states and territories for kids with these disabilities in the school system, by providing these services before those kids get to school.
I thank the minister and the member for Maribyrnong for the work that they have done on this initiative—in particular, the member for Maribyrnong, who has done a lot of consultation work with the autism community across the country. This has taken a lot of time to develop; it has involved detailed negotiations. I thank him and the minister for the work they have done with the sector on this. The reason I raise this in the House today is simply to underline one point: you can either prosecute a robust agenda of reforming the Federation—one of the big reform agendas which this government will prosecute in order to deliver practical benefits to those who need disability services in Australia, and in particular those who need autism services—or you can simply perpetuate the politics of the blame game. We are proud of the policy agenda, the reform agenda, we have embarked upon for the period ahead. It is robust on economic reform, robust on the emissions-trading scheme and robust on reforming the Federation, delivering for families and those with disabilities on the way through.
Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Mr Speaker, on indulgence, could I congratulate the Prime Minister for adopting the Howard government’s autism package.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: that is about the fifth occasion on which members of the opposition front bench have quite clearly sought the call in order to breach standing orders.
Order! It does not help when people approach to get the call for matters that are not within the standing orders.
In the last parliament, I asked the former Speaker whether he could investigate the parliament becoming a breast—I mean breastfeeding—friendly workplace.
Opposition members interjecting—
I understand that members on the other side of this House may not recognise the importance of breastfeeding.
Order! The member for North Sydney will resume his seat.
Sit down! Sit down for a change!
Order! The member for Shortland! The member for Shortland has the right to ask me a question but not to enter into debate.
Further to my question, in the last parliament it was a recommendation from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing that this parliament become a breastfeeding friendly workplace and be accredited as such. Given that parliament has just approved the establishment of a childcare centre, I think it would be very appropriate if that was investigated and reported back to the House. I would appreciate it if you could talk to the President of the Senate about this matter.
Mr Hockey interjecting
Order! The member for North Sydney will resume his seat. I just want to answer the question. It is about administration of the place. Today, the Presiding Officers signed the appropriate documents to send off the accreditation papers as a breastfeeding friendly workplace.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. To assist the chair: the government changed the standing orders, with the support of the opposition, to allow for people to breastfeed.
The question goes to a different point. The question has been asked and I hope that people believe that I have given a relevant answer, which was that it just happened to be this morning that we did it.
Mr Speaker, as you would be aware, the two catering contracts are coming to a conclusion. It is my understanding that not all of the current workers will be re-employed by the successful tenderers. Will you have an opportunity to convey on behalf of all members and their staff our thanks to the staff for providing those services, in particular to those who will no longer be working in this parliament from the end of this month?
Honourable members—Hear, hear!
From the positive response from other members that the Chief Government Whip’s comments received, I can on behalf of the whole House thank for their service those who do not find themselves employed by the contractors after the new arrangements come into place from the start of next month and wish them the best. We look forward to seeing around this place the faces of those who are managing to remain with the new contractors.
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Yes.
Please proceed.
The Prime Minister today in response to a question about the Murray lower lakes said that the opposition had not asked a question about the gas crisis in Western Australia. In fact, there is a good reason for it, which is that on 18 June I said to this House:
... I strongly—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
Mr Hockey interjecting
The member for Banks will resume his seat. Order! Members must show where they have been personally misrepresented. The Leader of the Opposition may or may not get dispensation. If the Leader of the Opposition now simply states the case and resumes his seat so we can get on with business, that would be helpful.
The Prime Minister asserted this as representing a lack of interest in this issue.
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.
You are sitting him down, are you?
Yes, Joe. Like you used to sit us down.
The Minister for Trade is not assisting. There are many forms of the House that are available to rectify these matters.
You are sitting down the Leader of the Opposition; is that it?
Mr Speaker—
The Leader of the House will resume his seat.
Mr Speaker—
The Leader of the Opposition is seeking the call. At least he has the decency to do that.
On indulgence, may I make a brief comment about the crisis in Western Australia?
This will be a very brief indulgence, which I have now allowed on two or three occasions. The indulgence will be very brief. The Leader of the House will resume his seat.
As I said on behalf of the opposition on 18 June:
... I strongly associate—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
No, I will give the Leader of the House the call directly to deal with whatever intervened. There are now two outstanding matters I am going to deal with.
It is necessary that I repeat this. I said:
... I strongly associate the opposition with the actions taken by the Australian government in relation to this disaster in Western Australia. We support the decisions taken by the Australian government to support Western Australian families and businesses, and we also encourage all Australians to appreciate very much the gravity of the situation for Western Australians and also for Australia.
The Leader of the Opposition has repeated the indulgence. I call the Leader of the House on a point of order.
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for confirming the Prime Minister was correct.
Opposition members interjecting—
The member for Canning made an interjection, as he usually does on numerous occasions during question time. I ask him to withdraw it.
Order! If the Leader of the House has found it unparliamentary, and I was not in a position to hear it, it would assist if the member for Canning would withdraw.
It was not unparliamentary, Mr Speaker. The word ‘Gollum’ is not unparliamentary.
I now ask the Manager of Opposition Business to apologise to the chair for the unwarranted interjections that continued throughout the earlier aspects of this recent incident.
Mr Speaker, there has always been a level of latitude provided to the Leader of the Opposition in relation to matters.
So the Manager of Opposition Business will not apologise?
I will apologise to you every day, Mr Speaker. But I do make this point—
No, I want it unreserved. I think, in fairness, I do not really need to be reminded by constant interjection of past practice. Did the member for Warringah want to make a personal explanation?
Yes, Mr Speaker.
To help the Leader of the House, I am placing people on notice that I find it very irritating that people think that they can barrack from the sidelines, especially when we are trying to get bits of procedure completed where, I have to say, the levels of preciousness are very high.
Opposition members interjecting—
Members on my left can point all they like; I find it happens right throughout the chamber. Yet again, after question time, we have had incidents that nobody could have predicted on the basis of what had gone beforehand.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Will the Manager of Opposition Business apologise to you as chair?
I have taken that as an apology.
Mr Speaker, I seek to make a personal explanation.
Does the member claim to have been misrepresented?
I do, Mr Speaker.
Please proceed.
In question time today the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs claimed that I opposed measures to protect charity workers. That is false. I do support those measures, and she should not practise dishonest spin like this.
Order! The honourable member has now explained where he believes he was misrepresented. He will now resume his seat.
On a point of order, Mr Speaker: the member for North Sydney, the Manager of Opposition Business, is continuing to reflect on the chair.
I hope he is not.
I present the Auditor-General’s Audit report No. 44 of 2007-08 entitled Interim phase of the audit of financial statements of general government sector agencies for the year ending 30 June 2008.
Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.
Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the
by leave—The government’s aviation training package is a key resource for registered training organisations to deliver training, assess competencies and issue nationally recognised qualifications in pilot training and other aviation industry skills. There are a number of aspects of this training package which deserve special mention. Firstly, it represents for the first time the two regulators of Australia’s aviation industry—the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and Defence—have agreed on standards and requirements for aviation qualifications. This has laid the groundwork for aviation workers to move more easily between civilian and defence workforces. The closer alignment of military and civil pilot training to a national standard improves the ability of people to move between defence and commercial sectors. This will improve the overall attraction of flying as a career choice.
The development of this package owes much to the hard work and cooperation developed between the aviation industry, training organisations, CASA and Defence, with leadership from the government funded Transport and Logistics Industry Skills Council. I acknowledge those efforts and congratulate the industry on this important achievement.
The new aviation training package directly aligns CASA licensing requirements with the national qualifications. Although a CASA issued pilot licence still determines the eligibility to fly an aircraft, a new nationally recognised qualification gives prospective pilots the opportunity of getting both a nationally recognised qualification and a CASA licence.
Secondly, prior to the development of this training package, the myriad state and territory accredited courses and the CASA licensing system were not directly aligned to the national training system. This package cuts through these state and territory based qualifications to provide nationally consistent qualifications. This makes it easier for people considering a career in aviation to compare training costs at different institutions and also transfer their studies between registered training organisations Australia-wide.
The government has already received positive feedback from the airline industry concerning improvements to the aviation training package. Airlines and industry trainers have welcomed the training package because they can see the benefits of a nationally recognised pilot qualification. Airlines and industry trainers are investigating ways in which their organisations can benefit from this new training package—which is exactly what the government wants.
By becoming a registered training organisation, pilot training institutions also have the option of becoming accredited to offer these qualifications to international students. This allows training institutions to train a mix of domestic and international students and further enhances Australia’s reputation as a world leader when it comes to aviation training. The training package is not designed as a quick fix to short-term pilot shortages but it will help to improve the appeal of flight training as a professional career path, thus attracting more people to this important profession in the future. This can only be achieved through extensive education and training, which requires a consistent and coherent framework that sets out national competencies and qualifications for the aviation industry.
A major advantage of this revised training package and new qualifications is that pilots are able to hold a nationally recognised qualification and a CASA issued licence. This national qualification is recognised by registered training organisations throughout Australia. This means that a pilot with a qualification such as certificate IV in aviation—which in practice is a commercial pilot aeroplane licence—may choose to build on this qualification at the higher diploma or advanced diploma level in any state or territory. They may also receive credit for recognised prior learning if, for example, they choose to change career direction and qualify as a helicopter pilot, or to transfer their civil training into the defence sector. Increased transparency and choice for students contemplating a career in aviation can only increase the attractiveness of aviation as a career choice helping to ensure that Australia’s aviation industry has access to skilled personnel in the future.
One of the most important aspects of this training package from my perspective is that it brings together two of this government’s main priorities:
Education revolution
The government wants Australia to be the best educated country, the most skilled economy and the best trained workforce in the world. That is why we have embarked on an education revolution, with a renewed focus on investing in our institutions, and getting better outcomes for students from preschool, through to TAFE or to university. A centrepiece of this is a $1.9 billion investment over five years to fund up to 630,000 new training places.
As a result of the Transport and Logistics Industry Skills Council’s research and discussion with industry, they recommended that pilots with a commercial pilot aeroplane licence be added to the ‘priority occupations list’. Inclusion on this list recognises that pilots are one of the occupations the Rudd government is targeting as part of its broader skills policy. Pilots will be added to the list from 1 July 2008. This will give registered training organisations that offer the relevant pilot qualification the opportunity to access some of the 630,000 new training places announced in the 2008-09 budget through the Productivity Places Program.
Aviation white paper
Members will also be aware that in April this year the Rudd government took the historic step of developing a long-term plan for the future of Australia’s aviation industry. The national aviation policy statement, or white paper, will guide the industry’s growth over the next decade and beyond.
Development of the white paper began in April, with stakeholders being invited to make submissions on an issues paper which outlines challenges facing the Australian aviation industry. The next step in the process is the release of a green paper in September, outlining possible policy directions, settings and reforms and providing yet another opportunity for public input. The process will be finalised in mid-2009 with the release of a white paper which for the first time will bring together all aspects of national aviation policy into a single statement.
One of the key issues for the aviation white paper is addressing the skills needs in the aviation industry. There have been numerous reports in recent years about the difficulties regional airlines are having recruiting pilots. Regional airlines are also feeling the flow-on effects from a pilot shortage. Skills shortages in the aviation sector not only affect services to regional centres; they also impact on emergency service operations, like the Royal Flying Doctor Service and search and rescue operators. As the minister for regional development, I am fully aware of the impact of the aviation skills shortage on people living in regional and remote Australia. This critical issue underscores the importance of the national aviation policy statement.
The work already done by the Transport and Logistics Industry Skills Council in this area will be vital. The skills council’s unique position as an intermediary between government and industry means they will have a vital role in shaping future government policy and priorities to help meet the long-term training needs of this industry.
Conclusion
Our aviation industry has grown to a point where it supports nearly 50,000 jobs nationwide and underpins our nation’s continued economic growth. We are developing a strategy which looks to the long term and closely links the development of aviation to the economic development of the nation.
The government has already begun an education revolution, because we know that skills are a core element in economic capacity and future prosperity. We are committed to a strong, vibrant and well-skilled Australian aviation industry, one that can look ahead with certainty and one which has incentives to invest for the future. The aviation training package is part of this commitment. It is a key resource for people already in, or planning to enter, Australia’s aviation industry. It is a reform that I commend to the House.
I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the member for Wide Bay to speak for nine minutes.
Leave granted.
I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Truss speaking for a period not exceeding nine minutes.
Question agreed to.
I am pleased to respond to the statement by the minister in relation to pilot training and other education issues within the aviation sector. It is an issue that has caused considerable concern in the aviation sector over recent times. The shortage of pilots is reflective of the shortage of labour in a whole range of areas in the busy and vibrant economy that our country has enjoyed over recent times.
Whilst this statement deals exclusively with pilots, I remind the minister and the government that issues also arise in other sectors of the aviation industry. There is a shortage of air traffic controllers in some places, and aircraft maintenance engineers are in demand. Indeed, a considerable amount of work is being sent offshore for a range of reasons, including the fact that there is a limited range of licensed aircraft maintenance engineers available in Australia.
The statement itself does not include any new announcements. It is one of these trios of ministerial statements we seem to be getting every day lately because the government has essentially run out of business to put before the parliament and it needs to occupy the space. What measures are included in this statement are substantially less than what the previous government had committed to. So this attempt at catch-up is a failure in that regard.
The first area covered by the minister in his statement was the arrangements to make it easier for workers to move between civilian and defence workforces—in particular, arrangements to help recognition of skills between the civil sector and the defence sector. That is sound policy. It brings to fruition work that has been underway for several years to try to bring the defence aviation sector closer to civil aviation. It is not the completion of the task. There are still some important things that need to be done. But there has been quite a bit of progress over the years. We have seen a melting down of the barriers between defence aviation and the civil sector. There has been a real willingness to talk, which I think has been appreciated by both sides, and it has led to significant improvements. Civil air traffic controllers are now doing a lot of work for the military, and the military also cooperates with the civil sector.
There is one major area yet that needs to be broken through, and that is airspace. There are still large areas of defence airspace where civil aircraft are not allowed to travel, and that can mean much-extended journeys for people because they have to fly around military airspace. I think it ought to be possible, in this day and age, with modern technology, to resolve those issues. There are important emission-reducing implications: if you can take a shorter route and get to the airport faster, you use less fuel. That is a cost saving for the airline but it is also means fewer emissions into our environment. So that is an area where I think more work needs to be done. I acknowledge that there are significant issues involved, but some of the tribal issues that were associated with it previously have tended to dissipate, and there ought to be, with goodwill, a capacity to make progress in that area.
The second element of the aviation training package is a national training scheme, with state and territory accredited courses and the CASA licensing system aligned under the national training system. Again I think that is a welcome step forward. It will not be revolutionary, but it is a logical step and it is good that the various states recognise one another’s training arrangements and that recognition of qualifications will be applied consistently across the country. There is also a reference to education and an announcement that the government will in fact list commercial pilot aeroplane licensees as a priority occupation. Again, that will help to provide some benefits and encourage people to undertake pilot training.
But it is a long way short of what the previous government had committed to. In the last election, our commitments included the establishment of a regional airline pilot scholarship scheme to help maintain regional airline services. The minister rightly recognised that there is a particular crisis in the availability of pilots to the regional airlines. That is probably because careers with the larger, intercontinental airlines and, indeed, with those who operate jet services around Australia are attractive to experienced pilots who have previously been flying Dash 8s or, particularly with Rex Airlines, the SAAB 340s. They have had the practical experience, got the hours up and when they see an opportunity for promotion available to them with one of the major jet carriers they take it. So it is has been airlines like Rex that have faced the pointy end of the shortage of pilots issue.
My own hometown is one of the many towns that no longer have air services or where air services have been suspended because Rex has been unable to obtain sufficient pilots to be able to maintain the services—for some months now. That has an enormous impact on a town—losing your air services. You have to travel miles—in my case, three-quarters of an hour—to get to another airport, and in many cases it can be hours and hours. There are also difficulties with skilled professionals coming in, visiting surgeons and the like, and so the whole community loses when there are no air services available. So getting an effective pilot training regime in place is important. Rex themselves, and, for that matter, Qantas and other airlines, recognise that they do need to do more and have therefore set up their own training institutions, and that is welcome.
The coalition promised to establish a regional airline pilot scholarship scheme, costing $9 million over two years, to help in the training of regional pilots. We also extended FEE-HELP to vocational education and training providers in the 2007-08 budget, which helped to provide support for young people who were undertaking pilot training. Our commitments at the last election also included establishing an aviation technical college to address the skills needs. I think it would have been a particularly meritorious development to have an institution that was a centre of excellence for aviation training. Of course, this government has got rid of all the technical colleges, and the promise of an aviation technical college will not be fulfilled. We also committed to providing funding to the royal aero clubs around Australia to run cadet pilot certificate courses to encourage high school students to pursue a career in general aviation—to attract young people to this profession and so help to ease the skills shortages apparent in this industry.
As the minister said in his statement, Australia is a popular place for training pilots. Airlines from around the world are setting up their own training facilities in Australia. Some of them have been active for a long time. We are supplying a significant proportion of the pilots in international aviation. This is a good place to learn to fly because our skies are safe, we provide a wide range of experience and, obviously, a pleasant environment in which foreign students are able to gain some of these skills. So I think aviation educational services have been one of the real success stories of the service sector in the Australian economy. We need to support the training of those pilots not only through the measures announced in this particular statement but also by going further and recognising the enormous opportunities that Australia has to be an aviation trainer for the world. (Time expired)
by leave—This year we celebrate a notable milestone in the provision of life-saving medicines to all Australians and the history of the Australian health system. In doing so, we reach back to 1948 and beyond. Sixty years ago Ben Chifley was Prime Minister and Doc Evatt was President of the United Nations General Assembly. William Dobell controversially won the Archibald Prize with his portrait of Margaret Olley, Don Bradman put aside the cricket whites and we mourned the death of Isaac Isaacs, member of the first Australian parliament and our first Australian born Governor-General.
So 1948 was a time of great beginnings. Post-war migration changed forever the face of Australia. The first Holden rolled off the production line—apparently yours for just $1,330 plus tax and on-road costs. Lionel Rose and Olivia Newton-John, and Kim Beazley, in fact, were born and so too was a government program that was to become such an integral part of the Australian health system that it would eventually come to embody the very notion of a fair society—the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
By the time the PBS commenced under the Chifley Labor government in June 1948, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act had been passed twice, overturned once, and been the subject of a national referendum, a constitutional challenge, and a very heated public debate over the powers of the federal government. Before this though, in fact as early as 1919, the Australian government had introduced the Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (RPBS) to provide free pharmaceuticals to ex-service men and women.
Social reform was firmly on the public agenda when, in 1941, in the midst of a world war, the Curtin Labor government introduced child endowment payments and, in 1942, the widows’ pension. In 1943 wartime tax increases were made more palatable by the establishment of a national welfare fund. It was used to finance maternity allowances and unemployment benefits. Importantly, for the first time, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were entitled to receive social service payments.
A profound social effect of the war was the entry of 200,000 women into the workforce. While necessary in wartime, taking mothers away from the home aroused concern and led the Curtin government to introduce child care. The first home-help to assist women in looking after older relations was also introduced.
Health authorities were also concerned about nutrition, especially after the introduction of rationing. A national survey identified a need for the controlled distribution of milk and eggs to vulnerable members of the community, in particular pregnant and nursing mothers. Supplies were also sent to remote parts of the country—just as today special arrangements allow for PBS medicines to be available to those in remote areas.
The war saw important breakthroughs in the pharmaceutical industry. Most significant was the discovery of penicillin in 1943 by Alexander Fleming and the Australian Nobel laureate Howard Walter Florey, later Chancellor of the Australian National University and one of the founding fathers of the John Curtin School of Medical Research. By the end of 1943 the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories—now CSL and one of the two largest providers of plasma therapeutic products in the world—were producing penicillin for Australian soldiers and civilians.
The health department oversaw wartime campaigns against tuberculosis and venereal diseases, and established a medical service for munitions workers. The Acoustic Testing Laboratories, which later became the National Acoustics Laboratory, was created to conduct research into the effects of noise on servicemen and later into deafness caused by maternal rubella. The laboratory also devised hearing aids and rehabilitation programs, a precursor to the work by Professor Graeme Clark in developing the multichannel cochlear implant, the bionic ear.
By the early forties there was a growing call for some sort of national health insurance to ensure that all Australians who needed health care were able to access it, regardless of their economic situation. This was opposed by the British Medical Association (BMA), which had yet to become the AMA. It would take another three decades before the Whitlam Labor government would be able to introduce national health insurance, in the form of the Medibank scheme. Medibank was dismantled by the Fraser government before being reintroduced as Medicare by the Hawke Labor government in 1983. While there was strong opposition to its introduction at the time, Medicare is of course now a fundamental pillar of the Australian health system which enjoys strong bipartisan support.
But I digress. It was in the environment of rapid social change and social reform that, in 1944, the Chifley Labor government announced its intention to legislate, through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act 1944, for the provision, free of charge, of all medicines listed in an official formulary. The point of this was to ensure that social disadvantage was no obstacle to patients accessing the medicines they need.
The government was, again, fiercely opposed by the BMA, which was strongly opposed to the regulation of prescriptions on the grounds that it placed limits on what doctors were able to prescribe. The BMA wanted the new scheme to apply to all prescriptions, not just those listed on the Commonwealth formulary. As a result, the BMA refused to cooperate in the implementation of the new scheme and urged its members to sign a pledge not to use the proposed formulary and prescription forms. The BMA took their opposition to the High Court, which ruled that the Commonwealth did not have the power to legislate on pharmaceutical and medical services. So, a victory for the BMA and one that delayed the start of what we now know as the PBS by several years.
The doctors’ challenge prompted a referendum in 1946 where voters were asked, ‘Do you approve of the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled Constitution Alteration (Social Services) 1946?’ The referendum succeeded and gave the Commonwealth powers to legislate for the provision of pharmaceutical, sickness and hospital benefits, as well as medical and dental services. In 1946, the Australian government started negotiating five-year agreements with the states to provide hospital patient subsidies in return for the abolition of fees and means tests for the users of public wards. Subsidies were also provided for private hospital patients. These basic principles—both the introduction of the first PBS scheme and these hospital agreements that public hospital patients should receive free hospital care—are still in force today.
Following the referendum, in June 1947 the Chifley Labor government introduced a second Pharmaceutical Benefits Act. And as a result, in June 1948 the PBS came into being, providing 139 lifesaving drugs at no cost to patients. In its first year the PBS budget was £150,000 and antibiotics were the most recent medical discovery. The scheme was still opposed at this time by the British Medical Association amidst acrimonious exchanges with the government, but this time the PBS was here to stay. The PBS is now, like Medicare, a central pillar of the Australian health system and one of Labor’s great legacies to the Australian people. Labor persisted, as it persists today, in reforms such as these to ensure that patients receive the treatment they need, regardless of their position in society.
The PBS has continued to evolve; the needs of the disadvantaged were recognised when in 1983 concession card holders were given access to PBS scripts at a greatly reduced personal cost. In 1986 the Hawke Labor government introduced the PBS safety net to cap the amount that families would have to spend each year on PBS medicines. The evolution of course continues.
Since 1948 the number and variety of drugs subsidised and the number of patients benefiting has grown every year. From the 139 ‘lifesaving and disease preventing drugs’ originally subsidised in 1948, the PBS has expanded to cover 639 medicines with 2,986 branded products. Today, over 170 million scripts are subsidised through the PBS, at a cost which will exceed $7 billion this year. Every day, directly or indirectly, the PBS benefits all Australians. Whether in the treatment of the most virulent of cancers or providing treatments to manage cholesterol or to help give up smoking, the PBS is a vital tool in both the treatment and prevention of disease.
As the Minister for Health and Ageing I have a delegation under the National Health Act 1953 to approve listing of drugs on the PBS, but it is important that I note that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee is charged with the significant responsibility of recommending which drugs should be subsidised by the government. Neither I nor any other person can approve the subsidy of any drug on the PBS without their recommendation. This is how it should be and this is how it will remain.
Over recent years successive governments have agreed to consider PBS listings outside of annual budget considerations. This, and the move to publishing the schedule of pharmaceutical benefits online, has meant that new drugs can be added each month, giving earlier access for eligible patients to necessary medicines. In the few months since coming to office this government has demonstrated its commitment to providing all Australians with reliable, timely and affordable access to cost-effective and high-quality pharmaceuticals in a number of initiatives. The government has also extended the PBS to give Australians serving their country in diplomatic missions overseas access to the PBS.
My department is working to improve the transparency of the PBS process by publishing a list of drugs which are to be considered by PBAC for subsidy. This will allow for greater input from consumers and inform PBAC considerations. Importantly, too, the government is working with PBAC and the pharmaceutical industry to identify and make available the PBS medicines that meet the distinct needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, some of whom live in the most remote parts of Australia.
The cost of the PBS to the government has been an issue since soon after the commencement of the scheme. As author and health economist Sydney Sax notes:
Despite a tightly regulated system which empowered the Minister to determine rates of payment for, and conditions of supply of, pharmaceutical benefits, costs rose rapidly after 1956-57, when they totaled ₤11.7 million, to ₤15 million in 1957-58 and ₤21 million in 1958-59. The legislation had provided for the establishment of medical and pharmaceutical benefit committees in each state to examine and report on possible abuses in the supply of benefits, but it was still found necessary in 1949 to introduce a 5 shilling charge in the hope that it would discourage over-prescribing by doctors, and so act as a brake on costs.
It is interesting to note that where once the PBS was opposed by the medical profession, we are now faced with the opposite problem of overprescribing. While the historic growth of the PBS has been significant, a number of specific measures are being adopted to ensure the balance between the growth of the PBS and appropriate access by Australians to cost-effective, emerging pharmaceutical therapies. The mechanisms we are putting in place are appropriate to manage the growth of the PBS.
On 1 August 2008, a little over a month from now, the Australian government will apply statutory price reductions to PBS medicines where multiple brands are available. Some medicines will receive a two per cent price reduction while others will receive a 25 per cent price reduction. Ad hoc price reductions are also an ongoing feature of PBS management. The most notable of these in recent times was the 20 per cent price reduction for simvastatin. It is forecast that this one-off reduction will reduce the forward estimates for the PBS by approximately $300 million.
Given the ever-increasing cost of the PBS, measures such as these are necessary to ensure that the scheme remains sustainable into the future and that Australians will continue to have reliable, timely and affordable access to a wide range of medicines. Stewardship of the PBS is a tremendous responsibility, because ultimately it is about ensuring that Australians have affordable access to medicines that they need. We inhabit a world seemingly ruled by statistics. We have all sorts of statistics on life expectancy, on infant mortality, on diseases that are cured. Certainly the PBS has contributed to those statistics improving, but there are many things that we cannot measure in dollars or fractions of a per cent—the joy of a life saved; the security that comes with knowing we have access to affordable medicines for our family. As a nation as well as individuals we have set ourselves a responsibility. We have acknowledged that the health of one of us is the responsibility of all of us. By doing so we show that we appreciate that when as a community we are enriched we all benefit as individuals.
We could think of the PBS as Chifley’s gift to us. The story of Labor’s fight to introduce the PBS is consistent with the Labor tradition of fighting for necessary reforms in health—and, indeed, in all sectors of Australian society. This government will continue in this great tradition of reform by working to build an Australian health system to deal with the new challenges of the 21st century.
I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the member for North Sydney to speak for 14 minutes.
Leave granted.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Hockey speaking for a period not exceeding 14 minutes.
Question agreed to.
I do not know whether I will take the full 14 minutes for my speech, but I do want to fill in some of the historical holes that the minister tended to omit—which just happened to fit in with when the Liberal Party was in government. I know it is going to come as a rude shock to you, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, and everyone listening to this broadcast, but the minister’s statement omitted—what would it be?—the 40 years that the coalition was in government and the changes for the better made to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme during those years.
I want to go back to 1919, when it is arguable the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme actually started under one of my predecessors, the former member for North Sydney, Billy Hughes, and the Nationalist Party. In 1919 he set up the Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which I am advised by the library was established to provide free pharmaceuticals to ex-service men and women. It was the Repatriation Commission that reached agreements with the various Australian pharmaceutical societies to provide necessary medications for veterans of the First World War and the Boer War. So, even though Billy Hughes was obviously a member of a number of different political parties, I am reasonably confident that at that time he was a member of the Nationalist Party and as Prime Minister he introduced that significant initiative. He was a discerning man, Billy Hughes. In fact, I am going down to Old Parliament House this afternoon, where there is an exhibition on Billy Hughes’s life. He was the member for a number of seats. He was the longest serving member of the House of Representatives and one of my predecessors.
Having said that, I think old Billy should be given some proper recognition, because it is hard to believe—and, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, I know you are struggling with the concept—but not all good things were solely the responsibility of the Labor Party! There were other parts of the development of this great nation that were actually borne by the Liberal Party, the National Party or the Country Party, and in fact the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was part of that. Having said that, as I said in a discussion in this chamber on one of the bills on the PBS, I was actually very bipartisan. Perhaps that is where the minister got the idea to have this ministerial statement, because at that time I talked about the fact that it might arguably be the 60th anniversary of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme even though there is an argument that it actually started back in 1919.
I recognise that the Curtin government and the Chifley government contributed substantially to the creation of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. It was in 1949, on the election of Menzies, that the new government introduced a limited scheme to provide a list of 139 life-saving and disease-preventing drugs free of charge to the whole community—that was in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act 1947. That was the act that was passed under Chifley, but the new regulations providing for those 139 drugs came in on 14 September 1950 under Menzies.
What that indicates is that there was a level of bipartisanship at that time on the PBS, although I must say that the Labor Party at that time had supported a more comprehensive scheme and, because of the close relationship at that time between the British Medical Association and the new Menzies government, I would assume that was one of the reasons why there was some opposition to a comprehensive scheme. Having said that, I regret that I do not know why the BMA was so opposed to a comprehensive scheme, other than the fact that the doctors groups in those days would have been very conservative and probably would have taken the view that introducing a scheme of this nature would place restrictions on the delivery of the pharmaceuticals rather than enhancing the delivery of the pharmaceuticals. Quite frankly, the government, as a total solution to all problems, is not necessarily the answer.
However, in 1951, again under the Menzies Liberal government, the National Health (Medicines for Pensioners) Regulations came in. Those regulations authorised the free provision of medicines listed on the British Pharmacopoeia for pensioners—that is, for the aged, invalids, widows or former service personnel. So in 1951 Menzies actually extended the pharmaceutical scheme as it was at the time. The minister also failed to take account of the fact that in 1953 the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, PBAC, was set up—just a minor part of the PBS, I say with some degree of cynicism. It was and still is a substantial part of the PBS. Even though the medical profession at that time was very opposed to the establishment of a government-appointed committee controlling the pharmaceutical formulary, the government was firm in its decision to restrict pharmaceutical benefits to items on the formulary, and the formulary committee was embodied in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Act. It originally consisted of the Director-General of Health as the chairman and six other people appointed by the minister, and this became the PBAC over time. It became an independent statutory body under the National Health Act 1953, again under the Menzies government. The member for Brand would appreciate my attempts to be bipartisan on this, because these are important historic points.
On 1 March 1960—and let me think for a second here; oh, yes, Menzies was the Prime Minister; how about that—the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, or the PBS as we know it today, was established. The main components of the scheme were: a combination of the existing pensioner and general schemes, an expanded range of drugs for the general public and the introduction of a patient contribution, or copayment, of five shillings to provide some control of volumes and expenditure. That is an important point: that was the beginning of the copayment. As we and members on the other side know, it is an important moment when you actually get some copayment in there, so things are not entirely free. Once you break that seal, it gives you an opportunity to have a reasonable charge associated with the public benefit to make that public benefit more sustainable.
But, despite the introduction of the copayment, prescription volumes increased from $24.6 million in 1959 to $60.4 million—that is nearly a tripling—eight years later, in 1968, and Commonwealth expenditure rose from $43 million to $100 million at the end of the 1960s. There was further growth in the PBS over the seventies. From 1969 expenditure was $100 million a year and in 1975 it reached $211 million a year, so there was a substantial increase over that period of time. It should also be recognised, because it was omitted by the minister, that in 1978, under the Fraser government, dentists were invited into the PBS to be able to prescribe a limited range of antibiotics and antibacterial and antifungal drugs as pharmaceutical benefits. They could do that from 1 April 1979. It was the Fraser Liberal government that made those changes. They made a further change on 1 January 1983: a concessional beneficiary category was created to assist the disadvantaged. So it was a Liberal-National government that introduced an initiative so that low-income earners and the unemployed, who are now concession card holders, would pay a concessional amount for listed pharmaceuticals.
I should add that, under the Howard government, access to ophthalmologists was provided under the 2007 initiatives. There is a significant initiative, which the minister did refer to but failed to give credit for, which starts on 1 August 2008, when the Australian government will apply statutory price reductions to the PBS medicines where multiple brands are available and when some medicines will receive a two per cent price reduction and others a 25 per cent reduction. That is very important, and that was an initiative taken by the Howard government to provide the opportunity for the generics to come on board.
This is a very important scheme. Putting aside an important history, one of the reasons the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is successful is that there is bipartisan support for the scheme. I do not take total ownership of the PBS for the Liberal and National parties, but nor should the Labor Party take ownership of the entire history of the PBS. I think we can look at the historical development of the PBS and see that there were various interests at that time—with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps misguided—that were focused on the interests of the patients and on the wide distribution of medicine. For example, India has no PBS, and yet a lot of pharmaceutical companies believe that it is one of the best markets in the world to operate in because there is large demand, they can get the drugs out there quickly, there are not the same sorts of restrictions in any way, shape or form that there are in Australia, and the drugs are more accessible for the general Indian population. But India has a vast number of challenges and one of them is how you ensure that the entire population gets access to pharmaceuticals on a sustainable basis.
We also need to have a rational, level-headed debate about the sustainability of the pharmaceutical industry, which is significant in mainstream Europe and the United States. Obviously, despite having a reasonable presence and a number of manufacturing plants and research facilities in Australia, the pharmaceutical industry is under certain pressures, and we have to recognise that. The other day I likened the pharmaceutical industry to the big movie houses in Hollywood. They are always looking for their next blockbuster. They have very high up-front costs, they have significant research costs and they are hoping that it really works. The difference with pharmaceuticals is that the numbers are so much larger in the main than for any of the big movie houses in Hollywood and, rather than nourishing the entertainment needs of the community, the pharmaceutical industry nourishes the body, saves people’s health and provides wellness support to people when they most need it.
So we welcome the initiatives to recognise the success of the PBS. I hope that the PBS lives to 100 and beyond and that it continues to be sustainable. Sometimes hard decisions have to be made about sustainability. One of those hard decisions was made in the budget, I think, back in 2003-04, when we had to increase the copayment. That was a tough decision. My recollection is that it was opposed by the opposition at that time.
No. Is that right?
I know it is hard to believe. That is my recollection.
Ms Roxon interjecting
It must be, because the minister is agreeing with me that it was opposed by the Labor Party at that time.
I think we might have agreed to it in the end.
I think that is right. In fairness, you agreed to it in the end. I remember that it was a tortured process. That is why I am scarred by the experience.
I can see you going through that now!
Yes, I am. The sustainability of the PBS is based on the fact that we are all committed to ensuring that Australians have widespread access to the best pharmaceuticals, that the pharmaceuticals are affordable and that those people most in need are provided with all the pharmaceuticals that they can be provided with. Finally, we recognise and accept that these are hard decisions for a government, but at the end of the day we also recognise that everyone is trying to get the best outcome for the whole nation. (Time expired)
by leave—I am very pleased to announce that the government will commit $350,000 in one-off funding to expand access to the cinema for some of the four million Australians with a hearing impairment. Many of them, of course, are older Australians. This plan is called Helping Older Australians Enjoy the Movies: Accessible Cinema. We all know about the population shift and that, within 50 years, the proportion of the population over 65 will have tripled. This plan is part of the federal government’s commitment to a greater focus on positive and active ageing. It is part of our wider agenda to promote social inclusion and participation, as well as reducing social isolation. Many older Australians have told me indeed that they want to share in the enjoyment and pleasure of going to the movies with their grandchildren during school holidays but cannot enjoy the films because they are unable to hear them. This plan is about allowing people with hearing impairments to enjoy really great blockbusters like Get Smart or Kung Fu Panda with their grandchildren. I want to be able to help throw open even more doors in Australian cinemas to people with hearing impairments. And for some this may be the first film they have been to see in many years.
One in six Australians has a hearing loss, and this is projected to increase to one in four by 2050. Currently, Australian Hearing confirms that over half the population aged between 60 and 70 have a hearing loss. This increases to 70 per cent of those over the age of 70. What is more staggering is that more than half of Australia’s farmers are likely to suffer from premature hearing loss through their work. The Australian government is committed to helping older people maintain their independence and keeping them connected to their communities. That is why the Department of Health and Ageing will be working together with the Independent Cinemas Association of Australia and Media Access Australia to enable greater access to regional and independent cinemas to those with a hearing impairment. The partnership between the Independent Cinemas Association of Australia and Media Access Australia builds on their work with cinemas and consumers that aims to make cinemas accessible to those that are hearing impaired.
In mid-2007 the USA had more than 830 accessible cinemas, representing about 15 per cent of locations and one accessible cinema for every 357,000 people. The United Kingdom had more than 250 cinemas, representing nearly 38 per cent of locations. That is one accessible cinema for every 243,000 people. New Zealand has three accessible cinemas but with captions only, representing three per cent of locations. That is one accessible cinema for every 1.4 million people.
In 2001, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission forged an agreement with Hoyts, Greater Union and Village that specifies three sessions a week of captioned films in 10 locations nationally. These locations are in eight capital cities plus Glendale in Newcastle and Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast. This represents only two per cent of cinemas in Australia being accessible. This followed a case with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and a Perth gentleman.
Regional cinemas, although keen to implement accessible cinema sessions, have lower profit margins compared to metropolitan multiplexes. The cost for the purchase of accessible equipment is a financial expense that many regional cinemas will struggle to meet. Today’s announcement of $350,000 in funding will allow Australia to more than double its current access to cinemas, with a very strong focus on regional, suburban and independent cinemas. There is, of course, a long way to go, but this is a first step.
This seed funding provides a one-off injection, but I am hopeful that cinemas all over the country will realise the commercial gains that are possible by catering for this very fast growing demographic. It is hoped that Helping Older Australians Enjoy the Movies: Accessible Cinema will encourage the major commercial chains to further expand their AD—audio description—and captioning programs.
This morning I wrote to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and Graeme Innes, Human Rights Commissioner and Commissioner responsible for Disability Discrimination, advising him and the organisation of the decision. This funding will allow 12 cinemas to be fitted out with the DTS cinema subtitling system, including transmitters and headsets for audio description, that enables the audio description and captioning.
Further to this, today’s announcement allows those with hearing and vision impairment to share social and family experiences, which were limited before to the 10 cinemas in Australia. This brings the total to 22. This also brings it into line with the Australian Film Finance Corporation commitment that from 1 July 2007 all Australian features funded by the FFC will be captioned. This means more people will be able to see Australian films.
Captioning is the reproduction of a soundtrack in text format. Similar to subtitles, captions are a transcription of the entire soundtrack, including sound effects, into the same language. Audio description, or AD, is a service where additional commentary is provided to narrate the visual elements of a movie. AD guides the listener with concise, objective descriptions of new scenes, settings, costumes, body language and ‘sight gags’, all spoken between existing portions of dialogue.
On a final note can I say that I was pleased to hear and am pleased to point out that there were indeed many patrons this morning at captioned screenings of Sex and the City, which played in Brisbane, Darwin, Sydney, Adelaide and Maroochydore. I would also like to note that the next film screening at those locations is The Incredible Hulk, showing this Friday and Sunday, so many people will be enjoying that and many more people across Australia will be able to enjoy films with this special funding.
In closing, I table a release from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission welcoming this funding announcement and the difference that it will make to people’s lives in terms of accessing the cinema.
I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the member for McPherson to speak for seven minutes.
Leave granted.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mrs May speaking for a period not exceeding seven minutes.
Question agreed to.
I am happy to speak on the Minister for Ageing’s ministerial statement today on captioning for the hearing impaired and audio description for people who are sight impaired. Today’s announcement provides me with an opportunity to advise the House that it was actually the Howard government, in 2007, that was behind this initiative, when the then Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator the Hon. Helen Coonan, announced an investigation into access to adequate electronic media for the hearing impaired. I also want to put on the record and acknowledge the active role that the Democrats played in relation to that matter. The Howard government was committed to ensuring that every Australian had access to adequate electronic information channels, and today’s announcement is a positive step forward to meeting that commitment that was made by the former government.
I would like to extend my thanks to the minister for advising me earlier today of the initiative and extending to me the courtesy of time to become familiar with the announcement. It is one that I and older Australians in this country who are hearing and visually impaired certainly welcome. It is a great step forward. It is a positive step for those older Australians and I commend the minister for the great initiative. As I have said, it has been an important announcement and I would like to commend the government on the initiative to provide this funding, particularly the funding that is going to be provided—I understand from the minister’s press release of today—to those smaller, independent cinemas throughout regional and rural Australia. They will receive the funding, I understand, for the special audio equipment that will bring cinema to the lives of thousands of hearing and visually impaired older Australians.
I understand—and the minister certainly confirmed it today in her speech—that $350,000 is a one-off grant for a project entitled Helping Older Australians Enjoy the Movies: Accessible Cinema, and the funding itself will be provided to 12 cinema locations across Australia. We do not yet know where those locations will be, but I understand that announcement will be made shortly. Today’s announcement will bring the number of accessible cinemas for hearing and visually impaired people to 22, which is great news for those cinemas that will be successful in obtaining that funding. I hope too that in time, when the success of the program is realised, the government will look at expanding even further what I believe will be a very positive initiative for those older Australians who may in fact be socially disconnected from their communities and from cultural activities because of hearing and visual impairments. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, as we have heard already today, have also commended the initiative, and I too echo the commission’s sentiments in their statement.
In my first term in this place I spoke about captioning for television and the importance to Australians with hearing impairments of having access to free-to-air television. The initiative being announced today recognises that Australians, particularly the elderly who are visually and hearing impaired, will be provided with a pleasure that we all take for granted. I would hasten to add that probably many of us in this House enjoy a trip to the movies. I know that as a busy member of parliament if I can grab a couple of hours to sit in a cinema it is a sort of escape. To see the latest Australian and international movies and to have that opportunity now available to older Australians with those impairments really is worthwhile. As we have heard from the minister today the program will be expanded. There will be 12 new cinemas, taking the number to 22 cinemas, making movies far more accessible to a far greater number of visually and hearing impaired older Australians.
Going to the cinema is one way that older Australians can maintain social interaction and there is no doubt that social and cultural pursuits play a big part in warding off that dreadful disease, dementia. Alzheimer’s Australia have warned Australians that dementia is on the rise and up to 156 cases are diagnosed in Australia every day. Alzheimer’s Mind your Mind program is all about proactively looking after your brain by keeping mentally active and of course minding your social life by staying connected and socially active. The initiative that the minister has announced today will certainly assist those older Australians to ward off the onset of dementia. Research has found that ongoing learning and mental stimulation throughout life is one of the keys to a strong, agile mind, and the movies, I believe, will help that stimulation and of course offer a social event in those people’s lives. It will give them social interaction, whether going to the movies with their grandchildren or with friends, and it will certainly include them in our local communities. As the minister has indicated in her speech today, this initiative will see an increased number of hearing and vision impaired people enjoy a film for the first time. It means that these people will share in an experience that many of us take for granted.
Overall, it is pleasing that the funding will assist those small cinemas in regional and rural Australia with the cost of the equipment needed to deliver the captioning and audio description to those people. Often in this House we forget that remote, rural and regional communities do not have access to many things that we take for granted. I hope that in the selection of locations the government is mindful of those communities most in need, in serving larger populations of hearing and visually impaired older Australians in those remote and regional communities throughout Australia.
In closing, I also want to commend the partnership between the Independent Cinemas Association of Australia and Media Access Australia on the work they have done with cinemas and consumers to ensure that cinemas are accessible to those people who are hearing impaired. Both these organisations, I understand, will work with the Department of Health and Ageing to select the 12 new cinema locations throughout rural and regional Australia and those suburban areas that will be successful with the funding.
Finally, I do commend this initiative. I commend the minister for bringing it to the House today and I also say to those older Australians who are going to have the opportunity to watch those Australian movies, which will all be captioned, and those international movies that we all take for granted: have those few hours off, go to the cinema and enjoy it with friends. It is a great initiative and I commend the minister.
by leave—I move:
That the following order of the day, committee and delegation reports, be referred to the Main Committee for debate: Electoral Matters—Joint Standing Committee—Advisory report on Schedule 1 of the Tax Laws Amendment (2008 Measures No. 1) Bill 2008—Motion to take note of document: Resumption of debate.
Question agreed to.
The Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for Wide Bay proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The impact of Government policies on regional communities.
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—
On election night the Prime Minister told the nation that he had been elected to govern for all Australians. But seven months and one day later it is obvious that some Australians were not included in that promise. I refer to the people of non-metropolitan Australia who have been kicked around like a park football by the new Labor government.
The Treasurer when he introduced his budget described it as a true Labor budget—and it was. This Labor Treasurer spat out his venom on regional communities in the same style that Labor treasurers have at state and Commonwealth level for years. Two-thirds of the pre-budget funding cuts were in rural and regional Australia, with funding slashed or abolished for programs like drought research, job training, rail upgrading and alternative fuel programs. But the budget itself was even worse, with a billion-dollar attack on country Australians. In just three areas—regional development, agriculture and telecommunications—well over $1 billion was cut from programs when that money should have been spent and be being spent now in regional communities.
A number of regional programs worth $426 million provided by the previous government were cut back, and a new program worth only $176 million replaced them. Existing agricultural programs worth $334 million were replaced by new programs worth just $220 million. Labor scrapped the $959 million OPEL contract to provide fast broadband to all Australians and replaced it with expenditure of just $271 million. People who should be getting fast broadband speeds now will have to wait years for the Labor program to come to fruition—if it is ever built. And it is the people in regional Australia that miss out because Labor has so bungled its broadband philosophies.
Labor introduced Caring for our Country, a $2 billion program for environmental and other works around the nation. They have made a great play of that $2 billion expenditure. However, it is $1 billion less than was provided under the NHT and the NAP by the previous government. The regional catchment authorities have had their budgets cut by 40 per cent. They are laying off staff. They were lulled into a false sense of security by the minister’s suggestion that they could apply for some future funding, and that would be shared out amongst them. Now we find out that amount of money is just $25 million and not just the catchment management authorities are going to apply for that money but indeed a wide range of other organisations—local government and industry groups—will also be competing for that funding. The reality is that in spite of Labor’s rhetoric about their care for the environment they have slashed $1 billion off the available funding.
On Saturday the people of Gippsland are going to go to the polls to elect a new member of parliament. Despite the spin we sometimes get from Labor head office, Labor think they can win this seat. The Prime Minister has been down there twice and it would not surprise me if he popped up again before the election in Gippsland. He has written to every family in the electorate to support Labor’s candidate because he wants another member of his cheer squad to be sitting behind him in Parliament House. When he waves his wand he wants another person to say, ‘How high do I jump?’
The people of Gippsland need somebody who will stand up for them. Gippsland needs someone who will be a voice for them in Canberra, not Canberra’s voice in Gippsland. They want somebody who will stand up for people in regional Australia. The government has already got far too much power, and regional Australians need strong voices that will stand up and be counted for people who live outside the capital cities. This government has made it absolutely clear that it cares nothing for those who live outside the capital cities. And yet the Prime Minister had the gall to write to everybody in Gippsland and recommend that they vote for the Labor candidate because he would be concerned about their jobs. This is the same Mr McCubbin who recently said in his local media that the drought which has gripped the region and much of Australia was caused by the operation of the Latrobe Valley power stations. The guy who is supposed to be standing up for the jobs of people who live and work in the Gippsland area says that the problems of global warming and the drought in the nation are all caused by their own power stations—the power stations in the Latrobe Valley. Let me quote his exact words:
Perhaps the fact we are so tied to coal fired power is the reason we’ve been in drought for six years ... Compared to the rest of the world we are really slack in terms of what we churn out of coal fired power stations.
These are outlandish views but particularly outlandish coming from a man who wants to represent the power workers of the Latrobe Valley. If you thought that these views and this lack of concern for the power workers of the Latrobe Valley were perhaps flippant, what about the Prime Minister’s own comments today in answer to a question from the member who will be speaking shortly? That was another demonstration that Labor is quite happy to trade off the jobs of the power workers of the Latrobe Valley to entertain the people in the cities.
The Prime Minister has clearly panicked on his plans for an emissions-trading scheme. They have had these secret midnight cabinet meetings so that no public servant will even know that they are on—or were they just kept waiting so long that they all went home? But they are having these secret meetings to try to develop some kind of emissions-trading scheme. The Prime Minister is becoming increasingly irrational in his statements on emissions trading. Today he even said that we are all going to get dengue fever if we do not have an emissions-trading scheme. How illogical is that? And he talks about other people having a scare campaign. To suggest that we are all going to get dengue fever unless we embrace Labor’s emissions-trading scheme is clearly a nonsense.
Climate change is a serious issue and it needs to be taken seriously, and there needs to be a serious response. We need to promote the use of vehicles and machinery that are more energy efficient, and certainly continue to reduce our carbon emissions to create a greener future. But we will not do this with half-baked schemes that destroy thousands of jobs, drive up inflation and leave Australia at a long-term disadvantage compared with competitors around the world. How can pensioners live on $273 a week if they are also going to have to face higher petrol prices, higher electricity prices and higher costs of living as a result of Labor’s plans for regional Australia?
The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government is amongst those who do not seem to be able to make up their minds about whether Labor wants to increase prices of petrol or put them down. A few days ago he was quoted as saying that fuel had to be a part of the emissions-trading scheme. Today in question time he was trying to back out of his commitments in that regard. But the people of Gippsland need to know that Labor are the party of higher fuel prices. They are the party that promised to put downward pressure on prices but they have failed to deliver.
This is the same minister, Mr Albanese, who told the House last week, in one of his typical tirades of abuse against people who live in regional areas, how dreadful it was that the previous government had approved $60,000 in funding under the Regional Partnerships program to upgrade public toilets in Lock, a small, struggling country town in South Australia. It is the kind of community that needs a little bit of help with important projects. And this was not just a routine toilet block; this was an innovative development that included the use of stormwater. It was an environmentally friendly project that would have been a model for people in other places. But the minister stuck his boot into the little town of Lock, accused them of rorting and accused them of being associated with programs that were completely unsatisfactory.
I have to say that I was somewhat astonished therefore that 48 hours later the Minister for Sport went down to Gippsland to announce $160,000 for the redevelopment of the Traralgon West sports complex and that project included the building of new public toilets. So new public toilets can be built in Traralgon West—that is okay—but when the little town of Lock wants to have funding provided for a toilet block that is a scandal. Labor goes down into Gippsland and announces $160,000 for a toilet block. I have no problem with a toilet block being built in Traralgon West. It is undoubtedly a very worthwhile project. But the government cannot criticise the previous government for funding a regional project in a little town and then go out and do exactly the same thing—except that they spent double the money—in a project of their own.
I welcome the arrival of the minister for infrastructure. I have just been drawing attention to the fact that—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Leader of the National Party has suggested that I said a few days ago that fuel must be—
The Leader of the House will—
It is a point of order.
The Leader of the House will resume his seat. That is not a point of order. If you have been misrepresented, there are forms of the House in which that can be addressed.
And I am using them.
No, you are not. The Leader of the House will resume his seat. I will rule on his point of order. It is not a point of order. If he has been misrepresented, he can use the correct forms of the House.
Mr Robert interjecting
I rise on a further point of order. Mr Deputy Speaker, you heard quite clearly the member for Fadden continually make interjections across this chamber that are offensive. I ask that they be withdrawn.
I did not hear, with all the other hubbub, what the interjection was.
If the Leader of the House was offended, I withdraw.
The Minister for Sport went down to the electorate and announced $160,000 of funding for a toilet block when the minister had criticised the previous government for a much smaller grant a little while ago. Is it any wonder that the media are calling this ‘sports rort II’?
As soon as he got into office, the minister for regional development, who comes from a Sydney electorate, closed the regional offices of his own department, set up a Better Cities unit to occupy the time of his staff and abolished the Regional Partnerships program, the Growing Regions program and the Sustainable Regions program. He set up a new Better Regions program, but this is a program that no-one who lives in a non-Labor electorate can even apply for. Ninety per cent of all the projects to be funded are in Labor electorates and Labor target seats. No-one else can even apply. This is not better regions; this is better rorts. He is the king of rorts; the man who invented the Fort Street rort; the man who rerouted the railway line through his own electorate at a cost of $300 million. This is the man who criticises other people for not appropriately spending money—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask that that be withdrawn. It is just not true. You cannot just make things up.
The Leader of the House will resume his seat.
I am sorry that the minister is so sensitive about these matters. Perhaps when he makes criticism of regional organisations and accuses community groups of being rorters he ought to also be a bit more sensitive. The reality is that the Labor Party have demonstrated that they have no interest in people who live in regional communities. Projects will not be assessed on their merits. The only projects that are being funded are those that are in key Labor marginal seats. Is it any coincidence, therefore, that we suddenly get these announcements in the seat of Gippsland, where previously there was no interest?
The people of Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley contribute a great deal to Victoria and to our nation. Yet just today the Victorian Auditor-General released a report showing that the regional road network in Victoria has deteriorated under the Bracks and the Brumby state Labor governments. Labor is refocusing its road expenditure away from regional areas and into the cities. A classic example is the road funding in the seat of Gippsland, where the Labor Party have slashed the funding committed by the previous government to the Princes Highway upgrade. That is what Labor think of people who live in regional Australia. They have no interest when there is no election being held in the area, just some passing comments.
The reality is that Labor are not able to address the issues of regional Australia because they do not care. They have been told that their policies will not lower fuel prices in regional Australia but they have no solution. The Prime Minister admitted that he had no plan to lower fuel prices in regional areas. He has no plan to meet the extra costs— (Time expired)
I am surprised. Today has been a day on which, for reasons that are quite proper, the Leader of the Opposition was not able to be present for most of question time. One would have normally expected the Leader of the National Party to have taken a position of some eminence in this place, given that the Leader of the Opposition was absent. Did we see that? No. Why didn’t we see that? Because the Leader of the National Party is simply incapable of getting beyond his own past. The matter of importance that we have for discussion today is the impact of government policies on regional communities. But this is not about that, and they know it is not about that. It is actually about going back to the trough and back to pork barrels.
Do you know what is most important? The very first document that we got in this place as new members of parliament was the Australian National Audit Office’s review of the program which the Leader of the National Party ran, the performance audit review of Regional Partnerships, which is damning—caustic—in the way in which it describes the maladministration and the lack of focus on proper public policy outcomes in this program. The Howard government abolished the Department of Regional Development—got rid of it—in 1996. Why did they get rid of it? Because regional development was not important to the Howard government at all. Former Howard government Ministers Truss and Vaile did not even discover regional Australia; they discovered a pork barrel. They were never about regional development; they were always about pork.
What do we mean by only being about pork? We often hear from those opposite about the Regional Partnerships program, which is what this debate today is about. It is not about regional Australia; it is about hankering after your past and trying to make good the appalling record that you left behind. For instance, the Leader of the Nationals said on ABC Broken Hill radio on 8 May:
Now this program was specifically designed to provide things in small communities. Big cities have got the resources and can often provide, on a commercial basis, projects which are simply unviable in regional areas.
That is what the Leader of the National Party said to regional Australia not eight weeks ago, but what do we see from the program approved by the former government? We see $1.5 billion to the North Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club in the 2007 election. (Quorum formed) This debate is not at all about development in regional Australia; this debate is merely about the National Party once again trying to re-present the horrible litany of incompetence, maladministration and pork-barrelling as evidenced by the National Audit Office’s report into the Regional Partnerships program. Once again, we see the National Party masquerading as the protectors of regional Australia.
But the Leader of the National Party did raise a very important matter and that is the issue of the by-election in Gippsland on this weekend. I would like to place on record in this place before the Australian people that Labor’s candidate, Darren McCubbin, is an excellent candidate. He is 46 years old and well known in Gippsland. He is known for bringing theatre to the people of Gippsland and fostering leadership qualities in the young people of the region. He is a writer, a producer, an actor, a director and the coordinator of just about every festival in the region. When we describe the make-up of candidates who are ideal for regional Australia, Darren McCubbin is just that candidate. He is the current Mayor of Wellington Shire. He has spent more than half of his life in Sale, where he established his entertainment business 17 years ago. Darren is married to his wife, Jill. She is the daughter of a local dairy farmer, and they have two daughters, Marni, five, and Ella, three. They live on a small rural block on the edge of Longford.
Darren was born in Yallourn. He saw a lot of Victoria as a child, because his father was a teacher who liked to travel a lot. He attended Hallam High School then Monash University, completing an honours degree in science in 1982. He also has a Diploma of Education from Monash Gippsland. He really is a local boy. He is a boy who knows that part of the world like the back of his hand. He was being trained as a forecaster for the Bureau of Meteorology but decided to return to the country to take up a career as a secondary school mathematics and physics teacher in 1984 with Sale Catholic College.
From 1992 to 1995, Darren organised the Sale Mainstreet Program, which was designed to breathe life back into the local retail shopping strip. He formed the Wishbone Children’s Theatre for children’s shows, and The Murder Company, which hosts social and corporate murder and mystery nights. His company produces more than 250 performances each year locally, throughout Australia and in the Asia Pacific. Darren has been director of several local festivals, including the Mallacoota Festival of the Southern Ocean, the Stratford Shakespeare on the River Festival and the Bairnsdale youth festival. He also directed the Sale 150th celebrations and the Sale Water Water Arts Festival and was a performer at the Buchan blues festival. He is an Australian champion town crier as well.
This is a man with real qualities, real capacity to represent his committee and a real connection to regional Australia. Darren has been a councillor since 2003 and was elected mayor in 2007. He chairs a number of council boards, including for the Stephenson Park recreation reserve, Swing Bridge, Sale Netball relocation committee and the RSL memorials committee, and is on the board of the Wellington Youth Network. Darren graduated from the Gippsland Community Leadership Program in 2002 and sits on the board of the Australian Technical College in Gippsland. He is President of the Sale Theatre Company, Treasurer of Gippsland Regional Arts—Sale and Treasurer of Wellington Residents Against Toxic Hazards. He is a member of the committee of the federal government’s Festivals Australia panel and was made its chair in 2007.
He is a candidate who knows his community. He is a candidate who cares for his community and he is a candidate who, when he is elected on Saturday, will stand for something in this place. He will stand for regional Australia. He will stand for regional communities and he will not be cowed by the National Party and the way in which they cowardly bring into this place arguments which are merely designed to make look good that which the National Audit Office has itself said was a disgrace.
What we saw under the Regional Partnerships program, which the leader of the National Party seeks to defend in this place today, was taxpayers’ money paid to companies that were going broke despite, on many occasions, departmental advice not to pay that money. That happened several times. One would be surprised. I have said it many times in this place: the National Party simply have no capacity for trial and error learning. When you make a payment to a company that goes broke, once might be described as a mistake; twice is silly. But it happened time and time again. It happened with Indigo Cheese, it happened with Coonawarra Gold and it happened with Tailwaggers Essential Pet Food Pty Ltd. Under the Regional Partnerships program an astounding 16 projects were terminated because they failed to get off the ground. The House has heard of many of those 16 projects, but one—Tailwaggers—stands out for particular attention. A company called Tailwaggers Essential Pet Food was in Walgett, which was then in the seat of Gwydir, held by John Anderson, former leader of the National Party and at the time the minister responsible for the Regional Partnerships program. So the National Party have real form on this issue. Now we know how often the National Party’s tail has been wagged by the Liberal Party dog when it comes to regional programs. We have known that for quite some time.
What we know about Tailwaggers is that $246,477 was awarded to them. What we know is that after two years Tailwaggers failed to deliver any pet food at all. When we look at the program, when we look at how it was administered and when we look at the beneficiaries, we do not just see pork, we see pork and we see rorts, and the National Party knows that. Members opposite have told us many times that the Regional Partnerships program was about small grants for small projects. They tell us that it funded small community organisations, but we know that in reality it funded commercial enterprises too. We know that it was treated merely as a ‘free money’ option by businesses that could turn up to the door of the National Party and get ‘free money’—interest free, tax free—for almost any purpose. And if you ever believed that this fund was to be used for small community organisations—I have mentioned in this place before the correspondence that I have received from companies that believed they had got a promise, believed that they had a cheque in the mail, believed that their money was all done and dusted—I have one here, again from an ethanol plant. This ethanol plant believed that the former government had promised it funding. You know, the truth of it is that on so many occasions the former government did promise funding; they just did not complete or sign contracts. They just did not complete the paperwork. Why? Because on so many occasions what they were looking to do was merely win the votes, not actually invest in regional Australia.
It is actually a good thing that they did not invest in this particular ethanol plant. Here is the real grab in what the ethanol plant says to us. It says that they are particularly angry because not getting the ‘free money’ from the government means that they will not be able to get access to ‘large profits given the price of oil and fuel’. So here we have a National Party thinking it is about regional development, when in fact it uses ‘free money’ from the taxpayer, from a whole bunch of hardworking Australians, to support what? A company that was merely looking to make large amounts of money from oil and from fuel given the very high prices that Australians are now paying for petrol. It was not an enterprise designed, according to this letter, to build jobs; it was not an enterprise designed to create infrastructure in the community; it was not an enterprise designed to create a future for our regional communities; it was an enterprise designed merely to take advantage of the very high prices that currently prevail for hydrocarbons.
In this place, from time to time, you are surprised by what people say. I have never been surprised at the willingness of the National Party to repeatedly attempt to defend the indefensible; to repeatedly come into this place to use the time of this place to try to make good that which cannot be made good; to try to disguise the horrific public administration that is demonstrated in the Australian National Audit Office review of Regional Partnerships; and to try to pretend that somehow grants that were made without applications being filled in, grants that were made for companies that never produced a thing, grants that were made to seats that were held by the National Party members, grants that were made against the advice of the government department for which the minister was personally responsible were valid. And to cap it all off, today, on a day when the Leader of the Nationals should have come into this place, effectively as the Leader of the Opposition, and stamp his authority on this place as that person, he did not. He failed. (Time expired)
Mr Deputy Speaker, I have listened very carefully to the member for Brand and I have never been more disappointed in an individual performance in this place and it is for this reason: unlike me, he does not know these names. He does not know Jane Rowe, he does not know Keith and Kath Hamilton, he does not know Rohan Fitzgerald—
I do know Darren McCubbin!
You do know Darren Chester; you do not know Darren McCubbin. If he knew these individuals, he would not have ever put up that defence and that character assessment of Darren McCubbin. Darren McCubbin was not even a member of the Labor Party a few weeks ago. I know Darren McCubbin. Darren McCubbin is a decent guy who does thespians great—
Government members interjecting—
He is a decent guy, but he is not a patch on the former Labor candidate for Gippsland, who was Jane Rowe. Jane Rowe was one of the better Labor candidates I have ever experienced, and I have been around this place since 1990. She was decent, she was hard working, she was feisty, she was determined. And what did the Labor Party do to her? They ripped the ground out from under her in one foul stroke and they brought in someone of no consequence to the Labor Party whatsoever. Jane Rowe was an outstanding candidate for the Labor Party. She had put the work and the years and the effort in. And what did they turn around and do? They just dumped her.
Who did you upset when you did that? You upset a former agriculture minister in the Cain-Kirner government, Keith Hamilton, and his wife, Kath Hamilton, great Labor stalwarts of the Latrobe Valley. I know them well, and you have destroyed the grassroots of your own party by what you have done in thrusting this candidate onto Gippsland. This candidate is not a believable Labor candidate in this marginal seat. Have you decided you do not want a bar of this seat? I can tell you what you are doing and what you are not doing: you have taken $1 billion, as the Leader of the Nationals said, out of all of your programs that affect regional Victoria and Australia. Let us put that out of the way. We know what you have done; that is on the record. What we have done for Gippsland is put in the Pakenham Bypass—and thank heavens we got that completed before you got in because you would probably have taken the white lines off that too, if you could have. You would have refused to put the white lines on the Pakenham Bypass. That is how stingy you have become.
I know that there is no future for this Labor government in rural Australia, and that is why the member for Brand would have been part of this. As a former Secretary of the Australian Labor Party, he knows full well what seats he wants to win at the next election. He is not interested in rural Australia. Their inroads have gone as far as they can possibly go and they have made a decision: ‘Yeah, we’ll give the $2 million to Moe; yes, we’ll do the Traralgon sports ground that we said we’d do. But we’re doing it grudgingly; we don’t want to do it. We’ll just impose our candidate from head office in Melbourne and dump on Jane Rowe and her family completely. We don’t care if we upset the whole of the Labor Party across Gippsland; we just want to implement what we have said we will do.’ This is the Rudd proposal for rural Australia.
Why did you take money from the Traralgon Bypass? That is plainly ridiculous. It is not a sensible move—Traralgon needs it.
You have both talked about this election campaign. I wanted to talk about rural issues. Member for Brand, you were obviously very prepared in what you were about to do and responded in an exhortation on behalf of a candidate you have never met and do not know, who has never been in the party, has not got your history in the party and has not got the history of the other members who are sitting here and who deserve to be in this place. You are promoting someone who has no right to be in this place and, on Saturday, if we can do our best with Rohan Fitzgerald and Darren Chester, we will make sure he never gets into this place.
What you have not done is protect jobs in the coal industry. You have not even expressed a view that you might actually care about what is happening in the power industry down there. You have an alignment with Bob Brown. Bob Brown has an agenda about the Hazelwood power station. He wants a notch on his belt and he is going to use the Labor Party and the Rudd government to get that notch on his belt. He wants a trophy. He keeps saying, ‘Hazelwood power station: dirtiest power station in the world, if not the whole of the galaxy.’ Actually, it is quite an efficient power station that can be brought on line, raised up and then brought back. It is a very good power station that supplies 27 per cent of our power in Victoria and, therefore, pours into the national grid. It is a very important operation. There are 500 jobs swinging around that now. You may not work in the power industry in Gippsland, but there are many people that, if they do not work in it, know somebody who does work in the power industry. They will be treating their vote very carefully on Saturday, because they know that every Green vote is on its way to the Labor Party every time they slot one and that that is a cross against the power industry in Gippsland.
The Rudd government is not saying anything—it does not want to offend any Green voter. It is not actually a believer in clean coal. It is not a believer in all the effort that the previous government put into clean coal. It is not interested in the fact that there has been a great decline in the number of dairy farmers, as reported in the paper. It is not interested in the real issue of how to get doctors into rural Australia. There was not even a mention of that during the campaign. These are crucial issues for people who represent regional Australia—and, if you do not understand that, you do not understand anything about communities that need hospital services. In the Labor Party manifesto in Gippsland, there is not one mention anywhere of what the Rudd government is going to do about the hospitals, because it is running away from the issue of doctors in hospitals. The CSIRO, which used to be the great information gatherer for farmers and future farmers, has been starved of funds and it is selling off property and closing down its facilities.
The member for Brand was speaking today about a six-year-old audit report that showed that the process actually worked. The auditor had a look at it and said, ‘Here are the recommendations I am putting forward; you should be making some changes.’ Those changes were made by the former government, and there were processes implemented so that Regional Partnerships, which when you came into power was completely above board, went into many Labor seats. They were very good programs. Regional infrastructure is terribly important to what happens not only in Gippsland but right across the whole of Australia, and you have reduced the funds that are going to go into regional infrastructure. I will look forward to the program you may put in place next year. Regional arts have suffered under what you have done. You talked about Darren McCubbin. You have actually taken money off what your own candidate used to do. He was involved in arts in Gippsland up until a few weeks ago, and now you have removed money from the area where he was doing all the good work that the member for Brand just talked about a few minutes ago. It is unbelievable what the Labor Party do not know about their own program, their own candidate and what is going on in Gippsland. You are running on the Rudd line—‘Rudd will get us over the line here.’ You have not considered local people. You have not considered your own local branch members, let alone the local voters in the seat of Gippsland. Why haven’t the Labor Party recognised that the local people down there are going to make a local decision about whom they want to represent them here in Canberra? They will vote for a local person who has credibility in politics.
That’s Darren McCubbin!
Darren McCubbin has no credibility in the political psyche of Gippsland—absolutely none—whereas both Rohan Fitzgerald and Darren Chester have a history of party activity, a history of representation and a history of local activity, particularly with regard to health care. They understand the issues of doctors and they understand the issues of hospitals, roads and infrastructure. I never go out of my way to offend a member on the other side, particularly the member for Brand. He has a history in the Labor Party, but he had to stand up there and shamefully defend a candidate he has never met and does not know and who has no future.
The member for McMillan has just suggested that Darren McCubbin has no right to be in this place. Those were his words. He said he had ‘no right to be in this place’. It is an outrageous slur on a well-known Gippsland community leader, who is the current Wellington Shire mayor and who has lived more than half his life in Sale, to suggest that he has no right to be in this place. I hope that comment of the member for McMillan is widely reported in Gippsland, because it is not members of the Liberal Party who decide who sits in this place; it is the people of the seat of Gippsland.
I am very pleased that the Leader of the Nationals has raised this matter today in the House. It is understandable that the Nationals would want to discuss the impact of government policies on regional communities, because the Nationals must have been pondering this topic a lot and wondering where they went so wrong. In every election over the last decade, the Nationals have watched their vote wilt away and their representation in this House disappear. Perhaps, if they had asked themselves 11 years ago how government policies impacted on regional communities, they would not be in the position they find themselves in today. Perhaps they would still hold Hume, Capricornia, New England or Kennedy. Or perhaps they would still hold Dawson, Page, Farrer or Richmond. And perhaps we would not be witnessing the incredible political shrinking act that is playing out before us. The National Party are like a spurned lover—unable to comprehend where they went wrong but refusing to give up. As the votes slip away, the Nationals keep going back for more, refusing to accept that they need to change their policies. After each rebuff the Nationals go back, like a spurned lover, thinking they can get away with not changing their ways and instead trying to buy their way back into the hearts of the Australian people and into the hearts of regional communities.
Once they got their hands on the Regional Partnerships program, it was like they had a charge account where they could buy everything they thought regional Australia wanted. Like a lover returning with flowers, chocolate and wine, the Nationals would go back again and again. But in their case they bought a cheese factory that did not work, a rail line that burnt down, an ethanol plant that did not exist and a grape seed oil factory that went bust. Just to remind members of the House, this was the same grape seed oil factory whose general manager was a state Liberal candidate.
We heard not one word from the Leader of the Nationals today about the three-volume National Audit Office report on the Regional Partnerships program published last year. That is because it concluded:
... the manner in which the Programme had been administered over the three year period to 30 June 2006 examined by ANAO had fallen short of an acceptable standard of public administration ...
Just to remind members of the House, the report showed that in a 51-minute spending spree before going into caretaker mode before the 2004 election the former National Party member for Dawson and parliamentary secretary approved 16 projects worth $3.3 million. But the report last year did not stop them. We have learned since that the former Liberal-National government approved 32 projects in the week before the 2007 election caretaker period, 28 of them in seats held by the Nationals and the Liberal Party. But the Leader of the Nationals still defends the Regional Partnerships program. He told ABC Broken Hill radio on 14 May:
Well, I don’t think there’s any examples of it being rorted.
He has not been looking very closely and he clearly has not read the National Audit Office report. He does not understand that looking after regional Australia does not mean regional rorts.
The Leader of the Nationals has said some extraordinary things about the Regional Partnerships program. On 8 May this year he told the same radio station, ABC Broken Hill:
This program was specifically designed to provide things in small communities ... The big cities have got the resources and can often provide on a commercial basis projects which are simply unviable in regional areas.
You would think, from listening to that, that Regional Partnerships was all about regional communities, but in fact—and the House has heard this before—$43 million from the Regional Partnerships program went in grants to capital cities. And, as mentioned already this afternoon by the member for Brand, over $5 million went to projects at Bondi Beach.
The Regional Partnerships program has been replaced. Labor has introduced the $176 million Better Regions program to fund projects identified by local communities as priority investments. There are a host of other commitments to communities in regional Australia, including the new Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, $74 million for a new regional development Australia network, $8 million for the Office of Northern Australia in Townsville and Darwin, $10 billion for rural and regional road and rail initiatives over five years and $1.9 billion for local governments across Australia. The Leader of the Nationals has provided us with a wonderful opportunity to talk about the benefits of some of this government’s policies for people around the country and particularly people in regional communities. We can talk about the many thousands—(Quorum formed) It is the sound policies of the Rudd Labor government and the neglect by the former government that the people of Gippsland will have in their minds when they go to vote this Saturday. The Leader of the Nationals, in raising this matter today, has provided the opportunity to talk about a whole range of present government policies. (Time expired)
I rise to draw the public’s attention to the real problems we have in rural and regional Australia. Policy failure is compounding the distress that is being caused right now by climate issues and by a whole range of social and economic circumstances that are beyond the control of individuals and communities. I do not think we have ever before seen rural and regional communities driven to place full-page notices in metropolitan daily newspapers—like the one I am holding up, placed today by a group in northern Victoria. They are talking about the north-south pipeline and they are begging for a reversal of a Labor government policy that is denying them the ability to continue to grow food for the nation. But the combination of failed state and federal Labor water policy is driving them to do just that—to spend more than $30,000 on notices. At a time of global food shortages, when drought is decimating the productive capacity of most of the Murray-Darling Basin and climate change is making most of Australia’s most productive farmland hotter and drier, the federal government appears hell-bent on allowing environmental and food production water to be diverted to cities such as Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. These cities have other water supply options such as recycling and stormwater reuse. It is just unconscionable that a north-south pipeline go ahead.
Decades ago, farmers in New South Wales and Victoria settled into a system to trade their water entitlements with each other to improve the efficiency and value of production from the use of that water. The market was orderly and transparent. The prices in that market are now completely distorted, as this government has dumped into it an initial $50 million and then another $2 billion or more to try to buy water for the environment. That is a failure of policy because the water licences they are buying are empty, as are the Hume Dam, the Dartmouth Dam and the dams on the Goulburn River. The farmers there will again have zero allocations at the opening of the next irrigation season. Buying water and distorting the market is destroying food production potential, it is destroying the viability of irrigation systems now and into the future and it does not deliver real water to the dying Murray River. It is failed policy and Labor knows better.
Why has this government turned its back on investment in on-farm water use efficiency? The coalition had over $2 billion on the table. That would have produced real water for the environment, real adaptation to climate change and real increases in on-farm productivity. Farmers could have been helped to produce twice as much with half the water. That policy has been shelved. Instead we have had this nonsense of the buyback of water from drought-stressed, lender-pushed farmers. It is failed policy which is going to have enormous intergenerational impacts. Rural Australia was deeply concerned at the possibility of a change of government last November. They knew that Labor would bury them, but they were not sure whether it would be through ignorance, inexperience, a desire to punish or a totally city-centric bias. It would seem that the policy failures and removal of adequate resources are a combination of all of these factors.
I want you to consider Gippsland. Gippsland is a typical hardworking, hands-on rural community that produces more than the average effort in energy production. Its crime seems to be that it has been well represented by the coalition for generations. It should be, and probably will be, for the future. But, right now, its key government services and volunteer effort are being destroyed by Rudd government cuts, pre-budget cuts and policy failures. Let us begin with what Labor has done to kill off the capacity of the locals to sustain their environment and overcome the ravages of fire, then flood and now drought. Landcare has been cut by 20 per cent, the Maffra and District Landcare group is in despair, the local West Gippsland and East Gippsland catchment management authorities have been slashed by 40 per cent, the Envirofund has gone, the biodiversity hot spot funding has gone, the natural resource management officers are gone, the community water grants are gone, strategic roads funding has gone and the Regional Partnerships money has gone for now. Also, the Bureau of Meteorology has been cut back, so they will not know when the next flood is bearing down on them.
Gippsland has some of the most efficient food production in Australia but, like the rest of the country, it too will suffer from CSIRO slashing its on-the-ground research stations—shutting them down because Rudd says they must. If that is not enough, the schools infrastructure grants have gone, and many country schools long neglected by Labor state governments will now not be able to take advantage of their first chance in decades to fix toilets, heating, cooling, shadecloth, playground equipment, interactive whiteboards and computers. (Time expired)
I welcome this matter of public importance debate because, in the short period that this government has been in office, I think we have a really positive record in my electorate of Wakefield, in South Australia and across the country. But I must admit that the question is so broad I did not expect to see such a focus from the opposition on Gippsland. We heard the member for McMillan go through a soap opera of characters. From what I read about Darren McCubbin, I understand he has lived in the area for the whole of his life and he might represent the area well, unlike his predecessor, who presided over the equine influenza disaster. (Quorum formed) I am glad I have a crowd, if only for a short period.
One thing that has not been mentioned in this debate is the issue of computers in schools. In my own electorate, the high school in the town of Clare, which is one of the regional towns in my electorate—it has great wine—will receive 110 computers and Riverton High School, which is just down the road, will receive 73 computers. I do not know very much about Gippsland and I do not know very much about Darren McCubbin, but I can tell you this: in this place here is a vote for computers in schools—not just in Gippsland, not just in Wakefield but across the country, and that counts for a lot.
It used to be said that the National Party tail wagged the Liberal Party dog. That was code for saying that the country did better out of a coalition than it should. But with the previous government, if it was a dog it was a doberman, a vicious dog with a very small tail, because we know that over the decade the regions did not do so well. There was underfunding of roads; there was an annual reduction of $244 million a year over that period.
It would have been a miniature doberman.
It would have nipped at your ankles. Regional communities were the first to suffer from that cruel hoax with the road funding. Many people in my electorate, many local mayors, have told me that they are very happy that road funding in South Australia has received a supplementary payment. (Time expired)
Order! The discussion is now concluded.
Messages from the Governor-General reported informing the House of assent to the bills.
Message received from the Senate returning the bills without amendment or request.
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.
I believe I was at the point, just before question time, of outlining to the House the rescue plan and other initiatives of the Rudd Labor government in relation to climate change and the Great Barrier Reef. The rescue plan is a key component of the $2.2 billion Caring for our Country initiative to restore the health of Australia’s environment and to build on improved land management practices. The $200 million five-year reef rescue plan includes $146 million for a Great Barrier Reef Water Quality Grants Program, $12 million for a Healthy Reef Partnerships Program, $10 million for a Great Barrier Reef Water Quality Research and Development Program, $22 million for a Water Quality Monitoring and Reporting Program, and $10 million for the Land and Sea Country Indigenous Partnerships Program. In addition, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts has announced an inquiry into climate change and environmental impacts on coastal communities. The committee will inquire into and report on issues related to climate change and environmental pressures experienced by Australian coastal areas, particularly in the context of coastal population growth.
As a World Heritage listed area, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the most significant coastal zones of Australia. It is important that, in addition to the commitments announced in the budget and the work being undertaken by the standing committee, the government take other measures to conserve and protect our most precious natural assets. The protection of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef is provided for through legislation—most specifically the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. It is through this legislation that we are able to have a modern, future-focused regulatory framework for securing the long-term protection and ecologically sustainable management of the Great Barrier Reef.
The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef, covering some 344,400 square kilometres of unparalleled biodiversity and unique ecosystems. The Great Barrier Reef is one of the richest, most complex and diverse ecosystems in the world. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park begins at the tip of Cape York in Queensland and extends south almost to Bundaberg. The area is larger than Victoria and Tasmania combined and stretches more than 2,300 kilometres along the north-east coast of Australia. The Great Barrier Reef consists of a network of reefs—about 2,900 in total—and is home to thousands of species. Extensive areas of seagrass meadows, mangrove stands, salt marsh, and sand and mud areas provide a diverse range of habitats for many species. The diversity of the Great Barrier Reef’s natural values makes it a particularly unique and valued ecosystem.
In addition to the importance of preserving the natural beauty of the Great Barrier Reef and the many species that rely on it to survive, we must ensure the protection of the Great Barrier Reef for the benefit of the economy. The Great Barrier Reef is extremely important to the local, state and national economy. The reef and the surrounding coastal and catchment areas support substantial economic activity. The catchment area adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef comprises 22 per cent of Queensland’s land area and 20 per cent of its population. Around 80 per cent of land in this area supports agricultural production. The major urban centres are Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton and Gladstone. Each is a key port and has a population of between 26,000 and 140,000. The population along the Great Barrier Reef coast is currently around 850,000 and is expected to grow to one million by 2026.
There is significant economic activity in the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding coastal and catchment areas. Some of these activities occur solely or partly within the marine park itself, such as tourism and fishing. However, these two activities in particular also have strong links to many land based businesses such as equipment suppliers and seafood processing. Many industries that contribute to Australia’s overall economic prosperity, such as coal and sugar, rely on access to or passage through the marine park. An efficient and cost-effective port system is essential to such industries. Mining and tourism are the largest industries in catchment areas adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. Shipping activity within the Great Barrier Reef region and the Torres Strait facilitates substantial economic activity in Australia. There are approximately 6,000 ship movements of large vessels exceeding 50 metres in length in the Great Barrier Reef each year, plus some 1,500 tourism vessels, and 25,000 commercial and recreational fishing vessels. Bulk carriers make up around 40 per cent of ships using the Great Barrier Reef—10 per cent are oil tankers, 24 per cent container vessels and 22 per cent general cargo.
Tourism and recreation are important ways for people to experience and learn about the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef and help conserve this World Heritage area. I am one of those fortunate people who have had the opportunity to visit the Great Barrier Reef and in fact had my honeymoon scuba diving on the reef. To those who have never been there I strongly encourage you to go and experience this amazing area. It is so extraordinary that it cannot be adequately described. It is one of those areas that you truly have to see to believe. That is, of course, part of the reason why the Great Barrier Reef is a World Heritage area.
Approximately 1.9 million tourists and 4.9 million recreational visitors visit the Great Barrier Reef each year. The total contribution of tourism to the regional economy is estimated to be $4.2 billion, with some 9.3 million visitors to the region in 2003. This is projected to increase to $6.5 billion by 2020. Around 19 per cent of international visitors to Australia visit the Great Barrier Reef catchment area. In 2004 there were over 1.9 million visits to the Great Barrier Reef. Around 75 per cent of overnight visitors to the Great Barrier Reef are domestic, with about half of these coming from interstate. The tourism industry is the largest employer of all industries in the coastal and catchment areas of the Great Barrier Reef, providing approximately 40,000 jobs in the region. There are 840 commercial tourism operators in the marine park.
Commercial and recreational fishing, including charter fishing and spearfishing, are another major and longstanding use of the Great Barrier Reef. Major commercial fishing began in the 1950s. Currently there are 17 commercial fisheries operating solely or predominately in the marine park. It is estimated that there are around 198,000 recreational fishers using the Great Barrier Reef, including the catchment areas adjacent to the reef. The annual catch of these fishers is estimated to be around 8,500 tonnes. Recreational fishers are estimated to have spent between $80 million and $201 million on fishing activities in 2003.
Uniquely for a marine park and World Heritage area, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park abuts and overlays some of Australia’s most important military training areas and facilities. With regard to cultural values, there are around 470 shipwrecks in the marine park. Approximately 30 of these have been identified as historic. Various islands have operating lighthouses, ruins and other sites that are of cultural and historical significance. Two such sites are listed on the Commonwealth Heritage List. The sites comprise cast iron and timber light stations constructed in the 1870s that were important navigational aids in the development of regular coastal shipping in the difficult waters of the inner route of the Great Barrier Reef.
Importantly, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a long and continuing relationship with the Great Barrier Reef and its natural resources. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the traditional owners of the Great Barrier Reef region. For over 60,000 years their traditional connections have been part of the unique living maritime culture. There are more than 70 traditional owner groups along the coast from Bundaberg to the eastern Torres Strait Islands. Their traditional customs, spiritual lore and beliefs continue to be practised today. Their values for and interests in the islands, reefs and waters within the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait include physical places, story places and a range of other cultural and historical values.
It is for all of these reasons that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has such a significant role. The authority is the principal adviser to the Australian government on the care, development and management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The authority was established by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act. The bill before the House seeks to enhance the capabilities of the authority.
This bill arises from a review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 which was released in 2006. That review, not surprisingly, found that the act has served its purpose well over the past 30 years but needs to be updated and better integrated with other legislation to meet future needs and challenges. This is understandable considering the changes over the past 30 years in scientific evidence on climate change and also the changing nature of the economy. The bill implements recommendations 18 to 28 of the 2006 review and will establish, through this implementation, a modern and robust regulatory framework. This framework will provide the capability for the efficient and effective protection and management of the Great Barrier Reef into the future.
I turn now to the specifics of the bill. It will establish a modern framework for the administration of the act and for the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. This framework will be aligned and integrated with, but not duplicative of, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and other legislation. It includes a new objects section, recognition of the World Heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef and application of principles such as ecological sustainability and the precautionary principle. The bill will establish the act as the basis for environmental impact assessment of and approval for actions in the marine park that involve significant environmental impacts. This includes establishing the marine park as a matter of national environmental significance under the act.
There will be enhanced capability for investigation and evidence collection as a consequence of the passing of this bill. In particular, inspectors appointed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority will be allowed to use the investigation related powers of the EPBC Act for the purposes of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act. The bill will also provide a wider range of enforcement options, allowing for a more tailored and targeted approach to enforcement. This includes new administrative mechanisms, expanded availability of infringement notices and the introduction of civil penalty provisions.
Enhanced deterrents and encouragement of responsible use of the marine park are also provided for in the bill. This includes the adjustment of penalties to ensure they are neither too lenient nor too harsh, depending on the circumstances; the introduction of alternative sanctions such as remediation and publicity orders; and the establishment of an ‘environmental duty’ that will apply to marine park users, similar to that which applies under state legislation. As we would all appreciate, with so many users—domestic and international, recreational and commercial—it is important to have this flexibility in applying penalties. The bill will also establish new emergency management powers allowing the authority to respond to incidents presenting a serious risk to the environment of the marine park. These powers will complement and be subservient to those of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
I have already spoken about the significance of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to Indigenous people. This bill will rectify one of the Howard government’s failings. It will honour an election commitment by the Rudd Labor government to reinstate a requirement for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to include an Indigenous member.
As I have stated, the act has served its purpose well but needs to be updated and better integrated with other legislation to meet future needs and challenges. That is what will be delivered by the changes I have briefly summarised. As noted in the overall findings of the review, the Great Barrier Reef is iconic to Australians and internationally. This is recognised in its listing as a World Heritage area. As a party to the United Nations Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972, Australia has acknowledged a duty:
... of ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of the cultural and natural heritage ...
and that it will:
... do all it can to this end, to the utmost of its own resources ...
Arising from the 2006 comprehensive review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act, we now have before us a bill that seeks to implement key recommendations. This bill demonstrates the Australian government’s commitment to securing the future of the Great Barrier Reef and it strengthens our capacity to preserve this important feature of our nation’s and the world’s heritage for future generations.
I am privileged to live on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. Of course, my home is in Townsville. It is the headquarters of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and I have had a close association over many years now with the works of the authority and the wonderful works that the people of the authority have carried out in protecting this major national and world asset.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park stretches more than 3,200 kilometres down the Queensland coast. Just imagine where you would end up, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you went 3,200 kilometres starting in Victoria. You would not be in Victoria, not by a long way. It is a very large area off the north-east coastline of our country. The park covers 345,400 square kilometres and it is the world’s largest World Heritage area. I think we as Australians can be very proud of that.
It was in the term of the last government—and I was certainly very much a part of it—that the government completed a review into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act and the authority. That was completed in 2006. We then released a response accepting all of the recommendations while pushing for new criminal sanctions for some breaches of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park regulations. The essential changes were to update the act to reflect the fact that the Great Barrier Reef had been World Heritage listed, that the coalition government had introduced the EPBC Act and that there were gaps in emergency management powers. The new bill also picks up the coalition government’s decision to move beyond a criminal penalty only system to allow for specific performance, such as reef recovery or civil penalties, for breaches such as fishing in no-take zones.
The government also released at the time a statement of expectations. When we finalised our response, the review concluded that the authority should continue as a statutory authority comprising a group of statutory office holders collectively responsible for the functioning and governance of the authority. The review also confirmed the rule of government in establishing expectations of the authority in relation to overarching performance objectives, values and application of broader government policies. The review recommended in recommendation 13 that, to provide structure, clarity and transparency in the setting of government expectations and the oversight of performance, the minister issue a regular statement of expectations and the authority respond with a statement of intent.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 before the parliament tonight is welcomed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. It brings the authority into the modern world. The recent history of the authority has propelled it from Townsville onto the world stage. I well remember what happened in the community and particularly the fishing community when we made the major decision to protect the World Heritage listed area through the increase in no-take zones. I well remember standing up before a meeting of 1,000 fishermen who wanted to take me out the back and hang me from the highest tree. But I stood my ground and stood in front of that community and said, ‘In the long run this will benefit the fishing industry, it will benefit the tourism industry, it will make sure that our country’s name as a protector of World Heritage will be enhanced and we may in fact get some dividends for the rest of the world.’ Later on in this presentation I will enlarge on that and indicate that I was right and the fishermen were wrong. We proceeded. The minister at the time was David Kemp and, to his eternal credit, he stuck by the policy, knowing that it was the right way to go, and so did the Prime Minister at the time. They made sure that we got the outcome that we wanted for the World Heritage area.
I was really pleased then that yesterday the Australian Institute of Marine Science—which is also based in Townsville along with other related organisations such as James Cook University and MTSRF—issued a press release. I would like to indicate to the House and my colleagues one of the outcomes of the green zone policy that was introduced. The press release goes like this:
Dramatic evidence that protected fish populations can bounce back rapidly from the impact of years of heavy fishing has been obtained by a team of marine scientists working on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR).
A spectacular recovery in coral trout numbers on unfished reefs has been reported by researchers following the imposition of a strict no-fishing policy across 33 per cent of the total GBR area in 2004, to form the world’s largest network of no-take reserves.
A team led by Professor Garry Russ of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University, Dr Hugh Sweatman of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and supported by the Australian Government’s Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility—
which is what I referred to before as MTSRF—
has found coral trout numbers rebounded by 31-75 per cent on a majority of reefs which had been closed to fishing for as little as 1.5 to 2 years.
That is a terrific outcome. That has been reported now around the world. That outcome has attracted world attention to what we have been able to achieve.
For the closed inshore reefs of Palm Island, for example, which is an Indigenous community in my electorate, there were increases in coral trout population densities of 65 per cent to 75 per cent compared with reefs left open to fishing. What that says to fishermen is that, if you have no-take zones, the fish grow larger and produce more fingerlings. Those fish then go outside the no-take zones and in fact there are more fish for the fishermen to catch. But the thing is sustainable. The green zones, therefore, are very much working and the science supports that. I am pleased to see that the emotion that I saw at that meeting of 1,000 fishermen has been replaced—I think the fishermen realise this now—by science and it has been demonstrated that fishermen are better off because of what has happened.
There are currently some hot-button issues in the marine park. One of them is shale oil. That will not have been mentioned in this debate, but it is a hot-button issue. It is an emerging issue with what is happening with the world fuel supply at the moment. There are very significant shale oil beds stretching from Gladstone right up to the Whitsundays—very significant areas indeed. There will be pressure one day for them to be mined. There was an attempt quite some years ago in Gladstone to run pilot plants on this, but the problem is that the shale oil goes out under the sea and therefore under the marine park. That is something that we very much need to come to grips with. It currently impacts on the park if dredging goes on in that area. That disturbs the shale oil beds and, of course, you get pollution in the reef waters.
Another issue that has emerged during this sitting of the parliament has been the fear that carbon sequestration technology would be allowed to be used underneath the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. What generated that fear was that the bill that was presented to the parliament—last week, I think—did not rule out allowing carbon sequestration under the marine park. I am very pleased that the government has since said, ‘No, it’s not our intention to allow that.’ But I have certainly said publicly that when it comes time for the formal debate I will move an amendment to the bill, which I am sure the government will support in view of its announcement last week, that the bill include the prohibition of carbon sequestration under the reef. What alerted us, of course, was that a few weeks ago in the Australian a map was published showing areas underneath the marine park suitable for carbon sequestration. I guess that that rang alarm bells. It is a good process where the community can be alerted, the government will respond and we all get the outcome that we want. I thank the government for responding in the way it has.
There are two other issues that I want to alert the House to. The first one is the issue of sharks in the east coast inshore fin fishery and the pressure that is being put on that population. We have to manage that and make sure that the sharks are not further threatened in the way that they currently are.
Finally—and this is a very important issue to me—there is the potential extension of the park to the east of its current boundary. There are areas of sea, coral cay and so on in that very large area which are being fished inappropriately right now. There is really no management of it. We need to manage it, but there is no management because it is not in the park and because, if it were to be in the park, funds are needed to do that. Others have made claims that we should establish a park from our boundary all the away to New Caledonia. There are reasons for that, but this has to be done in bite-sized chunks. I think it is perfectly proper right now to be considering an extension of the marine park to the east, perhaps to Australia’s EEZ boundary, and to provide the authority with the funds to manage it.
Of course, that introduces another hot-button issue: resources. The authority does need resources to manage compliance and enforcement. You heard me say earlier that this is an area of 345,000 square kilometres that the authority is required to manage and it does need the resources. I appeal to the government to look at that issue in the next budget because, without proper resources, it is a ‘paper park’. I say it again: without proper resources it is a ‘paper park’—and nobody wants that. The government does not want it; the alternative government does not want it; the people do not want it. We want to make sure that the way we go is the right way to manage the authority.
The next five years are critical, in my view. There have to be these strategic outcomes. The World Heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park have to be protected. No-one would disagree with that. We have to halt and reverse the decline in water quality of the marine park and to minimise the risk of degradation of the marine park arising from coastal development, downstream impact of land use or other activities. I am certainly not satisfied that all of the work that is being undertaken at the moment in relation to water quality is sufficient to get the outcome that we need. There are tremendous pressures on the Barrier Reef lagoon from what is occurring on the coast.
We have to achieve protection and wise use of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park by ensuring that all fisheries in the marine park are ecologically sustainable. I think that is certainly under control, and, with the operation of the EPBC Act, we will be able to ensure that that outcome is achieved. We also have to have ecologically sustainable tourism and recreational use of the park provided for in partnership with the community and industry. That too is happening. I think that we should pay tribute to the tourism industry in North Queensland, who do in fact properly accept their responsibilities in relation to the management and the sustainability of the marine park.
I also want to pay tribute to the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, particularly to CEO Dr Russ Reichelt, who is widely experienced, having been previously the CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and also the CEO of the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre. In Russ we have a good person who is doing an excellent job, leading a team of very dedicated people who have, as their vision, that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park be the best protected and managed marine park in the world. They understand that their role is to be the principal adviser to the Australian government on the control, care and development of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and that they will be responsible for the management of the marine park.
When you look at how they articulate their aims and values, you see that they are second to none. That is why the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is known and respected around the world as a leader in protecting World Heritage areas in the tropical environment. I thank the people of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, who do such a great job. I thank them for the way they interact with the community and their customers. I know that Australia will go on being very proud of what this nation has done in relation to protecting the great diversity in the Great Barrier Reef.
I rise to support the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. The Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s most important natural assets. It is the oldest living system in the world and began to form over 600,000 years ago. The Great Barrier Reef as we know it today has evolved since the last ice age—that is, over 6,000 years. It is the biggest single structure made by living organisms and is large enough to be viewed from space. The Great Barrier Reef is home to some 1,500 of the world’s marine fish species, over one-third of its soft coral species and six of the seven species of marine turtles. It is also home to one of the world’s remaining populations of dugong, a species of which has been listed internationally as vulnerable to extinction. The bill before the House demonstrates the Australian government’s commitment to securing the future of the Great Barrier Reef, and I support it wholeheartedly. We need long-term protection and ecologically sustainable management of the Great Barrier Reef. The bill will help achieve this objective.
The Great Barrier Reef off Queensland’s east coast, including the electorate of Flynn, is an international tourism icon. It is made up of some 2,900 unconnected coral reefs stretching over some 2,000 kilometres from south of Papua New Guinea to Bundaberg. There are also about 900 islands within the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is a massive formation and is the only living structure that can be seen from the moon. Astronauts describe it as a thin white line in the blue ocean. The living reefs of today have grown since the last ice age. All of the sandy islands within the Great Barrier Reef are less than about 6,000 years old. Complementing the reef’s natural wonders is a rich cultural heritage. For thousands of years, this unique marine environment has been central to the social, economic and spiritual life of nearby coastal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The Great Barrier Reef was inscribed as a World Heritage area in 1981 in recognition of its natural significance. It is the largest World Heritage area ever established. Under the World Heritage convention, Australia has an international obligation to protect, conserve, preserve, present and transmit this magnificent area for all future generations. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the traditional owners of the Great Barrier Reef region. For over 60,000 years, their traditional connections have been part of the unique living maritime culture and today their traditional customs and spiritual law continue to be practised in their use of sea country and natural resources. Sea country refers to areas of sea that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups are traditionally affiliated with. There are more than 70 traditional owner clan groups along the Queensland coast from the eastern Torres Strait Islands to just north of Bundaberg. Each of these groups hold a range of past, present and future cultural and heritage values for their land and for surrounding sea countries.
The bill presently under consideration will bring about a modern and robust regulatory framework providing capability for the efficient and effective protection and management of the Great Barrier Reef into the future. The bill implements recommendations 18 to 28 of the 2006 review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. That review established that the GBRMP Act has served its purpose well over the past 30 years but needs to be updated and better integrated with other legislation to meet future needs and challenges.
This bill will bring about a modern framework for administration of the GBRMP Act and management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park that is aligned and integrated with but does not duplicate provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and other legislation. It includes a new objects section, recognises the World Heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef and applies ecological, sustainability and precautionary principles. It makes the EPBC Act the basis for environmental impact assessment and approval of actions within the marine park involving significant environmental impacts. This includes establishing the marine park as a matter of national environmental significance under the EPBC Act. It will bring about capability for investigation and collection of evidence—in particular, by allowing inspectors appointed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to use the investigation related powers of the EPBC Act for the purposes of the GBRMP Act. It will bring about a wider range of enforcement options, allowing for a more tailored and targeted approach to enforcement which includes new administrative mechanisms, expanded availability of infringement notices and the introduction of civil penalty provisions.
This bill will bring about deterrence from misuse and encourage responsible use of the marine park. This includes adjusting penalties to ensure they are neither too lenient nor too harsh, depending on the circumstances; the introduction of alternative sanctions such as remediation and publicity orders; and the establishment of an environmental duty applying to marine park users, similar to that applying under state legislation. It will bring about new emergency management powers allowing the authority to respond to incidents presenting a serious risk to the environment of the marine park. These powers will complement and be subservient to those of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The proposed bill will honour an election commitment to reinstate a requirement for the authority to include an Indigenous member.
This bill forms part of the Rudd Labor government’s commitment to securing the long-term protection of the Great Barrier Reef. It will establish a modern and robust regulatory framework that provides capability for the efficient and effective protection and ecologically sustainable management of the Great Barrier Reef into the future. The Great Barrier Reef forms part of my electorate of Flynn. Within the far eastern border of my electorate lie some wonderful islands—and I encourage all Australians to visit them. Some of these islands, forming part of and surrounding the Great Barrier Reef, are included in the electorate of Flynn and will benefit from this legislation. They include but are not limited to Heron Island—the jewel in the crown—Wilson Island, Lady Musgrave Island, Fitzroy Reef lagoon, Lady Elliot Island, North West Island and Mast Head Island.
Heron Island is a jewel of an island with an extensive complex of reefs. You can experience world-renowned diving at Heron Island as well as snorkelling, fishing, reef walking and nature walks. Heron Island lies some 72 kilometres off the coast north-east of Gladstone and covers a total area of some 18 hectares. The waters are teeming with colourful life and, between October and March, green turtles laying their eggs and hatching baby turtles are joined on the island by up to 100,000 terns and mutton-birds nesting and raising their young. I have had the fortunate and great opportunity to spend many a time with my wife and family on this fantastic island. Only two years ago, at Christmas, we spent some time there and witnessed hundreds of turtles laying their eggs.
Lady Musgrave Island, just to the south, is the southernmost island of the Capricorn-Bunker group. It is a 14-hectare coral cay with 1,192 hectares of surrounding reef. The island is a major seabird and turtle nesting area. It has a central pisonia forest surrounded by fringing vegetation including coastal she-oaks, octopus bushes, pandanus and bird’s beak grass. Fitzroy Reef is the largest reef in the Bunker group. It is a 3,650-hectare closed ring reef with a large, deep lagoon which can be entered through two narrow, natural channels.
North West Island is a 100-hectare coral cay at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. It is situated some 75 kilometres north-east of Gladstone and is the largest of nine islands in the Capricorn Bunker group. North West Island’s pisonia forest is the largest occurrence of the species in Australia. North West Island is also a major seabird nesting area and the largest green turtle nesting site on the southern Great Barrier Reef.
Mast Head Island is the second largest island on the nine vegetated coral cays in the Capricorn group of islands. It covers 45 hectares and lies between the Irving and Polmaise reefs and Erskine Island, approximately 60 kilometres north-east of Gladstone, the community in which I live. Mast Head’s population of nesting loggerhead turtles is the fifth most important in the South Pacific region. While Mast Head Island is a minor nesting area for green turtles, it forms part of the Capricorn-Bunker nesting area, which is of world importance. Mast Head also has the highest diversity of seabirds and shore birds of all the islands on the Great Barrier Reef. It is an important seabird nesting area, particularly for black noddies and wedgetail shearwaters.
I have been very fortunate in my life to have lived and breathed the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef in the electorate of Flynn and the surrounding areas. I am well qualified to speak on its spectacular beauty and the need to preserve it by way of the passage of this legislation. I am so grateful to be part of a government that is taking additional steps to protect it. I have swum on it, I have dived on it, I have fished on it, I have holidayed on it and I have even lived on an island very close by it.
I spent a lot of my childhood years on Curtis Island, just to the east of Gladstone. Curtis Island has a magnificent eastern coastline of beaches and headlands overlooking the Coral Sea. It is an interesting location for recreation: swimming, bushwalking, bird and turtle watching and exploring wilderness areas. It is a home to the wonderful people in my electorate of Flynn. How do I know this? As I say, I used to own a home there. But, after one of my sons ran through a plate-glass door, my wife stood on a stingray and another young son sustained severe head injuries in a freak accident, I thought it was time to move on while my luck was still in.
Another island in my electorate is Facing Island. From where I live, I can see it every day and I pray some days that I could swim over and be on it. Facing Island was named by Matthew Flinders in 1802. It is largely a sand island with beaches and rocky outcrops on the eastern side, including Sable Chief Rocks, which extend out several hundred metres. Mangroves and estuaries form the shoreline on the western side. On the eastern side there are volcanic and exposed reef formations together with protected Aboriginal middens. To the west of that island is Tide Island, where my mother grew up with her sisters and parents during the Depression, living off the sea on bountiful supplies of fish, including barramundi and jewfish and an unending supply of that famous crustacean, the Gladstone mud crab.
In my short life on this earth, as I have said, I have lived and breathed the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef and I am so grateful to the Rudd Labor government for moving this legislation in this House. It is our duty to protect the reef. I am honoured and proud that the Rudd Labor government is doing just that with this legislation. No doubt the Labor member for Capricornia, Kirsten Livermore; the member for Dawson, James Bidgood; and the member for Leichhardt, Jim Turnour, would be as proud as I am. I have travelled extensively and stayed on islands forming part of the Great Barrier Reef in their electorates too, including Great Keppel Island, Brampton Island, South Molle Island many times, Dunk Island and Lindeman Island. I hope to journey to Hayman Island at Christmas time this year.
I have seen a lot of changes over the years to the Great Barrier Reef not only in my electorate of Flynn but in other electorates to the north. Old salts can speak more definitively of these changes than I, but suffice to say that one of the biggest challenges facing modern-day politicians is to protect this great wonder of the natural world. This needs to be done for future generations to enjoy. I unequivocally and wholeheartedly on behalf of all Australians commend this most worthy bill to the House.
Much as I greatly respect my colleague the member for Flynn, I cannot say that I commend the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 to the House. Like my worthy colleague, I have done a fair bit of scuba diving in my day on the reef. We North Queenslanders live in paradise and we love and enjoy it. I have a reason for saying I do not share his and every other speaker’s enthusiasm for this bill, much as I respect and like the member for Flynn.
Recently we had a great tragedy in North Queensland. Young Sam Hyytinen was taken by a shark off Tully. Huck, his father, is a good friend of mine, a bloke I like very much. I watched Huck that night on the television and the interviewer said, ‘What can we do to ensure that this terrible occurrence never happens again?’ Huck said: ‘You will do nothing. My son’s death will not be used by you to restrict the young men of North Queensland from going onto the reef and enjoying the great fun that my son’s life centred around.’ Sam was a leading free diver, diving without scuba gear, and one of the better divers in Australia. He loved the sea and the reef. I rang Huck because I was deeply moved by what he had said and done. There was a huge crowd, probably 1,000 people, who turned up for the funeral. There was great respect for the Hyytinen family but also I think a lot of them, like me, regarded it as our duty to turn up.
GBRMPA considers it their duty to eliminate people from the reef. They are not northerners. Every person I have met there has nothing in common with the member for Flynn or the member for Kennedy. They are not our sort of people. But they are people who have very great power. I was asked about the flagging tourism industry of North Queensland. It is a very seriously flagging tourism industry. From discussions with Paul Kamsler and other leading lights in the Cairns region, it looks like there has been a drop of 50 per cent. Where we had 200,000 Japanese coming to Far North Queensland we may have only 100,000 to 150,000 next year. That is very serious stuff indeed.
One thing that struck me when I was the northern development minister was that each new $100-plus million resort created its own market. To stay alive it would chase up Japanese people to come to Australia. Other people would come with them. They would not all necessarily go to that particular resort. They might come back next year and go to some other resort. The creation of each resort built the tourism industry of North Queensland. In a very great act of generosity, Peter Beattie at the funeral of Joh Bjelke-Petersen attributed both the tourism industry of Australia and the coal industry of Australia to Bjelke-Petersen. The only thing I disagreed with Peter on was that he should have also included the aluminium industry—and I will not go into that tonight.
We did everything humanly possible to facilitate the building of those $100 million resorts. In Queensland—and I am not saying just in North Queensland; some of them are on the Gold Coast—each year a $100-plus million resort was built. Quite frankly, since Bjelke-Petersen left the scene I am not aware of a single resort being built. Now we are reaping the whirlwind which we sowed with people like GBRMPA. They are anti people and anti North Queensland. They do not march to the same drum—or have the same belief system—that the member for Flynn or the member for Kennedy march to. They are different sorts of people altogether.
It is with no great pride that I tell the House that three years ago Queensland became the third most litigious state on earth. There are so many laws in Queensland which much litigation flows from that we became the third most litigious state on earth after California and a Midwest state in the United States. I am told that we were displaced last year by New South Wales. The great thing about being a North Queenslander was that you could go into the great jungles of North Queensland or out on the Barrier Reef to go fishing or scuba diving and it was so exciting and so much fun. Today, if you go out on the water in North Queensland you are looking over your shoulder all the time because the men in the uniforms are following. They are all over the place. There are national park rangers, GBRMPA rangers and Customs officials. There are hundreds of boats out there. They are men in uniform who restrict our freedom.
Every time we pass a law in this place it is at the expense of the freedom of Australians. Our legislation grows in inverse proportion to the freedom of Australians. Australians have never appreciated their freedom. The American national anthem has the word ‘freedom’ in it four times. None of our national songs have the word ‘freedom’ in them. We had so much freedom in the early days when the place was empty and we could go anywhere and do anything we liked. From listening to the member for Flynn, his childhood and his upbringing were similar to my own. You could just go anywhere and literally do anything.
We understand that there have to be some restrictions, but I am not aware of GBRMPA having agreed to any proposal put forward to them unless the state government or the federal government bought in and heavied them, and there are only two or three occasions that I can remember when that occurred. We had a dirty, filthy mud hole created by the greenies. They had huge demonstrations and stopped the project at Port Hinchinbrook from going ahead. It was a grubby, muddy little creek that was always a disgrace, as far as I was concerned, with some moth-eaten scrub around it. Some people wanted to do some development there. Because they were stopped, they went broke and we were left with a great big giant mud hole.
The then Premier of Queensland, Wayne Goss, quite rightly described it as—and I will not denigrate the senator—his mud hole. Goss was right. I blamed myself; I was the minister then. A kilometre of coastline there was just a dirty great giant mud hole leaking muck into the ocean. It was there for nearly 20 years. We never saw greenies demonstrate about that. When someone came in to try to fix it up they demonstrated all day—morning, noon and night. My rage and anger were such that the police had to conduct me away from one confrontation, which ended up on the front of the Sunday Mail newspaper.
The point I am making is that that is a beautiful asset of Queensland now. They have put rock all around what was the great mud hole so that no mud leaks into the channel at all. What was a very moth-eaten piece of scrub is one of the most beautiful spots on the coast. Cardwell was not like other parts of North Queensland where you have beautiful jungle and big beaches. That is not the scene at Cardwell at all.
Some 3,000 reefs make up the Barrier Reef—it is not a single reef. It covers 35 million hectares. It is as big as Italy. There are 360 species of hard coral; 1,500 species of fish; 4,000 species of mollusc—shellfish, if you like; 400 species of sponge; and 800 echinoderms—starfish and urchins, if you like. In my scuba diving days starfish were prominent and nothing else was prominent, so I do not doubt for a moment that they have caused a lot of trouble. There are 500 micro-algae—seaweed, if you like. Women get injected with one of those seaweeds to make them look young, so it is a very valuable product. There are 23 species of marine mammal. Six out of seven of the world’s marine turtles and 30 per cent of the world’s soft coral are found on the reef. I thank the Institute of Marine Science, specifically Janice Lough and Katharina Fabricius, for making me look very erudite.
In sharp contrast, there is the deceitfulness and restrictiveness of GBRMPA—and, quite frankly, I cannot help but use the word ‘Gestapo’ in relation to them. Let me give you an example of the evilness of GBRMPA. They came out and said that the dugong was under attack and we had to close down a whole stack of fishing on the east coast. They declared that the dugong numbers had dropped clean in half. They put out a report, but nobody bothered to read it. But I did, because I was gunning for GBRMPA, and I was very interested to see just what their scientific information was.
In the first serious meeting I had with them, I said to Virginia Chadwick, ‘You put your figures on the table on the diminution of marine populations.’ She turned around to her chief lieutenants at GBRMPA and looked at them, and they did not say anything. I said: ‘Virginia, the reason they are putting nothing on the table is because those figures indicate that the marine populations have gone up, not down. That is why they won’t put anything on the table.’ I asked: ‘How do you justify wiping out half of the fishing fleet and, I might add, about half of the tourism as well?’ This was because recreational fishermen and the tourist operators were hit by these restrictions from GBRMPA. I asked: ‘How do you justify this?’
The gentleman there, second-in-charge to Virginia Chadwick, said, ‘I justify it on the basis of the precautionary principle.’ I had never heard of this, and I asked: ‘What is that?’ He said, ‘Well, we could be on the edge of disaster; we could be right on the edge of a cliff.’ I asked: ‘You’re not serious?’ and he said, ‘Yes, of course I am serious.’ I said: ‘A meteorite might be flashing in from outer space too. I mean, we are talking about science here. You are going to take away the livelihoods of 3,000 North Queenslanders on the basis of a precautionary principle—a bit of rubbish; just a discretionary power to do anything you like with and no-one can assail you.’
I am sorry, but the government, the previous government and, I must admit, I voted for the environmental protection act that had the precautionary principle in it. I did not pick it up. I did not understand it. We were not briefed on it in the party room. And some of you newer members will realise that you are the mushroom club, regardless of which party is in power. I did not pick that up, but I put my name to giving these people unlimited discretionary power. There is no reference to the minister; they have unlimited discretionary power.
You will not find a word against GBRMPA from amongst the fishermen or any of the tourist operators—unless they are drunk and it is late at night and they are talking to me and nobody else—because they are terrified of them. They have the discretionary power to do anything. They can smash you and destroy you tomorrow—as they did with the livelihood of 3,000 North Queenslanders. As to those waters that GBRMPA are supposed to be protecting so well, we know the figures because they have been through the House on many occasions. Whilst they have restricted Australian fishing licences to 6,000—they have said we can only have 6,000 Australians fishing in the water—we have continuously had 12,000 foreign fishing vessels in our waters. So that is how good GBRMPA are and how well they are protecting a third of the Australian coastline.
Going back to the Institute of Marine Science, it was said of Dr Joe Baker, who founded the institute, that he should have got a Nobel Prize. But one of the reasons that this very great man did not get a Nobel Prize was that he attributed every single achievement of the Institute of Marine Science to other people. He was a very generous man. He was a man, I might also add, who played lock forward for Queensland and, if it had not been for Johnny Raper, he would have played lock forward for Australia. Under Dr Joe Baker, the institute did coral coring, which can give us a weather pattern going back 2,000 years. This is absolutely vital information when we are talking about climate change and all of those things.
The coral coring breakthrough was just the most brilliant piece of science; it really was. It opened a door to knowledge that we never dreamed we could access. The institute found out that coral spawned on a single night—a quite remarkable achievement in itself. None of the world’s marine scientists had ever been able to figure that out, but the Institute of Marine Science did. The institute found out about and delineated the feeding cycle of barramundi. Sometimes people might describe Dr Joe Baker as a bit green. I might too, but he took great delight in pointing out to me that the mangroves play an integral part in the feeding cycle of the barramundi, which meant we had to leave the mangroves alone.
The prawn and fish farming industry of Australia stands as a great monument to Joe Baker. It stands as a great, tragic gravestone indicating the work of GBRMPA. When Baker came to us in 1984 and said that we needed an industry, there was not one single prawn or fish farm operating commercially in Australia. There were some experimental ones but there were none operating commercially. A number of them had opened but they had all gone broke and collapsed. The government did not take them very seriously. But Baker was relentless in his pursuit of convincing the Queensland government that we should be going in that direction. He eventually convinced us, and we got the prawn and fish farming industry of Australia underway. I think at one stage we were producing about $250 million worth of prawns in Queensland.
We expected to catch up to Thailand. North Queensland has very suitable waters for prawn farming—the most suitable waters in the world, actually. We thought we could catch up to Thailand. We had a greater length of coastline and more amenable circumstances than Thailand. They were doing $2,000 million a year, and we felt that by about 1995 to 2000 we would catch up to them. We reckoned that they might have gone up to about $2,500 million and we would also be up to $2,500 million. When the government fell in 1989, we were pretty hopeful that we were getting there; we were going to catch them.
Why I talk about a gravestone representing the works of GBRMPA is because the prawn farming industry in Australia has declined to a point where it hardly exists now at all, and Thailand is doing $8,000 million a year. They have gone up from $2,000 million to $8,000 million and we have been just about completely destroyed. As far as I can see, GBRMPA has closed more farms than we have been able to open in those 20 years since 1989, so they have got a lot to answer for.
Going back to the dugong—I got sidetracked—GBRMPA said that the dugong numbers had dropped clean in half. I read their report and I was quite astounded to find out that what they had said publicly was deceitful in the extreme, because the dugong numbers had dropped clean in half on the southern part of the reef, which they had quoted the numbers for, but they forgot to mention the northern half of the reef where the numbers had almost doubled. So when they said that the dugong were dying out, that their numbers had collapsed, they were telling a flagrant lie. They knew from the report that all that had happened was that the dugong had migrated north.
The member for Flynn will be very interested in this, as I was, because I asked myself: why did they migrate north? There had been a big drought throughout Central Queensland so there had been no effluent—run-off, if you like—going out onto the reef from the land. Whether the fertilisers have had anything to do with it, I do not know, but obviously if you fertilise something it grows a lot better. Dugong live off seagrass and, if it is being top-dressed all the time, and top-dressed with a bit of fertiliser as well, obviously the dugong were on pretty good tucker in the southern part, where of course there is very extensive farming taking place—Central Queensland. That piece of information will be very interesting for the member for Flynn and I pass it on to the House. (Time expired)
I rise in support of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. I think the House would agree that the term ‘Great’ is used a little indiscriminately in Australian geography. We have got the Great Dividing Range, which lengthwise is obviously significant but not particularly so heightwise. We have got the Great Sandy Desert and we have got the Great Australian Bight. I am not going to comment too much on those geographical phenomena. However, I will talk about the Great Barrier Reef, off Queensland’s coast, as being a particularly great phenomenon. In fact, it is the largest living organism in the world and, as the member for Flynn indicated, it is visible from outer space. It stretches from the tip of Cape York Peninsula to just north of Fraser Island, covering some 347,000 square kilometres. Thousands of visitors flock to Queensland every year from all over the world to marvel at this environmental wonder. Tourists enjoy scenic flights, reef cruises or snorkelling among the more than 2,800 coral reefs and abundant marine life. In fact, the waters of the Great Barrier Reef offer biological diversity unmatched anywhere else in the world. The Great Barrier Reef was World Heritage listed in 1981, making it the largest World Heritage area in the world—and I repeat that: the largest World Heritage area in the world.
It is estimated that the reef contributes nearly $6 billion to Australia’s economy through tourism alone and sustains some 63,000-plus jobs. It also generates millions of dollars through commercial fishing and recreational activities. Being married to a Cairns girl—a Babinda girl, more accurately—and having had lots of Christmases up with my in-laws I can certainly testify how wonderful the reef is.
But the threat of climate change and other environmental concerns loom large over the Great Barrier Reef. Climate change effects that will directly impact on the Great Barrier Reef include: increased water temperature; increased sea level, increased severity of storms and cyclones; ocean acidification, which obviously will destroy much of the coral; changed rainfall and run-off; and changes to the El Nino southern oscillation phenomenon. And around the world, environmental impacts like coral bleaching, overfishing and marine based pollution are expected to wipe out more than 50 per cent of coral reefs over the next 30 to 50 years. Unfortunately, the Great Barrier Reef has already experienced two significant coral bleaching events in 1998—yes, only 10 years ago—and more recently in 2002. In fact, in 2002 aerial surveys found that almost 60 per cent of the reefs were bleached to some degree.
Another threat to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is pollution carried in coastal water run-off. The fact that climate change impacts on the Great Barrier Reef is not a new science. As I said, there have been significant coral bleaching events back as far as 1998. There have been countless studies and research into the state of the Great Barrier Reef and all of them have called for the government to do more to protect the reef. Back in 2004, World Wildlife Fund Australia and the Queensland Tourism Industry Council released a study, The implications of climate change for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. As well as calling for action on national climate change—issues such as meeting Kyoto targets and investing in renewable energies—the report identified ways to directly increase the resilience of the reef. These included: sustainable management of fisheries throughout the Great Barrier Reef, a plan to improve the quality of water entering the reef from the coast and a responsive zoning plan to respond to emerging environmental threats.
Credit must go to the former government for establishing a network of zones which created a high level of environmental protection and an ecologically sustainable future for the marine park. However, this zoning plan requires greater grunt on the ground to be effective, and the World Heritage listed reef requires a comprehensive climate change plan for the future. This bill before the House will ensure greater long-term protection and ecological management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It implements the recommendations of the 2006 review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. This act has been in law for more than 30 years and was introduced at a time when very few people were talking about climate change.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you are obviously too young to remember 1975, but most people were talking about the end of the Vietnam War and Abba. There was an environmental movement, and in retrospect, obviously, maybe we should have listened more to the environmental movement back then. The 1975 act established the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and set up the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to manage the park. The 2006 review found that the authority has served its purpose well but, given that so much has changed since 1975, including the marine park’s World Heritage listing and the greater effects of pollution and climate change, the time has come to modernise the act. The bill before the House is long overdue. It establishes a new framework for the protection and ecologically sustainable management of the Great Barrier Reef. I seek leave to continue my remarks later, so the House can deal with a Senate message.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for requested amendments announced.
Bill returned from the Senate with requested amendments.
Ordered that the requested amendments be considered immediately.
Senate’s requested amendments—
SCHEDULE B
Amendments made by the Senate
(1) Clause 2, page 3 (after table item 15), insert:
15A. Schedule 6, items 9A, 9B and 9C | Immediately after the commencement of items 1 and 2 of Schedule 2 to the Child Support Legislation Amendment (Reform of the Child Support Scheme—New Formula and Other Measures) Act 2006. | 1 July 2008 |
(2) Clause 2, page 3 (table items 17 and 19), omit the table items.
(3) Page 4 (after line 8), after clause 3, insert:
4 Review of operation of amendments
(1) The Minister must cause an independent review of the operation of the amendments made by this Act to be undertaken and completed by 30 June 2010.
(2) The persons who undertake the review under subsection (1) must give the Minister a written report of the review.
(3) The Minister must cause a copy of the report of the review under subsection (1) to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of the day on which the report is given to the Minister.
(4) The review must be conducted by a panel of not less than 5 persons, of which at least:
(a) 3 persons must be nominated by relevant key stakeholder organisations; and
(b) 2 persons must be nominated by the Minister.
(4) Schedule 3, page 20 (line 2) to page 23 (line 24), omit the Schedule.
(5) Schedule 5, page 32 (lines 2 to 13), omit the Schedule.
(6) Schedule 6, item 12, page 34 (line 24) to page 36 (line 21), omit the item.
(7) Schedule 6, item 14, page 36 (line 25) to page 38 (line 17), omit the item.
I would like to indicate to the House that the government proposes that amendments (1), (2), (3), (6) and (7) be agreed to, and that amendments (4) and (5) be disagreed to. I suggest, therefore, that it might suit the House first to consider amendments (1), (2), (3), (6) and (7) and when those amendments have been disposed of to consider amendments (4) and (5). I move:
That Senate amendments (1), (2), (3), (6) and (7) be agreed to.
I will very briefly indicate to the House the issues to which these amendments refer. Amendments (1), (2), (6) and (7) relate to the changes to the treatment of fringe benefits tax. I made comment to the House earlier today about these government amendments and I do not propose to take the time of the House to go over the same ground again. We support these amendments to retain the use of net fringe benefits tax for the income definitions in family assistance law.
The government will support amendment (3) moved by the opposition in the Senate. I understand the opposition wants a review of these measures in two years time, and we will not stand in the way of that occurring.
I will very briefly indicate that the opposition in this chamber obviously supports the amendments that went through this House earlier today and have now come back to us. The amendments which the opposition made to the original bill, we think, are very significant in terms of policy but, in order to expedite the business of the House and of the Senate, we will not be insisting on them here, nor will we be insisting on them in the Senate.
So you don’t want (4) and (5) either?
I am glad that the minister has indicated that one of our amendments is acceptable to the government. Those that are unacceptable to the government will not be insisted upon, in order to expedite the passage of the legislation.
The government’s original bill was almost thoroughly objectionable in the sense that everything in the government’s original bill took something away from someone, none of the take-aways in the original bill had been flagged by the government prior to the election and there was nothing in the fiscal position that the government discovered after the election that would have justified breach of implicit and, in the case of the baby bonus, explicit commitments. I see no reason why the means testing that the original bill imposes should not have been shared with the general public before the election if that is the position of the government.
Nevertheless, there is one aspect of the bill now before the House—that is, the last-minute amendment which we dealt with earlier today here—which does confer a benefit, and that is the amendment that the minister has alluded to which restores the situation which would have been taken away from charity workers and others on 1 July as an unintended consequence of 2006 legislation, which the then opposition supported. Plainly, the opposition does support the government’s amendment. And, because this amendment will not pass if the opposition insists on those amendments which the government objects to, and because it is important that these charity workers in particular be protected from the unintended consequences of earlier legislation, we certainly do not intend to further delay the passage of the legislation now before the House. As I said, we will not be insisting upon our earlier amendments when it goes back to the Senate tomorrow.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That Senate amendments (4) and (5) be disagreed to.
Given that the opposition has now indicated that they will not be insisting on these amendments, we obviously will now be able to see this legislation go through the parliament in the next day—we hope, given that we do not necessarily know what will go on in the Senate in terms of timing.
I want to highlight a number of things. One is that it is critical that this legislation go through the Senate before the Senate rises for the winter break so that we can make sure that those people who are working for not-for-profit organisations do not face cuts to their family assistance and childcare benefits of up to $100 a fortnight. It has been absolutely critical to get the agreement we now have.
It is also important that the opposition has recognised that the other parts of the legislation that we are debating tonight are critical and go to the integrity of two things. First, they go to the integrity of the social security system. That is why we are introducing these changes, which will introduce a compliance regime for the Commonwealth seniors health card. The compliance regime that we are introducing for the Commonwealth seniors health card is in fact exactly the same compliance regime that exists for the age pension, the carer payment and the service pension—and my colleague the Minster for Veterans’ Affairs is here with me now. I am pleased that the opposition recognises that the purpose of the amendment that we are making, which will introduce a compliance regime for the Commonwealth seniors health card, is to protect the integrity of the social security system.
The other reason that these amendments are critical to the government is that we do not want to see the integrity of our budget challenged in any way. We have put forward a very significant budget surplus. Delivering this budget surplus is one way in which we have addressed this issue of inflation pressure on families and older Australians, who are really doing it tough. That is why it is critical that the budget measures contained in this bill go through the parliament as quickly as possible. I appreciate the opposition’s support.
Very briefly—because I do not want to further delay the House—I need to make it very clear that the opposition is all in support of integrity in our social security system. The problem, as far as the opposition is concerned, with the measure in the original legislation in respect of the Commonwealth seniors health card was that it is a precursor to changes flagged in the budget which the opposition does not like and which it thinks that the government should have flagged pre-election. It is all very well for the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to say that there is integrity in the budget. I would not expect her to say anything other than that. But if there were real integrity in government then the government would have said before the election, not afterwards, that there were going to be means tests on the baby bonus and family tax benefit part B. Having expressed those very important reservations and caveats, I am prepared to see this legislation go through the House now.
I am going to make a couple of comments with respect to the partner service pension issue, after following the debate in the Senate. This is to do with amendment (5). There are four main points that I would like to focus on. The first point that I would like to talk to is the question of consultation. It has been argued in the other place and also here by the opposition that this matter was not publicised. Here is a copy, firstly, of a press release which was released at the time of the budget and which clearly outlined these measures. I also have with me a copy of the latest edition of Vetaffairs, which on page 4 details the circumstances with respect to these particular changes. On the night of the budget, I briefed a number of ex-service organisation representatives in my office in person and also held a teleconference with a number of others to explain to them what we were doing. The next day, deputy commissioners of the department in each state capital briefed ex-service organisation representatives at the local level about what changes were made. So I reject and refute the claim that this was not publicised. It was well publicised.
On the question of the details of the impact, there are a couple of points that I would like to make. There is an argument that the financial position of someone on a partner service pension is such that it is particularly tough for them. In fact, I have to say to you that someone who is retiring on the service pension when that is all they have got is in a situation in which things are pretty tough—there is no doubt about that. I am not for one minute suggesting that it is easy. However, if you are not on the maximum partner service pension you do have income from other sources, and they have to be relatively significant to have any impact on decreasing your partner service pension in the first place.
I can inform the House that some data from the department in relation to the last 12 months shows that there were some 464 grants of the partner service pension for the period 17 May 2007 to 17 May 2008 for those who were not TPIs and who were not in a situation in which they had dependent children. Some 464 applications were received and accepted that would in fact be impacted upon by this particular change. I can inform the House that some 318 of those were in receipt of less than the maximum of the partner service pension. Only 146 were receiving the maximum rate. Some 318—more than two-thirds—were in a situation in which they had other sources of income. I am not for one minute suggesting that that means that their lives are easy, but it does indicate that their financial circumstances are somewhat better than those of someone solely on the service pension or the partner service pension.
Another point the government have made clear is that we are very conscious that the degree of disability an individual may have is something that relates to the circumstances of the partner, and that the carer’s role of a partner in these circumstances is very important. That is why we excluded partners of TPIs on the basis that a TPI is commonly understood to be a severely disabled veteran who is unable to work.
I also inform the House that, of the 464 applications received in the last year, 232 applicants were in receipt of absolutely no disability pension at all. Members would be aware that there are differing rates which use a 10 per cent gradient up to 100 per cent of disability pension, with respect to veterans affairs, and then there are above general rate pensions for TPIs and several other smaller categories. These 232 applicants were in receipt of absolutely no disability rate pension. In fact only 90 of those 464 were in receipt of 70 per cent or more of a disability rate pension. This would suggest that, overwhelmingly, the people affected here are not in a situation where they are required to be in a carer’s role, and I think that is very important to note.
Another argument put by the opposition was that when they made changes with respect to the age pension it was on a graduated basis. It has been said by others that this was not a retirement payment so there was a reason for that. Also, the graduation has occurred on the basis of the actual age of those who are applying. To use the 70 per cent rate of pension and above as an example, last year seven people aged 50 applied, three people aged 51 applied, seven people aged 52 applied, six people aged 53 applied and seven people aged 54 applied—and on it goes. This clearly indicates this is not a benefit that has been picked up at an early age by very many people because of their circumstances. (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
I present the reasons for the House disagreeing to Senate amendments (4) and (5) and I move:
That the reasons be adopted.
Question agreed to.
Debate resumed.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 deals with the overlap between the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and various pieces of Queensland legislation. It does this by establishing the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act as the authority for environmental impact assessments and approval arrangements. In doing so, this bill eliminates duplication, reduces compliance costs for business—which is always very important and which the Rudd government is committed to—and ensures that the Great Barrier Reef will receive strong legal protection as a matter of national environmental protection. This bill also improves investigation and enforcement powers through the EPBC Act. It includes a civil penalty regime, expanded infringement notices for minor offences and administrative enforcement. These are very sensible approaches in terms of having a continuum. These penalties strike an appropriate balance of adequate deterrence while ensuring that penalties are not excessive for minor offences.
I also welcome the measures in this bill to encourage individuals to take responsibility for their environmental impact. This is a cultural debate that should have occurred 10 years ago. Unfortunately, it is now up to the Rudd government to inform the community about the importance of this. The bill introduces an environmental duty requiring marine park users to take reasonable steps to avoid or minimise any environmental harm. This is a common-sense approach. This bill also delivers on our election commitment to reinstate a requirement for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to include an Indigenous member. This measure is out of respect to the more than 70 traditional owner groups along the Queensland coast, many of whom are represented very ably in the federal parliament by the member for Leichhardt. These 70 traditional owner groups have a continuing relationship with the Great Barrier Reef. These measures build on our comprehensive strategy to protect and manage the Great Barrier Reef for the future, including our $200 million reef rescue plan and action to help protect the reef from the impacts of climate change.
As I mentioned earlier in my speech, there were many missed opportunities to address the environmental damage of climate change in the 1970s. However, we cannot rewind time. This bill is part of a suite of responses to climate change. It is appropriate at this moment that I ask: what have the opposition done? I heard in question time today some suggestions about shadecloth, and I did a bit of research to find out what that referred to. It was in the context of the government talking about its green paper on climate change which is to be released next month. I looked at the ABC News online webpage for Thursday, 2 November 2006, which said:
Federal Tourism Minister Fran Bailey says using ‘shade cloth’ over parts of the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland could protect it from the harmful effects of global warming.
Earlier this week, Britain’s Stern report said climate change could cause a global economic downturn and bleach the reef.
Skipping forward a few paragraphs:
One of the suggestions is to attach the shade cloth to pontoons, which is an idea Ms Bailey says is worth considering if it will help protect the reef.
I would like to have the contract for that 2,500-kilometre-long pontoon. It certainly would do a lot for manufacturing in Queensland and for Labor on the coast. It would certainly keep the member for Leichhardt’s electorate happy for a while. The Rudd government is realistic and has a green paper. Those opposite have some green shadecloth. That is their approach. Under the Rudd government an emissions-trading scheme will be a reality. The fear and smear campaign launched by the Kyoto sceptics opposite—the ‘missing in action’ group when in government—will come to nothing. Hopefully, people will understand that the cultural change that we need on carbon will produce some real results.
When releasing the Stern report, which was referred to in this article, the author made the point that the failure of the Western world to put a price on carbon is the greatest market failure of all time. We in the Labor government, strangely enough, are much more believing about the role of the market than those opposite. I wonder what the carbon charlatans on the other side believe in. Will they just go with a fear and smear campaign—talking about petrol and the like—or will they really try to address the future of the planet?
Surely the Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s greatest natural wonders. My three-year-old son went to North Queensland to meet my in-laws when he was a two-year-old. He is yet to go snorkelling or diving on the reef or to experience many of its great wonders. For his sake and for his children’s sake it is hoped that the opposition will embrace the fact that the world has changed. I am very pleased to support a bill that will help ensure that the reef can be enjoyed for generations to come. I commend the bill to the House.
I regret that I will not have the opportunity tonight to complete my speech as I have to be in Brisbane tomorrow because of a sickness in the family. So I will just go to the hot spots of my presentation.
I think the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 is good legislation as a framework—as far as it goes. It is essentially the Howard government’s legislation, but I do not want to make it partisan, and I am sure the Labor Party, had our roles been reversed, would have supported it. Nevertheless, there are aspects of this that need to be looked at. The real test of this legislation will come in the near future when we consider the rezoning of the reef. That will be the test of the integrity of this system and the equity it delivers.
I have a lot of fishermen in my area. Fishermen are very decent, ordinary people. They are not like other farmers, who can grow their wheat and chaff and husband their cattle and sheep. The fisherman has to engage with the sea. He cannot just go out into the paddock in the morning. All sorts of things have to come his way, be they restrictions or weather conditions or the like. He has to deal with built-in difficulties. The one thing that we have not done over recent years is look after fishermen. They have been put to one side as if they were irrelevant. By any measure, they have not been compensated properly. You might say that this is as much the fault of the former government as it is of this government, but, no matter who is to blame, some of the cases are still outstanding and equity needs to be applied.
With the east coast trawl plan, which was a device brought in by both the Commonwealth and Queensland governments, the number of trawlers was reduced from 750 to 500. A short time after that it went as low as 460. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the various wings of government said, ‘The reef is now sustainable.’ And we all celebrated that. But within two years we were told, ‘We have got to have a bit more of the reef.’ One figure that was bandied around early in the piece was about another four per cent but, when it got down to tintacks, GBRMPA was asking for another 20 per cent. So they went out and devised various zoning systems. The three major systems were light blue, dark green and gold. The gold, or yellow, was the recreational fishing areas. In the end, it was not 20 per cent; it was 34 per cent.
Neither side of the parliament said: ‘Wait a minute. That is okay but make sure you leave sufficient fishing grounds.’ And they did not. Even worse, in the southern part of the reef, off Gladstone, Bundaberg and Hervey Bay, the closures were about 73 or 74 per cent. Some say 60 per cent, but fishermen I talk to say around about 73 per cent. That gutted the fishing industry in my area from about 80 trawlers to 10 or fewer. Similarly, in Hervey Bay, it went from 50 or 60 down to a small number—I have not been able to get the actual number that survived.
Some dreadful things happened. The spanner crab fishery, which a year or two before was celebrated as the icon fishery of Australia, was put five kilometres inside a green zone. In other words, they just closed it down. One of the best prawning grounds—the area between Red Rock and Wreck Rock, north of Bundaberg—closed down.
Some people express the sanguine view: ‘That’s good because it will protect the reef.’ And let me emphasise to honourable members that I am as much for the protection of the reef as anyone. But you can both protect the reef and still have equity in these things. They are not mutually exclusive. We have allowed the zealots in the ‘green industry’ to let that become the case. The circumstance that many fishermen find themselves in is very sad. I will mention one, Sid McKeown, who is a fish processor in my area. He once had 30 to 33 trawlers servicing his fish works, but after the east coast trawl plan came into effect it went down to seven or eight trawlers. Then after the RAP, which was the zoning of the Great Barrier Reef, it went down to about three or four trawlers. My staff spoke to him today and he said that he has not had a trawler for three months now. That is appalling.
The zealots always say, ‘Paul, you are probably right but we are saving the reef, so it is all okay.’ But are we, or are we just shifting the effort somewhere else? I went into either Coles or Woolworths recently to buy a block of mixed fish to make some spaghetti marinara. I took my customer number docket and, while waiting, I looked along the shelves. There were nine big trays of fish and eight of those nine carried a ‘foreign product’ tag. In other words, we have stopped a bit of fishing on the reef but we have shifted it somewhere else. If you go to the Tokyo markets you will see the extent of that.
In the short time available to me tonight, I am calling for equity for fishermen as we move to the next phase of regulating the reef.
Debate interrupted.
Order! It being 7.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
In the time available in the adjournment debate, on behalf of Rohan Fitzgerald, the Liberal candidate for Gippsland, I present a petition—the Save our post office! petition.
The petition read as follows—
To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of Residents against the closure of Traralgon’s Franklin Street Post Office draws to the attention of the House: Australia Post’s proposed relocaton of postal services from Franklin Street, Traralgon to Church Street, Traralgon.
We therefore ask the House to: Direct Australia Post to retain postal services, including Billpay and parcel services, at the heritage-listed Post Office in Franklin Street, which is serviced by public transport and easily accessible to the elderly and disabled.
from 3,821 citizens.
Petition received.
This petition has been signed by 3,821 residents who all share a common view and support the advocacy of Rohan Fitzgerald, the Liberal candidate for Gippsland. It points out that these residents are against the closure of Traralgon’s Franklin Street post office. It draws the attention of this House to this concern and the strong feeling that is held amongst the community about Australia Post canvassing the proposed relocation of postal services from Franklin Street to Church Street, Traralgon. The petitioners ask this parliament, with the support of Rohan Fitzgerald, to direct Australia Post to retain postal services, including Billpay and parcel services at the heritage listed post office in Franklin Street, which is served by public transport and is easily accessible to the elderly and the disabled of the community. Three thousand eight hundred and twenty-one petitioners support the advocacy of principal petitioner Rohan Fitzgerald, the Liberal candidate for Gippsland. I table that petition and ask the House to reflect on the strength of feeling that surrounds this topic.
Respected journalist Glenn Milne recognised that Rohan Fitzgerald, being part of the local community, has an authentic connection to the community and understands firsthand just how important this post office is to the local community. Yesterday there was a rally that brought together many people who have strong feelings about this. This rally also passed a motion. The motion was:
We, the people of Traralgon, call on the Prime Minister, the Hon. Kevin Rudd; Minister for Communications, Senator the Hon. Stephen Conroy; and Special Minister of State, Senator the Hon. Hon John Faulkner, as the Ministers with executive responsibility for postal services to require Australia Post to retain as a fully functioning Post Office the existing Australia Post facility and outward on Franklin Street in Traralgon and stop the unnecessary imposition on our elderly, frail and disabled citizens.
Rohan Fitzgerald recognised this concern some two months ago, when, on his own initiative, Rohan Fitzgerald, the Liberal candidate for Gippsland, sought a meeting with Australia Post. He conveyed to the representatives of Australia Post his concern and the heartfelt feeling of many residents in that area about the suggestion that this magnificent heritage listed building would no longer serve its valued purpose in the Traralgon community.
Rohan Fitzgerald was surprised and, frankly, shocked that the Australia Post representative canvassed the possibility of moving this post office to Church Street. Rohan Fitzgerald made it clear that in his view this was not what the community wanted and he vowed to fight this proposal with everything he had to offer. He has been supported by Harvey Pynt—someone known well to those opposite and in this House—who has respected and admired Rohan Fitzgerald’s endeavour to do everything he can to save this centrally located, well-utilised post office in Traralgon.
The message that has come through Rohan Fitzgerald as the advocate and representative of an aggrieved community is that this closure is not something that they want. It is an outcome the community cannot afford to accept. That is why people have rallied around the efforts of Rohan Fitzgerald to bring to the attention of this nation what a concern the potential closure of this post office is. He has reflected on the extra demands it would place on the elderly, frail and disabled of Traralgon. He has highlighted how this facility, long-established as a heritage building, is close to businesses, public transport and parking. Rohan Fitzgerald made the point that it was convenient. It has been there for 100 years and now is not the time to move it. It should stay there and continue to carry out the valued service that it has provided to the Traralgon community. Rohan Fitzgerald recognised the strength of community sentiment and he kicked up a stink. He rallied the people around Traralgon to make it absolutely clear to Australia Post that the relocation of this facility was not acceptable.
I have been given a survey that Australia Post is having done on its behalf by the Allen Consulting Group. Let me say to Australia Post: you do not need a survey to understand the strength of feeling. Rohan Fitzgerald has brought this issue to the public attention. He has been an outstanding advocate for an issue that the Traralgon community feel very strongly about. The 3,800-plus petitioners know this is a serious issue and that is why they value and admire the advocacy of Rohan Fitzgerald, the Liberal candidate for Gippsland. You do not need a survey to tell you that this is important: read the petition. For those members opposite, I wonder why Australia Post is asking the question:
Australia Post is a corporation owned by the Australian Government. Is public ownership of Australia Post important to you?
(Time expired)
Tonight I rise to talk about the issue of homelessness and to acknowledge a group of extraordinary people in my electorate who have committed their working lives or their volunteer hours to working with a group of incredibly disadvantaged human beings. I am going to acknowledge them not by speaking of them but by speaking for them.
As honourable members would know, the Rudd Labor government have put the issue of homelessness at the top of our priorities. My colleague the Minister for Housing, the member for Sydney, issued a green paper in May of this year titled Which way home? A new approach to homelessness. In Parramatta, the issue of homelessness is a very real one, with the second largest population of people sleeping rough outside the Sydney CBD. In fact, around 500 people sleep rough each night around the streets of Parramatta.
There are a number of very valuable local organisations in my electorate that are working with the homeless and those at risk of homelessness. On Friday many of those organisations met at a forum at the Parramatta Mission on Macquarie Street—one of those sterling organisations that do such extraordinary work with the disadvantaged in our community. Attendees included: the Parramatta Mission, the Street Level Christian Community, Anglicare, the New South Wales Department of Housing, Global Care, Barnardos Australia, the Salvation Army, Western Housing for Youth, Bonnie Women’s Refuge, the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta, Hillsong City Care, the New South Wales Aboriginal Housing Office and the Christian City Church Prospect. There were 27 extraordinary people in all who attended, many of whom have been attending other forums and will be submitting written proposals of their own by the end of this week in response to the green paper. They are working for people in great need and you will not find a group of people more committed to an issue than they are.
Overwhelmingly, the message they gave was that homelessness is not just about accommodation, that the solution to homelessness is about providing security and stability, which of course includes accommodation but goes much further than that to include living skills, working skills and health. They sought greater emphasis on the collection of data—in particular, on people living in boarding houses—so that as policy is developed we can consider the range of people living on the edge and at risk of homelessness as well as those who have already moved into crisis accommodation. They also sought greater coordination between government departments. They pointed out that many of the people who move into crisis accommodation services and put such pressure on supported accommodation can actually be seen moving into that area in advance—for example, people moving out of prisons and back into society, people moving out of mental health facilities and in some cases state wards. The crisis accommodation services are carrying the load in those areas when really as a government and government departments we should be able to predict the movement of some of those people into crisis circumstances.
They also seek greater cooperation and participation by government departments in identifying people at risk earlier, including organisations such as Centrelink, which can quite easily identify people at risk earlier. They also talked about the need for an alert service for people under threat of eviction. They raised a number of ways for us as a society to identify people at risk early. They did, I have to say, make these points without any criticism at all of the departments or the people who work in crisis accommodation. They were really incredibly generous towards their fellow workers in that regard, pointing out that what has happened over many years is an increase in people with complex needs who end up in crisis accommodation. As those services take on more and more people with serious needs, they become more and more stretched and become unable to cope.
They made the same remark about public housing, which is now moving into the realm of crisis accommodation rather than remaining with the original idea of public housing, which is to provide long-term, stable accommodation for people of lesser means. As you would expect, they also called for great funding and pointed out that, while there is a greater need for early intervention—and the government has been talking a great deal about that—in the short and medium term early intervention will not impact on the need for the crisis services which are provided today. There will always be people in supported accommodation who will need those services. (Time expired)
What has become known as the ‘Heiner affair’ is a serious blot on public administration in this country and a stain on the reputations of those who have obstructed getting to the bottom of it. In the late 1980s, not only was a Queensland juvenile justice centre systematically mismanaged but its inmates were subjected to sustained abuse, including, in at least one case, pack rape. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the principal victim of the matters investigated by Magistrate Heiner has had her life destroyed.
I regret to say that one of the first acts of the then Goss government in Queensland was to terminate the Heiner inquiry and then order the shredding of the evidence taken, even though that government was already on notice that the evidence could be required in court proceedings. Whatever the case was legally—and there is strong opinion that what the government did was illegal—morally this was an official attempt to pervert the course of justice. Every member of that cabinet has been complicit in a shameful cover-up and they should be man and woman enough to face up to that.
Four years ago, a Queensland Baptist pastor was jailed for destroying evidence of child abuse that might have been used in court proceedings. A man was jailed for doing, more innocently perhaps, what the Queensland cabinet had done. I want to say that an offence is not less serious because it has been committed by numerous people acting in concert. Normally, in fact, the opposite is the case. So one man does wrong and he is jailed; the Queensland cabinet does wrong and its members suffer no adverse consequences at all. Is it any wonder that so many people feel that there are double standards of justice even in this country?
Ever since then, a Queensland trade union official, Kevin Lindeberg, has tirelessly sought justice for the victims of this cover-up, and I congratulate him on his efforts. More recently, a prominent Sydney barrister, David Rofe QC, has prepared a compendium of evidence—a case for the prosecution, so to speak—setting out what has been done and by whom. Perhaps he has been too zealous a prosecutor. Even so, it is good that we still have people who burn to see justice done and injustice exposed. I want to make this point: people should not escape scrutiny on the grounds of their eminence. It is a fundamental principle of British justice that, be you ever so high, the law is above you. If they have done the same thing, cabinet ministers, premiers, senior public servants and judges should not escape the same punishment that befalls a misguided Baptist pastor.
It is pretty clear that serious mistreatment, including sexual abuse, has over the years taken place in Queensland government institutions. The South Australian government has had the courage to face up to this in appointing the Mullighan inquiry, and I call on the Queensland government to also appoint a royal commission—which should, amongst other things, draw on the work of David Rofe QC—to ensure that these mistakes are never made again. Just because this matter happened some time ago does not mean that it should no longer be investigated. Injustice is injustice, crime is crime, wrongdoing is wrongdoing and this particular matter cries out for rectification.
I rise to inform the House about an important community endeavour for a Chinese-Australian war memorial in my electorate. The Chinese community is a significant and valued part of Queensland’s and Moreton’s communities and I have spoken in this House previously about their ongoing and welcome contributions to society, business and culture. What I have not addressed before in the House is the past and present involvement of Chinese-Australians in the Australian defence forces.
Chinese-Australians made significant contributions during the Boer War, the First World War, the Second World War, the conflict in Malaya, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and many other conflicts around the globe. There are no records of exactly how many Australian-Chinese have served in our armed forces, but we know many Chinese-Australian citizens have a proud history with the Australian armed forces. The Australian-Chinese community has a strong connection and one that should be celebrated and honoured. I intend to do that in my electorate.
One of Australia’s greatest World War I heroes was Chinese-Australian citizen Private William Edward Sing, known as ‘Billy’ by his digger mates. Billy Sing was a sniper with the Australian 5th Light Horse Regiment and is conservatively credited with more than 150 kills in Gallipoli. It is easy to see why he was also known to his fellow soldiers as ‘The Assassin’. Like many great soldiers from the Great War, Billy was from the bush. Billy grew up in Clermont in central Queensland, where, as a kangaroo shooter—as my dad once was—and member of the Proserpine Rifle Club, he developed his craft as a sniper. The Australian Light Horse Association describes one of Billy’s typical days in Gallipoli as:
… locating and setting up in a pre-dawn position, maintaining strict discipline regarding concealment, camouflage and movement, and staying put until after dark, before extraction from his position.
The Australian Light Horse Association explains that the job of sniper ‘was not a job for fidgeters’ and Billy was no fidgeter. He was described as a ‘methodical man’ who was exemplary in his commitment to his job. So effective was Billy that he took out nine unfortunate Turkish soldiers in one single day. The Australian Light Horse Association says that his ‘uncompromising commitment and businesslike approach impressed the British commander, General WR Birdwood, and other senior officers’. In fact, so renowned had Billy and his rifle become that his exploits were reported in British and US papers at the time. Billy Sing is regarded as an ANZAC legend. In fact, one of the Australian Defence Force’s observation towers in Iraq bore Billy’s name in honour of his exploits. You might say he lived up to that old Chinese proverb: ‘You kill one man, you terrorise a thousand.’ Private Billy Sing was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for ‘conspicuous gallantry as a sniper at Anzac’.
Of course, many other Chinese-Australians have served this country—soldiers like Private Caleb Shang, who became the most highly decorated Chinese-Australian soldier because of his actions in the horrific Battle of the Somme. I am committed to establishing a Chinese memorial in the middle of my electorate at Sunnybank, which is right in the heart of our Chinese community on Brisbane’s south side. We are in the early stages of planning this memorial, but it already has strong support from the Chinese community and the local Sunnybank RSL. The memorial will be a local gathering place and focal point for commemorative services and a place to honour the military contributions of Chinese-Australians when we gather to commemorate the exploits of our service personnel on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day and on the anniversaries of other significant battles. This memorial will also serve to encourage more Australian-Chinese to be involved in the national memorial services and maybe also to join our defence forces.
Today I sent an urgent email to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Hon. Jenny Macklin. I had this to say:
Dear Minister:
I refer to correspondence that was personally handed to you in the chamber on 2 June 2008 regarding the unforseen financial crisis that is threatening the completion of the building of a community services centre in Moss Vale, NSW.
As you are well aware from the contents of my correspondence this project is near completion and because of these unforseen circumstances, has a shortfall in funding. The amount needed to complete this $1.5 million project is in the vicinity of $80000 (GST incl). The amount may actually be a bit less now, as the community of the Southern Highlands has been frantically trying to raise the funds to complete the project by the proposed opening date of 30 June 2008. It is imperative that the shortfall be met to provide this most needed community facility.
For the final instalment from DOTARS to be received, the final inspection certificate from the local council must be produced. This certificate will not be issued until all the necessary finishing work is completed. For the finishing work to be completed, builders’ invoices need to be paid. So, as you can see there is a catch 22 situation looming here. I respectfully request that your urgent attention be given to my correspondence and I would also respectfully request that you consider a one-off grant from your Department.
In closing, can I perhaps suggest that you discuss the issue with your parliamentary colleague the Hon. Anthony Albanese, the Minister responsible for DOTARS in an attempt to assist this worthwhile Community project to come to fruition.
Failure of your Government to understand that it is virtually impossible for this community to raise the $80000 in the restricted time frame, compounded by the Regional Partnerships requirements, could result in this worthwhile project becoming a white elephant as a result of unforseen circumstances, and a heartless Government’s failure to assist this community of 42500 people to open this much needed community asset.
I look forward to hearing from you today.
I will read into the record the background of the organisation:
The Wingecarribee Community Services Centre Inc (WCSC) was incorporated in November 2004. It grew out of a partnership that began 2 years earlier between the Rotary Club of Moss Vale, Wingecarribee Food Services (Meals on Wheels), Wingecarribee Adult Day Care Centres, Wingecarribee Shire Council and the Dementia Advisory Service of Alzheimer’s Australia. The mission of WCSC is to—
Contribute to the well being of aged and disabled shire residents and their carers by providing them with support services that will enable them to make life choices that preserve and enhance the quality of their lives.
WCSC Inc is a not-for-profit incorporated association and a registered charity with Deductible Gift Recipient Status. It has a management committee made up of representatives of the original partners plus Wingecarribee Shire Council and Volunteering Wingecarribee.
Over many years, through local public subscription, this group of people raised $676,647, and the Australian government’s Regional Partnerships program contributed $656,975. Those figures comfortably covered the cost of the plan and subsequent construction contract. The problem was that when construction commenced, after a prudent geotechnical investigation of the site, they encountered an old well in the centre of the site that had been filled over many years with rubbish. That resulted in their construction costs blowing out to $1.4956 million, leaving the community group to find an extra $170,000. They received $85,000 from the local council. They are now trying to raise the rest of the money. If they do not raise it by 30 June 2008, under the contract by which they received the money from Regional Partnerships, this magnificent building will shut and nobody will be allowed into it because they will not be able to pay the builder and have the keys handed over to them. I implore the government and the two ministers involved in this process to stop being heartless and make some grant money available, to the tune of $80,000, so that this much needed community service building can be supplied to the community who have worked their insides out over the last six or eight years to raise the funds to get this building up and running.
I rise tonight to speak about a number of issues in my electorate. While I have spoken many times about the nature of the electorate and how expansive it is in terms of its location in south-east Queensland, I am very proud of the features and achievements of the people within my electorate. Many people would say that I often sing its praises. Tonight I want to talk about a particular group within my electorate—and I know that most members would have similar groups in their electorates around the country—who are affected by the rise in rents, fuel prices and the general cost of living. The particular group that I want to talk about tonight are those people in my electorate on pensions and fixed incomes. I have previously spoken about the intensive growth in and pressure that is on the electorate of Forde. We lack infrastructure and we have transport issues, and the people who are most affected are those on limited incomes. I have had many representations from different groups about what we as a government can do and what we can do regionally. The pressure is certainly on.
One of the major issues affecting these people, apart from fuel prices and the general cost of living, is the availability and affordability of rental property. It has been said many times in this House that south-eastern Queensland, which includes Forde, is under strain from population growth. Every week we have a net population increase of 1,500 people. The Queensland government is working tirelessly to build more infrastructure. We hear comments from both sides of the House about whether that is a good thing or a not so good thing, but the reality is that investment in infrastructure is very important. The establishment by the federal government of Infrastructure Australia will certainly help to get some of these projects on the map and underway.
The growth has caused enormous pressure for people. In an area like Forde, where the rental vacancy rate is down at around one to two per cent, the take-up of rental properties has been enormous. Pensioners and people on fixed incomes are very much affected. One of my constituents, Colin Foot, whom I have spoken to a number of times, has made representations to me and has given me the scenario—and I am sure that many members have had similar representations. I have spoken previously in the House about the housing shortage. Some people have had a rental increase of $30 a week—and because they have topped out on rental assistance they might get an increase of just 47c. It is a dreadful situation for people on fixed incomes. A single age pensioner may be on $546.80 per fortnight and receive the maximum rent assistance of $107.20 per fortnight and the pharmaceutical allowance of $5.80 per fortnight. Rent in Beenleigh and Eagleby is $460 per fortnight. That is quite a modest rent, but it is growing substantially every day. That leaves $190 per fortnight for people to meet all of their other expenses. In Mr Foot’s case, if you add on the other expenses of $15 a fortnight for telephone, $15 a fortnight for electricity and $120 a fortnight for food, that leaves this gentleman with $34.80 per fortnight.
We in the Rudd government are looking at ways of easing the pain for pensioners and people on fixed incomes. I understand that our review of taxation and the payments system will bring some relief. But what are the emergent issues and how do we deal with them? In my electorate, other than by building a lot of houses and making a lot of rental property available, it is going to be very difficult. This gentleman, Mr Foot, is soldiering on. He has said to me that what pensioners really want is a voice. I have said in my community that I will continue to bring these issues into the House. We the Rudd government are working very hard, but it is the emergent issues that we have to deal with. As a House, collectively, I think we have to talk more about how we can give relief to some of these people in that predicament.
Question agreed to.
The following notices were given:
to present a bill for an act to amend the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007, and for related purposes.
to present a bill for an act to amend the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 and other legislation, and for other purposes.
to present a bill for an act to amend legislation relating to aviation, and for related purposes.
to present a bill for an act to amend the law relating to aviation, and for related purposes.
to present a bill for an act to amend the law in relation to trade practices, and for related purposes.
to move:
That the House:
This might initially feel as if it is not a constituency statement, but in fact it is. I want to report to the parliament about a visit I made to BHP’s Ravensthorpe operation in Western Australia—about as far as you can get from Townsville. What BHP is doing in Ravensthorpe is so important to my city. Ravensthorpe is a nickel mine and it produces a nickel oxide product which is then put in containers and shipped to Townsville to be processed into nickel metal and cobalt by the Yabulu nickel refinery in my city. Yabulu is a major employer in Townsville, and a quality employer, as BHP is around the country. It is very important to my city; it is part of the lifeblood of the mining industry, along with careers in Sun Metals and Xstrata’s copper refinery in the city. Being able to take this product from Ravensthorpe extends the life of Yabulu. It has also resulted in a very significant upgrade to the city, with almost $1 billion being pumped into it. The Ravensthorpe nickel operation comprises an open-cut mine and a hydrometallurgical process plant. It will have the capacity to produce up to 50,000 tonnes of contained nickel and 1,400 tonnes of cobalt in a mixed hydroxide product. That is then shipped from the deepwater port of Esperance to our Yabulu refinery in Townsville.
I want to pay tribute to BHP Billiton in relation to their zero harm policy, which covers all of their sites in Australia and the world. They truly put into practice their belief that health, safety, environment and community excellence are intrinsically linked to the successful business outcomes that they have. For example, I was at Olympic Dam recently, and their zero harm policy ensures that the workers in that uranium mine receive less radiation than pilots do who are flying aeroplanes around the world. That policy applies wherever you go on BHP sites. It is a truly magnificent aspiration that BHP have.
The construction of this whole project began in 2004. It is now finished; it is now operating. Yabulu is steaming ahead, as is Ravensthorpe. I congratulate BHP on their foresight and investment in our country to value-add before the product is exported overseas.
In June this year I had the pleasure of opening the second stage of the Mawson Lakes School, in my electorate. In addition to significant government funding, the school community has raised nearly $100,000 through fundraising efforts in recent years to support the school’s development. The fundraising efforts of parents and community minded citizens provided enhanced playgrounds, sporting equipment, library books, classroom resources and advanced computer equipment for school students to enjoy. I was made aware of the tireless efforts of a few of these volunteers, and today I would specifically like to mention the efforts of Jane Boettger, Linda Platt, Liz Murgia, Anne Elliot and Sam Merritt.
The school also has a strong international student visit and exchange program, with more than 150 students from Japan, Korea and China visiting the school as part of a short-stay study program. The international students are billeted with families from the school and the broader community. This program has raised more than $115,000, which has also supported the ongoing development of the school.
Mawson Lakes School is now complete and fully operational—with 565 reception to year 7 students, 84 children in the preschool and 45 children in the new childcare centre. There are more than 50 staff working across three co-located services. The Mawson Centre, which is close by, has a lifelong learning focus and provides high-quality learning opportunities for this young community. It includes a state-of-the-art community library, lecture and meeting rooms, a computer barn and a 255-seat auditorium, all of which are accessible by the strategic partners, the school and the broader community. Mawson Lakes School has been a forerunner in the development of a birth to eight years of age integrated services program, which will include education, health and care programs for young children in this age group and their families. The opening of new facilities, particularly the childcare centre and the preschool, is a step towards building a learning community in Mawson Lakes. This approach is a significant focus of the South Australian government and now of the federal government.
In its short life span, this school has been the recipient of many awards—far too many for me to acknowledge in the limited time I have today. But there are two particular awards that I would like to mention. The first is an award for building sustainable links with older people in the community. This award was sponsored by the South Australian Office for the Ageing and the Department of Health. This successful ongoing program saw a group of five-year-old students working closely on a weekly basis with older people at the Mawson Lakes Helping Hand centre. The second award I would like to mention is the war veterans award, which was given in recognition of developing an understanding of the role that Vietnam veterans have played in Australia’s history. This was an outstanding program spanning nearly five years and involving the year 6 and 7 students from Mawson Lakes School and the Pooraka branch of the Vietnam Veterans Association. I would like to thank Alan Peucker, principal of the school, for allowing me the honour of opening the second stage, and I particularly want to thank three young students—Tayla, Shannen and Chelsea—for their guided tour of the school and for pointing out its many wonderful features.
I rise to speak of the life of Mr Arthur Edward Allenby Viney OAM, known as Alan, who was the member for Wakehurst in the New South Wales parliament from 1971 to 1978. He was born on 29 July 1919 and died on 13 June 2008. Alan served as the member for Wakehurst in the New South Wales parliament for seven years and seven months. During that time he served as the shadow minister for transport and the shadow minister for corrective services. The seat of Wakehurst forms part of my seat of Mackellar. He had a distinguished service record, commencing in 1935. He served as a senior cadet gunner in the 5th Brigade of the Royal Australian Army from then until 1938. From 1938 until 1940 he was in the 36th Battalion of the Australian Military Forces and from 1940 to 1943 he served firstly with the 2nd/17th Infantry Battalion of the AIF and then in the 20th and the 2nd/3rd Anti-Tank Regiment. From 1943 to 1945 he served with Army public relations. He served in Palestine, Tobruk and New Guinea.
Alan married his wife, Joan, on 27 May 1944 and they had three children—Barbara, James and Greg. After World War Two they built their home in Frenchs Forest in my electorate, where they lived until they moved into the war veterans village at Narrabeen, which is also in my electorate. Alan and Joan were very active members of our local community from the time they moved there. Alan was a founding member of the Beacon Hill bushfire brigade, which celebrated its 60th anniversary on the day that he died. Alan also founded the Warringah women’s refuge in 1974, and it is the second oldest refuge in Australia. He worked with the Frenchs Forest Agricultural and Horticultural Society in their annual show and helped to build their showground. He was a member of the Brookvale show society when local shows were a unique part of the Warringah Shire, as it then was.
After the war Alan worked in advertising for KG Murray as a journalist, where he was known as ‘Scoop’ Viney, and then with Colin Fitzpatrick, selling advertising. He moved to George Patterson in 1958 and remained there until 1971, becoming an associate director before winning the seat of Wakehurst. After leaving parliament, he established a business and marketing consultancy service with activities primarily relating to resources trading with China. On Australia Day 2007, he was awarded an OAM for his service to the fire service and community organisations, as well as for his service to parliament. His wife, Joan, is still in Peter Cosgrove House in the war veterans village. Alan, as usual, was busy editing Yabba, their magazine. I would like him to be remembered by all and know that he will be greatly missed by Joan, his children—Barbara Logan and James and Greg Viney—and their families.
I rise to update the House on a promise that was made by the then opposition in around July last year on a major piece of infrastructure in my electorate: the missing-link pipeline between Mangrove Creek Dam and Mardi Dam. While the Central Coast receives a lot of rainfall, people may not know that we have been on level 4 water restrictions now for many years. In fact, midway through last year our water supply levels dropped to only 13 per cent; we were reaching absolute crisis point.
The problem that we have on the Central Coast is as a result of the design of our water storage areas. We have a small dam, the Mardi Dam, which is close to the coast and constantly close to being 100 per cent full, but our main storage dam, Mangrove Creek Dam, is currently storing less than 10 per cent of its capacity. That has meant level 4 water restrictions. This is a problem that has been in existence for many years—in fact, for some decades. After a long 18-month campaign, which we ran locally, we got the then opposition leader Kevin Rudd to come to the electorate. He announced that, if elected, he would provide $80.3 million to fund a pipeline between these two dams. Subsequently, the then government matched that particular promise, so it was a win for the Central Coast—whoever won the last election, this vital piece of infrastructure would be constructed.
In constructing the pipeline, there are difficulties regarding the actual route of the pipeline between the two dams, particularly in ensuring that the impact on roads, existing rivers and private landholders is kept to a minimum. At this stage, we can report that eight out of the nine stages have been designed and are ready to go. There is one stage left, which has some geographical challenges. The council are looking at whether they will tunnel through hills and mountains for that last stage or go over private land. At the moment, it looks like it will go very close to a residential house, and there is further consultation underway with that particular landowner in relation to that. I can report that this absolutely vital piece of infrastructure is proceeding on time. Eight stages of the nine are ready to go. When completed in 2010, the Central Coast water supply will be secure for the first time.
I have spoken before in this place about the reality of living in a post-apology world and moving forward with positive steps that will enable us to close the gap between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the community. The people of the Sutherland Shire, in my electorate of Cook, are playing a proactive role in meeting these challenges. I am pleased to say today that shire schools in Cook are also doing their part. Endeavour Sports High School has set up a program for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students which is aimed at embracing their culture and helping them achieve their sporting and academic potential, which, as their school says, is their entitlement. The ultimate purpose of the program is to close the gap between Indigenous students and the rest of the school population. The program started in 2002 with just two students and one mentor teacher. The program has now grown to cater for 70 kids, and it is getting bigger every day.
Many of the Indigenous students attending the school are from remote areas and board in the shire while they learn. Teachers found that students could suffer a sense of loss and dislocation or a fractured cultural identity or come from dysfunctional families. They also found that, because of the reduced life span in Indigenous communities, the students often needed to attend funerals and were constantly grieving for loved ones. Indigenous teacher-mentor Rick O’Brien was the driving force behind the program and, together with Endeavour Sports High School’s head of teacher training, Liz Stone, expanded it to meet those challenges. Liz and Rick network with a range of agencies to provide quality student services and culturally appropriate programs which address the students’ particular needs.
The program offers students educational courses, which include literacy and numeracy assessment, and small-group tutorials. It offers a student wellbeing program, which employs an Indigenous mentor, Isaac Gordon, and which addresses issues such as respect, sexual health, drugs, alcohol and the transition to further learning programs, including school based traineeships and the completion of credentials such as RSA and security guard training. I am pleased to report just a few of the many success stories of this program. Beau Champion is a graduate and now plays first-grade football for the South Sydney Rabbitohs—I would prefer it to be the Sharks, but it is the South Sydney Rabbitohs. They won their third game of the year just the other night; congratulations to Beau and his team. Then there is Dave, a student who came from a modest hut with a dirt floor in Goodooga. He is now at the University of Newcastle studying horticulture.
My thanks to Endeavour Sports High School, particularly to Principal Sue Cran, who was very enthusiastic about the program, and to the staff for their continued hard work in making the Indigenous program the success that it is and for positively impacting on the lives of Indigenous youth. Endeavour Sports High School is a fine example of a committed community school working to support Indigenous people overcome their many challenges and helping to bring our communities together. Congratulations to all the students involved. I wish them all the best for the future.
I rise today to put on the record my congratulations to the organising committee, the volunteers and the broader Greek community of Darwin for the successful Greek Glenti festival, which occurred in Darwin on 7 and 8 June this year at Bicentennial Park on the Esplanade. Thousands of Territorians and visitors alike converged on the Esplanade over the weekend to celebrate the festival’s 20th anniversary and to take in the unique atmosphere, the entertainment, the fireworks spectacular and, of course, the superb culinary delights.
Members on this side have always enjoyed and supported the Glenti, with the member for Watson attending last year. This year my colleague the member for Hindmarsh thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality the organisers extended to him as a guest at the event. I know that the Darwin Greek community was very happy at having an Australian Greek member of parliament attend, and I thank him and his wife, Wendy, for coming up.
The Glenti is a festival that celebrates the rich, vibrant Greek culture that exists in Solomon and raises a significant amount of money for charities each year. In fact this year the Glenti organisers handed over a cheque for $50,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an outstanding contribution to a fantastic charity.
It needs to be highlighted that the ongoing success of the Glenti does not happen by accident. It takes a lot of hard work by a lot of committed people. This year, the organising committee comprised the tireless Greek community president, John Nicolakis; the fantastic chairperson, Lilliane Gomatos; and the wonderful secretary, Tony Miaoudis. These people were ably assisted by representatives from all the Darwin Greek community organisations, including the Kalymnian Brotherhood, the Greek Macedonian Association and of course the Hellenic and Olympic soccer clubs—all of whom made the 20th Greek Glenti the most successful so far. The Greek community should be extremely proud of the festival’s success over the last 20 years, and I know we all look forward to the event getting bigger and better each year.
I will add at this point that the Greek community are an extremely important and active community force in Darwin, and I am especially proud to be assisting them with establishing an aged-care facility in Darwin. Although this facility is currently at a concept stage, I look forward to working hard with the Greek community and my federal and state colleagues to secure this important community facility.
Finally, it is fantastic to see the announcement yesterday that around 50,000 residents of Australia and Greece will soon have improved access to the age pension from the Greek and Australian governments. A new social security agreement between the two countries has been completed and will start on 1 October this year. Information about how to claim the payments will be available very soon. This initiative is terrific for the Greek community in Solomon and something I know they have been waiting for for a long time. To the Greek community in Darwin, I say congratulations.
I would also like to congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, on your first six months in the chair—a fantastic job; well done.
Hear, hear!
I rise to hold the Rudd Labor government accountable not only for their lack of investment in Gold Coast infrastructure but, more importantly, for the fact that Labor’s candidates on the Gold Coast prior to the last federal election made a whole bunch of election promises that Labor are now walking away from.
I have with me a photocopy of the front page of the Gold Coast Weekend Bulletin of 24-25 March 2007 noting how the Labor Party endorsed a local councillor. It reads:
Councillor Sarroff—
who was the Labor Party candidate in the seat of McPherson—
said he agreed to run on the Labor ticket only after Mr Rudd promised a $2 billion infrastructure upgrade for the Gold Coast.
That is what he said on behalf of the Labor Party on the weekend of 24-25 March 2007—that the Labor Party was committed to a $2 billion infrastructure upgrade on the Gold Coast.
Further, on 15 May 2007, on local FM radio station Hot Tomato, Eddy Sarroff was again very big on behalf of the Labor Party, making all sorts of promises. He said with respect to Gold Coast light rail, public transport and traffic infrastructure:
I think it’s time to take this issue seriously. The Liberals have had a long time to come up with the money. In the meantime, the community is being caught in gridlock. I think we deserve to get our fair share of funding. Peter Costello won’t give it to us. I’m pretty sure Kevin Rudd and his team will.
In fact, we know from Councillor Sarroff that the Labor Party committed $2 billion to upgrading infrastructure on the Gold Coast. The Labor Party, at this point in time, stands accused of saying one thing prior to the election in order to get elected and then saying another after the election. I think the time has come for this Rudd Labor government either to say that Eddy Sarroff, on behalf of the Labor Party, was telling little porky pies when it came to the last federal election or to put its money where its mouth is. We know from that same weekend article that ‘Before accepting his preselection for McPherson, Councillor Sarroff secured’—and I use the word here from the Bulletin‘a commitment from Mr Rudd for a $2 billion infrastructure upgrade.’ He said:
I have given Kevin Rudd my shopping list and he has made it very clear that he will deliver on my agenda.
We are waiting for $2 billion for the Gold Coast. We are waiting for the Rudd government to honour its promise, a promise made by a Labor candidate on the Gold Coast, a promise that the Labor candidate said Kevin Rudd committed to. It is time that this Labor government and this Prime Minister stood up and made it very clear where the Labor Party stands when it comes to $2 billion of infrastructure for the Gold Coast. We will not stand idly by, and I certainly will not stand idly by, while Labor candidates say anything to get elected and then walk away from it later on.
I rise today in the House to praise the government and, in particular, the Attorney-General and the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties for supporting the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Ratifying this convention is a very progressive and far-sighted decision by the Rudd Labor government.
As we all know, in every electorate across the country there are a number of people with disabilities who are able and willing to participate fully in society to contribute, whatever the skills and experience they have gained, to improving the broader community. Unfortunately, because of levels of discrimination, levels of prejudice and levels of concern, there are still some barriers to people with disabilities participating in our community as fully as they would like. I know there are many organisations across the community trying to protect and promote the rights of people with disabilities. Indeed, in my electorate of Bonner there are many such organisations trying to improve the rights of people with disabilities and to ensure that we end discrimination and provide equal opportunity so that they can continue to involve themselves in community life and to live a full and satisfying life for themselves and for their families. There are a number of these organisations, whether they deal with mental health issues, deal with physical disabilities, support parents caring for children with disabilities or support carers looking after people with physical and mental disabilities. There are a number of people out there—not just those with disabilities but those that support them—that I know are very pleased and proud that the government has made the decision to sign this convention.
I am so pleased that the Attorney-General and the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services, in conjunction with the treaties committee, have in a sense fast-tracked the ratification of this convention, because it enables the government and Australia to be part of promoting and making decisions, in the committee that will be involved, on the rights of people with disabilities. It will ensure that the government can participate fully in ensuring that this convention results in practical decisions and government policies on the ground that will end discrimination for people with disabilities.
I would like to commend the member for Bonner on her address to this House today. I rise to rail against the major desalination plant planned for the Gippsland coast near Wonthaggi, in my electorate of McMillan. This $3.1 billion project was announced by then Premier Bracks as the answer to Melbourne’s water supply problems. From day one it has met strong community opposition because of concerns about the impact on the environment and the amenity of the area and because of a total lack of communication on the part of the Victorian state government. Today there are fears for the future as one farm will be torn asunder not by the plant itself but by the power line that is going to go from the plant all the way through west Gippsland. That will not be the only scar on the environment of west Gippsland. There will also be the pipeline. Only if you are a landholder in that area are you being advised where that pipeline is going. I may have a pecuniary interest here. These people are close friends of mine. Their farm will be torn to pieces. I do not even know whether the pipeline may go through the property of Russell Broadbent, Gembrook Road, Pakenham. There is a possibility that the pipeline will rip through my little farmlet too.
This is a very sour issue for the people of west Gippsland. They were not consulted. The siting of this plant has been unfair from the beginning. I believe it is political. It was sited in a Liberal held federal seat and in National and Liberal held state seats. The state government has not taken into account the care and concern of the people who built their lives around the amenity of that area and the beauty of the coastline. This will be a monolithic, huge industrial development right on the coastline of west Gippsland. I have fought against the destruction of these coastlands by wind turbines. I am not against renewable energy. But people have concerns about where we site major industrial projects such as wind turbines and, as in this case, massive desalination plants. You have to consider the amount of emissions that will pour out of the plant, and it is going to take two per cent of Victoria’s power. Importantly, this is an issue that has not shown the state government in a good light at all.
Every night 100,000 Australians are homeless. Half of them are under 24; 10,000 are under 12. My electorate is not immune. In Cabramatta it is youth homelessness. There is not enough crisis accommodation, so a lot of young people couch-surf from one friend’s place to another or are forced to travel to the city or Kings Cross for a bed—where even greater troubles await. In Bankstown, at the other end of my electorate, Clem McNamara has been running St Jude’s men’s refuge for 26 years. A few months ago he invited me for dinner at the refuge. Every man there has a different story. Some have chronic gambling problems. Others have just been released from Villawood detention centre and cannot work while they are awaiting determination of their cases. One young man I met has a job in the city at a call centre and was living there for a few weeks to save up enough money for a rental bond. I asked Clem what was wrong with the current system. He told me it was a lack of funding, a lack of housing, a lack of staff and a lack of care.
That is why last Friday I convened a roundtable to talk about the government’s green paper Which way home? A new approach to homelessness. You get a better understanding of the problem by talking to people at the coalface rather than just reading a report. Amongst those who attended were two local residents, Heather Brown and Sharon Matthews. Heather is one of life’s angels. She has been feeding homeless people and taking them into her home for decades. She does not belong to any organisation. She just does this because she wants to help, out of the goodness of her heart. Sharon came along because earlier this year she experienced the terror of almost being homeless herself. She struggled with government departments, staff and procedures and was one day away from being on the street when she found help. Heather and Sharon came along because they saw a notice in the local newspaper and because they wanted to be part of the solution.
Also at the roundtable were Amy Cabigio, of the Chester Hill Neighbourhood Centre; Clem McNamara, of St Jude’s; Wafa Zaim, of the Muslim Women’s Support Service Refuge; Bill Peet, from Nick Kerns House; Cassy Pace, from Wruwallin House; Carla and son, from Open Family Australia; and Mark Hankin, from Our House Youth Accommodation. They are all people who have dedicated decades to helping the homeless. We thrashed out the issues and the options in the green paper and came up with our own, an amalgam of options 2 and 3. We talked about the lack of crisis and transitional accommodation, particularly in the rental market; the duplication of services; the benefits of co-case management to build trust and make sure people do not fall through the cracks in the system; and accreditation, administration, reporting and funding issues. We agreed you need a roof over your head before you can think about anything else. But a lot more than that is needed to get people back on their feet and stop the cycle of homelessness. This week we will submit our ideas to the Minister for Housing and in September we will get back together to review the government’s white paper. I think we owe that to the homeless people of my local community.
Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for members’ constituency statements has concluded.
Madam Deputy Speaker, on indulgence, I wish to make a one-minute statement.
The minister may proceed.
I want to send my condolences to the family of former Senator Misha Lajovic, who was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 23 July 1921 and died recently, on 5 June 2008. He came to Australia at the age of 30 and worked for two years as a labourer and then as an accountant. He was in the parliament from 1975 to 1985, the first Australian of Slovenian extraction to be a member of the federal parliament. He was passionate about his Senate committee work and saw Australia as a land of opportunity. He is survived by a very loving extended family, and my regards go particularly to his son, Thomas.
His death occurred in the same year as the passing of the former President of Slovenia, Janez Drnovsek, who was born in Celje in Slovenia on 17 May 1950 and died in 2008 aged 57. He is survived by a son and a daughter, and his sister Helena Drnovsek Zorko was the charge d’affaires from Slovenia to Australia and a great friend of the Australian community. President Drnovsek was well loved in Slovenia and played a key role in the post-communist and post-independence era. He formed the Liberal Democrats in 1992 and became Prime Minister. He led Slovenia to the European Union in 2004 and into NATO membership. He focused on the fight for the poor and the weak and was critical of the EU from within for subsidising some while others suffered. He battled cancer for many years and was well loved by the Slovenian people.
Debate resumed from 17 March.
I present the explanatory memorandum to the bill and move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Communications Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2008 amends the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (the BSA) to give the Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) the discretion to consider late applications for renewals of community broadcasting licences that are made up until the expiry date of the licence.
Currently the ACMA has no discretion to accept an application for renewal of a community broadcasting licence after 26 weeks prior to the licence expiry date, regardless of the circumstances giving rise to the late application.
The amendments would give the ACMA the discretion to consider late applications for the renewal of a community broadcasting licence if:
Once a late application is made, ACMA may extend the current licence for up to 26 weeks while it considers the renewal application. This provision will ensure that ACMA is not required to assess late applications in a shorter period and under the pressure of a deadline for the licence ending.
The purpose of the amendment is to give the ACMA the discretion to consider late applications while ensuring that the regulator still has adequate time to consider the merits of the renewal application.
The amendments will allow the ACMA to renew the licence of a community broadcaster, providing a valuable public service, even if the renewal application is late, as long as the lateness is explained to ACMA’s satisfaction. The amendments recognise that many community broadcasters have limited administrative resources.
However, it is not expected that the acceptance of late applications will be standard practice but instead that ACMA’s discretion to accept late applications would only be exercised in exceptional circumstances.
These proposed amendments will prevent situations where ACMA cannot consider applications to renew community broadcasting licences if the licensee misses the application deadline.
This happened to 3CCC Bendigo—a community broadcaster for 25 years. ACMA could not even consider renewing their licence in 2006 because they lodged a late application.
To prevent this type of situation reoccurring, the proposed amendments will allow ACMA to consider late applications. This will ensure that community broadcasters that are providing a valuable public service will not lose their licence.
Community broadcasting provides important services to local communities and supports diversity in the broadcasting sector. It gives voice to small communities and an outlet for contemporary Australian music, and the wide variety of programs enriches our Australian culture.
These amendments assist this valuable sector, and I understand that they will have the support of both sides of the House. I commend the bill to the House.
I am particularly pleased to be able to join in the debate today on the Communications Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2008. As the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has outlined, this is a common-sense bill which is designed to enhance the continued operation of community radio. In our respective electorates we all have community radio stations. These stations operate in the community using the services of volunteers. They have very few paid staff, but they do provide a valuable service to the community. There are different sorts of community radio stations—there are those based on a geographic area; there are some that are religious radio stations; there are some that assist ethnic people—but all of them in their own way carry out a particularly important role. It is not appropriate that we always ought to have the same rules applying to community radio as perhaps to other broadcasters.
Because these community radio stations are often run by volunteers who are not paid, it is not realistic to expect that they will always dot the i’s and cross the t’s as you would require of a commercial broadcasting operation. It is a pity that adequate flexibility has not been in the legislation until now. I believe this bill, which is supported by both sides of the House, ought to pass through the parliament as quickly as possible so that community radio can continue in areas where perhaps some of the technical provisions with respect to the renewal of licences have not been fully attended to. I am very pleased to support the bill and I commend it to the chamber and to honourable members.
I too rise to commend the Communications Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2008 to the House. This bill is essentially common sense. It gives the Australian Communications and Media Authority discretion in relation to issues of late application. Bearing in mind that community radio stations are essentially run by honorary organisations with no paid administration staff, complying with the letter of the law when it comes to the deadline for making an application for the renewal of a licence sometimes does not go the way we would like, as you would find in many situations involving non-professional activity and its administration.
Whilst a number of these radio stations do a very good job, in the past they have, unfortunately, been late with their applications and there is currently no discretion with respect to the ability of the Australian Communications and Media Authority to deal with late payment. That being the case, this amendment is certainly an improvement to the act. It grants discretion to the ACMA to be able to deal with late applications for licences. It is something that is overdue, particularly when the ACMA, by and large, in dealing with these matters is dealing with a number of honorary organisations.
This bill gives discretion to the ACMA. This is supported by both sides of the parliament and will make for a tidier approach in dealing with the vast majority of community broadcasters throughout this nation. I commend the bill to the House.
I add my voice to the support for the Communications Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2008, which will amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to give the Australian Communications and Media Authority the discretion to consider late applications for the renewal of community broadcasting licences up to the expiry date of the licence. This is not some after-expiry-date amendment which allows for further applications; it provides greater accommodation for community broadcasters to apply for a renewal of their licences while they still have a valid licence.
The bill was introduced into the parliament by the coalition government on 13 September 2007; however, it was not debated. The bill had not passed parliament when parliament was prorogued on 15 October 2007 and, as a result, the bill lapsed. It has been reintroduced in substantially the same form. I understand that there may be some minor technical variations to it but essentially it aims to achieve the same objectives as the bill introduced by the coalition.
Part 6 of the Broadcasting Services Act provides for the allocation and renewal of community broadcasting licences. When renewing or deciding to renew a community broadcasting licence, the Australian Communications and Media Authority—or ACMA, as we refer to it—takes into account a range of issues, which include the extent to which the proposed or existing service would meet existing and perceived needs of the community within the licence areas; the nature and diversity of community interests; the nature and diversity of alternative broadcasting services within that licence area; and the licensee’s capacity to continue to provide the service.
Currently ACMA has no discretion to consider late applications for renewal of community broadcasting licences, regardless of the circumstances that have given rise to the late application. Most broadcasting licensees usually have appropriate and adequate administrative staff and office processes to ensure that the necessary licence renewal requirements are followed and met. However, currently, if an application is not submitted by the due time, there is the potential for a community broadcasting licensee who is playing a valuable role and providing an important service to the community to lose their licence, even if the licensee can give a valid reason for the late application.
Section 90(1) of the Broadcasting Services Act provides that ACMA can renew a community broadcasting licence if the licensee makes an application for renewal by submitting the approved form. ACMA writes to the community broadcasting licensee 58 weeks before the expiry of their licence to request that they submit the application form. Section 90(1) provides that, as a general rule, a licensee must apply for the renewal of the licence within the following time frames. The earliest date to apply is one year before the licence is due to expire—so within about six weeks of being notified of it. The latest due date to apply is the first of the following times: 26 weeks before the licence is due to expire or a time that is notified in writing by the licensee to ACMA. So there is a window within which these licence renewal applications need to be submitted under the law as it currently stands.
This bill will insert some new provisions that provide for exceptional circumstances for late application. Late application is somewhere less than 26 weeks before the current licence runs out. A request to have the licence renewed within those parameters needs to be supported by a submission from the licensee explaining just why the application is late. ACMA needs to take into account these exceptional circumstances. It looks for reasons, to be given by the licensee, for the late lodgement of the application, a sense of the number of paid staff employed by the licensee—that is, their capacity to have met the general licensing requirements that they had not met on this occasion—and any other matters that ACMA considers relevant.
Essentially, this in no way reduces the function and purpose of the community licensee but actually recognises that the process might not always be suited to and may well be too rigid for some of the community licensees to comply in the window of time within which they can seek to have their current licence renewed. We have heard the example of 3CCC in Bendigo, a community broadcaster which, I understand, is highly valued by the local community. In my own local community 3RPP is one of these broadcasters. They have been providing a very localised focus to their content for many years and also provide some content that is not available through commercial broadcasting options. Importantly, they provide a valuable training resource for members of our community looking to pursue a career in broadcasting. It would be just appalling if the application was not received in time, within that tight 52- to 26-week window before the licence expires, and therefore deemed to be late, even though it was still within a valid licence period. This is common sense, as the member for Werriwa mentioned. It is an important recognition that there may be legitimate circumstances where a community licensee cannot comply with that time frame—that rather specific window that exists in the act. It is not as if this is an invitation for people to ignore those provisions, because ACMA needs an appropriate period of time to make sure that the very purpose for which the licence was issued in the first place remains valid. So those criteria I touched on earlier—the extent to which the service meets existing or perceived needs within the community, the diversity of community interest, what may be available as alternative broadcasting services and the licensee’s capacity to actually provide that service—are all still very valid and very crucial, key criteria that need to be met. This is just to make sure that the opportunity that people have to be assessed against those criteria is not lost because there has been some overrun on the time frame.
This is an important window into some of the challenges community broadcasting currently faces. I know it is particularly topical in the area of community television. Access 31 is the Western Australian community television station. This Friday, I understand, they are meeting to decide their fate. Some of the uncertainty that has arisen out of the availability of their digital spectrum and of what broadcasting support may be available to them has caused Access 31 to consider whether they should be going into voluntary liquidation, and that will be canvassed by members of Access 31 at a meeting on Friday.
The issue that arises here is one of a lack of clarity about the transition strategy for community broadcasting into the digital age. The previous government, with its digital action agenda, was very clear and identified a need for assistance to make sure community broadcasters could make that migration from the analog space into the digital space. One of the key parts of that, though, was in fact channel A. You would be aware that the current government has—and I hope I get the term correct—‘stepped back’ from channel A and channel B processes, whatever that means. What I know it does mean is that they are not stepping forward to move on channel A and channel B considerations.
What the previous government always envisaged was that amongst a range of services to be accommodated on channel A there would be community television—that Channel 31 in Western Australia and certainly Channel 31 in Melbourne, which I visited, were looking forward to being part of an aggregate offering over channel A that could piggyback on the channel A broadcasting platforms and then assist their ongoing engagement with their audience as people take up the invitation to purchase digital televisions. I read some of the blogs about digital TV, certainly around the Access 31 issue. There are accounts of people who are flipping through channels on the digital spectrum and on digital services and, of course, they are not coming across community television because they have not made that migration. I have heard that the audience share of Access 31 is reducing because, as people flip between channels, they are not coming across the community television offer, as they might have done in the days of analog.
It is important that community television gets certainty. This bill provides one area of risk that we can manage, and we can put common sense into the process, but really the challenge facing community broadcasting is how they are going to be part of the digital broadcasting future. The previous government had a clear program. The digital action agenda set out a need for support and assistance that the technology used by these broadcasters would need in order to be converted and replaced with digital technology and the availability of spectrum. The government looked at how they would then be accommodated in the transmission systems that were around.
I mentioned how community television was very much a part of an aggregated offer on channel A but, now that this current government has stepped back from that, community television is wondering where it fits into that digital transition future. I call on Senator Conroy to address this. In my view, he has rather courageously nominated a final switch-over date to digital television. That deadline of 2013 is there and people’s minds are focused on it, and that may be a positive thing. But people such as the community broadcasters know that, when the lights get shut off, they do not know how they will keep their transmission going. So what is missing is the plan. We have a deadline and no plan. I think the current government’s criticism of the previous government was that we had a plan but no deadline. Plans are important when there is so much involved, and we need a plan very quickly, particularly with the stepping back from channel A and channel B. We need Minister Conroy to detail his digital bailout plan, which was carried on Channel 10 news in Perth. I think that might have been a rather herculean summation of his media release. In his defence, I do not think Senator Conroy actually said he was offering a bailout plan, but that was what was carried on the news in Perth. More particularly, it does highlight the fact that a plan of some description is urgently needed so community broadcasters know how they will migrate, how they will be allowed and supported in digital transmission and what will be involved by way of assistance in that costly transition upgrade.
I mentioned that the previous government was planning to auction TV spectrum channel A for narrowcasting, and that was the perfect Trojan Horse through which community television could be brought into the digital transition age. There was an acknowledgement in the digital action agenda that some resourcing was required and would be provided as we moved forward. None of that clarity is available under the current government’s plan, and that is something I would certainly encourage the government and Senator Conroy to turn their minds to.
For Perth’s Access 31, D-day is Friday. Contemplating whether to go into liquidation will be a very worrying deliberation on Thursday—a deliberation brought about because of the lack of clarity about just how their broadcasting future fits within this transition from analogue to digital. I commend Senator Cormann, who has been very active in his interactions with Access 31 in Perth. He has certainly written to me about the challenges that they face and their efforts to have the current government address this transition challenge now that the previous government’s plan with channel A and the digital action agenda has been put back or has been stepped back from. We have this deadline of 2013 with digital television switch-over. We have audience share disappearing as people are not quite sure where to pick up their community TV. Those who browse across a range of channels, if they have a digital TV, are not browsing across community television. That is a very compelling and important issue that needs a timely response. I commend this bill as an important practical step and invite people to turn their minds, once this bill has passed, to a more immediate and compelling challenge—that is, just what community television can look forward to in terms of its digital future.
The main purpose of the Communications Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2008 is to introduce discretion for the Australian Communications and Media Authority to accept late licence renewal applications from community broadcasters. Under section 90(1) of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 the Australian Communications and Media Authority has a discretion to renew a community broadcasting licence. Section 90(1A) provides that a renewal application must be ‘no earlier than one year before the licence is due to expire’ and no later than either 26 weeks before the expiry date or ‘a time notified in writing’ by the Australian Communications and Media Authority—whichever is earlier. The Australian Communications and Media Authority has been advised by the Australian Government Solicitor that there is a moderate to high risk that a court would find invalid a licence renewed following a late application, even one lodged only a short period out of time. The later an application is lodged, the higher the risk of a court finding invalidity.
The Communications Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2008 amends the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to give the Australian Communications and Media Authority the discretion to consider late applications for the renewal of community broadcasting licences up to the expiry date of the licence. The amendments recognise that many community broadcasters have limited administrative resources. However, it is not expected that the acceptance of late applications will be standard practice; instead, it is expected that the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s discretion to accept late applications would only be exercised in exceptional circumstances.
I personally have been involved in community broadcasting since 1994; I spent 10 years on Mackay 4CRM community radio, which is wholly run by volunteers. Obviously, it is a hard task to manage and administer a volunteer staff and a service that offers a live-to-air—not prerecorded—facility from six o’clock in the morning until 12 midnight. I commend the work of all the volunteers, particularly one of the founders of 4CRM Mackay, John Picker, who was previously a presenter on local Mackay ABC Radio before retiring and setting this up as a project. I really do commend his work. He has established something that has stood the test of time.
Unfortunately, in the seat of Dawson we do not have any community TV—none at all. We do not have the facilities or the guidance to get that up and running. We would love to see community TV in the seat of Dawson.
Without any further ado, I commend the work of the volunteers in all broadcasting sectors, whether it be radio or TV, and I commend this bill to the House.
I would like to thank members for their contributions to this debate; it is a valuable piece of legislation. I thank those opposite for recognising that the Communications Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2008 is a common-sense amendment that will improve the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. I welcome the support expressed by those opposite for the community broadcasting sector, which contributes so much to our Australian broadcasting culture.
The bill is a significant step forward, providing the Australian Communications and Media Authority with the discretion to consider, up until the expiry date of the licence, late applications for the renewal of community based broadcasting licences. Without the amendment, there is the real possibility that good community broadcasting stations which provide a valuable public service could unreasonably lose their licences. It is the primary purpose of these amendments to avoid the situation where a community broadcaster providing a valuable public service loses its licence as a result of a late application, where the broadcaster can show good reasons why that application is late. The amendments recognise that many community broadcasters have limited administrative resources. However, it is not expected that the acceptance of late applications will be standard practice; instead, it is expected that ACMA’s discretion to accept late applications would only be exercised in exceptional circumstances. This bill demonstrates the government’s commitment to community broadcasting as an essential component of Australian broadcasting.
I note that the shadow minister for communications has mentioned the situation faced by Channel 31 in Perth. Channel 31 is an outstanding part of our broadcasting community in Perth. Over the last few weeks, I have had extensive discussions with Channel 31 about the situation it faces. What I have learned is as follows: the situation that Channel 31 faces, which is dire, is a situation that has been in the making for the past few years. On the one hand, we hear of the representations made to the shadow minister on behalf of Channel 31 by coalition senators, but in reality what we know is that Channel 31 was left in the lurch by the former government through funding shortfalls and decisions—and a lack of decisions—which have created a critical situation for that broadcaster in Perth. That broadcaster has tremendous support from not just young people who are interested in the media, interested in broadcasting and interested in careers in television or radio and cut their teeth in community broadcasting but also community organisations, which can get some exposure of their issues and have light shone on them.
The Australian government is working on a pathway to digital broadcasting for community TV. I will stress again that it is a little disingenuous for the shadow minister to cry crocodile tears for community TV when the former government left it in the lurch. It is significant that this bill has such support from both sides of the House. It is common sense, practical and pragmatic. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.
Debate resumed from 26 May.
I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The statute law revision bills are important mechanisms which ensure more effective and accessible laws. The Office of Parliamentary Counsel does an excellent job in reviewing, correcting and updating the body of Commonwealth legislation by preparing these bills. Interestingly, they are often done during an election period, when there is no legislation to work on—so there is some productive work done during those periods.
Scrutiny of the statute book extends beyond the correction of minor errors and the clearing away of obsolete acts. The Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 removes gender specific language, which will ensure that our laws are contemporary.
The timely corrections and repeals of obsolete language effected by statute law revision bills improve the quality and accuracy of Commonwealth legislation and facilitate the publication of consolidated versions of acts. It is a matter of record that the process was undertaken during the period of the former government but has cross-party support and is a very useful and productive exercise.
The bill has four schedules. Schedule 1 amends minor and technical errors contained in principal acts, such as incorrect spelling, punctuation or numbering.
Most of schedule 2 amends errors contained in amending acts and misdescribed or redundant amendments. The remainder of schedule 2 amends errors in cross-references to the Australian Citizenship Act 2007, which came before the parliament in 2005 but was not enacted until 2007. References to the ‘Australian Citizenship Act 2006’ are amended to refer to the ‘Australian Citizenship Act 2007’.
Schedule 3 repeals obsolete acts and makes consequential amendments to provisions of other acts that refer to a repealed act. A large number of these obsolete acts are administered by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and relate to programs that are now finished.
Schedule 4 amends a number of acts to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language.
The effect of the commencement provisions in schedules 1 and 2 is that the errors are taken to have been corrected immediately after the error was made. Schedule 3 commences on royal assent and schedule 4 commences the day after royal assent.
While none of the amendments proposed by the schedules will alter the content of the law, the bill ensures our statute books reflect current social standards and it will improve the quality and public accessibility of Commonwealth legislation.
I express my gratitude to those who were involved in this quite extensive piece of work and I commend the bill to the House.
I am pleased to be speaking on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2008. This is a bill to amend drafting and technical errors in 40 acts, repeal 27 obsolete acts and remove gender specific language from 88 acts. It is one of those run-of-the-mill bills which governments introduce on a regular basis to update legislation. As the Attorney has pointed out, there is very productive work done during the period when we are supposedly doing productive work ourselves in getting re-elected to this place—and when some new members, of course, are getting elected for the first time. It is very exciting for them but not so exciting on this side of the House for those members who have come from the other side!
In fact, I am surprised to see so many members speaking on the Statute Law Revision Bill. There are three speakers to follow me, and I feel somewhat inadequate because I do not intend to speak for very long at all. In fact, I really only wanted to say that obviously the opposition supports this bill. It is an essential tool of government to update Commonwealth statute books and to keep them accurate.
As the Attorney pointed out, there are four schedules to the bill. Schedule 1 makes some minor technical amendments to 26 principal acts. Schedule 2 makes amendments to 14 amending acts. Schedule 3 repeals 27 obsolete acts, particularly for programs that have already been completed and things like the Brigalow Lands Agreement Act 1962 and the Queensland Tobacco Leaf Marketing Board Guarantee Act 1953. I do not think there has been tobacco grown in Queensland for some time. Certainly the government bought out most of the last tobacco farmers in Indi not long before the last federal election, and I do not think there is any tobacco leaf grown in this country at all anymore. There is a list, of course, of all these bills attached to the explanatory memorandum, which the Attorney has just tabled in the House. Schedule 4 removes gender specific language from 88 acts, which is the modern thing to do, apparently. The opposition would like to place on record its support for the bill.
Words have their meaning. I am not going to say that the Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 is akin to the works of Shakespeare or the King James Bible, but certainly words have their meaning. The words in statutes reflect where we are as a society and what we think. I can remember when I was at law school in the late 1970s and early 1980s reading acts of parliament and decisions of judges of the House of Lords and also judges in our courts—the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of Australia—where terminology in relation to women was quite extraordinary. Women were considered chattels or like cattle. This was found in our law. It was extraordinary to think that that is the way that we would treat women and think about ourselves as a society.
So it is propitious that we actually amend the laws on our statute books to reflect contemporary society. I commend the Attorney-General for bringing this bill forward and the previous government because they were involved in this process. Both sides of politics take that approach and I think it is worthy and important. If someone comes and has a look at some of our laws—young law students or high school students doing legal studies—they wonder, ‘What are we doing? Where are we going? What does it say about us as a society?’ So this bill, whilst correcting minor errors and removing obsolete language, really does play an important role.
I am happy to speak on this legislation because it reminds me of my old law school days. Bills of this nature really are acknowledgement of the importance of us being attentive to the operation of law in our statute books. We need to scrutinise and review and monitor our laws to make sure they are up to date. It is about ensuring they are accurate as well.
This bill corrects a catalogue of Commonwealth statutes which are out of date or obsolete or contain errors. The bill is broken into four schedules. The first amends 26 principal acts and the second amends 14 amending acts. Schedule 3 repeals 27 obsolete acts and schedule 4 removes gender specific language from 88 acts. It is not just one or two; we are talking about a lot of acts of parliament that we are amending with the Statute Law Revision Bill. We are really affecting a lot of acts that are on the statute books.
Before I examine the bill in detail, I would like to acknowledge the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. The process of reviewing, correcting and updating the body of Commonwealth legislation is a function that is well executed by the office, which prepares these sorts of bills. It is well served by competent lawyers; it is well served by competent staff. Noting and collating errors in existing legislation ensures that the laws of our land are accurate and effective, and the office does it extraordinarily well.
The Statute Law Revision Bill is simple, but it is an important tool to make sure that our laws are accessible and understandable by young people, mature-age people and older people. This bill improves the quality and accuracy of our Commonwealth legislation and facilitates the publication of consolidated versions of enactments. The bill is part of a continuous process. I pay credit to the other side of the House, as well as to our own, for ensuring that our statute books are free from errors and cleared of obsolete legislation.
The bill contains four schedules, as I said. The first schedule amends minor and technical errors contained in the principal acts. The types of errors proposed for amendment in this schedule are of a minor and technical nature, such as incorrect spelling, punctuation or numbering. Schedule 2 amends errors contained in amending acts, and misdescribed or redundant amendments. Many of these errors are misdescribed amendments; they are inaccurately described text which needs to be amended. Additionally, the schedule amends errors in relation to the cross-references to the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. Schedule 3 repeals obsolete acts and makes consequential amendments to provisions in other acts that refer to repealed acts. Schedule 4 amends a number of acts to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language. The effect of the commencement of the provisions in schedules 1 and 2 is that errors are to be corrected immediately after the error is made. Commencement of schedule 3 will be on royal assent, and schedule 4 commences the day after royal assent.
I had a look at the explanatory memorandum to the bill, and I thought it was fascinating, to be honest. It appeals to me as a lawyer. I thought it was really interesting to see which particular acts of parliament were being amended. Without these amendments, some of these acts of parliament, and the provisions in the sections within them, make absolutely no sense whatsoever. For example, the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 states that a ‘defendant bears and evidential burden’. That simply needs to be corrected; you cannot have that, as it makes no sense whatsoever. Then there is my alma mater, the University of Queensland, at St Lucia: I am sure we would like it to have a capital U, rather than ‘university’ in lower case. There is the same issue in the Australian National University Act 1991.
In section 23 of the Defence Housing Australia Act, there should be a comma after the reference to subsection (1). There is a need for that, because if you look at the section it makes no sense without it. If you look at the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, you see that there is a missing closing bracket after ‘2A’ in section 430(2), and there is a missing full stop after the word ‘official’ in paragraph 486G(3)(b) of the same act.
There are a number of amendments like that. For example, the word ‘the’ is missing in section 11(3) of the Water Act 2007. The word ‘for’ is missing from section 86(1) of the Water Act. This is important because, without the word ‘for’, the phrase reads ‘the Commonwealth is responsible those changes’. What does that mean? It means nothing. It should say that ‘the Commonwealth is responsible for those changes’. Without the amendment, it is useless.
I note that the Brigalow Lands Agreement Act 1962 is very obsolete. It comes from my state of Queensland and it needs to be got rid of.
One of the things that I found absolutely fascinating was the Queensland Flood Relief Act 1974. I was born and raised in Ipswich, and a lot of Ipswich went under flood in 1974. My parent’s house was eight feet under the water, and I remember vividly canoeing while on top of our roof. We had to move twice in 1974 because the floodwaters came up and we had to leave my grandparents’ house as well. Working-class people like my folk would have lost everything but for the Australian Army, who came in with trucks and Army vehicles and took away furniture and other chattels. Otherwise, my parents would have lost absolutely everything in the 1974 flood. So Commonwealth government relief for people in Ipswich and the surrounding areas was extremely important.
The Queensland Flood Relief Act 1974, which allowed the Treasurer at any time before 1 July 1976 to authorise payment of financial assistance to Queensland for the purpose of alleviating the effects of the flood in the state, was extremely helpful. But of course the 1974 flood was a long time ago. I can remember that, when I was a junior lawyer practising in Ipswich in 1983, you always had the requisite question asked in any conveyance: ‘Was your house affected by the 1974 flood?’ We do not do that anymore in Queensland, but it was interesting. That is the extent to which, nine years later, it affected the psyche of the particular area where I lived.
Of course there is no authorisation for repayments and the act is obsolete, but I am very grateful that my parents received assistance and relief in relation to this piece of legislation. Whilst it is obsolete, I am a little sad that it will no longer be in the statute books, because it is a reminder of the fact that my folks and so many of our family and friends received such great assistance through this particular act. It was a tremendous act of parliament and a great initiative, and it goes to show that the Commonwealth parliament has a big role in getting financial assistance to people.
There is a lot of gender specific language that is gotten rid of in this legislation. As the father of two teenage daughters, I believe the amendments are important in ensuring that the sexes are recognised equally under the law. Of course the amendments that are really necessary in the circumstances are that we reflect our legislation as being gender neutral. The importance of this particular aspect is highlighted by the appointment of the new Governor-General. I would like to illustrate this by saying that, in the list of legislation amended by this bill, the bill corrects the Royal Powers Act 1953, which clarifies the Governor-General’s powers when the Queen visits Australia. Following the passage of this bill, the Royal Powers Act 1953 will refer to the Governor-General as ‘himself or herself’—how appropriate in view of the historic decision to appoint Her Excellency Quentin Bryce as the Governor-General.
The Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 is a fascinating bill—as Gareth Evans would have said in 1981, when the first Statute Law Revision Bill entered this House. It is a great innovation. I commend both sides of the House for this rational legislative approach. Whilst this legislation is not controversial, it is generally acknowledged that this type of legislation is important in maintaining the process of orderly, accurate and up-to-date Commonwealth statute books. This is an omnibus bill. It is important that we do this in a timely way and do it regularly. While none of the amendments proposed will alter the contents of the law, except as I have noted, the bill will improve the quality and accessibility of our Commonwealth legislation. I commend the bill to the House.
In preparing for my entry to parliament, between the election and when parliament started I read the biography of the Hon. James Killen, who was a former member for Moreton and a great orator. I read with great enthusiasm a lot of the exchanges in the cut and thrust of parliament, but the legislation before us now is not something that would generate much of that sort of banter. I have been a native title adviser, a mines adviser and a health adviser, and I have worked in industrial law and commercial law, and I would have to say, with respect to the Attorney-General, that this is one of the most boring pieces of legislation I have ever encountered. But for the fact of its contribution to fairness in terms of gender neutral language, it probably would obtain that title.
The Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 runs the ruler over the Commonwealth legislation to improve its quality and accuracy. It is part of the continual process of review that ensures our Commonwealth laws are up to date and reflect the highest standards. Prior to coming into parliament, I spent 11 years as an English teacher and about 10 years as a lawyer. Obviously standards, words and accuracy are very important for an English teacher and also for a lawyer, and I had a look at the make-up of the House of Representatives and the Senate to see how many other people had been teachers or lawyers. There are about 21 teachers, 13 female and eight male; and there are 48 former barristers, solicitors or lawyers, 35 male and 13 female. So obviously the people in this House do spend a lot of time focusing their minds on being accurate.
Mr McClelland interjecting
I will take that interjection from the Attorney-General. If nothing else, this experience developed in me as an English teacher—and I am sure in my colleagues from teaching and law backgrounds—a keen eye for detail, especially when it comes to language and grammar. As my staff will attest, I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to accurate spelling and correct grammar.
One of the ways we can ensure high standards of literacy among our children is to make sure that we do our best to get it right every single time. That is why I think it is especially important that public documents and certainly Commonwealth legislation are of the highest standard and accuracy. Some members may think that this bill is insignificant—and I do not want to take anything away from the member for Blair’s previous praise of the legislation—because the legislation is merely making technical corrections to legislation without altering the content of the law.
I am sure we will debate much more important legislation than this. However, minor technical errors can sometimes hang around and before you know it they are here to stay. In fact my mother’s maiden name of Morrissy is misspelt because when someone came to Australia they obviously knew their last name but did not know how to spell it—either that or I come from a long line of dyslexics or bad spellers; I am not sure. Also my electorate of Moreton—as you would be well aware, Deputy Speaker Bird—is spelt M-o-r-e-t-o-n, but it was actually named after the Earl of Morton, which is spelt M-o-r-t-o-n. Somewhere in history it was misspelt, perhaps by one of my ancestors, and therefore Moreton gained an ‘e’ and that is how it has remained ever since.
This bill contains four schedules to amend or repeal more than 150 acts. Schedule 1 amends minor and technical errors contained in principal acts. The kinds of corrections we are talking about here concern spelling, punctuation and numbering. Schedule 2 amends errors contained in amending acts and misdescribed or redundant amendments. This schedule also corrects errors in cross-references to the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. This act has been incorrectly described as the Australian Citizenship Act 2006. The Australian Citizenship Bill was introduced in November 2005 and was given assent in March 2007. However, the act was incorrectly labelled the Australian Citizenship Act 2006—something to get some of my former law lecturers frothing at the mouth but probably not something that has grabbed the imagination of the Australian public. Schedule 3 repeals obsolete acts and makes consequential amendments to provisions of other acts that refer to a repealed act. Finally, schedule 4 amends a number of acts to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language. It includes more than 500 amendments to 88 acts.
I understand that there is still some work to be done to ensure Commonwealth legislation is contemporary and free from inappropriate gender-specific language. Of course, this involves a review of all legislation passed since Federation. However, no matter how onerous, the parliament must lead by example in this regard. I commend the work done by the former government to kick off some of this.
Just as we have passed legislation in this House to amend laws discriminating against same-sex couples, so we must ensure we use inclusive language for all. Obviously our language defines our culture. Language is a very powerful tool, Deputy Speaker—which is why I use the term ‘Deputy Speaker’, which is gender neutral language. I know other people use gender specific language, but I believe that you are a Deputy Speaker and therefore we should address you as such. Language defines our culture in so many ways, so we must give good examples. We must ensure that everybody is recognised equally by the law. Nobody would expect any less of the parliament.
The Legislative Instruments Act 2003 includes measures to achieve high drafting standards, particularly with regard to gender inclusive language. It requires the secretary to take steps to prevent the inappropriate use of gender specific language in legislative instruments, to advise rule makers of inappropriate use of gender specific language in legislative instruments that have already been made and to notify both houses of parliament when a rule maker is so advised.
I take you back to that list of former barristers, solicitors and lawyers in the current parliament and note that the make-up is 35 men and 13 women. In our law schools, that is not the case. The majority of law students are actually female, my wife being one of them. However, the senior boardrooms of our top law firms do not reflect that, do not reflect a majority of females, so in some small way this legislative process that the Attorney-General has commenced is sending a good message to our female law students.
In closing, I wish to acknowledge the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for drafting this bill. Even for a grammatical stickler like me, this kind of review of Commonwealth legislation is a tedious task, but the Office of Parliamentary Counsel has done an outstanding job. I also thank the Attorney-General for his input and for introducing this bill and I hope he will forgive my earlier comments! I commend the bill to the House.
Despite the overtly uncontroversial nature of this legislation, the Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 does make important changes to ensure effective and accessible laws for the Australian public. Like all statute law revision legislation, it amends minor and technical errors in acts, it amends and removes errors within existing acts and it updates acts to remove descriptions of defunct and completed programs.
The greatest significance of this bill is that it will also amend a number of acts to remove gender specific language and replace it with gender neutral language in over 500 changes in 88 different acts. Examples of such language include using the term ‘chair’ as opposed to ‘chairperson’ or ‘chairman’ when establishing new officers. It is also important to avoid gender specific words such as ‘policeman’ and replace them with neutral terms such as ‘police officer’. As law makers of this country we should seek to simplify the laws we enact to make them accessible to the public but we should also seek to ensure that the language we use to draft laws is gender neutral. We do not wish to reinforce gender stereotypes.
Sandra Peterson of the Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, in a paper she wrote in theStatute Law Review in 1999, compared gender neutral drafting in Commonwealth jurisdictions ranging from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada to Australia. She describes the reform that has occurred as being at two levels throughout these jurisdictions; the first level is through the amendment of interpretation legislation, whilst the second has been the adoption of gender neutral language policies. An example of the first level of reform is section 23 of the Acts Interpretation Act, which is the provision that says ‘words importing a gender include every other gender’, which Peterson calls the ‘all gender rule’. This was introduced in 1984 by the Labor government, followed by New South Wales in 1987, Queensland in 1991, Victoria in 1993 and Western Australia in 1994. The intent of amending that act to reflect the provision I have just read out was summarised by former Labor Attorney-General Gareth Evans as intended to alter ‘this sexist way of dealing with matters of gender’. It is well known that, within older legislation, individuals are still referred to in male-specific terms.
The all-gender approach in the Acts Interpretation Act is an important step in limiting the potential for any ambiguity in the interpretation of law, but interpretation legislation, as the name suggests, is only about aiding judges and decision makers in understanding legislation. It does not direct how legislation should be drafted, and this underlines the key importance of adopting gender neutral language to ensure that gender neutral terms are continually introduced.
The law and policy development of gender neutral language has unfortunately been stunted at times by different administrations. The Howard government in 1997 attempted to roll back the term ‘chairperson’, to be replaced by the gender specific ‘chairman’ when introducing the Productivity Commission Bill into the parliament. This has allowed a slow creep of such terms back into the common vernacular. Section 18 of the Acts Interpretation Act now lists ‘chair’, ‘chairperson’, ‘chairman’ and ‘chairwoman’ for how chairs and deputy chairs may be referred to, which I would suggest shows the somewhat hypocritical manner in which the gender neutral policy of drafting executed by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel is contrasted with a gender specific statute. As the Australian Law Reform Commission stated in its 1994 report entitled Equality before the law: justice for women:
… the existence of a policy does not … mean that it is always implemented.
The policy, as found in drafting direction No. 2.1, released in May 2007 by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, provides guidance to the drafters with regard to gender neutral language. Interestingly, it refers to the use of the third person singular when drafting—that is, not using pronouns and instead repeating the noun. It also provides policy direction, against the former Prime Minister’s wishes, to use the term ‘chair’ or ‘chairperson’ instead of ‘chairman’. There is also a discussion as to whether to include feminine pronouns when drafting. There is recognition by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel that there are many masculine pronouns on the statute book without equivalent female pronouns. Some of these are not amended as they refer to other documents or agreements which have gender specific language, the acts have little or no future operation or the acts refer to masculine pronouns deliberately for a policy purpose. An example of this would be the use of the term ‘seaman and masters’ in the Navigation Act, which is required due to the many relevant international treaties and agreements.
The Hon. Jack Straw, current Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary in the United Kingdom, referred to gender neutral language as having no more than a reasonable cost to brevity or intelligibility. In March 2007 the British Labour government introduced gender neutral drafting policies into the British parliament.
I take this opportunity to commend the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for their work in collating these changes. Understandably there are probably many more to do, but this is an active attempt to start the process of changing language and how it affects the way in which the law is interpreted.
This amendment, though uncontroversial and highly technical, has the opportunity to change the manner and form of laws that as law makers in this place we deal with on an everyday basis. This is good progress to ensure that our statute books are gender neutral, and I look forward to seeing many more of these changes put in place in future. I commend this bill to the House.
in reply—I would like to sincerely thank the honourable members for their contributions to the debate on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2008. In summary, all regarded this as a very worthwhile piece of legislation—not all that exciting but very important. The statute law revision bills are important and practical mechanisms for updating Commonwealth legislation and enhancing its quality and accessibility. Minor drafting and clerical errors are bound to find their way into our legislation, given the volume of bills passing through the parliament. It is of note that most bills have passed with bipartisan support. The areas of conflict are relatively small in the overall scheme of things.
Regular review of our legislation allows for the prompt correction of these mistakes and errors. These bills also allow for the removal from the statute book of expired laws, which ensures that the body of Commonwealth legislation is kept up to date and is not cluttered by obsolete acts. They ensure that our laws reflect contemporary social standards by amending statutes containing gender specific language to produce a statute book that is gender neutral and more inclusive. This government continues with the tradition of supporting statute law revision bills.
The Office of Parliamentary Counsel has displayed a high level of expertise in the initiation and preparation of this bill to make sure that in the future our statute book remains as accurate and as effective as it can possibly be. We commend the office for the quality of its work on this bill.
While the bill does not change the substance of the law, it is an important responsibility of any government to carry out the passage of a statute law revision bill. Once again, I thank speakers and commend the bill to the Committee.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.
Debate resumed from 16 June, on motion by Mr Adams:
That the House take note of the report.
In my time in this great House of Representatives of the Australian people, I have come across some very interesting and diligent work undertaken by various committees, particularly committees related to agriculture. The report More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries, of the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources, is probably one of the most important reports ever to hit this place. It contains 26 recommendations that the government of the day should look at very seriously and implement as quickly as possible. Until the inquiry on the honey bee industry commenced, many people were totally ignorant of the importance of the honey bee to the whole way in which we as a community operate. For example, humankind relies on the pollination process to increase production in agriculture and horticulture.
Many of the issues that were raised in evidence to this inquiry centred around those things that impact on the honey bee population—that is, bushfires, access to national parks and state forests, the stupidity of governments of all political persuasions at the state and federal level, biosecurity and the lack of biosecurity. We recently saw how important biosecurity was to the way equine influenza impacted and savaged in a very short period of time the equine industry in this country. We also have to be aware that biosecurity is very important because we are under threat from incursions of exotic pests and mites, particularly the Varroa destructor mite—or the varroa mite, as it is commonly known. We are the only country in the world that is free of the varroa mite. The varroa mite attaches itself to honey bees and over a period of time infects their hives, and then we see the honey bee population dying.
We have seen more recently the honey bee established in New Zealand. Four years ago, the destructor mite got into New Zealand and we understand from the reports that we have received from New Zealand that it has already impacted on the honey bee population to the extent of decimating it by about 35 or 40 per cent.
Why are we concerned about it? The honey bee industry makes this contribution to this country: it produces about $65 million worth of honey and honey bee products, some of them medicinal products. Of that, $50 million is directly related to honey itself, and the remaining $15 million comes from the medicinal and other products that many people use, which I understand are very good.
More importantly, the honey bee pollinates our agriculture and horticultural crops. That is not only the hived, controlled bees that beekeepers keep but more importantly the feral honey bees, which were released in the 1800s and have multiplied at a dramatic rate. They pollinate not just the fruit and vegetables and other foodstuffs on our supermarket shelves that you and I take for granted but also pastures such as lucerne and other crops on which we are dependent to graze our animals and for our food and other by-products. Depending on who you talk to, the honey bee contributes between $3 billion and $6 billion to the economy of this country. When you look at that and at the actual honey bee industry and at what it contributes directly in honey and honey bee products, you have to say to yourself, ‘Gee, these little animals are punching above their weight,’ and they are. This comment was made during the evidence: no honey, no money. I cannot think of another phrase that would be more poignant—no honey, no money.
As a member of parliament one of the things about which I get very disconcerted and disappointed—and I know you, Madam Deputy Speaker Bird, and other members in this place today have been members of committees that have submitted reports to governments of all political persuasions; I am not being partisan about this particular government—is seeing hundreds and hundreds of hours put in by members of parliament and seeing professional, committed work undertaken by the support crews of the secretariats of this place in putting reports together with very, very significant recommendations for governments to undertake for the protection of the environment, agriculture or whatever; and what do we do? The ministers of the day pay lip-service to them and do not look at them as seriously as they should. More importantly, they do not take up the recommendations and act on them.
I am appealing to the new Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Hon. Tony Burke, who I believe is a very good, honest, committed individual, to look at this report and do something constructive for agriculture and horticulture in this country by taking up its recommendations—and not only from the point of view of protecting the honey bee and putting some money into the system so that we can set up a research centre to train people, which is very, very important. As in many industries, the people in the honey bee industry are ageing and, because of the little income they are able to generate through their professional commitment to the industry, we are not attracting young people to it. As a result, many of the skills in the honey bee industry have disappeared or are disappearing. We have got to the horrifying situation where we import people from Asian countries such as China to supplement the people in the industry to undertake the apiarist work, which is fine in detail and very, very important. It is terribly frustrating to try to maintain an industry and keep the momentum going to make sure that the industry continues to contribute to the economic viability of agriculture and horticulture.
It must also be terribly frustrating for people in the CSIRO. There are some scientists in the CSIRO who are world renowned for their knowledge of the honey bee and the industry itself. They are in demand in various countries around the world that are having problems with exotic pests and mites such as the varroa mite, but they do not have backup facilities available to them to pass on their significant knowledge and train young people in the very, very important role that the honey bee industry plays through that little insect, the honey bee.
A lot of people do not understand that we have a very lucrative business. As well as exporting honey because of the unique flavours of our honey because of our native flora, we also export packaged honey bees, an industry that is slowly increasing in size because of the demands upon it. Many people do not understand that California in the United States, for example, has the biggest almond-growing industry in the world. The varroa mite has affected that almond-growing industry to the extent that they have lost somewhere between 30 and 40 per cent of their honey bee population. We supplement their honey bee population by exporting our honey bees to California so that they can pollinate the blossoms and get the yields from the almond industry in the United States. That is a classic example. People do not understand that we actually take semen from bees, just as we do from animals, to get new strains and improve the strains of existing bees. It is a very intricate and finely tuned industry that is very, very important to people right across the world. It is as important to the Australian people as the survival of our agricultural and horticultural industries.
One of the things that people do not understand about the honey bee pollination process is that, when a honey bee pollinates a flower, when that flower turns into a fruit or a vegetable, because of the pollination process, it becomes a fruit that is more uniform, is larger and contains flavour. So the pollination process of the honey bees actually contributes to the quality and the quantity of the fruit and the vegetables that they pollinate in their little busy excursions from place to place. They probably have a work ethic that is greater than that of members of parliament! We often get criticised about our work effort, but our work effort pales into insignificance when you look at this little animal flying around from flower to flower in the pollination process. They are very busy little bees.
When we talk about biosecurity, we do not just talk about the sentinel boxes around this great country of ours; we talk about the need to have biosecurity measures at our internal borders. In other words, the states have to do something about ensuring that insects and exotic pests that come into this country which are capable of doing some very destructive work to a honey bee are isolated in a state, when they get into a particular state, so that they can be addressed with some very professional biosecurity measures at the state level in conjunction with the federal authorities.
When you look at the other things that affect the honey bee, at all the dangers and the threats around them, you see that they are pretty stoic individuals. They have little, weeny legs and little hands that use boxing gloves trying to fight off all of these threats to them. But they are a very significant and important part of the whole of what we understand to be nature. Unless we grab the nettle of the importance of this particular report and pick up the recommendations in it, and more importantly act upon the recommendations in it, we will see things happening in this country that we have never seen and never dreamed of before if the varroa mite gets in here. I know that the farmers out there are now starting to understand how important the honey bee is to their crops. But, more importantly, the honey bee industry is going to go through a different phase now. It has been concentrating on producing honey and forgetting about the pollination process. When bees go and pollinate they actually give farmers and people some of their honey product as payment for allowing them to put their hives there. But people have suddenly realised that, because of the danger of the varroa mite, and the possibility that the honey bee population is going to drop significantly, they are going to have to pay for the pollination processes. From the evidence we have heard, in the future that is going to make up about 60 per cent of the income of honey bee hive operators. So it is very important that we understand.
Not only is the pollination process important to keep the honey bee industry alive but it is critically important that we understand that without honey bees we will have a massive problem in our food bowl in this country. Australia’s food bowl is well respected internationally for supplying food to people outside of our borders. If we have that threat come into the country—it is not a question of if; it is a question of when—and we are not prepared for it then we will have ourselves to blame. The recommendations in this report quite succinctly point out to the government of the day that the minister of the day responsible for agriculture and horticulture has to put the money into the industry to make sure we give the scientists and the experts in the honey bee industry the opportunity to prepare for the threat and perhaps come up with some answers that may in fact stop the threat, kill off the Varroa destructor and perhaps help the rest of the world get back to increasing the population of honey bees and producing food for the very needy people right throughout the world.
I am honoured to follow the member for Hume in speaking to this report—More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries. I will acknowledge up-front his work and his passion in this area. I do not get to go to the movies much anymore—to see movies that I want to see, anyway—but earlier this year I took my three-year-old son to see Jerry Seinfeld’s foray into animation called the Bee Movie. Not having been in the previous parliament, the Bee Movie is probably not the best place to start doing research for this, but I did go along—
My grandsons have told me I have to go and see it.
You must see it, Member for Hume. I recommend that you go and see it. Obviously, a movie theatre filled with screaming kids is not the place one would expect to find insight for political commentary, but this children’s movie, the Bee Movie, opened my eyes to a world without bees. When Barry the Bee discovers that humans are stealing honey from the bees and selling it for profit, it leads to him take legal action against the honey industry—in fact, he leads a class action. A rather adventurous US court finds in favour of the bees, who then shut down production. Bees all around the world are free to stop working. This leads to unintended consequences because, without bees, as the member for Hume pointed out, there is no pollination, and without pollination millions of plant species would eventually disappear. Thankfully, however, most of our native flora in Australia are not reliant on European honey bees for pollination. Unfortunately, most of our commercial crops are not native to Australia. The Australian honey bee industry generates around $70-plus million of honey and related products each year. After having been on the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources for this inquiry, like having seen the Bee Movie, I better understand how important bees are for all of Australia.
Honey bees are not just about honey. We need honey bees to pollinate our crops in order to produce fruits, vegetables and grains. If this shut down then the Brisbane markets, which are in my electorate, would be in dire straits. Other industries like wool, meat and dairy also rely heavily on honey bees. It is estimated that honey bees contribute up to $6 billion a year to our agricultural industry. Some figures suggest that every third bite we consume in our diet is dependant on a honey bee to pollinate that food. As the member for Hume stated, they are very hardworking little animals. So 30 per cent of our diet is dependant on honey bees. Honey bees are vital to Australian agriculture, and any threat to honey bees in Australia must be taken very seriously.
Earlier this year, over Easter, I went to a school reunion at my old school in St George and caught up with one of my class mates, David Moon, who now runs a million-dollar agricultural business where they grow rockmelons. His name is Moon, so it is actually called Moonrocks. He was saying that that whole industry is 100 per cent reliant on bees and beekeepers. Even though there are no beekeepers in St George, they drive out west to pollinate the crops. But, like the bee itself, there is a sting in this tail. In response to the biosecurity threats facing the bee industry and the importance of the industry to Australian agriculture, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, reactivated the inquiry into honey bees earlier this year at the request of the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources. Exotic pests like the parasitic mite, very accurately called the Varroa destructor, loom as a major quarantine threat to our border security and to the honey bee industry. One bonus of being an island continent is that we are the only place in the world that does not have the Varroa destructor mite. However, submissions to the inquiry regarded the arrival of varroa in Australia as being a case of not really if but when. How we as a government respond to this threat and help the industry prepare for the future will be a major test.
As well as biosecurity threats the industry is facing lower profits due to international competition. The More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries report offers a thorough commentary on the issues confronting the Australian honey bee industry. The government will closely consider each of the 25 recommendations made by the committee in this report. These recommendations range from improved research and training for pollination services to better biosecurity measures and a new labelling standard to reflect the composition and origin of honey bee products. As we have learned from the equine influenza disaster, biosecurity is something that we must get right and must reassess all the time. Anyone who has friends, family or neighbours who have worked in the horse industry knows how much they relied on our island status and how much they were betrayed by the shoddy standards that let the equine influenza into Australia. I commend the great work of the former High Court Judge Ian Callinan in terms of giving us some salutary lessons.
The Rudd government is committed to learning the equine influenza lesson and is also committed to a vibrant future for the honey bee industry. The Rudd government will closely consider the committee’s recommendations—including establishing guidelines for beekeeper access to public lands, maintaining and enhancing the National Sentinel Hive Program, establishing and funding a new honey bee quarantine facility and establishing and funding a national endemic pest and disease control program. I am also pleased to acknowledge that work is already underway on a number of these fronts. The government recently provided grants of around $660,000 for the industry to develop an environmental code of conduct that can be spread throughout the beekeeping industry. We are also committed to beekeeping training materials and to conducting strategic planning for the industry. That might be as simple as knowing where the hives are and who is responsible for the hives.
The government also provides assistance to the honey bee industry through quarantine services—including assessing import permit applications; screening imported bees and bee products; conducting surveillance activities on international vessels and ports of call; certifying exports, including providing export documentation; and developing export controls. A National Sentinel Hive Program at Australia’s 20 busiest ports has also been developed to assist in providing early warning of possible incursions of varroa mites. The government has also worked with the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation to establish a new cross-industry alliance to guide the development of a commercial pollination services industry. This alliance, called Pollination Australia, will support the honey bee industry and enable continued pollination of important food crops in Australia. Pollination Australia will help drive a strong working relationship between the honey bee industry and those industries that depend on honey bee pollination, be they rockmelon growers or the many others I have listed. I encourage industry and related stakeholders to continue to work with government as we advance ways to ensure the ongoing viability of the honey bee industry.
In closing I want to thank the committee chair, the member for Lyons, Dick Adams; and the deputy chair, the member for Hume, Alby Schultz, for their efforts in driving this inquiry, which has spanned two parliaments. I also want to thank the committee secretary, Janet Holmes, and the inquiry secretary, Dr Bill Pender, and all of their staff for the high standard of work that they pulled together. This report is a fine example of bipartisan common sense. Out of respect for the member for New England, Mr Tony Windsor, perhaps I should say tripartisan common sense.
Very sweet comments you make!
I am not sure if it was this year or last year that we lost one of the world’s most famous beekeepers, Sir Edmund Hillary. What is in front of the honey industry is a bit like what faced him when he considered climbing the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. It took a lot of planning but also a lot of hard work. That is what Pollination Australia has in front of it. I commend this report to the House.
Does the member seek to ask a question?
I have a question that is relevant to the member’s speech. Will the member give way for a question?
Is the member willing to take the question?
Definitely.
Would the member consider extending his support to beekeeping in national parks, given the threat to that in Queensland?
You are talking specifically about beekeeping in Queensland national parks and the moves to remove it. The committee did consider this. I commit to discussing this further with the state government. On the weekend I spoke to the Queensland Premier’s major adviser in this area, and I am going to consider it further. I was aware of that policy before coming to parliament. Having been on this committee, I am much more aware of how much work needs to be done to get it right. I do have a bit of hope that, like the horse-riding industry, you can come up with a compromise that will protect the bee industry but also do what is best for our national parks in Queensland. That is the commitment I can give you.
It is with pleasure that I support the findings of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources in terms of the honey bee industry. I endorse the congratulations that the member for Moreton just made to our committee chair, the member for Lyons, and I congratulate the member for Hume, who is now the deputy chair but who was the chair prior to the election. One of the interesting things about this committee is that it has made a seamless change, irrespective of who is in government. The committee is ploughing on with the work, and I think that reflects well not only on the committee and the secretariat but particularly on the two chairs that we have had. I congratulate the member for Lyons and the member for Hume for the excellent way in which they have both conducted the chairmanship of the committee.
The member for Hume made some interesting comments about the varroa mite and the impact that that can have on the honey bee industry. There is an extraordinary amount to be learnt, I think, from reading the report More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries and from people doing a little bit of homework on the contribution that the honey bee makes, not only in terms of pollination. We have heard that it makes an indirect contribution to our economy of about $6 billion, even though it is only a $70 million industry. It is that indirect effect that I do not think people fully understand, and I take on board the question that was asked a moment ago in terms of access to national parks and public lands.
The honey bee is very important to agriculture, and it is very important to human life in the way it pollinates various plants et cetera. It also produces a very healthy product. On two occasions now, once during this inquiry and once during the inquiry into feral animals, where we originally came into contact with beekeepers, the committee came across some of the health-giving attributes of honey in curing certain illnesses and particularly skin disorders et cetera. I think it is important when we see a beehive that we actually pay regard to what is going on there. Honey bees are small critters, as the member for Hume indicated, but they are very important workers in our environment, and I think the issue of the varroa mite, or the Varroa destructor, that has been mentioned by both the previous speakers—and I am sure the chair will mention it as well—is one that the minister really does have to pay regard to because of the biosecurity issues for this nation. We are blessed to be an island nation, but that does not prevent some of these diseases and mites et cetera coming into our country. If the Varroa destructor gets going in Australia, it could do an enormous amount of damage. The name is well understood—it is an absolute destructor, not only of that industry but also of the contribution that that industry makes to other agricultural and natural industries.
I support the comments of the member for Hume about this report not being left on the shelf. Too many reports where an enormous amount of work has been done by committee members and the secretariat et cetera never see the light of day in policy. If we are serious about driving policy on a bipartisan level—and we all get up from time to time and make that plea—the committee process in a committee like this, where people do not play games with one another in terms of the politics, is the way we should be driving that bipartisan approach. The easy way for that to be achieved is for the minister who originally gives the instructions for these reports to be done—and I do not necessarily mean Tony Burke in this case but the minister in a generic sense—to pay far more attention to what those committee people are doing.
I think too often in politics we go to the things that we disagree on rather than focus on achieving the things that we all agree on. I hold the media partly responsible for that, and politicians ourselves are partly responsible for it, but we are always hearing this plea from the general public, who say, ‘I wish they’d just get on with it and get together and organise themselves.’ I think that is what the general public wants. Committee processes are the vehicle to drive that—particularly, as I said, the committee that I have been involved in for a number of years now under the previous government and under the existing government. I have very, very rarely seen—I do not think I could instance a time where I have seen—partisan politics come into the committee room.
I have praised the member for Hume. I have just spoken about the bipartisan approach that we should have on various issues. I hope that the member for Hume is out there watching. I think he probably is. The member for Hume is a personal friend of mine. We were in the New South Wales parliament together for a number of years. He was a member of the Liberal Party and I was an Independent, but I remember that on a couple of occasions the member for Hume—or the member for Burrinjuck, as he was called then—actually crossed the floor and voted with me, an Independent. He obviously suffered a whole range of threats from his party at that time. So I have a high personal regard for the member for Hume and his wife and family. But I would take issue, if I could, with the member for Hume on one particular issue that is raised in the document More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries. I refer him to page 143, section 5.36. I will read from the report:
A ‘single desk’ approach to marketing and exports was advocated in several submissions.
I would like the member for Lyons—and other members who recently voted against a single-desk approach—to take account of this as well. I say again:
A ‘single desk’ approach to marketing and exports was advocated in several submissions.
In its submission, the Forests and Forest Industry Council of Tasmania noted:
The establishment of a ‘single desk’ selling system has been advocated together with work to strengthen the brand and more effort to capture value for the iconic value and rarity of leatherwood honey.
However, these structural and marketing changes need to come from a small association without a paid secretariat and require considerable change from the traditional approach and speed in implementation once adopted. An incremental approach will not work. Sophisticated business management is required to bring it off.
There is a little bit more. This has come from an organisation that, except for its top echelon, is largely hobby farmers. Obviously there is a plea out there, in terms of the export of honey, in this case, that a single-desk arrangement would be preferred. I will go on—and I hope the member for Hume is still paying attention to the monitor in his office. At paragraph 5.37, the report says:
In his submission, Mr Rod Yates, of Australian Honey Exports Pty Ltd, advocated a single desk for exports, but not under the industry’s current leadership—
so there are obviously some issues there. But the important point that I think the member for Hume should understand is in the quote which follows:
Export sales of bulk honey have achieved little for our producers, but have given European packers great profits. The answer is to establish an agreement binding on exporters, particularly in regard to minimum prices and quality, that reflects a fair share of the retail prices for packed product in other markets, in other words, dare I say it, there needs to be a conduit through which exports are facilitated, “a single desk” and it shouldn’t be the existing structure of AHBIC—
the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council—
who are generally mistrusted.
Obviously there are some politics within the industry as well, but there seems to be a plea that a fully deregulated export market of a bulk product is not the best way to market that particular product.
We have just been through the politicisation of the removal of the single desk from the wheat industry. I would also like the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, to pay some heed to what these people are saying—these people who are involved in the industry, who are doing the exporting and who produce the product—as to what is happening on the international stage in relation to the prices they are receiving and where the profits from their hard labours are going. I am sure that, in endorsing these particular phrases, the member for Hume must in fact agree with a single-desk approach in the honey bee industry, but he obviously does not in some other industries.
In closing I will reflect on a few of the major issues that the report goes to. Obviously, research is one. There are certain requests there to the minister and the government in relation to research. The biosecurity issue relates not only to Varroa destructor and other honey bee enemies but also to the other issues that have been raised here, most recently biosecurity issues for the equine industry, for instance. Our biosecurity, our clean, green, island image, is probably the most important natural attribute we have in terms of international trade. We must do everything we can. We all know it is not sexy until something goes wrong, but it is very important that we do have adequate biosecurity measures put in place for our agricultural industries.
Labelling is another issue that the report spent some time on, and once again I will just mention the access to public lands. That is an issue that has been out there for a long time. I remember that when I was in the state parliament it was an issue that was debated along with bushfire control and those sorts of issues. But it should not be seen as a threat to public lands. There is no reason why the honey bee industry cannot or should not have access to those lands. Those lands benefit, the industry benefits and, more importantly, it helps establish a critical mass in terms of those off-site contributions that the honey bee industry makes to the broader economy, particularly agriculture.
It is more than honey; it is the money, honey. More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries is a great report. I congratulate all those of the previous government and previous committee who were involved in this. I note that four of the members of the 41st Parliament on this committee are now on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources in the 42nd Parliament. They are: Alby Schultz, who was the chair previously and is now the deputy chair; the Hon. Dick Adams, who has chaired this committee; John Forrest; and Tony Windsor. Their input has been an education to new members of parliament like me.
It is good work, and I must admit I have learned so much reading this report. It was good to go through it page by page and see that here is an opportunity. Business is all about finding opportunities, maximising opportunities and giving a helping hand to an industry which needs restructuring and which needs government support. The Rudd Labor government is looking for new forms of investment. We are looking for new ways to increase productivity.
This report recommends that $50 million a year be spent. This will be invested in biosecurity, which I see as possibly the most important aspect of this, because our continent is unique in that we do have the security blessing of being surrounded by oceans. That has made our honey bee unique, and we have to protect that unique Australian honey bee. When we look overseas at export markets, we look at Europe and we look at the standards there. Indeed, we need to help the honey bee industry in this country compete in and export to the European market and to the United States. In order to do that we need higher standards and we need universal standards. We need to bring our industry up to the levels of the European market and the American market. This can only be done with the helping hand of government—a clear hand-up, a clear investment.
As has been said by previous speakers—and I do not wish to duplicate what has been said, but it must be noted—this Australian honey bee industry is worth $80 million a year. In Europe alone, taking in all the aspects of plant based industries, wool, meat and dairy and the way the honey bee interacts with all of those, it is somewhere between $4 billion and $6 billion worth of turnover in the economy. That is a big market and that is a big potential. We have a unique situation with our honey bee. We can offer the world a unique product.
Anyone in business knows that is called niche marketing, and we need to take full advantage of our niche in the global market. I commend the recommendations of this report to invest in building a universal standard which allows us to compete in the European market and in the American market and offer high-quality honey. We obviously need to protect our industry. As I said earlier, I think the most important thing is the biosecurity, because we really do have to protect that honey bee; the investment in increasing standards and increasing research will be wasted if we allow the varroa virus to get into our bees.
There is a five-year plan which has been put forward in this report. It clearly states that, over the next five years, the main aim—and I think it is quite a conservative aim actually, a very safe aim—is to increase the hive yield by 10 per cent and also to increase by 20 per cent the growth in package bees because that is a major export market. Also, through labelling our product correctly and to the standards in Europe and America, we can offer therapeutic honey, as there is great potential to exploit the therapeutic values of honey as well.
In closing, I just want to say it has been a great privilege to be on the committee, and I do say to the chair and the deputy chair that this has been a real education about the unique honey bee. It is about more than honey; it is about money, it is about exports and it is about productivity. The Rudd Labor government is committed to productivity and to giving a helping hand to industries and to agriculture. I know that the minister for agriculture, the Hon. Tony Burke, is also very broad minded and very open to looking at ideas from this report. I think there is great potential and there is a huge market overseas which we could export to.
I would also like to give credit to the committee secretariat. I would just like to name Ms Janet Holmes, Dr Bill Pender, Ms Sam Mannette and Ms Jazmine De Roza. They have had the task of compiling and putting together, under the guidance of the chair and the deputy chair, all that is in this report. I would just like to say that it is a good report. I am proud to have had a small input into it as we went through each page and looked at every recommendation. I commend it to this Committee and to the House.
by leave—This has been a wonderful report to be a part of and, as the previous speaker said, one can learn a lot from one’s work in these committees. In the More than honey report, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industry and Resources has certainly covered a lot of ground. This report really came out of a report that the committee did some time ago, with the then member for Hume as the chair and me as the deputy chair, dealing with rural skills in Australia and trying to find avenues through which to halt the demise of skills out there in rural Australia. The honey bee industry was one of those that came to us and told us of the difficulties that they were having, and we came to the conclusion that there was certainly a need to do a major report into the honey bee industry.
I am pleased that we did, and I am really pleased to have been able to work so well with the honourable member for Hume, Alby Schultz. We have been able to do this in a very, very good bipartisan manner to achieve some great results. I thank the new members—the member for Dawson who just spoke, for his input in getting the report together, and the other new members that have come on. They have made an excellent contribution in getting our report through. Of course, I also thank the old stager, the member for New England, Tony Windsor, for his contribution, which is always worthwhile. I thank the staff very much for all their dedication. I thank Janet Holmes, who is on a year’s leave at the moment; I wish her well and look forward to seeing her back here after that period. And I thank Dr Bill Pender for his work in getting it together.
The work now goes on from the report in promotion and finding ways through to make sure that we get it implemented. I have already spoken to the federal minister’s staff. I certainly hope to have a launch of this report in Tasmania in the near future, and I have spoken with the Tasmanian minister for agriculture about the recommendations and moving it forward there as well. We have a very successful honey bee industry. It has all the same problems that are everywhere else in Australia but is looking forward to a new direction into the future.
One of the great things about our great country is that one can have friends all over it, and my dear friends Des and Karen Hanlon in Western Australia were able to send me a note—which they do periodically, telling me that my beard is too long after they have seen me on a television interview or that my speech was no good or very good—which was to do with the honey bee industry. It was a story by Alison Benjamin that appeared in the Guardian newspaper on Saturday, 31 May 2008. It is a really good and interesting piece, which I would like to mention here. It deals with bees in California and the almond orchards of California’s Central Valley. They move bees over there in the US on an enormous 2,600-mile journey from Florida over to California, with each truck having about 500 hives on it. I would just like to quote from this article:
In the cool hours after sunset and before sunrise, more than one million hives are unloaded at regular intervals between the trees by commercial beekeepers such as Dave Hackenberg, who have travelled from the far corners of the US to take part in the world’s largest managed pollination event. The mammoth orchards of Central Valley stretch the distance from London to Aberdeen, and the 60 million almond trees planted with monotonous uniformity along the 400-mile route require half of all the honeybees in the US to pollinate them—a staggering 40 billion.
That is an enormous number of bees and an enormous effort, but it makes the point of pollination being significant. The Guardian article continues:
By February 16, National Almond Day in the US, the trees are usually covered in flowers and humming with the sound of busy bees. Attracted by the sweet nectar that each flower offers, the bees crawl around on the petals to find the perfect sucking position. As they do so, their furry bodies are dusted with beads of pollen. As they fly from blossom to blossom in search of more of the sweet energy drink, they transfer pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part, and so fertilise it. Not long afterwards, the plant’s ovaries swell into fruit, which by late August turn into precious, oval-shaped nuts.
That is how it works. Pollination begins life and the bees play an enormous part in that. Without bees that does not happen. The Guardian article starts with a little quote from Einstein. It reads:
A bee-less world wouldn’t just mean the end of honey—Einstein said that if the honeybee became extinct, then so would mankind.
We often say that, if there were no bees, there would be no food. That is a little extreme but it is getting close to the point. Our report makes some very good recommendations. It asks the government to help this industry, especially with new directions through funding Pollination Australia. That will give it a leg up, get it onto the right settings and provide opportunities to move the honey bee industry down the road to becoming Pollination Australia. Then we will be able to do more pollination and the industry will change enormously.
This is very interesting. This morning I met with representatives of the agriculture sector, which is one of the sectors in my electorate and the Braddon electorate in Tasmania. In the meeting with one of the poppy-growing companies in Tasmania, I mentioned the honey bee report and gave them a copy. The chap who looks after the farming side of the company said to me that only last week he had a meeting with a honey bee producer in Tasmania and that they were actually talking about it. Work done some time ago showed something like a 10 or 12 per cent increase in productivity from having more bees in their poppy fields. It grows and expands. The importance of pollination in Australia is being seen more and more. The industry is starting to grow. Some beekeepers now have half honey and half pollination services, and this will continue to change and grow as more markets become available.
I would like to touch on the really important subject of labelling agricultural chemicals to reflect their potential impact on honey bees and other pollinating insects. We need to make sure that that is done so that bees that are out there doing a good job are not killed if some farmers down the road are not quite aware of the impact of their sprays on the honey bee population or the pollination industry. Of course, bees act as a very good environmental indicator—just as frogs do, and we talk about that quite often. Honey bees are quite important and can be used that way as well, and there is a debate going on in the US about that.
We had good evidence from the industry about products whose labels contain the word ‘honey’. Often you will see ‘honey’ on a product, and the industry feel that that is taking their name—the word ‘honey’—and using it without any regulations. They feel that at times something that says it has a certain amount of honey in it or has honey in it or even that has ‘honey’ on the label might have 0.000001 per cent in it. In other parts of the world, they have regulated to make sure that, if you use the word ‘honey’, you have a standard and an amount that meets that standard within the product. There is a need to make sure that we develop standards for honey and maybe identify honeys from different regions and give them recognition and identify the differences between different areas and the different sorts of honeys that exist, just like the wine industry and just like good olive oil. As any of us who know about good olive oil know, there are different sorts of olive oil and different years when they are produced.
We also received evidence in relation to making sure that food and honey that come into Australia are tested against a standard that gives recognition that the product meets the same standard as we expect from our own honey. There was some feeling that that has not always been the result. Honey has even come into Australia in imports that have had chemical contamination, and that has been mixed with our honey, and that has had some reflection back, even on the market for honey in Australia.
There are recommendations that the state and federal governments look at guidelines for beekeepers’ access to public lands and there is the issue of national parks in Queensland. A lot of the old state forests in Queensland are now called national parks. That has some implications for access for beekeepers. I understand there have been some issues up there in relation to horse riding and other activities that used to take place in the old forests. We have recommended that we have good guidelines so that beekeepers do have access to these flowering resources—so that they have access to enable them to put their bees down and get them back.
We also recommended that in the climate change debate and carbon credit systems, if we are going to plant trees, there be some consideration given to the honey bee industry when we plant trees so that the flowering plants can be a benefit to that industry as well. Of course, there is fire management and the issue of making sure that the honey bee producers are well aware if there is fire in the regions where their bees are. Wildfire can devastate hives and bees.
Biosecurity issues are of great importance to the honey bee industry. The sentinel hives, the guarding hives that we have at our ports, are to be maintained and enhanced. If a swarm of bees comes in on a foreign ship or on a ship trading into our ports, those bees may have the incredible mite called the Varroa destructor, which is a very deadly little devil to honey bees and also to ordinary bees and wild bees in Australia. In other parts of the world the experience is that they wipe out the whole of the wild bee populations and possibly up to 40 per cent of the managed bees in the hives. This has been the experience of our colleagues in New Zealand, who were devastated. This of course then has an ongoing effect on food production and the pollinating needs of the rest of our industry. (Time expired)
Debate (on motion by Ms George) adjourned.
Consideration resumed from 23 June.
On indulgence, I commence by thanking the House for the opportunity to have statements made in this place today and to thank those other members today who will be making statements on the death of Jane McGrath AM. Today the sun is shining outside, but it is a day when, frankly, it should be dark; there should be clouds; there should be rain. The fact that the sun is shining today is indicative of the warmth and the spirit that Jane McGrath reflected to her family, to her community—of which I am a member—to Australia and to the world through her relationship with her husband, Glenn, and in her own right as a truly unique individual. It is fitting that we pay tribute to someone like Jane McGrath. I commend the words of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on Monday. On that same day I was pleased, on indulgence, to be able to make some comments.
In today’s proceedings I thought I would reflect more on the statements made by other Australians. I want to begin by reading part of an article written by Brad Forrest in the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader. For me it really summarised the sudden tragedy of this for us all. I personally did not know Jane; I have met Glenn on a number of occasions around the electorate. They are identities within our community. But I, like all people who did not know Jane or Glenn personally but knew of Glenn and Jane, have been struck by a sense of grief that is quite profound. It happens very rarely in this country. To reflect those views today in this place is a very positive thing to do, as we all go through the process of grieving—none more so than Glenn, James and Holly—with the service now having probably just concluded in Sydney. I am encouraged by the fact that they are surrounded by their family and friends from their community—their home. It must be just an incredibly sad time for them. It is fitting that we identify with them at this time. Brad Forrest’s excellent article on the front page of the Leader on Tuesday began:
A WEEK ago, retired Australian Test fast bowler Glenn McGrath did one of the hardest things he has ever had to do.
He sat his two young children, James and Holly, down in their Cronulla home and told them what they may have suspected—that their mummy was leaving them, but would always be with them in spirit.
On Sunday, the family was together by her bedside when Jane McGrath slipped away.
Her brave battle against breast cancer, which began 11 years ago, had ended.
It goes on to say:
Jane’s fighting spirit had endured several operations over many years, with the cancer having spread from her breast to her brain last year.
… … …
Closer to home, the McGrath cricketing “family’’ of Sutherland Cricket Club, closed ranks around the family last year ensuring that few people knew just how far Jane’s condition had deteriorated.
She was unable to attend a number of functions, including Sutherland’s tribute night for Glenn last year, where Shane Warne was a guest speaker, or when her famous husband was honoured with the naming of the (previously Caringbah Oval) Glenn McGrath Oval.
So, quietly, as she faced the last part of her struggle, she was surrounded by friends who sought to protect her privacy and protect her family at that time. Above all, I remember Glenn standing there down at the Caringbah Oval on that day. It was a day of significance for him; none of us was aware of the pain he would have been going through as he knew what was coming.
In the House on Monday I made a number of remarks and I want to repeat a few of them. Firstly, we want Glenn, James and Holly to know how deeply our community in the shire feels for them at this time and mourns the loss of their wife and mother, Jane. I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, also coming from the shire, you would share in these comments.
Jane was an inspiration to all of us. Her courage and determination were matched only by her compassion and generosity of spirit towards those women and families who faced the same challenges. Jane gave these women and their families, through her own example and her work through the McGrath Foundation, that precious commodity we all need when going through life’s most difficult times, and that is hope.
Mothers are the great carers and nurturers of our society, as I said on Monday, and in Jane McGrath we have lost a great mother in our community—a mother who cared lovingly and warmly for her children and who did all she possibly could to give them the best chances in life and to allow them to inherit from her a sense of values that will guide them for all of their lives. Above all, Jane was a fighter who fought for the most precious of all things in life—time with our family and friends and those most dear to us. May we continue to be inspired by the way Jane lived her life for her family and others, and may we do the same for those around us. I said on Monday that we need more mothers like Jane McGrath, we need more wives like Jane McGrath, we need more daughters like Jane McGrath, we need more sisters like Jane McGrath and we need more friends like Jane McGrath.
As members of the House will know, during the course of this week a condolence book was set up in my office. I have been overwhelmed and encouraged by those members who have come past and shared their thoughts—and not only members have come; other staff of this building have come and just quietly had their moment and signed that book. I just want to take the opportunity to share some of those thoughts that have been reflected by other members. The first is from the member for Paterson, who said:
Some people come into our lives and quietly pass by, others leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same. Jane was one of those people ...
The member for Braddon said:
Such a beautiful soul and ambassador, you must be so proud of Jane and her immense courage.
The member for Hughes said:
Resplendent with purpose and commitment to life; resonant with love, honesty and truth to those she loved ... she is a shining light for the rest of us.
The member for Barker said:
We all recognise the hero that Jane was and is for all Australians.
The member for McPherson said:
You can be proud of what Jane has achieved in her life—the women of Australia will never forget her contribution, help and understanding to the plight of so many facing the challenge of breast cancer.
The Leader of the Nationals said:
Jane’s courage and commitment to supporting families living with breast cancer has touched the nation and will be a permanent recognition of a wonderful life.
Senator Joyce said:
Jane’s influence was by reason of her dedication and commitment to others while the fears and pain were her own and yours. We all recognise her effort and thank your family for the time she gave others.
There are many, many more that I could read from members from both sides of the House and all around this place. One that was particularly touching was from three survivors of breast cancer working in the Parliamentary Library which said:
We appreciate Jane’s courage and work for breast cancer awareness.
We have seen an outpouring not only in this book and in this place but right across the country. If you go to websites—and I particularly commend the Daily Telegraph for donating to the McGrath Foundation 10c for every copy of the Daily Telegraph sold today—you find the most touching of tributes. In this place we need to be the voice of those who are not in this place, and today I think it is important to reflect their voices in this tribute. Peter of Sutherland said:
I too have someone in family battling this horrible disease & Jane has been an inspirational role model on how to put on a brave face & face head on to fight this disease ... Many of us are touched by her fighting will to live every minute of her wonderful life.
Peter of Ballarat said:
On behalf of my ABORIGINAL family and friends, I am deeply sorry for the loss of a very Beautiful woman, mother and wife!
Her spirit is now in the Dreamtime!
Her memories will live on!
Dorita of no particular suburb said:
Shine on, you are the brightest star in heaven today. I am proud to be a woman, you are an inspiration. All the beautiful memories will be forever in your families hearts.
Missbella of Kangaroo Valley offered this poem:
I was so sad to hear of your loss—
she says to Glenn—
to you all I send my deepest and heartfelt sympathy to each and every one of you.
When God went gathering roses for his garden of rest, he paused and whispered to you, I only take the best.
Your hearts will ache with sadness, the tears will often flow, for what it meant to lose your wife, mum, daughter, sister, no one will ever know.
So find the softest pillow LORD to rest her head upon then gently kiss her on the cheek and tell her who it is from.
My heartfelt sympathy to you all.
This is from Bronwyn of Quakers Hill:
To Glenn, James and Holly, I never met your brave wife and mother, but over time I have watched her grow and fight the hardest battle no one should have to fight. She was a true inspiration and when I heard the sad news today I was shattered that such a beautiful person could be taken away from her family so early. Jane touched the hearts of so many people she truly was one of the most courageous people I have seen. The love she had for her husband and children was so great to watch. Her sense of humour was something that I always loved in her interviews, she was a trooper until the end and I will never forget her.
Cathy of Sydney says:
Glenn, James and Holly, our deepest sympathy goes out to you and our hearts are breaking for you, my mum suffered from breast cancer at a similar time to Jane’s first episode, I was 6months pregnant with my first daughter, my mum being ‘old school’ never told us how she suffered, my sisters and I read Jane’s book and it gave us an insight into what she had been through, we thank her so much for that, for sharing that with us. Glenn, ‘sorry’ is not enough we are beyond words and cannot imagine your sorrow, our thoughts and prayers are with you all, she will always be your angel looking out for you from heaven and your beautiful children, much love to you all. My mum did tell us how wonderful the breast cancer nurses always were, so I will do my best to continue Jane’s effort to support this course, please everyone do the same.
I want to finish with this last one from Tania of Sutherland Shire:
Thank you for sharing Jane with all of us. I will continue to donate to the McGrath Foundation and I hope that many others do also. I know that you and your family and friends will continue to keep Jane’s memory alive in your wonderful work at the foundation.
Jane McGrath AM, who was honoured earlier this year on Australia Day, was a great Australian. She is part of a great Australian family from a great Australian community. We mourn her passing and our prayers go to Glenn, James and Holly on this very sad occasion.
On indulgence, I rise to speak on the passing of a great Australian: breast cancer awareness campaigner Jane McGrath. Jane came to Australia after meeting and marrying one of our nation’s greatest cricketers—Glenn McGrath. Little did we know at that time that Glenn’s fortune in finding the woman of his dreams was also the fortune of thousands of Australia women and their families who were looking for support and inspiration in their fight against breast cancer.
Jane emerged as an important role model in her own right after discovering she had breast cancer. She subsequently embarked upon a campaign of raising not only funds but also awareness of the disease. During a decade-long battle, Jane entered remission a number of times. But in 2003 she was re-diagnosed with breast cancer. She finally succumbed to a secondary brain tumour earlier this week. It is a testament to Jane’s work at the foundation that she leaves a legacy of greater awareness of breast cancer and particularly the need for women of all ages to be conscious of regular self-testing. Women like Jane and the late actress Belinda Emmett helped to explode the myth that breast cancer is a disease that affects only women in middle age. These two women helped to shine a light on the fact that breast cancer does not discriminate on the basis of age, and, as a consequence, younger women afflicted with the disease have found a voice, a community of support and an inspiration that would not have otherwise existed. I think it speaks highly of Jane’s strength that her activism flourished in the face of great personal challenges. Far from giving in to the weight of adversity, Jane devoted her energies to her family and her philanthropic work and it was arguably Jane’s positive outlook that sustained her during her long battle.
First diagnosed with breast cancer 11 years ago at the age of 31, Jane saw the need for better support services for women undergoing treatment, particularly in the form of breast care nurses. In 2002 she formed the McGrath Foundation to fill that gap. Through her work in fundraising, the foundation has been able to support four full-time breast care nurses, each employed on three-year contracts. Breast care nurses not only offer sound advice to patients but can also provide that very important emotional support at a time when many people feel most isolated and vulnerable.
I would also like to put on the record in this place my support for the valuable work being done by the National Breast Cancer Foundation, which have been closely associated with the McGrath Foundation. Their successful Pink Ribbon campaigns in October each year have been instrumental in making breast cancer a mainstream concern for Australian women and their families—and there is good reason: breast cancer affects one in every eight women and is the leading cause of cancer related deaths among women each year. It is expected that we will see 13,000 new cases in the coming year and, tragically, almost 3,000 of those diagnosed will lose their lives. The message is clear: early detection saves lives. I would encourage all women and their partners to be aware of the signs of breast cancer and the methods of detection. A simple, regular self-test could be the difference between life and death.
I would also like to extend my sympathy to Jane’s husband, Glenn, and their two children, James and Holly. I wish them all the best in this time of great loss and suffering. It is worth noting that, even through the trials that Jane faced, Glenn’s international cricket career had always been supported by her. I wish to take this opportunity to thank Jane for all of the sacrifices that she made in sharing Glenn and his talents with this nation and with the international cricketing community.
Glenn’s determination on the cricket pitch was matched only by his love for Jane, and I know that the thoughts of all Australians are with him and his children at this difficult time. They can be proud, however, of Jane’s legacy and of the high regard in which she was held in Australia for her tireless efforts, something officially recognised by her appointment as a member of the Order of Australia this year. Just as in life, when Jane’s passion broke new ground for breast cancer awareness, so too in her passing she has inspired countless people to offer their support, with more than $200,000 being pledged to the foundation in the two days following her death.
I know that today Jane’s family and friends will be farewelling her at the Garrison Church at the Rocks, the same place at which Jane and Glenn were married nine years ago. I also acknowledge the Australian cricket team, who have paid tribute to Jane by wearing pink ribbons and using pink grips on their bats during their match against the West Indies overnight.
Jane McGrath was an outstanding Australian and a role model to thousands of women. I pay tribute to her in this place today and extend my deepest sympathy to her family. I look forward to seeing the work of the McGrath Foundation continuing well into the future and the positive legacy of Jane McGrath living on in the assistance and support given to women affected by breast cancer.
On indulgence, I rise to speak in this debate on the passing of Mrs Jane McGrath AM. Jane was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996. She was just 31. She fought a secondary cancer in her hip and in 2006 was diagnosed with a brain tumour and sadly passed away on 22 June this year, with her husband, Glenn, and their two children by her side. Along with her husband, Jane founded the McGrath Foundation after first battling breast cancer. The foundation provides breast cancer education and breast cancer nurses for women suffering from the disease. Jane was always determined to leave a legacy, an echo that would last through eternity that one brave woman could make a difference. Jane wrote:
I was only 31 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I feel very passionate about empowering women under 40 to take control of their health by conducting regular breast checks—early detection saves lives.
Chief Executive of the National Breast Cancer Foundation Sue Murray said Jane had always been encouraging of other women with breast cancer. She went further to say:
The role model that she has presented to women right throughout her journey has been inspiring, has been very supportive and very encouraging for all women who go through breast cancer.
Breast cancer unfortunately is the most common invasive cancer amongst Australian women. In 2002, 12,027 Australian women were diagnosed with breast cancer. The incidence of breast cancer in women rose from 80 cases per 100,000 females in 1982 to 117 cases per 100,000 in 2002, an average increase of two per cent per annum. The risk of breast cancer increases with age—24 per cent of breast cancer cases diagnosed in 2002 were women younger than 50 years, 50 per cent were women aged 50 to 69 and 26 per cent were women aged 70 and over. The five-year relative survival rate for Australian women with breast cancer between 1998 and 2002 was 86.6 per cent compared with 70.9 per cent in the preceding five years. So progress is being made, yet there is still so much more to do.
It is estimated that there are well over 110,000 women alive today who have been diagnosed with breast cancer in the previous 20 years. To all of you survivors: I salute you and I urge you to press on and embrace life. You inspire us all with your courage and the dignity with which you live. But, sadly, 2,641 women died from breast cancer in Australia in 2005. That is 2,641 too many.
Breast cancer survivors need heroes and Jane McGrath was such a hero. Few families are left unscarred by this insidious disease. When my sister-in-law—my brother’s wife, Keren—was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago, it impacted on the whole family. Keren was in her early 30s, not unlike Jane, and she had two very small children, yet we watched her courage and determination during six long months of treatment. We watched her fight to live—taking every day as a blessing, treasuring family and friends and in turn being an inspiration to those around her. Fighters like Jane McGrath, indeed like Keren Robert, do that for our nation. They lift our spirits; they remind us that what matters is not what life dishes up to us but what we do with the life that we have been given. Jane’s passing, like the passing of every life due to cancer, is a tragedy. Yet in the midst of pain we look forward to hope and in the midst of anguish we pray that we can continue to find true meaning in life through faith, family and friends. Jane’s passing is a national tragedy, yet it steels our collective resolve in this place to do more—and I know that collectively we will do more.
On indulgence: death can be cruel. It affects young people and old, it visits us when we least expect it and it sometimes comes to us after many years of battle. There is a saying, ‘The question is not whether we will die but how we live,’ and I believe Jane McGrath lived a full life and lived by those words. Never succumbing to cancer throughout her battle, she chose to live her life with determination and strength. She responded to the challenge that cancer flung towards her with selfless courage and she was a true heroine. She was an inspiration to all of us and a source of hope for many. I would like to personally extend my condolences to Glenn and his children, James, eight, and Holly, six. They have lost an extraordinary wife and mother, and we have lost a true champion in our community. Lynn Caine once famously proclaimed, ‘Every death diminishes us a little.’ Recognising the profound effect Jane McGrath had on all Australians, when we think of her passing last weekend, that really comes to the fore.
There would not be a person in this House who has not had someone in their family or a friend suffer from breast cancer. Breast cancer is one of the biggest killers of Australian women; more than 2½ thousand Australian women died last year because of it. It has got to be considered a mainstream health issue not just for women but for men also. I call upon Australian men to take a greater role in this regard. Too many of us think this is a women’s issue. It is not. It is a mainstream issue; it is a family values issue. We should think more about it and concentrate more on it, and more money must be spent on cancer research. I would encourage all Australian women, young and old, to self-test. As the father of teenage daughters, this worries me, as it would worry most parents with young girls in their family. I would encourage all Australian women to attend breast screening regularly. It seemed to me, watching Jane McGrath talk on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, that she was a person of tremendous character, a real fighter. She was not a victim and she faced disease and death head-on. She never let it control her life, and we mourn her loss.
I would encourage Australians not to dwell on the tragedy; I would encourage Australians to look at her life and see how she lived it. Her life was a testimony to determination and a source of inspiration to us all. Having heard the tributes flow from the member for Cook, I want to really congratulate him on the speech he made the other day in the House and on his speech today. It is a testimony to his integrity and to the compassion he feels in his heart. Many in his electorate also feel for Jane. I am sure she would want all Australian women battling cancer to replicate her strength and to never give up hope. It is very fitting that the Australian test cricketers were wearing pink gloves and pink grips this morning. I got up early to look, and so they were. That is terrific. That is testimony to the affection and love that the Australian cricket team had for Jane.
Glenn McGrath is a wonderful role model and example as a sporting hero in our country, but his wife’s legacy will live on. The McGrath Foundation secured $12 million from the federal government to help recruit, train and employ 30 breast cancer nurses. Every time we see a nurse involved in breast cancer research we will think of Jane McGrath. She was a highly respected woman; she was held in high esteem in our community not just for her courage, dignity and stoicism but for the contribution she made to our nation. We are better in this country for having Glenn McGrath here, but we are also better for having Jane McGrath come to her adopted country and live and work amongst us.
When the deeds of Jane’s husband, Glenn, on the cricket grounds across the world are remembered, here at home and in the member for Cook’s electorate and in the capital cities, rural communities, byways and beaches of this country, we will think of a woman called Jane. It is a simple name but her contribution was not simple; it was immense. What she meant to Glenn and to her children will not be forgotten. The contribution she has made to breast cancer research and the fight against breast cancer is extraordinary. I say on behalf of my electorate of Blair, in Queensland, to all those women in my electorate who are battling this disease and on behalf of their partners, sons and husbands: never give up hope, and look to Jane McGrath for inspiration. To Jane I say simply, thanks, and rest in peace. Our thoughts are with Glenn and the children. We thank you for what you have done for us, and I thank the member for Cook for his wonderful speech and for bringing this to the attention of the House.
On indulgence, thank you to all members, particularly the member for Cook, for bringing this before the House. I rise today on behalf of my community in Tasmania and my family to say goodbye to Jane McGrath following her 11-year battle with breast cancer. Jane was a remarkable woman. Members who have already spoken on the condolence motion today have remarked on her very special qualities, no better demonstrated than in the McGraths’ interview with the ABC’s Andrew Denton. What struck me most, apart from the extraordinary relationship between the two wonderful Australians and their love for each other, was her incredible sense of humour and optimism in the face of what she knew to be a very serious illness. She indeed was remarkable. Her courage and determination to fight this deadly disease was outstanding, and her contribution to raising funds for research into its cause will not be forgotten. As my honourable colleague just mentioned, that will mean a great deal to those people who unfortunately may suffer with this in the future and to the educative program.
Both Jane and her husband, Glenn, were appointed members of the Order of Australia for the establishment of the McGrath Foundation, which has raised millions of dollars for the fight against breast cancer. Jane was an incredibly courageous woman. She has inspired very many other women across Australia to fight breast cancer with tenacity and optimism. Madam Deputy Speaker, if I may, I would like to pay tribute to Jane and to share with you the story of other remarkable women in my electorate who have been inspired by Jane and today have conveyed to me their deep sense of thanks to Jane and their condolences to her family; she was an inspiration to them. I would like to share with the member for Cook particularly the nature of what these ladies—and their male supporters as well—have done, as it is very much in the vein of what Jane would have liked.
They call themselves the Circular Head Bosom Buddies, which is great—and, indeed, they are bosom buddies. The Circular Head Bosom Buddies comprise 14 inspirational women who all live in the far north-west coast community of Circular Head, which is in my electorate. Each of the women has been touched by breast cancer in some way. Some are survivors; others have seen first-hand the effect that breast cancer has had on a loved one. Tired of feeling helpless in the fight against this debilitating disease—and I know that is something that Jane raised; there is an initial sense of helplessness, but you want to do something about it—these women made the decision to put themselves out there and be proactive in raising funds for research into breast cancer.
Some people may have decided to hold a raffle in the past or to host trivia nights, but the Bosom Buddies set their sights much higher and decided to douse themselves in pink and walk from Smithton to Hobart, effectively travelling from one end of Tassie to the other—and it is about 450 kilometres. So the pink ribbon brigade set off. They also set their sights on raising $100,000 to go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. From 11 to 21 April last year, the Bosom Buddies walked in the fight against breast cancer and it took them 11 days and 11 nights. For a minimum entry fee of $5, supporters were invited to join in any of the sections of the walk.
Coinciding with the walk, the Bosom Buddies coordinated the mother of all raffles. At every available opportunity they sold tickets—in the sunshine, in the wind and in the rain; you name it. They sold their tickets in street stalls, at the local agricultural shows that they visited along the way and at local sporting events. At each stop along the way, the Bosom Buddies were accommodated free by local businesses, and local newspaper the Advocate recorded their journey each day, again highlighting this whole cause. For 11 days and 11 nights, all Tassie stopped to watch, donate and applaud the work of the Bosom Buddies. They also hosted more than 10 other fundraising events in the lead-up to the big walk. These events took a great deal of time and effort to coordinate. On behalf of our community, I thank the Bosom Buddies for their selfless contribution to the fight against breast cancer. To cap it off, they exceeded their $100,000 target, raising $137,000 for the cause. I know that Jane would have been very proud of them for that.
The financial outcome of this event is, as we all know, only part of it. It was the awareness raised at the same time that I would also like to highlight. I know that was very much part of Jane and Glenn’s message to the Australian community: we have to become aware, we have to become conscious and we have to be mindful. For each place the Bosom Buddies visited, each stopover they had or each person who read about their travels, if one person was prompted to book themselves in for a mammogram or was taught how to conduct checks on their own breasts, just think of how many lives might be saved in Tasmania. Many women are now better educated about the disease than before. A blog on the website of the Bosom Buddies captures the beginning of their walk the best. It reads:
It made all of us feel so proud as we walked down the main street (followed by about 100 supporters and a horse dressed in pink), to the cheers and well wishes of the local business owners, employees and the general public who come out to see us off.
Of their final day, their blog reads:
It was a very proud moment for us all as we were led ... by the Tasmanian Police.
That was only for support, I would add; it was not for any other reason. It continues:
Family and friends were at the gardens to welcome us. It was a very emotional moment. A few tears were shed by us all.
One of the driving forces behind the Bosom Buddies is businesswoman and breast cancer survivor Judy King. On the phone this morning, Judy paid tribute to Jane McGrath. She said that the very unfortunate death of Jane will ultimately help to raise awareness and vital funds for breast cancer research and support and will provide great inspiration to all. I quote from Mrs King:
That’s what Jane McGrath was all about, raising funds and awareness, and that’s what the Bosom Buddies are all about.
So, as I mentioned, clearly Jane was a great inspiration. Mrs King says that the walk from Smithton to Hobart has grown into so much more, and one of the unexpected results has been the rise in the awareness that men can also have breast cancer. One of the walkers on the trek across Tasmania, auctioneer Crichton Horton, joined to represent men and to do his bit to raise the profile of that issue. Indeed, I think the incidence of prostate cancer amongst men, particularly in the light of the education and testing program for breast cancer in women, really highlights what is an important health issue in our country, and I think a lot of men have to take note of this as well. We know how serious and deadly cancer is.
Mrs King says the work of the Bosom Buddies has been ongoing and will continue in October this year when they launch their book about the experience, titled The Walk of Life, which I think is a very apt description. The printing of the book has been sponsored by the National Breast Cancer Foundation and a copy will be given to breast cancer patients. I quote from Mrs King:
The Bosom Buddies are still out there working for breast cancer awareness, fighting for more money and care and we will continue to do so.
The Bosom Buddies are all about making the difference. When you’ve survived something like breast cancer it changes your whole outlook on life and makes you re-evaluate everything.
I know that was certainly a message that Jane and Glenn gave in their interview on the Denton program. Why does it take—and unfortunately, in this instance, it was certainly not something they wished—moments of crisis in our lives and in our health for us to appreciate our lives and to look after ourselves and our neighbours and families? I know that Glenn and Jane were absolutely dedicated to encouraging everyone to live their life for the moment, to enjoy it and be positive and to contribute to the wellbeing of others.
In my passing tribute to Jane, and also to Glenn and their young family—for whom it must be very, very difficult—I would also like to recognise and pay tribute to a person whom I regard as one of the bravest and most courageous people I know, and a person who seeks nothing of others except love and gives it in so many more ways than she receives it. That is my sister-in-law, Marianne Langford-Sidebottom, who has suffered from breast cancer and is in a third stage of fighting cancer. She is an extraordinary fighter and a remarkable person. She is still going well and is very positive—sorry; this has just brought it all to me. Her husband, John, and children, Freya, Kendal and Elliott, are a very, very strong family. Marianne was an absolute fitness fanatic and still is. I think this greatly contributed to her ability to fight this, and she continues to fight it. She is a very courageous and determined person; a person with great perseverance. A thing that I thought that Jane McGrath seemed to exhibit—I did not know the McGraths, obviously, but from every time I saw Jane and Glenn—was something that Marianne exhibits also, and that is a tremendous optimism, a positiveness about living and a mindfulness about life and relationships.
Marianne is such a person and is very, very courageous. I draw great inspiration from her and John and the family. I think very much of them, and I know that they would be saddened by Jane’s passing, but she too suffered with Marianne. Marianne continues with her battle, but I think we could all draw inspiration from people like Marianne and certainly Jane in our lives. I hope we can do a lot more to support these wonderful people, who certainly inspire me. I offer my condolences to Jane’s family, including Glenn. The member for Cook no doubt will be passing this on, and the parliament’s condolences and best wishes to the family, and I certainly want to pay tribute to Marianne Langford-Sidebottom, who is an absolute battler and an absolute beauty, and her family. Thank you for this opportunity to offer my great condolences.
On indulgence, I want to join with members on both sides of the chamber in adding my voice to the condolences to Jane McGrath’s family. There is no doubt that the passing of Jane McGrath has touched the hearts of millions of Australians, and there are a number of reasons for that. One, of course, is the widespread nature of breast cancer itself. There would be few if any families that have not been directly affected by the incidence of breast cancer. But one of the other reasons we are touched by the events surrounding Jane McGrath is the way in which she carried herself. As a public figure of sorts, I have observed her over recent years. She has been inspirational to many, many Australians. I guess for many of us it was the interview with Andrew Denton that gave us such a wonderful insight into Jane McGrath, her struggle and her personality. You could not help but watch that interview and admire her courage, the effervescent vitality that she clearly displayed, her great love for Glenn and her family and her sense of humour, which also was obvious in that interview.
There have been a number of other interviews in which Glenn has been involved that really do give to many of us something of an insight into the way that Jane handled herself in times of great difficulty. She has been a worthy inspiration to so many. The reality is that one in eight women will be diagnosed in Australia with breast cancer. It is a frighteningly high statistic. The good news is that over the last 20 years the survival rate has been improving by an average of about two per cent a year. So, although more people are diagnosed, early intervention and treatment has resulted in a much higher survival rate, and that is a good thing. Clearly, as members of parliament we all have some responsibility to ensure the proper resourcing of research facilities as well as the facilities for remediation.
I mentioned that very few families would not be touched by the incidence of breast cancer, and in my own family my sister-in-law has confronted breast cancer and has had to deal with that, as have her loving family. Only a month or so ago, I attended the funeral of the mother of a good friend of ours, who passed away from breast cancer. A very good friend of our family is currently undergoing treatment for breast cancer with chemotherapy and radiation, and she too is a very vibrant lady with a great deal of vitality. My wife and her circle of friends have got together on a few weekends for bandanna days. Over a glass of wine, they have sat down to provide I think a bit of support to one another and have made their funky bandannas. Going through the treatment usually results in the loss of all body hair, so very often people wear hats, bandannas, scarves and the like. Indeed, bandannas are one of the fundraising activities and symbols for breast cancer.
When you see that in your neighbourhood, in your family and in your circle of friends it reminds you of how pervasive this disease is. All of those who have been touched by it—whether they are victims or friends or relatives of victims—look to the experiences of the McGrath family and are inspired by the way they handled themselves during the last few years. Glenn McGrath is an elite athlete and has had to confront a lot of things in that walk of life. I am sure nothing compared to the challenge that he had to confront when he found that his wife was suffering from a life-threatening illness. We as a nation all shared in observing that. In recent weeks, as Jane’s illness obviously became worse, it focused the minds of many people in Australia. On behalf of—I am sure—all of the people I represent in this parliament, I would like to extend my sincere sympathies to Glenn and the family and our thanks to them for the role models that Jane and the family provided us all. I think that will help us as we grapple with similar circumstances in our own families and in our own circle of friends. I pass on the best wishes of the people of Brisbane to the McGrath family.
I too would like to add some thoughts, on indulgence, by recognising the immense contribution that Jane McGrath has made to her community, her family and the nation in a larger sense and how profoundly saddened we all are by her untimely passing. I want to thank the member for Cook for his contribution in the House and here in the Main Committee this morning. I know that when he passes on to the McGrath family the condolence book he will pass with it the sympathies and expressions of sadness from both sides of the chamber.
Before I came up here for chamber duty, I happened to switch on to Sky News, and I saw a beautiful sunny day in Sydney, a blue sky and the Garrison Church where Jane and Glenn apparently married and which today is the sad focus of her untimely death and passing. I was interested, sitting here on duty, to hear the contributions made by my colleagues from both sides, and I could not fail to note that six male colleagues made contributions. I thought about how important that is for this issue because, as others have said, cancer is not something that affects just one person, nor is breast cancer just a woman’s issue. That really shows how, over the last decade in particular, issues of this nature are much more easily aired in public. The battle that women have fought, sometimes on their own, on these issues has probably helped to inspire men to deal more seriously with the range of cancers that afflict them, particularly prostate cancer.
The Treasurer has been one of those men at the forefront of raising men’s consciousness of those issues. I want to pay tribute to the men who spoke on indulgence this morning, because I think it sends a very powerful symbol to women that they are not on their own—that men, family members and community members understand that this is an issue that touches probably everyone in one way or another. I reflected, while listening to the debate, on how much progress we have made through the fundraising efforts of organisations like the McGrath Foundation, other cancer foundations and many voluntary community groups. The research that has been undertaken has helped to prolong the lives of people who are afflicted by this awful illness.
The late Paddy George died at 39 from bowel cancer that eventually spread to the liver. My cousin Irene Rathbone died from breast cancer with the same trajectory as Jane’s; however, just in the short period of a decade, we can see that research and treatment has now made it possible for women to survive much longer, even when they are facing a secondary cancer. I never had the honour or privilege of meeting Jane but, in a sense, I think we all felt that we knew her, particularly after the Andrew Denton interview. What really touched me was her incredible naturalness. Here she was, a woman from England, walking down the street and people were saying g’day to Glenn McGrath, and she wondered who this man that she was going to marry was.
Certainly his fame left Jane very unaffected—to use the words of the member for Brisbane, her ‘effervescent vitality’ shone through. Obviously she was a woman of immense courage, resilience, optimism and good nature. She was a woman of grace and a woman who touched so many people. I think that is why her untimely death has really captured the spirit of so many people across the length and breadth of Australia. There was something very magical about her, which is probably associated with the affinity we have with people who are touched by adversity when we contemplate how they handle that adversity and assist others to do likewise.
In that regard, I think of the many women in the Illawarra who are involved in Breast Cancer Network Australia, which is headed by the wonderful cancer nurse Gloria Swift. I want to pay tribute again to the work that Gloria does in our local community. I know that the McGrath Foundation commits a large amount of funding to the promotion of additional cancer nurses. I think I speak on behalf of not just the members of the Breast Cancer Network but all those I represent in the electorate of Throsby in adding my condolences to those already expressed on the untimely passing of Jane McGrath. All who saw the Andrew Denton interview could see that the love between Glenn and Jane was palpable; it was just genuine, warm and loving. No doubt she was a wonderful wife—and no doubt she could not have been a wonderful wife without also being a truly wonderful mother, in that order. It is incredibly sad for James and Holly to be left without their mum; however, I think in time, when they have grown up, they will be able to look back and reflect on the wonderful contribution that Jane McGrath has made to her community, her family and the nation.
Very briefly, I would also like to be associated with this debate and to say thank you. Having lost my mother-in-law to secondary cancers from breast cancer, I have felt this issue rather keenly.
In making a few closing comments, I thank all members, particularly on that side of the House, for joining me today in this motion of condolence for Jane McGrath. In my short time in this place, this probably has been the most moving of all things that I have seen take place in this and the other chamber. On behalf of my Sutherland shire community, I pass on those thanks to all of your communities for joining in this motion. These things make Australia what it is, with our shared sense of loss at times like these but also our shared sense of humanity and of hope. In doing so—no matter how members wish to take it—I offer my prayers now for Glenn, James and Holly and their family. I just ask that the Lord comfort them at this very difficult time and in the times ahead; however, more than that, I ask that the Lord will strengthen all those who are suffering from breast cancer and that he will strengthen all of their families—that they will take great encouragement and hope from this day. We just pray for God’s blessing on all of them.