Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a personal explanation.
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Most grievously.
The member for Dobell.
In Senate estimates yesterday during the hearing for the Australian Electoral Commission, Senator Ronaldson suggested that I had failed to disclose union donations to my election campaign. As a candidate I fully disclosed all donations to the AEC as required by the law. My responsibility for disclosure of HSU donations to candidates at the last federal election ceased when I took leave approximately six weeks prior to the election.
I draw members’ attention to the statement tabled by the AEC at the hearing and in particular draw attention to the following:
The only probative evidence of a breach of the act that the AEC has at this time is that the HSU national office returns were lodged too late, not that their content are misleading or incorrect in a material particular.
Financial returns for the 2007-08 financial year were due in October 2008. This is one year after I ceased my role with the HSU. Again referring to the statement:
The AEC has concluded that while there is a breach of the Electoral Act for late lodgement there is no public interest at stake that would see the AEC take any further action in relation to late lodgement of the returns.
The allegations and insinuations of Senator Ronaldson at Senate Estimates are totally false. I seek leave to table the AEC statement.
Leave granted.
I present the report of the recommendations of the whips relating to committee and delegation reports and private members’ business for Monday, 22 February 2010. Copies of the report have been placed on the table.
The report read as follows—
Pursuant to standing order 41A, the Whips recommend the following items of committee and delegation reports and private Members’ business for Monday, 22 February 2010. The order of precedence and allotments of time for items in the Main Committee and Chamber are as follows:
Items recommended for Main Committee (6.55 to 8.30 pm)
PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS
Notices
1 MS SAFFIN: To move:
That the House:
Time allotted—25 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Ms Saffin—5 minutes.
Other Member—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 5 x 5 mins]
The Whips recommend that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
2 MRS GASH: To move:
That the House:
Time allotted—20 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Mrs Gash—5 minutes.
Other Member—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 4 x 5 mins]
The Whips recommend that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
3 MR CHAMPION: To move:
That the House:
Time allotted—20 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Mr Champion—5 minutes.
Other Member—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 4 x 5 mins]
The Whips recommend that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
4 MR RIPOLL: To move:
That the House:
Time allotted—10 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Mr Ripoll—5 minutes.
Other Member—5 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 2 x 5 mins]
The Whips recommend that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
5 MR HAWKER: To move:
That the House adopt the following standing order, to appear between standing orders 216 and 217:
House Appropriations and Administrative Committee
Time allotted—remaining private Members’ business time prior to 8.30 pm.
Speech time limits—
Mr Hawker—10 minutes.
Other Member—10 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 2 x 10 mins]
The Whips recommend that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Items recommended for House of Representatives Chamber (8.40 to 9.30 pm)
COMMITTEE AND DELEGATION REPORTS
Presentation and statements
1 PARLIAMENTARY JOINT COMMITTEE ON CORPORATIONS AND FINANCIAL SERVICES
Statutory oversight of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
The Whips recommend that statements on the report may be made—statement to conclude by 8.50 pm
Speech time limits—
Mr Ripoll (Chair)—5 minutes.
Other Member—5 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 2 x 5 mins]
2 PARLIAMENTARY JOINT COMMITTEE ON CORPORATIONS AND FINANCIAL SERVICES
Report on the 2008-09 annual reports of bodies established under the ASIC Act.
The Whips recommend that statements on the report may be made—all statements to conclude by 8.55 pm
Speech time limits—
Mr Ripoll (Chair)—5 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 1 x 5 mins]
3 PARLIAMENTARY JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE AUSTRALIAN COMMISSION FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT INTEGRITY
Interim report on the operation of the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act 2006.
The Whips recommend that statements on the report may be made—all statements to conclude by 9.05 pm
Speech time limits—
Ms Parke—5 minutes.
Other Member—5 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 2 x 5 mins]
4 AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION TO THE 55TH ANNUAL SESSION OF THE NATO PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY
Report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the 55th Annual Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Edinburgh 14-17 November 2009.
The Whips recommend that statements on the report may be made—all statements to conclude by 9.15 pm
Speech time limits—
Mr Bevis—5 minutes.
Other Member—5 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking =2 x 5 mins]
5 AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION TO THE USA
Report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the USA.
The Whips recommend that statements on the report may be made—all statements to conclude by 9.20 pm
Speech time limits—
Mr Secker—5 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking =1 x 5 mins]
PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS
Notices
1 MR KERR: To present a Bill for an Act to establish the Parliamentary (Judicial Misbehaviour or Incapacity) Commission. (Parliamentary (Judicial Misbehaviour or Incapacity) Commission Bill 2010).
Presenter may speak for a period not exceeding 5 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41.
Orders of the Day
1 WILD RIVERS (ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT) BILL 2010—Second reading (8 February 2010).
The Whips recommend all speeches to conclude by 9.30 pm
Speech time limits—
Mr Abbott—5 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 1 x 5 mins]
The Whips recommend that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Report adopted.
by leave—I move:
That the bills be referred to the Main Committee for further consideration.
I indicate to all honourable members that this motion enjoys the support of the Chief Opposition Whip, the honourable member for Fairfax.
Question agreed to.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Roxon.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill seeks to establish a single national healthcare identifier system for patients, healthcare providers and healthcare provider organisations.
This new identifier system will facilitate reliable healthcare related communications, support the management of patient information in an electronic environment and provide the foundations necessary to support the development of a national e-health record system.
The development of a national e-health system will improve safety and quality and patient convenience by ensuring that the right people have access to the right information at the right time.
As noted recently by the third Intergenerational report and the final report of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, we need to prepare the health system to meet the needs of the coming decades.
An ageing population, technological change, a rise in the prevalence of chronic disease and increasing consumer expectations mean we cannot continue with a ‘business as usual’ approach.
The government is currently undertaking the most important overhaul of our health system since the introduction of Medicare 25 years ago. An important part of this work will be ensuring that as a nation, we are well positioned to take full advantage of the opportunities presented by information and communication technology. The reform commission was clear in identifying the importance of e-health in driving and enabling reform to healthcare delivery. Among the 123 recommendations of the final report is a recommendation to introduce healthcare identifiers by July 2010 and individual electronic health records by 2012.
This bill establishes the healthcare identifiers, without which there cannot be an integrated, consistent, e-health system in Australia.
One of the major barriers currently limiting the progress of national e-health initiatives is the lack of a single process to accurately and consistently identify patients and healthcare providers.
For example, when a patient visits their GP for a check-up, the identifying number on their health record is different to the number at the pharmacy where they have their prescription filled or the pathology laboratory where they have their blood tests done.
Healthcare providers face a similar problem with professional or registration bodies, Medicare Australia, and their employers all identifying them through a variety of different methods.
This fragmented approach to identification does not provide the accuracy or consistency needed to confidently share health information in an electronic environment. Nor does it adequately support the safe delivery of health care with providers regularly required to match patients and patient information to their records, increasing the risk of mismatching records and tests needing to be re-ordered.
Studies in hospital environments have indicated that between nine per cent and 17 per cent of tests are unnecessary duplicates. Up to 18 per cent of medical errors are attributed to inadequate availability of patient information, which indicate the scope of the potential efficiency and productivity benefits possible when we have accurate patient information. Healthcare identifiers help progress our goal to utilise health resources in a smarter, more targeted and sustainable way.
In 2006 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to a national approach to identification for patients and providers as part of accelerating work on the national e-health records system. This decision was re-affirmed in November 2008 when COAG agreed to universally allocate healthcare identifiers to all healthcare recipients in Australia.
A national approach to establishing healthcare identifiers has been adopted to avoid duplicating development costs and efforts and in recognition that identifiers are part of the core infrastructure needed to support secure electronic communication across the various elements of Australia’s healthcare system.
In consultation with the healthcare sector and the Australian community over the past three years NEHTA, in conjunction with Medicare Australia, has designed and developed an identifiers system for patients, healthcare providers and healthcare provider organisations.
The Healthcare Identifiers Service has been designed to include appropriate safeguards to ensure that:
The service has been designed to ensure that mechanisms currently available through Medicare Australia to protect the identities of vulnerable individuals (such as those in the witness protection program) will continue to be catered for.
An individual healthcare identifier will not alter the way in which anonymous healthcare services are currently provided. Where it is lawful and practical, individuals can seek treatment and services on an anonymous basis. In these instances, an individual healthcare identifier would not be used by the healthcare service.
The design of the service has been subject to three independent privacy impact assessments to ensure significant privacy impacts were identified and where necessary, addressed. This ensures the design of the service appropriately protects the privacy of those participating in it.
The design of the Healthcare Identifiers Service, combined with a national authentication system, an appropriate governance framework and the regulatory support this bill seeks to establish, healthcare identifiers will deliver the access and identity requirements critical to ensuring confidence in the way a patient’s health information is handled in an electronic environment.
While attention is often given to the potential benefits of the eventual adoption of electronic health records, there are immediate benefits associated with the implementation of a national healthcare identifiers system. These benefits will improve the safety and quality of healthcare in Australia and include:
For example, when eight-year-old Amy injures her arm rollerskating, her mum takes her to the emergency room at the local hospital. Using their family Medicare card as a token, the hospital collects Amy’s healthcare identifier from the Healthcare Identifier Service and adopts it as an identifier in its own system.
Using Amy’s healthcare identifier the treating doctor at the hospital orders an X-ray, the results of which are sent electronically from the radiology department to the doctor. This allows the doctor to quickly diagnose Amy’s fracture, treat her and prescribe any medication to assist with the management of her pain.
When Amy is discharged from the hospital, the doctor sends an electronic discharge summary to her regular GP with information about her condition, treatment and the medication prescribed. From this information, Amy’s GP knows when follow-up treatment is needed, reducing the likelihood of needing to go back to hospital for further care.
At each step in this scenario, Amy’s healthcare identifier is used to uniquely identify her in a variety of different healthcare settings and support the electronic communication of information relevant to her healthcare provision.
The scenario I have described can only become a reality if there is widespread use of a healthcare identifiers system by both patients and healthcare providers. To achieve this, the system must be easy to use, provide benefits to clinical care and be one that people can trust.
The bill seeks to establish appropriate limitations and protections for healthcare identifiers, including a robust complaints handling framework which will be managed by independent regulators. This will give patients and healthcare providers the necessary confidence in the safety of the system to encourage widespread participation.
The protections will be achieved by:
While all individuals receiving health care in Australia will be issued with an identifier, the bill does not impose a requirement that healthcare providers use healthcare identifiers when providing healthcare services, nor will identifiers be required by patients for claiming healthcare benefits.
On 7 December 2009, COAG signed a national partnership agreement setting out its commitment to implementing the governance, legislative and administrative arrangements necessary to implement e-health, starting with this healthcare identifiers system.
This agreement recognises the need for strong collaborative governance arrangements between jurisdictions, allocating responsibility for oversight of the Healthcare Identifiers Service, including the consideration of any proposed legislative changes and decisions regarding ongoing funding of the service to a ministerial council made up of representatives from each jurisdiction.
Two rounds of public consultation on the legislative proposals to support the Healthcare Identifiers Service have been undertaken. While there is strong support for the implementation of healthcare identifiers as a foundation for the development of e-health, patient and healthcare provider confidence in the regulatory support outlined in the bill is only one part of the story when it comes to ensuring widespread participation.
Getting a broad range of healthcare providers to actively participate in the system is going to be critical to achieving widespread use of healthcare identifiers in the healthcare system.
It is our aim to get as close to full participation in the healthcare identifier system as possible.
Engaging with and educating healthcare providers is the best way of ensuring widespread uptake of the identifiers. While most of the benefits associated with improving safety and quality and increasing patient convenience and productivity are obvious, the government will be strongly encouraging healthcare providers to participate in this system.
This is an exciting time for health reform and specifically for e-health development. Every Australian has a stake in our health system and e-health provides us with great opportunities to improve the way in which healthcare is delivered.
The implementation of a healthcare identifiers system for patients and healthcare providers is an important step towards building an effective national e-health system.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Roxon.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Healthcare Identifiers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010 (‘the bill’) seeks to make a number of minor consequential amendments to existing acts to support the introduction of the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010, which has just been introduced into the House.
The Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 seeks to establish a single national healthcare identifier system for patients, healthcare providers and healthcare provider organisations.
As I have noted, this system will facilitate reliable health care-related communications, support the management of patient information in an electronic environment and provide the foundations necessary to support the development of a national e-health system.
The development of a national e-health system will improve safety and quality and patient convenience by ensuring that the right people have access to the right information at the right time.
The fragmented approach to identification that currently exists does not provide the accuracy or consistency needed to confidently share health information in an electronic environment.
The Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 seeks to overcome this issue.
To ensure the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 operates appropriately and effectively, minor amendments to the Health Insurance Act 1973 and the Privacy Act 1988 are required.
For example, the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 seeks to allocate functions relevant to the operation of the Healthcare Identifiers Service to the CEO of Medicare Australia. This includes functions relevant to the day-to-day operation of the service.
To support the day-to-day running of the service, it is necessary to provide the CEO of Medicare Australia with the authority to delegate functions allocated to his or her office. To enable this to occur, minor amendments to the Health Insurance Act 1973 are required.
Minor amendments to the Privacy Act 1988 are also required to ensure that an act or practice that breaches the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 is classified as an interference with the privacy of an individual, subject to investigation by the federal Privacy Commissioner. Any such investigation will be undertaken in accordance with the Privacy Commissioner’s existing functions and the specific functions established to support healthcare identifiers.
Inclusion of the provision in the Privacy Act 1988 supports the strong privacy framework which has been established for the Healthcare Identifiers Service and provides patients and healthcare providers with confidence in the compliance and enforcement arrangements.
Other minor technical changes to the Privacy Act are also required to ensure the Privacy Act 1988 and the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 operate appropriately together and to take account of changes to the Privacy Act that will come into effect with the commencement of the Personal Property Securities (Consequential Amendments) Act.
This bill seeks to make these changes to ensure the Healthcare Identifiers Service operates effectively and as intended.
I commend the consequential amendments bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Roxon.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Health Insurance Amendment (Pathology Requests) Bill 2010 will improve patient choice of pathology services, and encourage providers to compete on price and quality of service.
Currently the Health Insurance Act 1973 requires that, in most cases, in order for a Medicare benefit to be payable for a pathology service rendered by or on behalf of an approved pathology practitioner, a request for the service must be made to that particular pathology practitioner or the approved pathology authority at which they work. This means that a patient is effectively required to take a completed request form to the approved pathology practitioner or authority named on the form. This restriction does not apply to other diagnostic services that attract Medicare benefits.
This bill removes this restriction so that, while there will still be a legislative requirement for a request for a pathology service to be made, there will no longer be a requirement that the request be made to a particular approved pathology practitioner or authority. This legislative change will allow patients to take a pathology request to an approved pathology practitioner or authority of their choice and will encourage pathology providers to compete on price and convenience for patients.
The government supports a patient’s right to choose their pathology provider, just as they are entitled to choose their own GP or any other medical practitioner.
Medical practitioners who request pathology services will still be free to make recommendations to patients about which pathology provider they feel is best suited to their needs. Feedback from requesters has shown that there are often valid clinical reasons for recommending a particular pathology provider over another. The government recognises the importance of the doctor-patient relationship and will continue to encourage medical practitioners to discuss with patients options for all aspects of their treatment, including pathology services.
Convenience and access to bulk-billing are some of the reasons that a patient may wish to choose one provider over another. However, patients will also need to be aware of the potential consequences of not keeping their requesting practitioner informed of their choice, as this may impact on the continuity of their care.
In the case of diagnostic imaging requests, patients already have the option of taking their request form to any provider, not just the one named on the request form. These changes to the Health Insurance Act merely bring the arrangements for pathology requests in line with those for other diagnostic services.
The amendments will take effect from 1 July 2010.
The government will also make changes to relevant regulations prior to 1 July 2011 to require that requests for pathology services include a clear and understandable statement, which is obviously positioned, making patients aware that requests can be taken to any approved pathology practitioner or authority.
Pathology providers will be able to continue to produce ‘branded’ request forms (that include the company logo and address) and to provide these to requesting medical practitioners. These may include a list of the locations of that provider’s collection centres. They will, however, be required from 1 July 2011 to include on their request forms a clear and understandable statement, which is obviously positioned, making patients aware that these forms can be taken to any approved pathology practitioner or approved pathology authority.
Options for the wording of this statement is one of a range of implementation issues being discussed with requesters, providers and consumers of pathology services as part of the stakeholder consultation process currently being conducted by my department.
We believe informed patient choice is a key element of quality health care. This amendment will ensure that patients have a right to choose their pathology provider and are made aware of that fact, leading to increased competition and better service among providers. I commend this bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.
I move:
That notice No. 4, government business, be postponed until a later hour this day.
Question agreed to.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Garrett.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Amendment Bill 2010 is to make amendments to the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Act 1980.
The Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Act 1980 gives effect to Australia’s obligations under the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty [1998] ATS 6 (the Madrid Protocol).
Australia was one of the 12 original signatories to the Antarctic Treaty [1961] ATS 12, the cornerstone of the broader Antarctic treaty system. The reservation under the Antarctic Treaty of Antarctica for peaceful purposes, scientific research and international scientific cooperation is something of which we can all be proud.
As the international governance arrangements for the Antarctic have developed, Australia has played a pivotal role in ensuring Antarctica’s environmental values are protected.
Australia was a principal architect of the Madrid Protocol that afforded significantly increased protection to the Antarctic environment. The Madrid Protocol commits parties to the comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems, and designates Antarctica as a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science. The protection of the environmental values of the Antarctic is an unquestioned priority for most Australians.
It is my very strong conviction that as more countries take an active interest in the Antarctic, it is vitally important that Australia continues to play a leading role in efforts to realise the global benefits of Antarctic science and environmental protection. The government is well aware that our future role is a critical one which builds on the foundation of an extensive history of Antarctic engagement and participation.
The Antarctic is the southern sentinel of global climate change. The effects of climate change are already being observed in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic marine ecosystems where we are seeing rising temperatures in the ocean, cryosphere and atmosphere. We are also seeing changes in atmospheric circulation, modified frequency and intensity of storms, increasing levels of ocean acidity, and an overall reduction in sea ice extent during the last century.
Further, a better understanding of the effect that the Antarctic has on Australia’s weather and climate is essential to our future economic, environmental and social wellbeing.
At the 32nd Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting held in April 2009, which also served to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty, amendments to Annex II to the Madrid Protocol were agreed in Measure 16 (2009) Amendment of Annex II to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.
Annex II to the Madrid Protocol outlines the provisions for the conservation of Antarctic fauna and flora—excluding whales that are covered by the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling [1948] ATS 18, and other wholly marine species that are covered by the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources [1982] ATS 9, commonly referred to as CCAMLR.
This bill will align the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Act 1980 with Australia’s newly revised obligations under Annex II to the Madrid Protocol, as outlined in Measure 16 (2009).
In essence, the amendments will establish more stringent arrangements to protect Antarctic fauna and flora. Key amendments include:
1. Providing the ability for the minister to declare invertebrates as specially protected species, and specifying restrictions regarding the taking of native invertebrates.
2. Enhancing the protections afforded to protect specially protected species.
3. Strengthening the permitting system to more tightly control the authorised introduction of organisms into the Antarctic.
4. Updating the offences to require persons travelling to the Antarctic to take greater precaution against the accidental introduction of non-native organisms into the Antarctic.
5. Making minor and technical amendments to the act.
The agreement of Measure 16 (2009) by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties and subsequent implementation of the amendments to Annex II to the Madrid Protocol into domestic legislation will mark the conclusion of the first review of any of the annexes to the Madrid Protocol. Australia took on a leadership role in the review of Annex II and we will ensure we have an appropriate level of engagement in further reviews.
Australia has a long and proud history in the Antarctic and this bill is an important step in maintaining our commitment to holding the comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment as one of our highest priorities.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Bowen.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Today I introduce a bill which will amend the Corporations Act 2001 to reform the way financial markets in Australia are supervised. In doing so, the bill will enhance the integrity of Australia’s financial markets and contribute to the goal of making Australia a financial hub.
The bill removes the inherent conflict of interest present in the current law, whereby financial markets supervise themselves, and transfers the supervisory responsibility to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
The bill contains three primary measures.
Firstly, it amends the obligations on licensed financial markets operating in Australia. At present market licensees, and prospective market licensees, are required to have arrangements and resources devoted to supervising trading on their market.
The bill amends this obligation. Markets will no longer be required to supervise trading on their own market, but must still have arrangements and resources to operate their market. This includes arrangements for enforcing compliance with a market’s operating rules. Individual markets will retain responsibility for supervising listed entities.
Secondly, the bill confers on ASIC the explicit function of supervision of domestically licensed financial markets.
It is important that the supervision of Australia’s financial markets be transparent and independent. It is important that any actual or perceived conflicts of interest be avoided.
Consequently, it is more appropriate for an agency of the government to perform this important function. The decision to transfer responsibility for supervision of Australia’s financial markets to ASIC is a significant one which will stand the operation of Australia’s financial markets in good stead.
By removing the inherent conflict of interest in having markets supervise themselves, this bill is in line with Australia’s G20 commitment to protect the integrity of financial markets by avoiding conflicts of interest.
This reform is in line with the move towards centralised or independent regulation in other leading jurisdictions.
Thirdly, the bill establishes a new rule-making regime, whereby ASIC will have the ability to set ‘market integrity rules’.
Markets currently play a significant role in determining acceptable conduct by participants in Australia’s financial markets, as markets are responsible for setting and enforcing their own operating rules.
The bill amends the role of operating rules, and establishes ASIC-set ‘market integrity rules’. These rules will be made by ASIC for the protection of the integrity of the market. These market integrity rules will be the primary determiners of behaviour on Australia’s financial markets. Markets will still be able to make operating rules. However if an operating rule conflicts with a market integrity rule, the market integrity rule prevails.
This is a further step in the government’s drive to improve regulation of the financial industry.
Commensurate with ASIC’s new responsibilities, the bill provides ASIC with additional enforcement powers and remedies.
The bill provides that a breach of an ASIC-set market integrity rule is a breach of a civil penalty provision, which can be taken to court and enforced. The maximum penalty that can be imposed is $1 million. This was reduced from the amount in the exposure draft of the bill to reflect concerns that the higher amount might be inappropriate.
However, the bill also establishes a framework for alternatives to civil penalty proceedings. The bill sets the groundwork to allow the regulations to establish alternatives to civil proceedings, such as an infringement notice and enforceable undertaking regime.
This will allow persons who are alleged to have contravened a market integrity rule to avoid court by opting for an alternative penalty. The monetary amount which can be included in an alternative penalty is limited to three-fifths of what a court could order.
Such remedies are vital to the ongoing success of the market integrity rule framework as they provide ASIC with a fast and effective remedy, akin to the remedies available to markets under the current operating rule framework.
This bill also makes consequential amendments to other parts of the act, specifically to the qualified privilege and court order provisions to reflect the new functions of ASIC and the change in obligations on market operators.
The transfer of supervisory responsibility is an important step in enhancing the regulation of Australia’s financial services industry.
These reforms will stand Australia in good stead, going into the future, by ensuring that Australia’s markets remain fair, orderly and transparent into the future.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Bowen.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Corporations (Fees) Amendment Bill 2010 supports the Corporations Amendment (Financial Market Supervision) Bill 2010.
The bill amends the Corporations (Fees) Act 2001 to allow a fee to be charged to market operators in respect of market supervision functions which the main bill vests in the corporate regulator ASIC.
This is in line with the findings of the Wallis inquiry, which, when it reported in 1997, made a recommendation that regulatory agencies should collect enough revenue from the financial entities which they regulate to fund themselves. The principle is that, for reasons of equity and efficiency, the costs of financial regulation should be borne by those who benefit from it.
The fee collected by ASIC will be levied on a cost recovery basis. It is intended that the imposition of fees by ASIC on market operators will not have a significant impact on investors.
The regulations will specify how the fee will be calculated and when it will be imposed.
Full details of the measures in this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Bowen.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Today, I introduce a bill that will amend the Commonwealth’s consumer credit legislation to ensure an effective referral of power from the states to the Commonwealth in relation to consumer credit.
Mr Deputy Speaker, as you would be aware, last year the government enacted legislation to implement phase 1 of the National Consumer Credit Reform Package, delivering on the government’s commitment to modernise Australia’s consumer credit laws.
This credit reform package will, for the first time in Australia, provide a single, standard, national regime for the regulation of consumer credit replacing the state based regime, which operates inconsistently across the eight jurisdictions.
This landmark reform has only been possible through the strong commitment by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments working in a spirit of cooperation to realise the COAG reform vision for a single, uniform national credit law.
This is evidenced by the signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement for National Credit Law by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments in December last year and a commitment by all governments to commence the national credit law at the same time later this year.
As the Commonwealth’s legislative powers are not sufficient to enact a nationally comprehensive regulatory framework for consumer credit, it is therefore necessary for the states to refer their powers to the Commonwealth under section 51 of the Constitution by passing the relevant referral legislation in their respective parliaments.
Tasmania has passed the Credit (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2009.
Following the enactment of the referral bills, the states will be able to repeal their state laws in time for the commencement of the national credit legislation on 1 July 2010.
In December last year, the Commonwealth and state governments agreed to modify the referral bills by inserting ‘carve out’ provisions, which provide that certain subject matters, such as State taxation, are excluded from the referral bill.
This bill amends the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, the ‘credit act’, to recognise certain exclusions to the scope of the amendment power in the referral bill and to enable an effective reference of state power to be made either with or without any exclusions to that power.
This ensures that the state reference legislation with no limitations and state reference legislation with the added protection of the exclusions to the reference of their powers are equally effective.
The amendments in this bill will also allow the states to refer their regulatory powers in relation to consumer credit by ‘adopting’ the Commonwealth’s legislation. This will ensure the constitutional soundness of the referral of consumer credit powers.
Following the Commonwealth’s enactment of this bill, the states wishing to refer powers using the adoption approach will be able to do so with their referral bills.
Importantly, the scope and effectiveness of the national credit protection regime will not be affected by any such variation to the referral or whether states refer power or adopt the national credit legislation.
Full details of the measures in the bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Bowen.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This Bill amends the GST law to implement a range of improvements to Australia’s tax laws. These amendments arose from recommendations of the Board of Taxation in its review of GST administration.
Schedule 1 ensures that the appropriate GST outcome is achieved in situations where there are payments between parties in a supply chain which indirectly alters the price received or paid for the thing that is supplied.
This is done by creating an adjustment to apply in situations where, for example, a taxpayer supplying things to a retailer for resale makes a monetary payment to an end customer and a third party in the supply chain in connection with the third party’s acquisition of the thing.
Views were expressed to the board that it was not appropriate that payments to third parties that impacted on the price of supplies of goods or services did not result in adjustments. The board recommended that the law be amended to ensure that manufacturers’ rebates, which in effect change the price of a transaction, result in adjustments for the payer and the third party, reflecting the economic outcome of the transaction.
This amendment ensures that GST adjustments are required in all situations in which consideration is paid by an entity in the supply chain to a third party which effectively alters the consideration paid.
The amendment will apply to third party payments made on or after 1 July 2010.
Schedule 2 clarifies the current rules for attributing input tax credit to tax periods. The GST law is intended to allow taxpayers to attribute unclaimed input tax credits in the current period. This avoids the compliance and administrative costs associated with amending returns for prior periods.
A number of submissions made to the Board of Taxation expressed concerns that the application of the current law was ambiguous in particular circumstances. The board recommended that the law be amended to remove any doubt that it applies as intended.
The amendment clarifies the GST law by confirming that the rule allowing attribution in the current period applies to all input tax credits. This is consistent with the ATO’s current administration of GST law.
The amendment applies to net amounts in tax periods commencing on or after 1 July 2010.
Full details of the amendments in this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Bowen.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill amends various taxation and superannuation laws to implement a range of improvements to Australia’s tax laws. As such this bill is an important part of our commitment to clear the decks of outstanding announced tax measures for taxpayer and community certainty.
Schedule 1 amends various superannuation laws to deliver on the government’s 2007 election commitment to introduce an optional superannuation clearing house service that will be free of charge to eligible small businesses (those with fewer than 20 employees).
Following the passage of this bill, a regulation will be made prescribing Medicare Australia as the approved clearing house for this purpose. The service will be available from July 2010.
This measure will reduce the red tape for small businesses associated with meeting their superannuation obligations, while not imposing any new fees and charges on them. In particular, it will remove the need for small businesses to deal with numerous different superannuation funds where their employees elect to exercise choice and, consistent with the government’s election commitment, it will enable small businesses to discharge their super guarantee (SG) obligations once the payment is received by the clearing house.
Currently, contributions are only considered to have been made for SG purposes when they are paid into a complying fund.
This schedule also extends the conditions under which contributions for the benefit of an employee are made in compliance with the choice of fund rules to cover situations where contributions are made through an approved clearing house, and allows for the disclosure of taxpayer information to an approved clearing house for the purpose of performing its functions.
To minimise the impact of the measure on existing commercial clearing house arrangements, the approved clearing house service will only be available to businesses with fewer than 20 employees.
Schedule 2 amends the tax law to protect the tax deductions of around 19,000 investors in forestry managed investment schemes from an unintended and adverse tax outcome.
Currently, investors in forestry managed investment schemes can claim an immediate tax deduction for expenditure incurred in the scheme, subject to certain conditions.
The Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 covers schemes for which amounts are paid by investors on or after 1 July 2007.
The Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 contains the conditions for deductions relating to schemes in which expenditure is incurred between 2 October 2001 and 30 June 2008.
In order for an initial investor in a forestry scheme to claim and retain a deduction, a capital gains tax event must not happen in relation to the investor’s forestry interest within four years after the end of the income year in which an amount is first paid by the 1936 act.
This rule is known as the ‘four-year holding rule’, as it has the effect of requiring the initial investor to hold their forestry interest for at least four years.
This minimum holding rule period is an integrity measure designed to prevent taxpayers from disposing of their interest shortly after claiming their upfront tax deduction.
Under the current law, the Commissioner of Taxation has no discretion to allow a deduction in these circumstances, even where the reason for the capital gains tax event happening is outside the taxpayer’s control. For investors in some schemes, this could lead to their deductions being clawed back.
The government considers that this would unduly penalise investors for events that are outside their control.
Further, many of the investments in question were made before the four-year holding rule was put in place—at the time they decided to invest, these investors had no way of knowing that their deductions were at risk.
On 21 October 2009, the government announced that it would amend the four-year holding rule so that it cannot be failed for reasons outside the investor’s control.
A capital gains tax event is considered to be outside an investor’s control if it could not have been reasonably anticipated by the investor at the time they acquired their interest.
Events that could be outside the control of the investor include the insolvency of the managed investment scheme manager, the death of the investor or where a managed investment scheme interest is cancelled, for example because of trees being destroyed by fire, flood or drought.
This new condition applies to schemes covered by the 1997 act or the 1936 act.
Finally, schedule 2 also amends the promoter penalty provisions in the Taxation Administration Act 1953 to ensure they continue to apply to the promoters of forestry schemes in cases where the investors’ deductions are allowed to stand because of the amendments to the four-year holding rule.
The promoter penalty provisions are an important integrity measure designed to discourage the implementation of schemes covered by an Australian Taxation Office product ruling in a way that is materially different from the product ruling.
This amendment ensures that the law continues to apply to forestry managed investment schemes, notwithstanding the amendment to the four-year holding rule.
These amendments strike the right balance between protecting certain investors’ deductions and discouraging excessively risky behaviour.
They ensure that taxpayers are not unfairly affected as a result of events outside their control, while maintaining robust integrity provisions.
Schedule 3 amends the tax law to allow managed investment trusts to make an irrevocable election to apply the capital gains tax regime to gains and losses on disposals of certain assets, primarily shares, units and real property. As announced by the government in the 2009-10 budget, this amendment has effect from the 2008-09 income year.
Under the current law, gains and losses on disposal of investments may be on revenue or capital account depending on the facts and circumstances, including the nature of the business or investment activity. Gains on revenue account are treated as ordinary income and investors are not entitled to the capital gains tax discount (or exemption for non-residents).
Under these amendments, investors will have certainty about when they can access capital gains tax concessions on gains distributed by managed investment trusts. In particular, non-resident investors are exempt from Australian tax on distributions of gains on disposal of eligible assets, unless the gains relate to assets that are taxable Australian property.
If an eligible managed investment trust does not make an irrevocable choice to have capital account treatment, then gains and losses on disposals of shares and units will be treated on revenue account.
The amendments also provide taxpayers with certainty about prior year assessments. The commissioner cannot, without the consent of the taxpayer, amend prior year assessments, in respect of a re-characterisation of gains or losses from eligible assets from capital to revenue or vice versa.
These amendments will also clarify the taxation treatment of ‘carried interest’ units in managed investment trusts. Distributions of amounts to a carried interest holder and proceeds from the disposal of a carried interest held in a managed investment trust will be treated on revenue account in the hands of the unit holder.
These amendments, which are an important part of the government’s efforts to promote Australia as a financial centre, will reduce complexity and compliance costs and improve the global competitiveness of the Australian funds management services industry.
Schedule 4 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 by introducing an income test into the eligibility criteria for the entrepreneurs’ tax offset, or ETO.
The ETO provides eligible taxpayers with a maximum tax offset of 25 per cent of their income tax liability that is attributable to their net small business income for the income year. The ETO begins to phase out at aggregated turnovers of $50,000 and eligibility ceases when aggregated turnover reaches $75,000.
Eligibility for the ETO is not currently restricted to taxpayers who have significant sources of income other than the income derived from their small business. This measure will address this by restricting eligibility to the ETO for single individuals whose income is over $70,000 and members of families whose incomes are over $120,000.
Schedule 5 makes important amendments to the corporate consolidation regime in the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.
The consolidation regime applies primarily to a group of Australian resident entities wholly owned by an Australian resident company that choose to form a consolidated group. Specific rules provide for the membership of certain resident wholly owned subsidiaries of a foreign holding company which can choose to form a multiple entry consolidated group.
Members of a consolidated group are treated as a single entity for income tax purposes. Subsidiary entities lose their individual income tax identity on entry into the group and are treated as part of the head company.
A number of issues have arisen from the practical operation of the consolidation regime since its introduction in 2002. These amendments respond to those issues by clarifying the operation of certain aspects of the consolidation regime and improving interactions with other parts of the law.
In this regard, the amendments clarify the operation of the tax cost setting rules that apply when an entity joins or leaves a consolidated group and ensure that the tax cost setting amount allocated to an asset can be used for subsequent tax purposes. The tax cost setting rules are also being modified to ensure that non-membership equity interests issued by an entity that joins or leaves a consolidated group are properly taken into account.
The amendments also modify the mechanism for making various choices in relation to the formation of, or changes to, a consolidated group. This will ensure that a choice to form a consolidated group remains effective despite, for example, a clerical mistake in completing the form to advise the Commissioner of Taxation that the choice has been made.
Several of the amendments will reduce compliance costs for consolidated groups. In particular, the amendments which ensure that minimal tax consequences arise when a consolidated group converts to a multiple entry consolidated group, or vice versa, will result in significant compliance cost savings for groups that restructure.
Compliance cost savings will also arise as a result of the amendments to treat units in cash management trusts and certain rights to future income as retained cost base assets; the amendments to modify the mechanism for working out the taxable income of consolidated groups that have members which are life insurance companies; the amendments which repeal the provision that causes a capital gain to arise when the value of a liability of an entity that leaves the group is different to the value that was taken into account when it joined the group; and the amendments to improve the operation of the inter-entity loss multiplication rules for widely held companies.
The amendments improve the interaction with the capital gains tax rules by removing difficulties that arise when a capital gains tax event which straddles the time that an entity joins or leaves a consolidated group happens to an asset.
In addition, the amendments assist small business corporate groups that wish to consolidate by improving the treatment of pre-capital gains tax membership interests that are held in a joining entity.
Finally, other changes improve the operation of the consolidation regime by removing some minor technical anomalies that arise under the existing law.
Many of the amendments are beneficial to taxpayers and apply from 1 July 2002. Others apply from various dates of announcement or from today.
Lastly, schedule 6 includes miscellaneous amendments to the tax laws.
These amendments ensure that the law operates as intended by correcting technical or drafting defects, removing anomalies, and addressing unintended outcomes. These amendments are part of the government’s commitment to the care and maintenance of the tax law.
This package also includes some legislative issues raised by the public through the Tax Issues Entry System, or TIES.
Full details of the measures in this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Macklin.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill implements another key reform set out in the Australian government’s white paper The road home: a national approach to reducing homelessness, which was released in December 2008.
In the white paper, the Australian government committed to halve homelessness and offer accommodation to all rough sleepers who seek it.
The government has provided an additional $1.1 billion to boost services for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
In addition to this, we are adding 80,000 social and affordable homes to the national housing stock by 2012—through the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan and our National Rental Affordability Scheme. This is the single biggest investment in housing ever made.
While housing is critical, fixing homelessness is not always just about providing a roof and four walls. Many people have a number of challenges they need to overcome to get housed and stay housed.
The Australian government’s white paper on homelessness emphasises the need to address these challenges as well as the undersupply of social housing. That is why we are working hard to prevent homelessness, providing people with the support they need to sustain their housing and linking our new housing with intensive, specialist support to break the cycle of homelessness.
Centrelink has a critical role to play in reducing and preventing homelessness. We know that Centrelink provides income support payments to 6.5 million people, many whom are disadvantaged, vulnerable and socially excluded.
As a key ‘first to know’ agency, Centrelink is well placed to identify people who are at risk of homelessness and assist them to stabilise their housing situation.
Centrelink has already introduced an ‘indicator’ in its systems to identify clients who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. This ‘indicator’ will let Centrelink staff know that the client needs active follow up, from a Centrelink social worker, to make sure they are receiving the support they need to stay housed. The ‘indicator’ allows Centrelink to improve and tailor its service to the people who are most vulnerable to homelessness.
In October last year, Centrelink also began to establish its network of Centrelink Community Engagement Officers. This program now has 90 specialist staff, located across all capital cities and many regional centres, supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
Community engagement officers are working with non-government organisations like drug and alcohol rehabilitation services, mental health services, hostels, boarding houses, refuges and drop-in centres to provide homeless Australians and people who are at risk of homelessness with better access to income support and the many other services available through Centrelink.
This bill now provides another reform being implemented by Centrelink under the Australian government’s white paper on homelessness.
As part of the Australian government’s efforts to prevent homelessness, we are introducing weekly payments of income support payments for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
We know that some Australians have difficulty budgeting and spend their fortnightly welfare payments too quickly. This can mean they are left with no money to pay for rent, food or essential services.
Vulnerable customers, who are being supported by Centrelink staff, will be able to choose to receive their income support payments weekly instead of fortnightly. While the payment amount will stay the same, weekly payments will allow the most disadvantaged welfare payment customers to budget more easily. It will also give these vulnerable Australians an opportunity to stabilise and improve their circumstances.
Currently the social security law is unclear on the extent of the Secretary’s discretion to determine that more than one payment can be made in respect of an instalment period. This bill clarifies that a social security payment may be paid on a weekly basis in respect of a 14-day instalment period to individuals in a declared class. This bill provides for weekly payments under the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to come into effect on the commencement of the legislative instrument defining ‘vulnerable customers’.
The bill also enables changes to the family assistance law. Those vulnerable customers who receive family tax benefit as well as income support will be able to elect to receive income support weekly, and at this stage it is expected that this will be sufficient to improve their money management. The government’s intention for the moment is to limit weekly payments to income support payments, and retain family assistance payments on a fortnightly basis. However to enable the government to respond to changing circumstances, the bill will also amend the family assistance law to allow for the introduction of weekly payments for family tax benefit and baby bonus as required.
This measure is intended to alleviate some of the financial hardships faced by those Australians who are most disadvantaged and, in doing so, it is intended to prevent these people becoming homeless. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Billson) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Clare.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Higher Education Support Amendment (FEE-HELP Loan Fee) Bill 2010 amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to implement the government’s decision to increase the loan fee from 20 per cent to 25 per cent for undergraduate courses.
The amendment will implement the recommendation of the Review of Australian Higher Education to increase the loan fee for FEE-HELP for fee-paying undergraduate students to 25 per cent.
The Bradley review of Australian higher education’s final report noted that the implied subsidy offered through a FEE-HELP loan increases significantly with the level of debt. This means the government subsidy varies considerably by course.
Tuition fees for undergraduate fee-paying courses can be substantially higher than Commonwealth supported places. When the level of FEE-HELP debt rises significantly, the taxpayer funded subsidies for the loans also substantially increase.
An increase in the loan fee will enable the government to recover more of the taxpayer subsidised cost of providing FEE-HELP loans.
Even with a five per cent increase in the loan fee the conditions of the government’s FEE-HELP scheme continue to provide an extremely favourable income contingent loan for students. If students do not repay their loan, the government meets the cost.
The FEE-HELP loan fee applies only to fee-paying domestic students enrolled in an undergraduate course.
Students do not have to start repaying their HELP loan until their income reaches the minimum repayment threshold of $43,152.
The increase in the FEE-HELP loan fee will apply to FEE-HELP debts incurred on or after 1 July 2010 in relation to units of study whose census dates are on or after 1 July 2010.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Billson) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Martin Ferguson.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill amends the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 (the Act). This is a relatively small bill making a number of minor policy and technical amendments.
It is nevertheless an important bill as it progresses the government’s intention to establish a new National Offshore Petroleum Regulator commencing on 1 January 2012.
To this end, the bill introduces a measure by which the Commonwealth will retain the industry fees raised under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Registration Fees) Act 2006 in order to use this money for the establishment of a National Offshore Petroleum Regulator.
Until now the registration fees have been redistributed to the states and Northern Territory. The industry fees raised under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 and the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Annual Fees) Act 2006 will continue to be redistributed to the states and the Northern Territory. I will review the fees to be redistributed to the states and the Northern Territory to ensure that they continue to recover their costs of administering petroleum activities in Commonwealth offshore areas pending the establishment of the new regulator. If necessary, I will amend the level of the fees by regulation to ensure this outcome.
I do not expect to introduce legislation amendments for the establishment of a National Offshore Petroleum Regulator until next year as discussions regarding the exact arrangements are ongoing within the Ministerial Council on Mineral and Petroleum Resources; however, I would like to emphasise that this initiative is a key development in the ongoing improvements and streamlining of the national regime for the regulation of petroleum and greenhouse gas activities in Commonwealth waters.
Also of significance in this bill is the augmentation of the existing functions of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA) to include non-occupational health and safety (non-OHS) aspects of structural integrity for facilities, wells and well-related equipment in Commonwealth waters.
Since its establishment on 1 January 2005, NOPSA has had structural integrity functions relevant to occupational health and safety for petroleum facilities, including for pipelines, and associated wells.
The amendments introduced in this bill clarify NOPSA’s role and strengthen their ability to fully carry out their functions in relation to all facilities, wells and well-related equipment, including during the drilling and construction of wells and whether or not wells are associated with a facility.
The augmentation of NOPSA’s functions to include non-occupational health and safety aspects of structural integrity is not to extend NOPSA’s responsibilities into environmental management or resource management regulation but to allow NOPSA to more effectively carry out its responsibilities as an occupational health and safety regulator.
This is particularly the case where a structure used in petroleum operations such as a well or a pipeline is on the sea floor and contact between people and the structure is only occasional.
To a large extent, the structural integrity of a pipeline or a well is an OHS matter as it is central to the safety of operational or maintenance crews whenever they are required to do work on the structure. There will always be some aspects of structural integrity that fall outside this category, however, and it is these that the present amendments seek to address. The amendments will enable NOPSA to take a comprehensive and integrated approach to the integrity of structures, without any question as to the scope of their functional responsibilities.
The government will work with industry and other stakeholders to determine in regulations which matters relating to the structural integrity of pipelines and wells are also resource security or resource management matters. These will continue to be the responsibility of the designated authorities under proposed regulations relating to resource management. There will therefore be an element of overlap between the responsibilities of NOPSA and those of the designated authorities, although they will be performing different functions.
Other minor policy amendments proposed in this bill seek to:
On this last matter, existing state and Northern Territory legislation, which corresponds to the act, provides the designated authority (the relevant state or Northern Territory minister) with authority to perform functions and powers under the act, but this does not include the regulations in force under the act. This amendment therefore closes the gap, as many important functions and powers of designated authorities are conferred by the regulations. For consistency, corresponding amendments have also been made to the joint authority provisions.
A further small but important amendment clarifies the duties of titleholders under the occupational health and safety provisions of this act. This amendment narrows the titleholder’s duties in the current clause 13A of schedule 3 of the act from facilities generally to wells and well related equipment, specifically in new clauses 13A and 13B.
As it stands the clause can be read as imposing a duty of care on a titleholder in relation to the design of facilities, such as drilling rigs, which the titleholder could not reasonably be expected to have any control over.
Therefore this duty of care has been recast so that it applies to all aspects of wells from design through to operation and closing off. Consequential amendments have been made to allow OHS inspectors to monitor compliance and investigate possible contraventions.
Technical amendments in this bill include changes to offence provisions that relate to titleholders, where the offence consists only of a physical element. These amendments provide that offences under these provisions are made provisions of strict liability, which removes the need to prove intent.
Given the geographically remote nature of offshore petroleum and greenhouse gas activities it is not possible for regulatory staff to be constantly monitoring titleholder activities, so they are reliant on accurate reporting by titleholders to inform them that directions and requirements in the act have been complied with.
Where the offences relate to doing or not doing an act, proving the intent of a titleholder is very difficult. In these circumstances making the offences ones of strict liability is justified.
This application of strict liability is consistent with government policy on the application of strict liability and is to provide a regulatory regime that is effective and enforceable. These amendments do not increase any penalties on titleholders, in fact in some instances removing imprisonment as a penalty and instead replacing with penalty units.
Further technical amendments in the bill correct a referencing error and update the listed OHS laws set out in the act to take into account recent changes to safety regulations.
In summary, through a range of measures including:
this bill underscores the government’s commitment to the maintenance and continuing improvement of a strong, effective framework for the regulation of offshore petroleum and greenhouse gas activities. I therefore commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Billson) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Martin Ferguson.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill amends the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Safety Levies) Act 2003 to provide transitional arrangements in relation to the phasing out of the pipeline safety management plan levy.
These arrangements provide time for the states and the Northern Territory to amend their jurisdictional regulations to reflect recent changes in this, the parent act, and in Commonwealth regulations which have replaced the pipeline safety management plan levy with a safety case levy covering pipelines. These changes were applied to pipelines in both Commonwealth waters and designated coastal waters.
The amendments in this bill specifically relate to the safety regime for pipelines in designated coastal waters. This amendment provides that from 1 January 2010, when amendments to this act and related regulations came into force, until 31 December 2012 a pipeline safety management plan in force is treated, for the purposes of this act, as if a safety case for the pipeline is in force. These amendments ensure that safety levies relating to pipelines in designated coastal waters can continue to be collected.
The amendments also include similar transitional amendments to reflect minor changes in relation to a safety case in designated coastal waters, understood to be within the meaning of regulations of a state or Northern Territory that have not yet been amended to reflect Commonwealth changes made on 1 January 2010. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Billson) adjourned.
Debate resumed from 9 February, on motion by Mr Combet:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This suite of bills should really be renamed. It should be renamed ‘Labor’s great big new tax on everything’. I think that many of my colleagues on the Labor side of the House are probably feeling quite some disquiet at the moment as to whether or not they have got it right. I think there is increasing evidence to indicate that they have not got it right, but there is certainly increasing evidence that the disquiet in the Australian community is certainly manifesting itself very significantly as people are beginning to understand and to realise that everything is going to go up in price, and they are beginning to be very wary about the fact that the government cannot explain what kinds of price rises there might be or where they might be across the community or across the economy, and I think that it is incumbent upon the government to accurately explain those prices or withdraw the bills, basically. So far, after several months of this bill being available for scrutiny, the government have not been able to give the assurances and comfort to the Australian people that they deserve.
That was not the case back in 1997-98 when the former Howard government undertook the implementation of a new tax system in Australia, and part of that, of course, was the GST. That was massively complicated, of course; at that stage, the Howard government was able to explain to the Australian community the whys and wherefores of the GST, the most intricate detail of how it would work and why it would be of benefit to our country. Unfortunately, the Rudd government has, basically, arrogantly decided that it has the numbers and the support, and it will just do what it wants to do; it will not prepare itself to explain this legislation to the Australian public and it will treat them with contempt.
Well, there is a new political landscape, and the new political landscape is that the Australian community is, in fact, very uneasy about a big new tax on everything and the way it is to be implemented. People do not understand the way it is going to be implemented. It is very complex. And, of course, Australia does not want to be ahead of the rest of the world in what it is going to do. The government faces the situation where, one day, perhaps in many years to come, there is likely to be an ETS-style system across the world—one day, in many years to come. But ‘one day’ is not ‘today’, and the Australian people should not see our country’s economy damaged by something where Australia is moving itself way ahead of the rest of the world.
The world generally takes its lead from places like the United States of America, and it is very clear now that the US in fact will not be proceeding in the direction of an ETS at this stage or any time soon. And the problem with Australia proceeding now is that, as much as some people in the community would say, ‘This is a fine and ideal thing to do,’ it damages our economy vis-a-vis the economies in the rest of the world. Why would we want to be putting Australians out of work because the rest of the world will not follow higher ideals? Why would that be? The answer is that we should not be. So we should be looking for alternatives to cut carbon pollution and implement those alternatives.
This debate is not about whether the world is warming or cooling; it is not about whether there are climate sceptics or climate deniers; it is not about that at all. What it is about is the conservation and sustainability of our world. Those who have been travelling overseas to Asia, Europe and some parts of the United States and who have seen what the air quality is like there are just horrified. Say you go to Beijing: the aircraft pulls out from the terminal and by the time you get to the runway you cannot see the terminal. That cannot be good for our world. It cannot be good for our health. And whether that pollution, the increase in particulates in the atmosphere and in parts per million of CO2, contributes to global warming or not, we do not need to have that debate. We know that pollution is bad. We know that we have got to conserve our planet’s resources. We know that we have got to have a sustainable future. We know that we cannot just go on burning up all of our resources.
That is why moving to green energy is very important. There is such a range of green energy technologies available these days, and the range is increasing day by day. There are the standard things like solar and wind that we all know about, but there are also geothermal and tidal power. High altitude wind is emerging as a technology. You have got the production of ethanol from non-food-producing plants and non-arable land. There is huge investment going into genetically modifying crops so that the particular stock that is grown produces the best ratio of ethanol per hectare of crop but so that the crops are not growing on arable land and so taking away from food production. It is wonderful technology that is emerging. And it is interesting that many of the large oil companies are investing in that technology because they know that we have got to have a sustainable future. And, of course, the energy input into that process is sunlight, which is energy free from the sun, as it is, effectively, for solar and wind. It is terrific that the world is investing in these technologies.
Recently I was in the United States talking to a number of major global companies at their national headquarters, and it surprised me that they are about two years ahead of the legislature in the United States. The companies themselves had decided that they had to take responsible decisions on conservation and sustaining our planet’s future. That is a great thing. Indeed, one of the company’s world headquarters that I visited was Google. You might ask, ‘How could Google be in the green space?’ But they are a very significant operation looking at how they use their resources to be in the green space and to save energy. It does not involve just the company itself; it is also the technologies they are developing for all of the people who use Google. That would indicate that the opposition’s policy—that is, to have an incentive program—in fact really can work, rather than a penalty program which the government is proposing, a big tax.
It stands in stark contrast with the government’s program under which electricity prices are likely to rise by a projected 62 per cent. Under the opposition’s program, which will achieve the same reduction in CO2, there will be no rise in electricity prices. Surely the government should investigate and agree with the opposition, ‘Hey, you probably have some good ideas there; we will implement those.’ But, no, that has not happened. Instead, we get left with questions about just how much Mr Rudd’s tax will really cost Australians and Australian businesses. By how much will a birthday cake increase in price? How much will it cost a farmer? By how much will a pensioner’s heating and cooling bills increase? How much will it cost a single mum or the little Aussie battler living in North Queensland? I will tell you what it will cost, Mr Deputy Speaker: it will cost the jobs of hardworking Australians; it will cost the jobs of thousands of miners, plant operators, port operators, rail workers and mine employees who live in my electorate.
Under the Rudd ETS, the Yabulu nickel refinery, the Korea Zinc refinery and the Xstrata copper refinery in my electorate would be under serious threat. Why would the government bring this uncertainty on hardworking Australians? Why would they say, ‘Well, it is just too bad, they are going to have to lose their jobs,’ because of this high and mighty principle? The parliament has to have a heart. We have to think about those families and we have to think about alternatives so that we do not lose those jobs. That is why the opposition has worked so very hard to put up a completely different set of values from that which the government has put up. Why the government just doggedly sticks to something that is a dog, I simply do not know. The government’s claim that households will be compensated misses the point. Families and businesses will still have to wear the costs no matter what. All this piece of legislation does is to create yet another layer of bureaucracy and bureaucratic red tape at a time when the government is making a poor attempt to reduce that bureaucracy and red tape.
On Lateline last year Julia Gillard refused seven times to put a figure on the real cost of Labor’s ETS for Australian families. Surely that makes us all suspicious. Why is that? Is it because it is going to cost Australian families $1,100 a year or because the government is too incompetent or arrogant to figure this out for itself? Kevin Rudd has claimed that action on climate change can only mean his tax plan. This is misleading, dishonest and political trickery of the worst kind, but we have come to expect this kind of behaviour. How many Australians really understand the government’s ETS? I do not know very many at all in my constituency. I think that Labor MPs may well be in the same boat. As Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating once famously said: ‘If you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it. If you do understand it, you’d definitely never vote for it’. I think he fairly succinctly summed up the particular suite of bill we have before the parliament today.
The other aspect of the ETS that worries me is the potential to scare off hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in the North Queensland region. After Labor’s ETS was defeated last year, Western Australian mining company Hancock Prospecting and the second-largest steelmaker in Japan, JFE Steel Corporation, both announced huge investments in the Queensland coal industry. The $100 million feasibility study is just the tip of the iceberg. The announcement by Hancock Prospecting could potentially be worth tens of billions of dollars to the northern economy over the next few decades. Very recently, Mineralogy announced a huge new project in Queensland, and that is just wonderful news, but this ETS has the potential to scare off those investors.
In stark contrast, the coalition has a viable alternative scheme to an ETS that will not cost jobs in my electorate, or any other electorate for that matter. It will still reduce pollution by the same amount as the Labor ETS. No solution is cost free, but there has to be a better way than to slug families and businesses with a $120 billion to $140 billion great big new tax on families and businesses as is proposed in these bills before us today. Direct action based on incentives and cooperation, which is what the opposition believes in—not punishing families—is the way to go. Over the forward estimates the coalition’s policy will cost $3.2 billion. Compare that with the government’s ETS over the same period costing $40 billion. Unlike the government’s emissions trading scheme, the coalition is not forcing a great big new tax on all Australians. In fact, the coalition’s policy will not be funded through any new taxes or increased taxes and it will protect Australian jobs through government and industry cooperation. The coalition’s plan to reduce carbon pollution will entail cleaning up the power stations that account for almost half the emissions in Australia by encouraging the use of other green energy apart from solar, wind and tidal—in particular, geothermal and natural gas—for the production of electricity. I am pleased to say that the $50 million fund with matching funding for the sector will allow testing to ensure algal energy, being pioneered at James Cook University in Townsville, is effective in reducing CO2 emissions and does not impact on food production.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to Minister Combet’s comments in this House in the past three days. On 2 February in this House Minister Combet, who is the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change, said:
We have already heard the suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition at his press conference: we are going to have algae fired power stations.
Then he went on to say on the same day:
Here we will have the Leader of the Opposition, if he ever gets his hand on the treasury bench, picking winners with algae fired power stations.
Then on Wednesday, 3 February Minister Combet said:
… as I indicated yesterday, algae fired power stations are on the agenda …
Yesterday in the parliament the minister said:
We are still not quite sure how an investor in new generation would make a decision about what technology and what fuel source to use, but I can tell you one thing—they will not be thinking about algae fired power stations like you are.
The point I make from this is that the minister hopelessly misunderstands algal synthesis. You do not have an algae fired power station. Power stations generally run on natural gas or coal. They do not run on algae. What this technology is about is using algae to capture the CO2 out of a power station. The process that is being developed and is running at James Cook University uses sunlight as the green energy and turns that CO2 into biodiesel and cattle feedstock. Think about that. Here we have world-leading technology operating now in a demonstration plant at James Cook University, Townsville—the leading tropical university in the world. We have this operating now, and because this particular process produces valuable products—biodiesel and cattle feedstock—it stands on its own because it is commercially viable. You do not have to put a tax on a power station to reduce CO2, because it is in their interests to reduce CO2. They can make money out of reducing their CO2.
This particular process is being scaled up right now as I speak in this House. In fact, later this year we will see some of it attached to the three dirtiest, most polluting power stations in Australia. They are scaling up the technology. Just imagine the potential for this not only in Australia but across the world. Just imagine a process that we have developed in Australia that takes the CO2 from a power station, pumps it through the algae solution and uses sunlight and algae to turn it into biodiesel. The sludge is a feedstock you can feed to cattle. At James Cook University veterinary labs they are trialling cattle on the feedstock and it is working really, really well.
When the community cabinet was held in Townsville recently, the Prime Minister was invited to go and have a look at this process. It was 200 yards down the road. Do you know what? He would not go. Why would that be? Why wouldn’t he go and look at world-leading technology that uses CO2 to produce valuable products and is commercially viable? Why wouldn’t he go and look at it? I will tell you why: because it would embarrass him. It would show that the ETS that is being proposed in these bills does not have to be foisted on the Australian people. The Prime Minister would lose face. He does not want to know about it. That is why the junior minister misquoted it and does not want to know about it. It is quite extraordinary. Here we have in Australia the opportunity to exploit this technology to the world and for people to make money out of it. You do not need a penalty tax to force people to make money. It is just extraordinary that the government refuses to have a look at this demonstration project and see it working for themselves. I am certainly going to oppose these bills. There are a whole raft of other reasons. Time does not allow me to go into those reasons, but I plead for the Prime Minister to have a look at this project in Townsville. (Time expired)
As the member for Herbert heads for the doors, I hope to have these words ringing in his ears: before he comes back into this place and continues the great big lie, he should read the paper with his Wheaties. This morning’s Age carried an analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It comes as no surprise, but I would invite you to ask the member for Longman to withdraw the remark about the member for Herbert.
The honourable member for Longman has used a word that is unparliamentary. I would ask the honourable member to facilitate the business of the House by withdrawing that term.
Absolutely, Mr Deputy Speaker. Rather than have you explain it at length, I will remove the word ‘lie’ and replace it with the word ‘untruth’. Bloomberg New Energy Finance said the Abbott policy would cost twice as much as the government’s policy. The article said of the Bloomberg analysis:
It said the Coalition’s claim that the government scheme would cost $40.6 billion was based on a “strange logic” that confused its market value with its cost to taxpayers. The opposition needed “to come up with something better and get the numbers right”, it said.
It said Mr Abbott’s proposal—allowing businesses and farmers to apply to have the government pay for their greenhouse gas emissions cuts from a fund eventually worth $1 billion a year—failed on three fronts: it was not the cheapest way to cut emissions, could not accurately limit national emissions and was a short-term option only.
As I said, the member who spoke previously should read the papers, because the holes in the policy that he is proposing today are becoming more and more apparent.
Obviously I rise to speak in support of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and cognate bills this morning. On Monday, 16 November I spoke in support of these bills, or their predecessors, also. First of all I want to reiterate two points that I made at that time. On that occasion I said:
I am one of those many Australians who are convinced by the weight of scientific evidence and by the opinion brought forward that this planet and its oceans are warming.
I have not changed my view, but today, as then, I acknowledge and respect that others hold an opposing view equally strongly. The other point I want to repeat is this. I also said:
What happens if we take action and discover in 50 years time that we did not need to take action? We have rejigged the economy of the world, and that has happened previously. But what happens if we do not act and we find out in 50 years time we should have? That is when the legacy of this parliament will be most felt by the people that we most care about: our children and our children’s children, and even their children.
Again, I have not changed my view on this. It is true that certain admissions have been made of late concerning some less than wholly proper recent practices by some elements of the IPCC. Those admissions do not in my view call into question the totality of 30 years of scientific work by thousands of scientists—work that leads inexorably to a conclusion that our planet is warming, that the warming is due in no small measure to human activity and that time to take effective action is rapidly running out.
Despite the strength of my conviction on this matter, I do not arrogantly dismiss those who hold an opposing view. To them I simply say: what if you are wrong? What if you are wrong but your view prevails? What if you are wrong, your view prevails and our planet passes the point of recovery? What do you say then to those you have confined to extinction? You cannot simply say ‘oops’ or ‘sorry’. To me it is infinitely preferable to have transitioned our economy to what is known as a low carbon economy and to discover later that it was not necessary. The stance being adopted by the opposition fills me with fear—fear for the future of my children and the families that they will ultimately raise.
Isn’t it ironic when we consider that both the ALP and the coalition went into the 2007 election campaign promising to introduce what were very similar cap-and-trade emissions trading schemes? Let us consider this. Had the Howard government been returned in 2007 Australia would already have in place a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme. Had John Howard not lost his seat of Bennelong and stayed on as opposition leader, we would have in place a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme. In either of those situations, honourable national leaders, Kevin Rudd and John Howard, would have brought into these parliamentary chambers actions backing their word to the Australian people.
Unfortunately, the current opposition leader, who professed just last Sunday to have ‘respected, admired and liked very much’ John Howard, appears to share none of the finer features of his idol’s character. Late last year we watched in amazement as this opposition leader took his party to the brink of destruction, to achieve what? Did he take that fantastic risk simply out of his own ambition to be leader or did he risk his party’s very existence because, contrary to his assertions of respect, admiration and liking, he truly believed John Howard—and, I might add, a cabinet of which he was a senior member—to have been wrong in this matter.
It has been illuminating to observe the victorious posturing of the opposition leader and his entourage since President Obama admitted that he may have to isolate his cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme from other climate change measures. The President of course is simply being pragmatic given the realities of the changed circumstances in the US Senate as a consequence of the election of Republican Scott Brown to fill the Massachusetts Senate vacancy left after the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. While those opposite crow over events in the US they should reflect that were the American congressional voting culture replicated in our Senate chamber down the hall this legislation would pass in a heartbeat. There are certainly more than two coalition senators who supported this legislation by crossing the floor last November and who ache to support this legislation. But, unlike the opposition leader and his cronies, it would appear that they baulk at taking their party to the brink.
What the opposition seem to not understand—and certainly do not talk about—is that President Obama has in this matter some backup that the Australian government does not have. Members may not have heard of the Western Climate Initiative. I suggest they make themselves familiar with it. The Western Climate Initiative is a joint program of seven US states and four Canadian provinces who are currently developing a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme and complementary policies to combat climate change. A further six US states, two Canadian provinces and six Mexican states hold observer status with this group. If just those current observers join the group the resultant ETS will cover around 50 per cent of the landmass of North America. This group has a goal of 15 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2020.
In Australia of course we have no such state based scheme on which to rely. We have no margin for relaxation so far as our federal legislation is concerned. Members opposite need to acknowledge that, whilst there is to be a delay in the implementation of a national scheme in America, this is not an argument that says there will be no ETS in America. The reality is of course that President Obama has a backstop.
There has been plenty of opinion bandied about, both in the media and by those opposite, concerning the Copenhagen Conference of Parties, the COP15. The media and the opposition use the word ‘failure’. Only a fool would claim that Copenhagen was not a disappointment, but ‘failure’ is too strong a word. It is easier for those opposite to scoff and deride the attempts made by the 190 nations involved to tackle a complex and important issue than it is to act responsibly and in the national interest and in the interest of the planet.
Toward the end of last year it became obvious that achieving a comprehensive accord was unlikely, but there were three major outcomes from Copenhagen that should fill us with some joy. For the first time there is a global accord that temperature increases should be kept within two degrees Centigrade. For the first time, developed and developing countries have agreed to share the abatement burden, and a global monitoring system is to be developed to ensure those who commit actually do what they say they are going to do. Copenhagen is not the end; the issue of climate change has not disappeared and all responsible people know that it must be addressed as a matter of urgency. Yes, the outcome of the Copenhagen conference was disappointing, but it was a first crucial step.
People ask why we should have a cap-and-trade system. A cap-and-trade system is a proven and successful mechanism and is the best means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the same time as providing incentives for industry to develop new technology and to embrace renewable sources. A cap-and-trade system sets out clear and enforceable emissions limits and it allows the market to find the best way to achieve those limits. Cap-and-trade programs turn pollution reductions into marketable assets.
There are three elements to a cap-and-trade program. The first of those is a mandatory emissions cap limiting the total tonnes of pollutants that can be emitted and reduced each year in order to meet targets. The permits issued equal the cap, which can be bought or sold according to the needs of the emitter, and there is accurate measuring and reporting supported by enforcement. These are the elements of the government’s CPRS.
At the end of last year the Parliamentary Library produced a document for the information of members. It was put online on 17 September and it appears under the heading ‘Emissions trading—has it worked?’ In that document they investigated two schemes. The first scheme was the cap-and-trade acid rain schemes in the United States of America. The second scheme was the cap-and-trade carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas scheme from Europe. The American example is the longer lasting. In the years 1995 to 2008 using a cap-and-trade system for sulphur dioxide, sulphur dioxide emissions in the US dropped by 64 per cent annually. That means that the level of emissions in 2008 was 64 per cent less than the emissions in 1995. For the nitrogen oxides the figure was 51 per cent. They did that despite the fact they were measuring emissions from nearly twice as many units that were emitting. With sulphur dioxide, it was a cap-and-trade system and with the nitrous oxides it was a cap system only, with no trading allowed. The second system looked at the European cap-and-trade system for emissions trading. The document made, I thought, a fairly interesting comment, which was to note that economic growth, as measured by the growth rate of European domestic product, did not cease during June 2008. The report went on to state:
The European economy did not go backwards. The point that European GHG—
that is, greenhouse gas—
emissions fell while the region’s economy grew (albeit modestly) is a strong indication that the link between economic growth and GHG emissions is being modified.
There is no hit to the economy from a carbon trading scheme. A further interesting point that has come out of this report is that to delay is dangerous. The report makes that point by indicating the introduction of both the trading scheme for acid rain in America and the trading scheme for carbon dioxide in Europe. In the first couple of years, emissions rose before they started to fall. We should take from that an understanding that the point at which we introduce a carbon trading scheme is not the point at which emissions will start to fall but a point a few years before that. The second point the report made was in relation to the price of carbon. It said:
Generally emissions rise, or stay at a comparatively high level, when prices are low. Emissions appear to reduce after the price of emissions permits rise to higher levels.
The interesting point there is that the coalition is seeking to reduce emissions with no price on it. That brings me to what I like to call Mr Abbott’s great big attack—
Order! The honourable member for Longman ought to refer to the Leader of the Opposition by his title and not by his actual name.
I am not actually referring to the Leader of the Opposition in this; I am referring to a policy which I would like to call Mr Abbott’s great big attack. But, if you would like me to do so, I will call this the Leader of the Opposition’s great big attack, which is supported by every member of his side, because they keep repeating it time after time. Cap and trade is not, as the Leader of the Opposition would assert, a tax of any magnitude, let alone a great big one. Let me quote from the Western Climate Initiative:
How is cap-and-trade different from a tax?
Cap-and-trade sets the limit for emissions and lets the market work out the costs of hitting that limit. A tax sets a price for emissions and lets the market work out how much of a reduction in emissions will happen. Both can work if designed and implemented properly, but the challenges are different. A tax provides price stability for those who will pay it, but the environmental benefit is not assured because emissions will not fall if people are willing to pay higher costs. Taxes at the rate needed to send the price signal needed to reduce carbon and spur reduction innovations are difficult to put in place and adjust over time. Cap-and-trade provides certainty of environmental performance but the costs are uncertain and will vary over time.
That is a reference, obviously, to the markets setting the price of permits, which will fluctuate. Finally, they say of cap and trade:
It may be easier to put in place but more challenging to implement.
The coalition’s con job on carbon pollution reduction must have set the lips of the Leader of the National Party and his national cohorts awash with the juice of their tongues. Can you imagine how much they must be looking forward to $2.5 billion of selective funding. The government, it seems, under the opposition’s policy will decide who gets it and who does not, just like the late unlamented Regional Partnerships program shown by the Auditor-General to have been used by the National Party as a slush fund. I imagine the member for Gippsland is particularly keen on this. The Managing Director of TRUenergy appeared on Business Sunday and had some interesting things to say. Firstly, he said that they would need the whole $2.5 billion on offer to replace the three units at Yallourn—that is, every cent the coalition plans to make available. It is a drop in the bucket of what is needed to modernise our generating plants. Secondly, he said that ultimately there will be a well-structured international emissions trading scheme, and he thinks Australia needs to be part of that scheme. So the managing director of Australia’s dirtiest generating plant believes there will be emissions trading but, ‘Let’s hold off so our industry can get some free money from the coalition first.’ When the Leader of the Opposition gets an idea, he certainly gets it wrong.
It has always been acknowledged that cap-and-trade schemes need to work side by side with what are known as complementary policies. These can include: removing market barriers to lower emissions; seeking reductions outside the cap, such as for households and farms; encouraging investment in low-carbon technologies; creating green jobs; lowering the cost of transitioning to a low-carbon economy and so on. These and more are part of the package of bills we are debating today. They are the entirety of the coalition’s so-called direct action plan. Environmentally this is virtually a ‘no action plan’, and mitigating against climate change is all about the environment. Departmental analysis of the coalition plan shows that there will be some modest savings, estimated to be about 40 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in the year 2020. But emissions will have continued to rise to a point of 13 per cent above 2000 levels. With a modest target of five per cent below 2000 levels, the ETS will have a more robust saving of 139 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. Importantly, emissions will be on a downward trajectory. The words ‘direct action’ may play well with the community but they are code in this case for ‘no action’ and households will pay dearly for that inaction.
There is of course serious concern amongst the business community about the coalition’s plan. I will take one quote from Nathan Fabian, chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change, which represents AMP Capital, Goldman Sachs, JBWere and others:
If you don’t send clear signals to business and investors, with a cap on emissions and a framework for pricing emissions, you do not get a lot of action.
People like to follow the money trail when trying to solve a problem. Let us follow the money trail on the government’s ETS. Firstly, in the government ETS, the polluters buy permits from the government. The government uses that money to compensate householders by passing that money on to them so that they can pay for the higher prices that may arise. The opposition’s direct action plan would take money from the budget, money that they would have received from taxpayers, and give it to polluters, with no money going back to householders. The difference between the two schemes is that emission reduction in the government scheme is paid for by industry; emission reduction in the coalition scheme is paid for by householders. (Time expired)
This emissions trading scheme bill, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010, is not in the national interest. It remains a deeply flawed policy. It will destroy tens of thousands of jobs while delivering little or no environmental benefit. It is a great big new tax masquerading as an environmental policy. It would take us too far ahead of the world. It would see us export jobs and export emissions. It would destroy the ability of companies to invest in emissions reduction technology. This new tax creates a long-term pot of gold for government worth tens of billions of dollars every year once compensation ceases.
There are alternative scheme designs which would leave much of the money on company balance sheets to invest in emissions reduction technology, but a big new tax is irresistible to Labor. It will see regional centres shrink as resources and energy investment head to competing countries. It will rob Peter to compensate Paul with the transfer through the next decade of over $100 billion from one section of the community to another. In the process, a huge new administrative bureaucracy will emerge. It will provide an opportunity for Mr Rudd to make a big man of himself by mailing out millions of cheques each year, redistributing other people’s money.
Order! To be consistent, I should point out to the honourable member that he ought to refer to the Prime Minister by his title.
Yes, indeed. In the next 10 years it will see a $10 billion tax on small businesses, with no compensation and, for many, no capacity to avoid it.
It is a scheme that defies explanation. It is incomprehensible. It is an extraordinarily expensive act of faith. Not only do many government members privately disagree with the scheme; no government member, from the Prime Minister down, can explain it. This is not one ETS scheme but a thousand ETS schemes as bureaucrats impose individual arrangements, definitions and requirements on just about every one of the 1,000 ‘covered’ companies. Its complexity has been deliberately used by the Rudd government as a Trojan Horse to hide the introduction of a great big new tax. It is a con. It will be a huge tax on Australia’s 150-year success with resources and energy while our competitors face no tax. It makes no sense. It will see an increase in everyone’s power bills of around 20 per cent and indirectly see an increase in the price of most services and items purchased. It will be equivalent to increasing the GST from 10 per cent to 12½ per cent.
Yet, without our major competitors engaging in some form of ETS, Australia’s actions will have absolutely no impact on the Great Barrier Reef or on the environment generally. In fact, global emissions could actually increase as investments and jobs, especially from major regional centres, leave Australia and go to developing countries where less efficient factories pump out much more CO2 than Australia does. And without our major competitors engaging in some form of scheme the cost to Australians will be much greater. This cost will be measured in the premature closure of many coal mines, cement works, coal powered generators and fuel refineries and the loss of major investment in new smelters, metal refineries, LNG gas projects, cement works, exploration and much more.
There will be a significant direct and indirect tax on agricultural and manufacturing businesses competing against foreign products where no such tax applies. For example, the average dairy farmer will face a $9,000 tax, with no capacity to offset this cost. The scheme will see tens of thousands of jobs at risk, the permanent and serious shrinkage of major regional centres, and the loss of major investments; yet little or no impact on CO2 emissions. In fact, work commissioned by the state governments suggests that 126,000 jobs will be at risk and key regional centres will shrink by 20 per cent. One $4 billion investment to extend an aluminium smelter in the Hunter Valley will be shelved. This project alone will see the loss of 15,000 construction jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs. It is why Australia must not find itself, effectively, going alone.
These problems were obvious last year. Yet, to add salt to the wound, the government has ignored the implications of the fiasco in Copenhagen. None of the world’s top five emitters of greenhouse gases look like introducing an emissions trading scheme. For nearly two months now the Rudd government has ducked any debate about Copenhagen’s failure to make any progress on a global approach to carbon emissions, or to discuss the extraordinary problems confronting the IPCC. It is a case of ‘see no evil, hear no evil’. It only serves to reinforce community suspicions that the Prime Minister is more interested in the politics than in good policy for Australia.
The Prime Minister cannot keep demanding that it is ‘my way or the highway’ when so much is at stake and attempts to achieve a global approach to carbon abatement are in disarray. It is totally wrong and disingenuous to suggest that a climate change disaster is the inevitable consequence of not supporting this deeply flawed emissions trading scheme, or to suggest that Australians have no choice or no alternative but to lock themselves into this ETS ahead of our major competitors.
There is nothing God-given about the Prime Minister’s scheme. There are other designs for emissions trading schemes and there are other direct action plans. In fact, a large number of countries, including the United States and most of our major competitors, at this stage are looking at reducing emissions without an emissions trading scheme—using direct action such as incentives and regulations combined with energy efficiency measures, renewable energy, reafforestation, storing carbon in soil, cleaning up industrial practices and coal fired electricity generation, algae, fugitive emissions, transport, nuclear power and more. Many of these mirror the coalition’s direct action plans.
Yet the government suggest that their ETS is necessary for business certainty. This is a furphy. The only certainty facing Australian business if we go it alone with an ETS would be that they face a great big new tax which fluctuates somewhere between $25 and $40 per tonne of CO2 in the first few years, costing between $12 billion and $16 billion a year, while their competitors face zero tax. Surely major uncertainty would exist in the making of long-term investments in Australia if companies have no idea if, and even when, their major competitors would face a price on carbon. It could be 10, 15, 20 or 30 years away.
The government suggest that their ETS will cap emissions. This rings somewhat hollow when Treasury modelling estimates that Australia’s emissions will continue to increase under the Prime Minister’s ETS until the mid-2030s, over 20 years away. It also ignores the fact that nearly half the government’s emissions reduction will not occur in Australia. They will occur in other countries who sell offsets to Australian companies to meet their obligations. In fact, according to Treasury modelling, Australia’s actual annual CO2 emissions in 2020 under the ETS will be a mere two million tonnes less than they will be in 2012, with 585 million tonnes as against 587 million tonnes without the ETS. Whereas the five per cent reduction in CO2 emissions under the coalition plan will occur in Australia, with emissions in 2020 reduced to 525 million tonnes, as against the government’s 585 million tonnes.
Furthermore, the ETS in Europe has failed miserably to cut emissions in Europe or to achieve any sort of cap in Europe. Most European nations will not even meet their Kyoto targets. That is why the Minister for Climate Change and Water refuses to guarantee that the Rudd ETS will cut carbon emissions. The government claim that the Prime Minister’s ETS is necessary and preferable because the polluter pays, and not the taxpayer. This proposition is simply dishonest. To begin with, if the polluter pays and not the taxpayer then why is it proposed to have billions of dollars of compensation? The truth is that ultimately the $12 billion to $16 billion tax is passed on to households in the form of higher prices and/or lost jobs, and to small and medium businesses in the form of higher costs, lost business opportunities and less growth.
Our electricity generators do not compete against imports and do not export their electricity. Apart from the billions of dollars lost in their asset values, these generators will pass on the billions of dollars of CO2 tax they will pay each year in the form of higher electricity prices. That is why electricity prices will rise quickly by around 20 per cent. The electricity price increase hits households and the 750,000 small to medium size businesses. Many businesses will pass on some or all of the cost increase, where they can, in the form of higher prices for goods and services. However, hundreds of thousands of businesses that export or compete against imports that have no ETS tax will not be able to pass it on. It will go straight to their bottom line and they will be less competitive. Less growth and job losses will be the end result.
Other large companies competing on export markets, like aluminium or coal producers, or competing against imports, like cement manufacturers, will be less competitive. For example, in the first 10 years of the Prime Minister’s ETS, coal producers will face an estimated total CO2 tax of around $14 billion and get compensation of $1.5 billion. This represents a net tax of $12.5 billion on our coal industry at a time when world demand for energy is expected to increase by 30 per cent in the next 20 years to 2030, and when coal is expected to fill 27 per cent of that 30 per cent increase in energy demand because of the lack of alternative energy sources.
This $12.5 billion tax will see the closure of some coalmines and fewer new coalmines open. It makes absolutely no sense. Jobs and investment will be lost and all for no global environmental advantage, as the coal will simply be sourced from other countries, often from sources of dirtier coal. If Australia goes it alone with this great big new tax, investment in all these large energy intensive and resource based companies competing on world markets will be reduced. Many will invest in other countries where there is no ETS. In effect, Australia’s ETS will lead to the export of Australian jobs and the export of emissions. In the end, the big polluters will not pay; households and small businesses will pay in terms of higher prices or lost jobs or both. These are the reasons why the coalition has rejected the government’s scheme twice and will do so again.
With the release of the coalition’s direct action plan there is now an alternative. Now the Australian people have a choice before them on the question of dealing with emissions abatement and emissions reduction. Australians have a choice between a practical, direct action approach to reducing emissions or a great big new tax which carries huge risks for jobs, for the cost of living and for many industries. Not only that; the Australian people have a choice between a practical, direct action scheme which is understandable and an emissions trading scheme which is incomprehensible. People now have a choice between an incentive based scheme or a highly punitive tax based scheme. People have a choice now between an affordable $10 billion scheme or an economically crushing $114 billion tax based scheme. Our scheme is much, much cheaper while meeting the same targets in 2020.
The Labor member for Melbourne, Lindsay Tanner, describes the government’s ETS as an insurance policy. Well, the coalition’s direct action plan is also an insurance policy. Both insurance policies will deliver a five per cent cut in emissions by 2020, but the difference is that one carries a policy premium of $114 billion and the other a premium of $10 billion. Furthermore, the ETS insurance policy also carries an excess involving uncompetitive industries, lost jobs and the prices of everything we buy being driven up. The coalition’s plan provides incentives for Australian families and businesses to reduce their carbon emissions, while addressing some of Australia’s serious environmental problems. An emissions reduction fund will provide financial incentives to support practical carbon reduction activities by business and industry.
Businesses will put in a market tender for these incentives to help them finance the improvements of energy efficiency, the storing of carbon in the soil or trees, the harnessing of fugitive methane emissions at coalmines or landfills, the development of renewable energy, the phased closure of old and inefficient coal fired generators and so on. Those that can deliver the least cost abatement will be successful with their tender, as overseen by an independent board.
Carbon abatement can involve market mechanisms without the use of an ETS. As such, the centrepiece of the coalition’s direct action plan is totally consistent with Liberal market principles. Furthermore, rebates which the direct action plan provides will aim to see one million additional solar energy roofs on homes around Australia. Solar towns and solar schools will be created, along with encouragement of geothermal and tidal towns, green corridors and urban forests.
The coalition’s direct action plan mirrors similar direct action initiatives that dominate the response, for the foreseeable future, of our major competitors. In many ways the plan also captures the sort of excellent thinking that drove the development of the Howard government’s $10 billion direct action water plan for the long-term rehabilitation of the Murray-Darling system. There are very successful precedents for these sorts of direct action plans. They dominate the thinking and the approach being adopted in the United States, the biggest emitter, in China, the second biggest emitter, in India, the third biggest emitter, in Japan and in many other countries around the world. People are looking to see what progress they can make while there is further thinking being given to a global approach.
In conclusion, the coalition plan buys Australia time to see what the rest of the world is doing. It allows Australia to do constructive things, to meet the five per cent 2020 targets without breaking the bank or doing risky, job-destroying things by going it alone on this emissions trading scheme. It ensures we do not get too far ahead of the world. Yet it does not preclude Australia being part of any future global scheme if that should occur. It is plain common sense which protects jobs while making progress on emission reductions.
As Dick Warburton, chairman of the government’s Expert Advisory Committee on emissions-intensive trade-exposed activities, said after Copenhagen’s failure:
I think there should be a delay in whatever we do until we have a clear picture of the best course.
Mr Warburton said there was no rush—‘We need to get it right.’ Here is a man with enormous business experience, someone who involved himself deeply in helping the government with the design of the scheme, giving independent advice on the impact so that the major employing industries, the big resource and energy industries, the industries that we are so good at, the industries that we have led the world with for 150 years, are not disadvantaged. We are good at these industries. That is why we have to make sure they are not disadvantaged by the premature introduction of a scheme here when there is no equivalent scheme amongst our major competitors. We have to maintain our competitive position, as Dick Warburton signals with his comments, in any scheme that we bring in. We need to apply some plain common sense to protect jobs while still starting the process of encouraging important and effective investment in emission reduction technology and activities around this country.
The Prime Minister’s ETS is a dog of a scheme and must be opposed. People now have a choice: they can either incur the massive tax, the risk, the uncertainty, the increased cost of everyday living and the job insecurity that will come with the Prime Minister’s emissions trading scheme or they can choose a direct action scheme which is affordable and understandable and which will provide an incentive for industry in Australia to reduce CO2 emissions.
I too rise to support the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and the related bills. I begin by quoting a well-known scientist:
The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.
Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community. No-one should under-estimate the imagination that will be required, nor the scientific effort, nor the unprecedented co-operation we shall have to show. We shall need statesmanship of a rare order.
… … …
In recent years, we have been playing with the conditions of the life we know on the surface of our planet. We have cared too little for our seas, our forests and our land. We have treated the air and the oceans like a dustbin. We have come to realise that man’s activities and numbers threaten to upset the biological balance which we have taken for granted and on which human life depends.
We must remember our duty to Nature before it is too late.
That is a quote from a speech given at the second World Climate Conference in Geneva on 6 November 1990 by former Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who also held a degree in natural sciences and chemistry. It is clear that Margaret Thatcher took no notice of her low-level adviser Lord Christopher Monckton.
Climate change, its causes and its consequences, have now been globally debated for decades. In more recent years, global warming has been at the forefront of political debate and policy making across the world and here in Australia. Why? Because the quantum of reliable scientific advice, available over many years from across a range of scientific institutions in many countries and spanning generations of scientists, alerting us to global warming and warning us of the consequences, simply cannot be ignored.
The University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre in Sydney last November, through the contributions of 26 of the world’s leading climate experts, summarised the science on climate change in their publication The Copenhagen Diagnosis. I urge all members of this House to have a look at that document.
In the limited time available, I will endeavour to summarise the issues surrounding the climate change debate by briefly touching on its causes and its consequences and the international response. Scientists have been researching and analysing data relating to global warming for decades. International focus was drawn to global warming initially with the first World Climate Conference in Geneva in 1979. That conference led to the eventual creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That was followed by the second world conference, again in Geneva, in 1990 and then by the Rio summit in 1992, Kyoto in 1997, Bali in 2007 and lastly Copenhagen in December 2009.
Over the past two decades, scientific climate studies have been more intensive and more precise. Notably, no country that I am aware of refutes global warming. I understand that 192 countries attended the 2009 Copenhagen conference. Governments from all sides of politics—conservative, liberal, socialist and communist, including former Prime Minister John Howard—have accepted the science on global warming. As with all science, there will always be different opinions, inconclusive evidence and doubt. But you do not have to rely solely on scientists. The evidence is with us, around us and visible.
The decade 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade on record, continuing a trend of the last three decades. Data from NASA shows that the 20 warmest years on record have occurred since 1981 and 10 of the warmest years have occurred in the past 12 years. The last four years of Murray inflows have been about one-quarter of the long-term average. These are undisputed facts, not scientific predictions. I have observed the weather changes in my own lifetime.
If we accept that global warming is occurring, the question then is: what is causing it? Clearly, the answer to that question determines what our response should be. Scientists tell us that taking into account solar factors and other natural phenomena, human-caused greenhouse gas emissions—mainly carbon dioxide—are contributing significantly to the climate changes that we are seeing. A diversity of scientific researchers—including weather scientists, atmospheric researchers, oceanographers and ice core samplers—all confirm that carbon levels are rising. That carbon levels are rising should be a matter of commonsense. You simply cannot have the extensive land clearing of the past century and increased burning of fossil fuels and population growth without causing rising levels of carbon dioxide—unless of course you simultaneously have a carbon emissions reduction strategy.
Carbon dioxide is undeniably a plant food source. A heavy concentration of it in the atmosphere, however, traps in heat. Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide mean that more carbon dioxide will be absorbed into ocean waters. That in turn leads to ocean acidification. Global warming inevitably and logically leads to rising sea levels, melting ice, hotter summers and extreme weather events. That is not complicated science. Those trends are already with us. I note that at Copenhagen, while there was no agreement about a universal carbon reduction target and about who should shoulder the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there was no disagreement from among the 192 countries represented that carbon levels should be reduced. Both advanced and developing countries across the world agree on that.
That brings us to what can be done and what our options are. We can change the way we live and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, of which carbon dioxide is the major contributor. We can look for cost-effective ways of capturing and storing carbon emissions. We can look at long-term population reduction strategies. I believe we should consider all options. Taking all factors into account—including the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, provide long-term business certainty, encourage alternative energy investments, assist households with additional costs, have the ability to trade carbon internationally, have a scheme with a built-in flexibility on lifting carbon dioxide emission reduction targets and not to jeopardise Australia’s international exports—the CPRS scheme ticks all the boxes.
Whatever response we adopt must be part of a global strategy, because we are dealing with a global problem in which atmospheric greenhouse gases are not contained within the borders of individual countries. The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme provides the most efficient and most cost-effective option under consideration. That is why Dr Peter Shergold recommended an ETS to the Howard government, that is why Professor Ross Garnaut recommended an ETS to the Rudd government, and that is why some 36 countries around the world, and many US states, have adopted an ETS or are in the process of doing so.
Put simply, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme places a limit on the carbon emissions of Australia’s 1,000 or so largest polluters—that is, those who emit over 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. It puts a price on carbon, and it compensates households who are anticipating cost-of-living increases, expected to be around 1.1 per cent. After the first year the carbon price will be determined by the market. By putting a price on carbon, we encourage investment in alternative energy sources and technologies. We discourage wasteful use, and we can participate in a global carbon trading scheme. By capping or limiting carbon output, we can manage the process and make our contribution to global emission reductions.
I now turn to the coalition’s alternative policy—a disingenuous policy which has no substance, no credibility and no commitment. Firstly, the policy does not cap emissions—fundamental to the success of any scheme. In fact, independent analysis of the scheme estimates that CO2 emissions will rise by 30 per cent or more. Secondly, the largest polluters get off scot-free. Those who are causing the problem pay no penalty whatsoever. For them it will be business as usual if they choose to do nothing. Thirdly, the coalition’s scheme imposes a $3.2 billion direct tax on the Australian people. Furthermore, the full cost to the community of the coalition proposal has yet to be established and may well be much greater than $3.2 billion. Fourthly, it continues business uncertainty with respect to future capital investments in this country—a point well made by the member for Wentworth when he addressed the House on this very matter. While business investment is held back, Australia slowly falls back in its competitiveness with overseas countries in a range of areas.
I want to comment on two other key features of the coalition’s policy, and they are the issues of planting trees and soil carbon sequestration. There is nothing new in those proposals. Governments around the world and certainly within Australia have been planting trees for decades in order to try to restore our environment. Carbon sequestration in soils is also a matter that has been under consideration for a long time. Both rely on the environmental absorption of carbon dioxide. The problem is that you cannot rely on environmental issues because they are uncontrollable. How many of the proposed 20 million trees will die because of floods, winds, droughts and fires? How many hectares of farmland will be lost the same way in a bad year? These are risks which, with all the best intentions in the world, simply cannot be controlled. In other words, we cannot ever guarantee how much carbon dioxide will be absorbed by trees and soil, because we are dependent on climatic factors. Conversely, we can manage how much carbon dioxide will be emitted by large polluters—you simply control the amount that they are permitted to emit.
I also want to comment on the soil sequestration of carbon dioxide from another perspective. I said earlier that the concept is acknowledged as having merit. The reality, however, is that we are a long way off managing and measuring the effectiveness of terrestrial sequestration of carbon. Again, claims made by the opposition about soil sequestration of carbon are being grossly exaggerated. I quote a recent paper on this topic by Professor Spike Boydell, Adjunct Professor John Sheehan and Senior Research Consultant Jason Prior:
The science about sequestered carbon in soil and other forms of biota is still dubious, requiring considerable further research, particularly in respect of the time dynamics of soil carbon responses to land use changes and soil-plant interactions.
Clearly we still have a great deal of work to do in respect of the agricultural sequestration of carbon. How can the coalition be committed to an emissions reduction policy when the coalition’s key leadership group—their leader, the member for Warringah, Tony Abbott, Senator Nick Minchin and Senator Barnaby Joyce—do not believe that global warming is real? The member for Warringah, the Leader of the Opposition, has said he thinks climate change is ‘absolute crap.’ Senator Minchin thinks it is a left-wing conspiracy. Senator Joyce is not convinced by the science. If you do not believe in global warming or that carbon emissions are a problem, then how can you seriously commit to a carbon reduction policy?
What the coalition have committed to is a political strategy, not a climate change strategy. It is a strategy based on a deeply flawed scheme, a fear campaign and personal attacks on the Prime Minister. It is a climate policy that does less, costs more and is unfunded. The saying ‘If something sounds too good to be true it usually is’ certainly applies to the coalition’s climate change policy. We are aware of the difference of opinion on the detail of the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bill. In good faith we attempted to negotiate with the opposition on the differences over recent times. In that regard I commend the member for Groom for the considerable work he put in on behalf of the coalition in the lead-up to Copenhagen. I also congratulate the member for Wentworth for his honesty and courage in taking the position he has and for the way he articulated the case for an ETS in a speech on this bill.
It would be politically convenient to ignore the science and do nothing. That would be the easy option, but it would be politically irresponsible and politically weak. Australia is the world’s largest per capita emitter of carbon emissions. Recent data from the US Department of Energy shows that Australians emit an average of 20.6 tonnes of carbon per person per annum compared to 19.8 tonnes for Americans, the second highest polluters. We have a responsibility and the ability to act. We went to an election with a commitment to act on climate change, as did the coalition, by introducing an emissions trading scheme. We are delivering on that commitment; the coalition is reneging on their 2007 election promise. I notice that a number of speakers in this debate were not only members of the coalition that went into the 2007 election with that commitment but they were ministers of the government of the day. What has changed since then? The science certainly has not changed. What has changed is their political opportunism that they see in opposing the government’s scheme today and putting up their Clayton’s scheme as an alternative.
Each year we delay action in respect of climate change the problems mount and the response becomes more costly and more difficult. The opposition have been opposed to an ETS right throughout the term of this government. If we look at their track record even in this place since the government first put the CPRS on the table, they have used one excuse after another in order to justify deferring making a decision. They first wanted to wait for the Garnaut report. Then they wanted to wait for the Treasury modelling. Then they wanted to wait for the white paper on the CPRS. Then they wanted to wait for the Pearce report, one of their own reports. Then they wanted to wait for the Senate inquiry. Then they wanted to wait for the Productivity Commission report. And then they wanted to wait for Copenhagen. But the reality is that they never wanted the scheme to be approved even before Copenhagen, and that has been made abundantly clear as we look back on their track record over the last couple of months. The whole purpose of the leadership change was related to blocking the CPRS from getting up in this parliament. Now they say we need to defer and delay again because things have changed as a result of Copenhagen. The science has not changed as a result of Copenhagen. Yes, the politics have, but our obligation to act on behalf of the people of this country and on behalf of the people of this world has not changed one iota. And the science continues to tell us that climate change is real and we have a responsibility to act.
Finally, I say this to members opposite, many of whom I know agree with the government and with their former leader, the member for Wentworth, that the government’s CPRS should be supported. If you accept the science of climate change, and I know that many of you do, this issue should be above politics. If we are overreacting, the result will be a cleaner global environment. It may also be a restructured economy. But it will be a better world for having done so, and that can only be a good thing. If the climate change science is right, however, and we fail to act then we will rightfully be condemned by future generations. I commend this bill to the House.
Finally we have some common sense and plain speaking in regard to climate change and carbon emissions. Let me say upfront that I am not a climate change sceptic, nor do I believe most Australians are. What I am saying is that we must address this issue from a front where we can all participate, not be told that we have to pay a hefty tax, as is the case in this Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills, for something that makes absolutely no difference to carbon emissions. The residents of Gilmore know that the coalition fought to have agriculture excluded from Mr Rudd’s ETS. We had meetings of farmers in Nowra and Ulladulla and we had Senator Barnaby Joyce speak to about 200 farmers at a property in Pyree, one of our largest dairy farms. Without exception all that attended wanted to do their part, but not at the expense of losing their farms by having to pay a tax on all their cows. I also need to mention here that, whilst we had a few emails supporting Mr Rudd’s ETS, they were outnumbered by about 20 to one with the overwhelming majority against it.
The coalition’s policy will allow for incentives, not penalties, for direct action on the environment and climate change. It is a win for common sense and creativity. It does not ask every man, woman and child, and cow, to pay a hefty tax. It invites those who take part to join us and create five per cent emission reduction by 2020. This plan is not about selling people a piece of paper that allows them to pollute; it is about taking real action to make a long-lasting difference. There will be no permits to pollute and buy your way out. Our incentive based plan instead invites people with effective project ideas to put their hands up and make real changes that do not push up prices for businesses and consumers.
The plan involves direct action, is easy to understand and costs $3.2 billion over the next four years compared to Mr Rudd’s ETS, which will cost $40 billion in the same time frame. Key components include an emission reduction target to provide direct incentives to industry and farmers to reduce CO2 emissions; a once in a century replenishment of our soils through investment in soil carbon; a green corridors initiative that will see 20 million trees planted by 2020 to re-establish urban forests and green corridors; development of clean energy employment hubs; a commission to study replacing high-voltage overhead cables in our cities with underground cables, and how good that would be; support for large-scale renewable energy generation and emerging technologies, and a new solar sunrise for Australia—a $1,000 rebate for either solar panels or solar hot water systems for Australian homes; $100 million for our solar towns and solar schools initiatives and $50 million for a geothermal and tidal towns initiative.
This component of the policy, in particular, is a real opportunity for Gilmore to showcase what we already have and to receive assistance to do more. We have a truly unique eco-village proposal for Kangaroo Valley: a ‘future park’ that needs about $1 million to transform a former sewerage site into a marine science facility developing aquaculture, seaweed for medicine and food. We already have a freshwater marine science laboratory at the Shoalhaven campus of the Wollongong university, and this will allow us to expand on the work being done there.
The future park is a creative environmental project that is ready to go, with initial work already being carried out by key stakeholders, including the Shoalhaven City Council. I would like to pay tribute here to Pia Winberg for the extraordinary amount of work she has done on this project. The future park is a great example of innovative thinking coming out of the South Coast. Had the government not changed at the last election I know that we would have funded this project, because it met all of the conditions of the now defunct area consultative committee. However, despite twice submitting an application for funding to this government, under the Jobs Fund, the project has been rejected, which makes me wonder just how serious this government is about significant environmental projects which also create jobs, such as the future park.
The Shoalhaven is also in a great position to be part of any solar town initiative due to its natural assets. Being on the coast we are ideally placed for wind farm technology, a proposal already being investigated by the southern region councils. Our REM scheme is also worth noting. It will turn recycled effluent material into water for irrigation purposes on local farms to assist these vital producers in our region, who are so susceptible to droughts and rising costs. The whole Shoalhaven community is to be thanked for this, with around 85 per cent of those initially surveyed being willing to pay an extra $189 in their rates each year for four years to see the project go ahead. This has directly saved 16 farms in and around Nowra from folding because of the drought. Again, this highlights the vision and the willingness of the Shoalhaven people to make a real difference where the environment and agriculture are concerned.
As I mentioned before, this makes us ideal candidates for large-scale renewable energy initiatives that involve the entire community. Furthermore, the largest ethanol producer in the country is also in my electorate of Gilmore. This is an industry we are very pleased to support, and especially their environmental farms, where literally everything is used and reused. Nothing is wasted and the cattle are thriving. Our coastal location gives us a distinct advantage when it comes to utilising the country’s greatest renewable energy assets: sun, soil, wind and surf. We have also had great success as a community with Green Corps projects and with Work for the Dole, an initiative that actually started through a pilot program in the Shoalhaven.
Hundreds of projects were successfully completed in conjunction with local Landcare groups and farmers for the benefit of not only the local environment but also the young and unemployed people involved. In fact, there is much excitement in the region about the possibility of capitalising on these fundamental tools once again, under the coalition climate action policy’s ‘green army’ component. The people of Gilmore and the rest of Australia want to put ideas forward and support our environment with some government assistance. They do not want stockbrokers in Sydney getting richer while they pay more for the cost of living.
The coalition, in its plan, is recognising the good work that is already being done and helping it to continue. It capitalises on what we have most of in this country—sun and soil—without putting a great big tax on everything. As earlier noted, the coalition’s direct action plan includes a $2.5 billion emissions reduction fund to support carbon reduction activities by business and industry. For the record, I would like to point out the ways in which this approach is different from the government’s emissions trading scheme. Firstly, it is cheaper. Our policy will cost in total $3.2 billion over four years, as opposed to $40 billion. It harnesses the creativity and willingness of people to participate without simply slapping them with a tax for polluting as though that is enough to make a difference. It focuses on practical, tangible benefits. It will not cost jobs. It is not a great big new tax. It will achieve the agreed five per cent emissions reduction target and, importantly, it will not hurt businesses.
The government has failed to explain its ETS to the Australian people and has admitted that the cost of essential products and services will go up, putting pressure on jobs and household budgets. Electricity prices will shoot up by an extra 19 per cent for households in the first two years, and that is just for starters. Small businesses, which will not be compensated under the government’s plan, are already expressing fears about how input cost increases will affect their business. Australia’s 750,000 small businesses contribute over one-third of our total GDP and employ five million people. In fact, Gilmore alone has some 12,500 businesses, with many jobs dependent upon them.
All of this is put at risk by advocating a dramatic increase in costs. In contrast, the coalition will not penalise ‘business as usual’. This provides certainty for businesses and puts their balance sheets in a better position to allow them to actually make positive and effective changes. If businesses go above their usual level of emissions output, they can expect a penalty based on the size of their businesses and how much they have exceeded their level by. On the other hand, businesses that reduce their emissions below their historic average will be able to offer those CO2 abatements for sale to the government, which provides them with a direct financial incentive. Farmers will be able to take part in this in many ways: through carbon sequestration in their soil and through solar and even wind or geothermal technology, and through the planting of trees on their property—a low cost action that would involve a financial reward for them. Electricity generators may decide to invest in gas-fired plants and reap the rewards. Families will face no extra costs and will be offered $1,000 to help install solar panels or solar hot water systems, an initiative I know many families in Gilmore will welcome.
All of these opportunities will mean that families and businesses can participate if they choose. We are inviting them to work with us to create a cleaner, more sustainable environment. The coalition’s plan will not contribute to rising electricity prices or goods and services cost increases. As a result, families will not need any form of compensation. We are confident we will find the money needed in the budget to cover the cost of this policy. I am looking forward to seeing a fully costed set of budget measures being released before the upcoming election.
Finally, I would like to add that community consultation will be an important part of the coalition’s direct action plan. We believe in the importance of engaging the community rather than telling them what is best by insisting that they support a proposal they do not even understand, as is the case with Mr Rudd’s ETS. To do this we will be conducting a series of public forums around the country. That process will begin over the next couple of weeks. It will not be the talkfest that amounted to nothing, like Mr Rudd’s 2020 summit. If he was after policy direction he should have looked at his own backbench and asked them what the people in their electorates were telling them. For example, the members for Throsby and Cunningham might have been able to tell him that people in the Illawarra are nervous about how an ETS might affect vital employment industries in their region. Instead, these forums will be an opportunity for members of parliament to sit down with local residents and genuinely engage in discussions. I know that people in the soon to be new parts of the Gilmore electorate—that is, the Shellharbour area—will be pleased to have the chance to make comments, ask questions and learn exactly what the coalition are putting on the table. They want to be involved and exercise their democratic right to have a say, and I fully intend to give them this opportunity, to fully brief them on the policy and to listen to what they have to say.
It is also worth nothing that extensive information has been released publicly about the coalition’s direct action plan, with 30 pages of policy details, plus question and answer sheets, having been made available some weeks ago. That compares to the five lines that Labor took to the last election. It was not until we started to question Mr Rudd on his ETS, and the tax Australians would have to pay, that the community realised what Mr Rudd actually had in store for them.
In closing, Labor speaks about a global problem. It is. Yet we do not know which countries will do what and nor does the Labor Party. I would like to say how pleased I am that this side of the House has demonstrated good faith with the Australian people by putting forward a policy that encourages participation and fosters creativity rather than just forcing people to pay a dirty big tax and keep their mouths shut. It is a policy we can all understand and, what is more, as Australians we can all make it work.
In my contribution on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and cognate bills I would like to start by reflecting a little bit on what the member for Gilmore had to say. If climate change was so simple and so cheap to fix, why didn’t you do anything in the 12 years that you were in government? If it was so simple and required such a quick, magic solution, which the coalition now seems to have come up with, why didn’t you do something in the 12 years that you were in government? Climate change is complicated, It is a really hard, tough problem and it is a hard, tough problem to fix. And, yes, the solution to fixing it is complicated, and it is hard to explain how an emissions trading scheme works. It is a difficult, complex issue. But if we do not do anything, if we bury our heads in the sand, if we as a government try to con the Australian people by saying: ‘Don’t worry too much about it. It is really not that difficult. We have got the solution, this magic solution over here. It is not going to cost you anything,’ we would be lying.
We understand the trouble people are having grappling with this complex policy. It is hard. The problem is hard. But what we are trying to do is to be absolutely honest with the Australian people and say, ‘This is the problem we are facing as a country and as a nation and, when you talk to all of the experts across the world, this is the cheapest and most effective solution we have before us to fix it.’ We know that it will cause some costs to rise. We have been honest about that. But we have then said that we will compensate people for those rises. So I want to say to the member for Gilmore that it is great to see people in here actively having a proper debate about climate change, and she is clearly someone who believes that climate change is happening, unlike some of her colleagues. But if it was so absolutely simple to fix surely someone would have done it by now.
I rise, obviously, in support of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and the associated bills, and I do so for the second time in this chamber. The debate surrounding these bills has obviously generated a lot of interest in the media and in the community. That has been for a very good reason: the debate is in fact probably one of the most important that this generation of politicians has had to grapple with in this parliament for some time. We live on the driest continent on this planet, a planet that has experienced an extended period of lower than average rainfall and higher than average temperatures. This decade is expected to be the hottest on record. We live on a continent that, while it is true that it is nowhere near the scale of China and India in its emissions, is in the direct line of fire for the most dangerous effects of climate change, and we are already seeing them in this country.
Climate change is real. It might be tough to deal with. It might require us to make hard decisions. But if we do not, if we, like the opposition, bury our heads in the sand, the consequences for this country will be very serious indeed. The situation in which we find ourselves in this place today is no different to when I debated the passage of this bill last year. The science has not changed. If anything, the information now available to us today is even more concerning. The advice and recommendations about the best way to turn economies from high-carbon-polluting ones into low-polluting economies has not changed. Emissions trading continues to be internationally regarded as the cheapest and most effective way of reducing emissions. Yet one thing has changed in this debate. That one thing is the political opportunism of the new Leader of the Opposition. In the past we have had people on the other side of this House who firmly believed in climate change saying that they supported an emissions trading scheme. They might have quibbled around the edges at what that scheme would look like—about the prices—but they were absolutely committed to the best and cheapest possible way of reducing emissions, which is through an emissions trading scheme.
Some of those people, including those who are pretty desperate to keep their positions on the frontbench under the new leadership, are now saying something completely different. The member for Paterson said:
I would like to make it clear: the coalition will support an emissions trading scheme ...
The member for Boothby said:
The opposition are in favour of an emissions trading scheme ...
The member for Herbert said:
I remind the parliament that, even under John Howard, our policy was to have an emissions trading scheme. We still have that policy and no amount of Labor spin can alter our resolve.
The member for Cook said:
Australia needs an ETS that suits our circumstances and addresses our needs, a scheme that will cut, not export, emissions and a scheme that will protect, not export, Australian jobs.
The member for Mayo said:
I believe that an emissions trading scheme is one of the policy levers that can be used to change the energy mix in Australia.
One of my favourite quotes is from the member for Groom—all of these are quotes from members of the opposition:
There is a need for an emissions trading scheme. Few of us doubt that. I am certain of it, and I have been certain of it longer than the member for Flynn.
The member for Groom went on to say:
I remember quite vividly John Howard ringing me and saying, ‘I think we’re going to have to have an emissions trading scheme.’ In 2007 I had already realised that. We worked to introduce an emissions trading scheme and in fact took an emissions trading scheme to the last election.
That is merely a snapshot of those members opposite who have previously spoken in support of an emissions trading scheme. What has happened to all of those voices supporting an emissions trading scheme? We still have one, and that is the member for Wentworth who sought to show leadership on the issue of climate change and he lost his job because of it. The members opposite have no credibility when it comes to climate change because fundamentally a large proportion of them just do not believe it is happening. They have changed policies and changed leaders or, in some cases, they have changed leaders in order to change policy. It has been pretty confusing to get a picture of where they sit on this issue. The end result has been a party who now stands for nothing and a leader who believes climate change ‘is absolute crap’ and who is delivering to the Australian people a climate change con job.
Members of the Rudd government do not doubt that climate change is real. The climate science is there and, because we know that the science exists, we know that we have to act. Scientists across the globe are telling us that carbon pollution is contributing to climate change—that we are contributing to climate change. We recognised this a long time ago. We understood that Australia would feel the impacts of climate change more severely than many other countries. The risk to this country is great. More importantly, we also understood that the longer we take to act the greater the potential harm.
That is why members of this government have a clear way forward. In contrast to the Liberal Party, we have a clear position on climate change and, more importantly, we have a united position on tackling its most dangerous effects. Our scheme is a simple one. We make polluters pay, we provide incentives for investment in cleaner technology and we compensate the majority of families for increased costs. Our scheme is the lowest cost way of reducing emissions. Our scheme will see 92 per cent of households compensated for the impact of the scheme. We have been upfront about it with the Australian people, with Treasury modelling showing that there will be about a one per cent increase in household costs overall. Our scheme is widely recognised as the best approach to reduce carbon pollution, an approach that John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey have all previously supported and that some of them continue to support. We have outlined an approach that is accepted by governments across the world, one that is supported by scientists and that recognises the reality of climate change. Many members opposite argue that with this bill we are acting all on our own, but they fail to recognise that an emissions trading scheme is widely recognised by all major economies as the best way to tackle and reduce carbon emissions. Our carbon emissions trading scheme is the strongest way to meet our carbon emissions reduction target and keeps our 2007 election commitment that we would tackle climate change, a commitment that was overwhelmingly supported by the Australian people in that election.
Let me briefly outline some of the details of this bill. The government is proposing to establish a carbon pollution reduction target. We are making a commitment to reduce our carbon emissions by five per cent by 2020, and that commitment is unconditional. We have also committed to reduce carbon emissions by up to 15 per cent or 25 per cent conditional on the actions of others. I have made no secret in this parliament that I am in favour of having a higher carbon emissions reduction target. Let me remind the House that these are targets the Liberal Party supported last year. Therefore, if we are to assume that these targets have bipartisan support then we should assume that both parties have a plan to achieve these targets, although with the announcement of the Abbott plan we see that the coalition are no longer serious about climate change as under their plan these targets will not be achieved. In fact, under the scheme proposed by the opposition, we have already heard reported in the media that emissions will rise by 13 per cent. They will not go down by the five per cent that they claim is their target, the same target as ours, but in fact will go up.
Our plan, the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, will enable the federal government to set a target to reduce our carbon print. Our scheme will provide a mechanism whereby companies that emit carbon pollution will need to buy a permit to produce that pollution. We put a price on carbon and we create an incentive for those producers to therefore reduce their costs. We also provide an incentive for polluters to invest in renewable energies. This is what the government is all about—we are setting our nation up for the longer term and to do this we must provide industry with the means to achieve it. Furthermore, the revenue received from the sale of these permits will be given back to businesses and households to assist them with the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. As I said earlier, under our scheme households will be compensated for the impact of the emissions trading scheme. Under the Liberal Party’s plan costs will go up. They have to pay for it somehow. The only way they can pay for it is by either increasing taxes or cutting services to hospitals, education, defence, infrastructure and roads. They have to pay for it from somewhere, but they have not made their plans transparent about that. People’s costs will go up, but there is no compensation in their scheme.
The Liberal Party have a long history of ducking the issue of climate change. We started with the Howard policy No. 1: ‘Climate change doesn’t exist or, if it does, I really don’t want to talk about it.’ Howard policy No. 2 was: ‘Climate change does exist—maybe I’d better cobble something together before the 2007 election because I could lose it.’ The Nelson policy on climate change was—well, frankly, what policy? We had the Turnbull policy, which was to support an ETS with the backing of half his colleagues. Unfortunately, he lost his job as a result. And now we have the Abbott policy—slap something together to try and score a few votes with no real thought about what they are actually going to be doing in relation to climate change itself.
There are some real problems with the opposition’s policy. Firstly, if you think climate change is ‘crap’—and again I quote, because it is not language I use myself—maybe you are not the best person to be developing your party’s climate change policy, frankly. I find this passing strange when eminent scientists across the globe are overwhelmingly telling us that climate change is real. They may have some disagreements about its impacts—it is a pretty imprecise science to project exactly what is going to happen—but they are all pretty adamant that climate change is real.
The new Leader of the Opposition, in a road to Damascus moment when he was out touting his book at a Liberal Party fundraiser with a less than representative sample of a very small community—a fantastic community in the town of Beaufort—suddenly declared as a result of this meeting with Liberal Party members in Beaufort, ‘Climate change is crap but the politics are against us, so I’m going to support it.’ A bit later on he thought: ‘I might be on a bit of a winner here. I actually think we might entirely change our whole position in relation to supporting the government, because I think the politics are shifting.’ This is great leadership—really impressive leadership. Instead of maybe talking to the community members at Beaufort about why climate change is real and why it is important to act, understanding that they have some concerns about it but convincing them of what the evidence says, let’s forget all about the evidence. Let’s take this small, unrepresentative sample of Liberal Party members sitting out there in the great town of Beaufort and let them convince the Leader of the Opposition that climate change is crap, the politics have changed and they should absolutely overturn not only the ETS policy but their leader as a result.
The coalition’s policy is fundamentally flawed because it does not tackle climate change, it costs taxpayers more and it is totally unfunded, which means that members opposite are going to either increase taxes or cut services. Members opposite should be clear with people in my electorate whether they plan to increase taxes or whether they instead plan to cut vital government funding in areas such as health, schools or even infrastructure. My concern is that members opposite are going to slug taxpayers in my own electorate or they are going to cut vital services. The Liberal con job is three times more expensive than the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and will do nothing to reduce emissions.
The Department of Climate Change has found that the Liberals’ policy will increase emissions, not reduce them. Bloomberg New Energy Finance yesterday said that the price of carbon under the opposition’s scheme will result in a massive impost on business. The opposition are trying to tell the Australian people: ‘You won’t have to pay anything under our scheme. There’ll be no cost.’ If the price for carbon under the opposition’s scheme is going to be a massive impost on business, you are going to pay for it, and there is no compensation under the opposition’s scheme. The Abbott climate con job fails to put a cap on pollution because it gives polluters an absolutely free ride. Our plan sets a price for the pollution that is produced by industry, therefore creating an incentive for business to, firstly, reduce emissions and, secondly, invest in renewable energies. The fact that the coalition have failed to address this fundamental element is mind-boggling and will subsequently result in the failure of their policy.
The next major concern that exists in the coalition’s proposal is in the maths. What you can see from the coalition’s plan is that it is not funded. They are trying to say: ‘Don’t worry about this plan. It’s not going to cost you anything at all. It’s going to reduce emissions. It’s this magical cure that we’ve got for climate change. It’s really simple. It’s not going to cost you anything.’ Again, you have to pay for it by either raising taxes or cutting services, and you should be honest with people about what you are planning to do. It is only fair for people across the community to be aware of what it is we are debating and what they will be paying for.
I want to finish on a few of the reasons that I personally am supporting these bills. As a federal member of parliament, I recognise the importance of decisions that I make in this place on behalf of the community that I represent. Not all of the community agrees with the decisions I make—I know that—but I have to make those decisions on the basis of the evidence I have before me. That is what leadership is about. I recognise the importance of this decision and the effect it will have on future generations—our children, our grandchildren and their children. That is fundamentally what this debate is about. My decision to support these bills is vital for our children, our grandchildren and their children. It goes to the heart of what we represent as political leaders. These bills seek to structurally change our economy to support jobs for our nation for the longer term. The legislation does not represent a bleak future, as members opposite would lead us to believe. Our plan will provide an opportunity for new jobs, new possibilities and a cleaner future. It will put Australia ahead of the race to tackle climate change. The legislation will ensure our nation steps up to tackle climate change, it will set our local economies up for the long term and it will give Australian families a competitive advantage compared to our international counterparts.
The answer to this debate is pretty simple: the Rudd government plan that addresses climate change at a minimal cost to households or a backwards coalition con job that slugs taxpayers and will in fact increase emissions? Our plan will reduce our nation’s carbon footprint. The Liberals’ plan will see taxpayers cough up $10 billion for a climate change policy that has been developed by a leader who thinks climate change is ‘absolute crap’. The Rudd government’s plan will make polluters pay for their emissions, and the Abbott con job plan will give polluters a free ride and slug households instead. Our plan delivers assistance to families with money raised from polluters, and assistance to pensioners and low- and middle-income households. I would like to finish by quoting the member for Wentworth. When he put the question, ‘Is the CPRS the best policy?’ he said the answer absolutely ‘must be yes’. I urge the members opposite to listen to their colleague, to show the leadership that their colleague has shown and to support these bills.
Certainly honourable members on this side of the House have listened to their constituents and have listened to the very many phone calls that we have received from people who are worried about Labor’s great big new tax. In my own electorate the sense of feeling as far as contact from the community is concerned is running at about 97 to 98 per cent opposed to Labor’s great big new tax. I listened carefully to the honourable member for Ballarat, a person for whom I have some personal regard. I listened to what she said as she pleaded with us to support Labor’s great big new tax because it was in the interests of our children, grandchildren, their children and so on. One sometimes wonders if some honourable members exist in a vacuum. It might be one thing to bring in Labor’s great big new tax if this great big new tax of $120 billion would somehow solve any problem in the world in relation to emissions. If this were the solution to a possible world environmental problem then one could understand that maybe Labor’s great big new tax of $120 billion could arguably be the way to go.
I am not convinced, even in that circumstance, that Labor’s great big new tax is a tax that it would be fair to ask the Australian public to pay. What Labor is doing is asking us to pay, collectively as a nation, a great big new tax of $120 billion—more than a thousand dollars for every household in Australia—when Australia’s share of world emissions is arguably as low as 1.2 per cent of emissions around the world. I have heard other figures of 1.3 or 1.4 per cent, but certainly no-one suggests that Australia is a major polluter. That is not to say that we ought not to do our part as part of a world solution to a possible world problem.
I would be the first to say that I am not an expert on the science of climate change. I have listened to arguments put forward by eminent scientists on both sides and I have to say I think the jury is out. But personally I am quite happy to give the environment the benefit of the doubt. That is why the policy put forward by the Liberal-National opposition, which does not involve a great big new tax, in my view is very much the way to go. We operate on the basis of incentives and not on the basis of penalties. We operate on the basis of encouraging Australians to do what we collectively can to improve the environmental outcome for our country and indeed for the world at large. But we do not propose a great big new tax of $120 billion such as that introduced by this government.
This tax of $120 billion will not make one jot of improvement for the world environment unless the rest of the world commits towards doing something to reduce their own emissions and their own pollution. It is interesting that the largest polluters in the world do not have an ETS, and what is particularly interesting in recent days is that President Obama is now less likely than he would otherwise have been to have an ETS. So it could be that this government is leading Australians down the garden path. They are leading us in the direction of a great big new tax which will cripple our economy, make our exports less competitive and make imports cheaper while at the same time not making any appreciable improvement in the world environment. It seems to me that really what the government should have done, particularly following the failure of Copenhagen, is to look at what was right for Australia as part of the world community and not simply ask us to commit some sort of national economic suicide so that the government can be seen to be a trendsetter in the fight against climate change.
What the opposition is proposing is a very practical plan involving direct action based on incentives, not punishing families. I am sorry to be repetitive but what Labor is proposing is a great big new tax of $120 billion. Australian families are finding it difficult enough to survive and exist as it currently is without bringing in an extra tax of $120 billion which Australians cannot afford. Other members on this side have pointed out some of the things involved in our policy of direct action. I will repeat those because I think those who are listening need to know that in this parliament we have two sides. We have a government which is out of touch. We have a government which is prepared to pursue a policy of economic insanity, a policy which will destroy the Australian economy, a policy which will punish Australian families, a policy which brings in a great big new tax and a policy which will not improve the environmental outcome of Australia, let alone the world.
Our policy on the other hand involves cleaning up the power stations that account for almost half of our emissions in Australia; solar, wind, tidal, geothermal and greater use of gas; improved energy efficiency in our buildings; and green carbon measures to improve our farms and our forests, which means providing incentives, not penalties, for farmers and landholders to retain the vegetation that absorbs carbon dioxide, which means providing incentives, not penalties, to encourage better land use on our farms that would retain more carbon in the land than improved soil management. That is about improving productivity, not winding it back, as the Prime Minister now pretends while he secretly negotiates for precisely the reforms we are recommending. What we do is tackle the problem in a practical way instead of having a great big complicated scheme which involves a great big new tax. Instead of saying that what we are suggesting, particularly post Copenhagen, is a very sensible opportunity for us to do something positive without crippling our economy, the government have simply bagged the Leader of the Opposition and the opposition for not going along with their policy of economic lunacy.
Let us look for a moment at Labor’s ETS and what it is going to cost. I mentioned the great big new tax of $120 billion. This will be a bureaucratic tax to the economy, with the government churning or recycling billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money through the system at their own discretion. Interestingly enough, in times past there has been discussion in the community in relation to the GST, and there was a concern that the government would bring in a GST of 10 per cent and that it would steadily creep up. Under the former government, when I was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration and Acting Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and assisted the Treasurer, I had carriage of much GST legislation. It was enshrined in the GST legislation that it was not possible to increase the rate of the GST unless there was an agreement involving every state and territory government and the Australian government.
12:23:11 Labor’s great big new tax effectively involves increasing the rate of the GST from 10 per cent to 12½ per cent. Frontier Economics has projected that the CPRS will impose a $121 billion cost, in NPV terms, to the Australian economy to 2020. I mentioned before that we are a low emitter of about 1.2 per cent; there have been estimations of up to 1.4 per cent. We are a highly trade exposed country, with 32 per cent of our emissions generated in the production of exports compared with eight per cent in the US and 22 per cent in the EU. That means that if we bring in an ETS then that ETS is going to strike at the international competitiveness of Australia’s exports. That will cost tens of thousands of jobs, it will kill major investment and it will do little or nothing to reduce world emissions. Research prepared by Access Economics for state and territory governments around Australia showed that 126,000 full-time jobs will be lost or forgone, mainly in parts of Australia that are not in metropolitan areas. Concept Economics concluded that there will be 23,510 fewer jobs in the mining industry by 2020. Frontier Economics identified that 45,000 jobs would be lost in high-energy intensive industries.
It really is quite amazing to believe that the government—so that it is able to put its hand on its heart and claim that it is doing something to improve the environment when in effect it is doing nothing other than bringing in a great big new tax—is prepared to throw so many Australian families and so many Australian breadwinners on the job scrap heap, because loss of jobs will be one element of the introduction of Labor’s ETS. The ETS will impose a harsher tax on a higher share of Australian industry and households, earlier than the competing scheme in the EU and the scheme that was previously proposed in the US, which is possibly going to be scrapped by President Obama because of difficulties he may experience in having it passed in the American Senate.
The CPRS places a burden on the Australian economy not matched anywhere in the world. I just find that this is absolutely incredible. The CPRS involves 75 per cent of Australia’s GHG emissions compared with 45 per cent in the EU. When one looks at the costs to Australians and Australian enterprises, one only has to look at the cost to families. I mentioned that $1,100 every year, and increasing with the carbon price, will be the cost to family budgets. There will also be a cost to small business. We all recognise that small business is the engine room of the Australian economy. Small business is responsible for the creation of a high proportion of jobs. The CPRS will slash jobs and profitability and, in fact, it will result in job losses in small business. The steep rise in electricity prices will hit the 750,000 small and medium enterprises with an indirect tax which they can do nothing about in the short to medium term.
The Rudd government expects that the businesses will simply pass the costs on to consumers. The ACCI has looked at this and has done some modelling. There will also be a cost to farmers. Our farmers are amongst the most efficient in the world, but they are highly trade exposed. The ETS will put them at a significant competitive disadvantage. It seems to me that it is economic lunacy to be doing this to Australian farmers, particularly when there will not be any benefit to the Australian or world environment. There will be a significant and added direct and indirect tax on agricultural and manufacturing businesses competing against foreign products where no such tax applies. In other words, we force Australian farmers and enterprises to fight the export battle with one hand tied behind their collective backs.
I am advised that a dairy farmer will face a $9,000 tax with no capacity to offset this cost. Where is the dairy farmer going to get the $9,000 that he will have to pay as a result of Labor’s great big new tax? The ETS has failed our farming sector. This tax will increase indirect costs in the meat industry to the tune of $250 million and yet the government has only provided $150 million in total over five years for the meat, malt and dairy sectors. They are all price takers in the international market.
The government seem to be so focused on receiving ticks in international fora that they have completely lost the plot. The Prime Minister was determined to bludgeon the parliament into passing this legislation prior to the Copenhagen summit. He wanted to be able to strut the international stage—I suppose it is part of his long-term aim to become the secretary-general of the United Nations—and walk into Copenhagen and say to other world leaders, ‘Well, look, we’ve done it,’ or more particularly, ‘I’ve done it, and now I want you to follow suit.’ When one looks at international assessments on carbon pollution and the reduction aims, there are some arbitrary inclusions and some arbitrary exclusions.
I would just like to draw the attention of the House to an article in the Australianon page 1, no less—on 8 February entitled ‘Feral camels clear in Wong’s carbon count.’ This was an article by Ean Higgins. It is a particularly interesting article and I would commend it to all honourable members and indeed to anyone listening because it does indicate that the government is focused on emissions that are counted under the Kyoto protocol and not on what in fact is actually happening. This article starts by saying:
There are many ways to skin a camel, but none, it seems, that count towards reducing Australia’s carbon footprint.
Scientists have found camels to be the third-highest carbon emitting animal per head on the planet, behind only cattle and buffalo. Culling the one million feral camels that currently roam the outback would be equivalent to taking 300,000 cars off the road in terms of the reduction to the country’s greenhouse gases.
So what this article is telling us is that if you get rid of these camels, which do cause other problems to our environment, it would be the equivalent of taking 300,000 cars off the road. One would have thought that maybe the government might have been prepared to say, ‘Let’s fund a camel eradication program. Let’s try to trap them, shoot them, export them or something, but let’s get them out of the outback and stop them from destroying pasture and emitting the level of carbon they currently do.’ I think the Minister for Climate Change and Water must have considered this matter when it was put to her, but then the article goes on to say:
But Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told The Australian there was little point doing anything about Australia’s feral camels as only the CO2 of the domesticated variety is counted under the Kyoto protocol. That equates to only a small number of the beasts, the sort found lugging tourists around Cable Beach in Broome and at Monarto Zoo, southeast of Adelaide.
What she is saying is that if we culled the camels it would be the same as taking 300,000 vehicles off the road but that there is no point in culling the camels because even though we would reduce our emissions we would not be given any credit for it.
It is all about the credit.
It is all about the credit, as the honourable member for Cook at the table says. We would not be given any credit for it.
The opposition climate change spokesman, the honourable member for Flinders, however, was much more savvy than the minister. The article said:
Opposition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt reckons the government has “lost its marbles”. “It’s now reached the absurd situation where a camel in captivity is a threat to the planet but a feral camel in the wild is absolutely fine,” Mr Hunt said.
This government is out of touch. This government has lost the focus which it originally proclaimed it had, and that was to reduce emissions so that we pass the planet on in a healthier state to future residents of the planet. Everyone accepts that Australia produces only 1.2, 1.3 or 1.4 per cent of world emissions—a very tiny percentage. China actually increases its emissions by that amount every eight months. The government is seeking to bring in a great big new tax of $120 billion, which is outrageous.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I draw your attention to standing order 75 about tedious repetition. I am concerned that this member is now in breach of that standing order. He has made reference to a ‘great big new tax’ 19 times now in this debate. I think that is a record in this debate. He has now said it more times than Barnaby Joyce. But there has been no reference to the megatax that the opposition would put on Australian taxpayers.
Order! There is no point of order. The custom in this House is that repetitious comment does not apply to speeches.
I say it is a great big new tax for the 20th time. (Time expired)
Unlike the member for Fisher, I will not be tedious or repetitious and I will actually talk about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and cognate bills and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. I will actually talk about our policy, the policy of the opposition, some of the history of where we are today and why the Senate and the opposition should actually side with the government on this. It is because it is in the national interest, in the global interest and, in fact, in their own best interest.
It is always entertaining to come into this place and listen to all sorts of people make all sorts of speeches on matters which they have no belief in or commitment to. It is a real dilemma for a lot of people in the opposition when they really do not believe in what their party is doing. So you hear these bizarre contributions where it is all at the edges and where they try to divert attention from the actual debate to something about camels or something else. You will hear all sorts of things. They will provide wonderful and bizarre statistics and unique examples. They will offer ridiculous solutions. They will find unholy bedfellows and cuddle up to anyone who even looks remotely like siding with them on these matters. They will play the politics of fear and smear, which is nothing new in this place.
Anyone who is a veteran of listening to these speeches will understand exactly what that is about. It is about diverting attention from the real matters at hand that are absolutely of critical importance to our generation. In the end, we are the people who are charged with making the decisions, with moving the debate and the policy forward and with providing a national platform— (Quorum formed)
I thank the opposition for calling a quorum and interrupting my speech because it does two things: one is that it gets my colleagues in to listen to me—so thank you very much—and the other one is that it proves that I must have been saying something so significant that those opposite really did not want to hear it. They are up on their feet now and they want to stop me again. If you give me an opportunity to go through my speech, you will have an opportunity yourself later.
There is no question that this is a global issue. It is an issue that does start at home. If anything, it starts at the national level; and that is exactly what we are proposing. The real risk of climate change is great; and it is something that we must do something about. This is not an issue where we can all sit by and watch and hope that somebody else will take charge. Australia on our own will not change the world. On our own Australia will not have the weight, the gravitas or the capacity to change what is happening in the climate; but we do have a significant opportunity. What we can do is to lead. We can lead by demonstrating to the rest of the world that when you are committed you can take positive action and you can make a difference. We can also innovate. We can look at new ways of doing things and create new economies. We can show the rest of the world how it can be done—whether it is through solar energy plants, whether it is wind energy, whether it is wave energy or whether it is through a range of other innovative things that we can do. We can create new markets and create new technologies. We can assist our neighbours. We can assist the Pacific island countries in our neighbourhood with their issues related to climate change, which I can tell you for them are very real; and they are very real today, not tomorrow.
We can begin the process which everyone in the world is beginning to take on board. We can do that in a proper fashion with a process. We can set a basis and have rules. We can establish a system. What we can do is make it affordable and we can make it acceptable to people. We can make it real. All of this may seem complex and a little confusing at times, and I can understand that because there are a whole range of people out there whose only task in life is to make it complex, to make it confusing and to ensure that ordinary people do not get a real opportunity to make a fair assessment of what it is. Let me put it to you in three points that really encapsulate what we are talking about and how we can move forward.
When you are talking about climate change, the first thing that you must do is to set some sort of a limit—put a cap in place, some sort of measure or benchmark. That is what our policy is about: putting in a cap, having something to measure to and having a benchmark. Without that, you have nothing. If you do not have a benchmark then how do you know where you are going, how do you know where you need to be and how do you know what you ought to be doing to get there. It is a critically important part, and it is simple—everyone understands that. The second thing you must do is to charge the actual polluters, not the taxpayer and not others. You need to give the polluters the incentive but you also need to actually charge the polluters themselves. It is the carrot and stick approach. That will effect change. A voluntary system will not, but charging the polluters will. The third thing you need to have is a market based system. You need to compensate people. People should not have to pick up the bill for what is taking place in the world. They will through a range of mechanisms but there ought to be compensation in place. Really it is quite simple—it is the three Cs: you put a cap in place, you charge the big polluters and you compensate people for the costs that they will face. These are not complex matters; and this is exactly what we ought to be doing.
Let me elaborate on a couple of those points. When we talk about a cap, it is about putting a limit on the amount of carbon pollution that all emitters actually make. Some will emit more carbon pollution than others. But by setting a benchmark, by setting a cap, what we say to people is ‘if you come in below that then you have spare capacity’, if you like. If you come in above that then there is an incentive to reduce your emissions. If you do not, we will charge you for it. It is as simple as that. If you do not, either because you do not want to or because it is difficult or uneconomical today, then you pay a price. We charge the big polluters.
What that means is that you set up a market based system where those who pollute less—and the incentive for them is to reduce their pollution emissions as much as possible—trade on the credit they have and trade it with the big polluters who, for whatever reasons, cannot match the cap. That gives you a market based system. The beauty about a market based system—and the Liberal Party should be very familiar with this concept—is that it is the market that decides, not politicians, not bureaucrats, not anyone else. It is actually based on some real principles about letting the market decide. Let it pick the winners. We are not going to tell you how to do it. We are not going to tell you how to achieve it. We are going to say: ‘Here is a set of rules, here is a system, here is a guide. There is a global marketplace for this. That way we are not just bound on what we do here but on what the rest of the world does as well. Here are the playing rules and a level playing field. You go and do what is necessary based on that.’ For some reason, the great triumphant confluence of supposedly the Liberal Party, small business, big business and the friends of business now seems for the first time to think that a market based solution somehow is evil, wrong and nasty and it should be something else—we should just slug the taxpayer. I do not recall that ever having been the policy of the Liberal Party anywhere in policy statements, but it is nice to see that there has been a change—this massive swing to the ultra-Left, Cuba revisited, from the Liberal Party. So we have put in place a market based system, charging the polluters.
Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: I wonder if the member has read the Prime Minister’s essay.
There is no point of order. There has been enough use of standing orders to limit the opportunity for members to speak and I would advise those in the chamber not to use that tactic again in the near future.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your protection and for highlighting that point. Charging the polluters is really important, because if you do not have a method by which you can actually make this happen through a compulsory system—a set of rules—then it just simply will not happen. A voluntary system—a compensation fund or something else where people could voluntarily dip in or dip out—might suit one or two, but it is not the basis on which the globe can change or through which we can make real efforts towards carbon pollution reduction in the future. We know the outcome of simply trying to make it a voluntary system. If it is slightly difficult, then people simply do not change. Unfortunately, that happens to be a human trait.
By charging the polluters we ensure that the incentives are built in. They are built in for the market solution for the biggest polluters not only in Australia but in the rest of the world. The big polluters will clean up their act. They will do it for one of two reasons: either because they see a business opportunity or because the penalties are too high and therefore they must clean up their act. This is already happening. I am not talking about something that may or may not happen in the future. I am talking about things that are taking place right now.
A whole range of emitters right across the country, big and small, have already taken on the challenge. They are a step ahead of government. In fact, they are two steps ahead of the opposition. But the reality for them is that they have already agreed that something has to be done. They have seen the writing on the wall. They feel the change that is coming and that it is global. They understand that, to compete, you must compete hard but you are going to have to compete in a new world. This is not unusual. Through industrialisation, through other changes in human history, it is the forward thinkers—the ones who are prepared to take a risk, to lead, to demonstrate how things can be done—that win. We are going to be left behind unless we make the changes. I can assure you that, whether the opposition or anyone else in this place doubts what is happening out in the market, business has already led that change. That march is taking place right now. Only through charging polluters and having a market based system will that actually work. In particular, as I said, this is about making sure that the right people pay, not the taxpayer at large.
The third area that I mention, the three Cs, is that of compensation. Yes, we do—and I do—accept that all these things do not come for free and anyone who tries to tell you that or somehow guise it in the view that it is all for nothing is wrong. There is a cost associated and we are prepared to talk about it. Not only are we prepared to talk about it but also we understand that it will be about one per cent of the cost of living. Where that is the case, we will compensate people. That is the fair thing to do. We do not believe that working families and people on low incomes should have to bear the heaviest burden. We think the heaviest burden should be for the heaviest polluters. They are the ones who pollute and profit greatly from it. Their contribution back is to (a) cut down their pollution and (b) pay for it. It should not be up to every single taxpayer to make that commitment. But consumers and people who use it can be compensated where there is an increased cost. Again, this is a fair and credible set of rules, a way forward, a policy which is not just an Australian policy. It is a global policy, a global system. This is the way that we will be moving forward.
I want to touch on—and I do not have a lot of time left—a range of issues which I think are important. Copenhagen has been pilloried across the opposition benches as being a complete failure. Let me just say that the agreement is not perfect. That is for certain. It is not a perfect agreement, but it is an agreement. There actually is some progress, little be that progress, but progress is better than nothing at all. In contrast to that progress, we have an opposition who like to see us go backwards. They would like to see every country fighting over this. For the first time in history we have rich countries and poor countries agreeing at least on a way forward, however small that may be. It is a crucial step, and what it means is that we ought to all move forward, not move backward.
Australia, as we all know, is a very dry and quite barren country in most parts and prone to a lot of drought. We will be the hardest hit, so there is a bit of self-interest here. I think we have to do something for ourselves here. If we do not lead, who will? I can tell you from talking to my Pacific Islander friends and neighbours that for places like Tuvalu and others it is very real for them right now, today, because they understand it and they see it more than most do.
The science is always an issue. I want to be brief on this; I do not want to argue the science, because I think I would be wasting my time. The reality is that I am not a scientist but neither is anyone else in here a scientist who is an expert on climate change. I take it on good faith. I read, I listen, I attend forums and I use my own intelligence to make decisions—but is that not what we always do on these things? Rather than criticise the science, I either say that I believe it or I do not believe it. I either accept what is being told to me or I do not. Do I accept the CSIRO or the Australian voices? Do I accept it or not? I am no more an expert than anyone else but I do accept it. For me the science is real. The risk of not listening to the science is that we deal a very poor hand for future generations. I am not prepared to take that risk. I think we ought to do something.
That risk might be measured in different ways in relation to how much it will cost us. It might cost us a little; it might cost us a lot. But, whatever that cost is, I am prepared to take the risk and say that we need to do something, because I believe this is real. I know some people believe it is not real. I accept that they believe that it is not real. You will always find some article or somebody who says it is all a con job—a global con job; a global new world order and somehow we are all in on it. By the way, they think you are in on it as much as we are in on it. I do not subscribe to those views. I think we have something real to deal with and we ought to do something about it.
You might think that it was just the Labor Party saying this in this place, but it is not just us. I am not just talking about our belief and conviction. I know that in the Liberal Party—I cannot talk about the National Party; they are a creature of their own design—there are some good, sound minds who did believe in it and who continue to believe in it. In fact, one of them used to be the leader of the Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull. In his contribution to this place he made clear not only his belief but also what we should do, and he talked about a market based solution. He has the three Cs—he has courage, conviction and commitment—and he is prepared to run his own career in those terms.
There are a few things that I also want to say in terms of the differences between our policy and the opposition’s policy. Our policy does not slug the taxpayer; it slugs the big polluters. It is a policy that will actually deliver an outcome. It is costed. It is affordable. We admit that there is a cost, but people will be compensated. It will work. It will actually deliver what we say it is going to deliver, because there has been a sound basis for it—unlike the opposition’s policy. The opposition’s policy is just a big tax fund, and people can volunteer to it. By all accounts, it is actually going to make things worse, not better.
The challenge is now for the opposition: come back to the table and give us the costings. We have already heard the opposition finance spokesman, Senator Barnaby Joyce, say that there are going to have to be big cuts to spending to pay for this new fund, this new tax, that the opposition are putting forward. He has also talked about the Public Service—I wonder if that is Defence or whether he is talking about hospitals or education. The money does not come from nowhere; it is not for free. (Time expired)
I am pleased to speak on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills yet again in the parliament. As the member for Ryan, I have had the great privilege of being a member of this wonderful chamber of democracy, representing the people of Brisbane’s western suburbs, since 2001, and I continue to treasure that honour and that trust. Today in the parliament I again want to express my thoughts and my views and touch a little bit on my philosophy which has brought me to the conclusion that the government legislation is not the right thing for the community I represent, and is not in the best interests of our country.
At the outset, I want to take the opportunity of congratulating and commending the new leader of the federal opposition. I want to compliment Tony Abbott for the courage that he showed last November that saw him become a candidate for the leadership of the federal Liberal Party. I am sure that everyone would agree with me that holding the office of leader of a national political party is indeed a distinct privilege—and I pay tribute to him. Equally, in good grace, I want to pay tribute to his predecessors, Dr Nelson and Mr Turnbull, for their efforts in trying to deliver government for the opposition. Of course, they had great challenges in their own way. Dr Nelson would have been deeply disappointed at his replacement by Mr Turnbull and it is only in the nature of humanity and emotions that Mr Turnbull would have been equally distraught by his loss to Mr Abbott. But I think it is important for all of us to extend goodwill and grace in such circumstances. These things are never easy, but they are also not personal. They are the life of politics, in a sense. For my part, and on behalf of those people I represent who do have high regard for both Dr Nelson and Mr Turnbull, I think it is important that I put on the record my own thoughts in that respect.
Last December, following the change of leadership, I received an email from one of my constituents—Stewart from Brookfield—who said:
I have never before been motivated to contact my local member in 30 years of voting. I note that you have not supported Malcolm Turnbull and Ian MacFarlane in their recommendations on the ETS. Despite the spin that you have placed on your website, you are clearly a climate sceptic. For the sake of our children, you have lost my vote.
I want to first of all thank Stewart very kindly. Obviously I am not going to mention his last name, because I have not had the opportunity of calling him and asking for his consent.
As I said in my maiden speech in 2002, I am a representative and a member of the parliament not just for those who voted for me and not just for those of a coalition political inclination or those who are of a conservative political bent; I am a representative and a member of parliament for all people—for those who voted Labor; for those who voted Democrat; for those who voted Greens; and for those who voted for Independents. I am a representative of everyone. Therefore, I say to Stewart: thank you for expressing your view to me. I also want to respond to Stewart, because that is my duty as his local member of parliament.
There are three points in relation to this. The reason that I do not support the government’s ETS legislation is that it is a great big tax. It is a great big, fat, juicy tax. It is going to be a tax on business; it is going to be a tax on families; it is going to be a tax on every sector of our economy. The second reason is that it is a great big lie. It will not deliver the cuts to emissions that will make an ultimate impact on reducing global emissions that will, supposedly—according to the Prime Minister—save our world and save our civilisation. Emissions will still exist; they will just exist in other places, in other economies. What happens under the government’s ETS is that they are traded—and I will speak more on those two points later.
The third point is that the consequence of this ETS, in my humble judgment, is that it will cost jobs. It will involve the export of Australian jobs to developing economies in Asia in particular, to places like China and India, and that really cannot be in our national interest. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are going to be lost because they are either directly or indirectly connected to energy—to electricity, to power. Our modern way of life means that energy—power supply and electricity—is at the heart of our lifestyle. Energy is at the heart of the very way we conduct our business.
The fourth point is that with the ETS there would be a total transformation of the economic architecture of our country. More to the point this would happen in a very short space of time, literally a handful of years. Surely, with the great impact of a change to the economic architecture, one needs to be prudent, one needs to be careful and one needs to be cautious.
They are the four points that I want to elaborate on in this presentation. In relation to the first point about a great big, fat tax I want to thank a Sydney resident, Dr Michael Cejnar, who contacted me during the leadership ballot and encouraged me to support Mr Abbott. He reminded me of the consequences of adopting this awful policy of the Rudd Labor government. He reminded me to communicate that with my constituents, to sell the message and to elaborate on exactly how it is a carbon tax. I want to thank him because he has very kindly sent me a whole bunch of shirts to hand out to constituents in the Ryan electorate and I intend to do that. The shirts bear the logo, ‘No carbon tax’ and they bear the internet address, www.nocarbontax.com.au. I want to thank him for doing that. I have one here that is XL size and I want to thank him for that.
The member for Ryan has displayed his item; he will now put it away.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to elaborate on this great big new tax idea because I am not quite sure that, given the complexity of this legislation and these bills, people really understand the massive impact it is going to have on their businesses, on their lifestyles, on the way that they carry out their daily lives, on their workplaces and in just doing their normal regular activities. Because taxes will touch on every consumer good whose production requires electrical power. I take the example of a hair dryer. I want to elaborate on this because I have here a regular hair dryer—
The member for Ryan is going to test the patience of the chair if he wants to pull a whole range—
I think it is important. We are talking about a significant piece of legislation.
No. Let us be clear about this. The standing orders do not encourage the use of props.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I do—
The member for Ryan will resume his seat. The standing orders do not encourage the use of props. There has been a practice of allowing it where it is deemed to be particularly relevant and within constraints. The display of a standard hair dryer does not seem to me to meet those requirements. I advise the member for Ryan not to test the limits of those provisions of the standing orders nor my patience. I call on the member for Ryan.
Mr Deputy Speaker, with all due respect I recall a former leader of the Australian Labor Party, who was also the shadow Treasurer, holding up a little pyjama bear to express a point in relation to the GST. With all due respect, I think it could not be more relevant to show that, when a mum is using a hair dryer, there will be power costs involved. With all due respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is entirely relevant and I am flabbergasted that you will not allow me to do that.
The member for Ryan can remain flabbergasted and can now continue his speech.
Thank you. With all due respect, I would like to continue that line of thought. I also have here a regular bottle of orange juice. Of course, it has to be put in the fridge, so therefore there are going to be costs of electricity, there are going to be costs in making this cold—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I thought you had been most generous to the honourable member for Ryan. You have made a ruling which he is now flouting. The member for Ryan of course is a senior whip.
On that point of order and just to be clear, the Practice is quite clear about the use of props and I am more than well aware of the use of props over a number of years by both sides of the chamber not only in debates but also in question time. I enabled the member for Ryan to display the shirt that had a particular relevance to the debate and to the point he was making. I have made it clear that I do not intend to entertain the use of a whole range of props that he is now proposing to display. If the member for Ryan continues to do that, he will leave me with no choice but to take action and that is not in his interests. I call the member for Ryan.
If I may seek clarification, I was not intending to put forward a dozen items to make my point. My point was only to raise three or four to suggest the different range of sectors of the economy and the different groups of Australians that would be affected and I am not sure why that is a problem. With all due respect, Mr Deputy Speaker Bevis, and I know you are a fellow Queensland MP, to all those Australians listening this is, in my view, a slap in the face to the people of Ryan, to all those constituents that I have the great privilege of representing. I cannot even come in here as their local member and try to make my point by holding up a little bottle of orange juice to say this is going to be put in the fridge, it is going to use power to be made cold—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Clearly, the member for Ryan is disputing your ruling. You have given a ruling. He then wishes to argue after you have made the ruling. I believe his conduct is highly disorderly and disrespectful.
On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, the member for Ryan—and I am mindful of your comments—has indicated to the chair that he has three or four items that he wanted to display to talk about the impact of the ETS on ordinary household items. I would not have thought that was excessive, but ultimately I defer to your judgment, of course.
I think the difficulty with the point the member for Moncrieff raises is that, whilst the number may have some relevance, it is not the determining feature itself. The nature of the matters being now brought as display items do not, in my opinion, add to the debate, nor are they necessary for the member for Ryan to make his point. I have sufficient confidence in the skill of the member for Ryan that he is able to speak to the issues without the need for the sorts of props he is now using.
I repeat, for the benefit of the member for Ryan, that I did enable him to use the first prop, which was, if you like, not a standard thing which might be deemed to be necessary to assist him in making his point. I do not think that apples and orange juice meet the same criteria, and he will not use those props. I call the member for Ryan.
If I may continue; I do recollect in the previous parliament a colleague of ours who brought apples into the chamber and put them on everybody’s desk to make the point about the significance of apples in his home state of Tasmania. Apples are what Australians eat every day; they are good for our nutrition, and the tax on apples is going to be something that I am sure will affect a lot of people all over Australia.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have lost count of the times—I think it is now four times—that the member for Ryan has ignored your ruling to desist from using props. I ask that he be sat down.
I am reluctant to do that, and I am endeavouring to enable the member for Ryan to make whatever points he wishes to make in his speech, within the confines of the standing orders and the Practice. On the last, I think, three occasions on which I have made rulings on this matter the member for Ryan has rather returned to the question of whether the ruling is accurate. I advise the member for Ryan to resume his speech on the subject matter or to use the forms of the House if he wishes. I call the member for Ryan.
I just make this observation that, whilst not a senior member of the House of Representatives, I am in my third term and, with due respect to the parliamentary secretary, who has been here for only two years, the observations I make are relevant to previous members in this parliament who have made statements and carried themselves in a certain way to which I was a witness.
In relation to this bill, which I am speaking on again, I know that the people of Ryan and all Australians will be interested to know that when the bill was rejected in the Senate last year it was rejected by a vote of 41 to 33. That was not close. Our constitutional structure is that the Australian parliament is made up of two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Of course the Senate is just as significant as the House of Representatives, so, as a margin of 41 to 33 is so significant, the audacity of the government in bringing this bill back can only say one or two things. It can say that it is hubris and arrogance. To quote a former Prime Minister, it is something that—but perhaps I should not go there. I just want to make the point again that 41 to 33 was a major vote of no confidence by the Senate on this bill. I think, therefore, that this arrogance that the Rudd Labor government is starting to embrace must cease immediately.
I am disappointed that my time is fast running out but I think I have made my point in relation to orange juice and apples and the simple hair dryers that are probably in the drawers of every household in the country, and how these items will be affected by an ETS tax. The point I want to make is that the government has not been able to tell Mr and Mrs Smith who live in Keperra, or Mr and Mrs Jones who live in Enoggera, or Mr and Mrs Brown who live in Ferny Grove exactly how much extra tax they will pay in year 1, year 2, year 3, year 4, year 5, year 6, year 7, year 8, year 9 or year 10 after the introduction of this bill. They do not know what the tax is going to be. It is going to be significant, but they are not being told the implications for their household budgets. That is why it is important.
Respecting the invitation of the Deputy Speaker, I will not pull out of my little goodies bag other items that I have—I only had a couple of others. In addition to my hair dryer, my apple and my bottle of orange juice, I had a simple roll of toilet paper. Every business and household in Australia and many restaurants and cafes have bathroom facilities, and of course they all have toilet paper in them—or I hope they do—because that is part of their requirements. I do not know what the cost of a toilet roll is going to be in seven or eight years time as a consequence of this ETS tax, but I know that there will be an increase. Why? Because in the production of paper there is going to be energy and electricity involved. Do all those people listening out there in this great land of ours really think that the compensation that is offered now by this government either will not be reduced or taken away or will actually improve their household budget at the end of the day? I am sure that Australians are smart enough to realise that, from buying toilet paper rolls to buying an apple or an orange juice, or from using their hair dryer to putting on the TV, all those items will go up in cost.
In relation to this ETS, we heard recently that President Obama, who is going to grace us with his presence in a few weeks time, is now backflipping fast on the idea of a US emissions trading scheme. So we alone of major nations will have an ETS if the bill is successful. Of course, I count on my colleagues in the Senate to ensure that it does not succeed. I refer to an article by Christian Kerr in the Weekend Australian of 6 February 2010:
Australia is looking increasingly isolated in the global community as Kevin Rudd presses on with his government’s emissions trading scheme.
US President Barack Obama admitted just two days ago he might have to abandon his proposal for emissions trading in favour of direct action in order to steer his carbon-cutting plans through the US Senate.
None of the world’s top five polluters—the US, China, Russia, India and Japan—has an ETS.
So what do we do? Good on us! We go out and say: ‘We’ve got to have an emissions trading scheme. Don’t worry about the US; they’re not important. Don’t worry about China. Don’t worry about India. They’re the great polluters. But we’ll save the world. We’ll save civilisation’—as the Prime Minister says. My time is fast running out, so I want to end on a quote from the Prime Minister when he was opposition leader. He made this point:
… 20 million people facing one of the great challenges of our civilisation and certainly of this country’s settled history.
That is what he said. (Time expired)
The contribution from the member for Ryan confirms that the coalition freak show is back in town, but I am pleased to again have the opportunity—
Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: I ask the member to withdraw that comment for the slur it places on me. I certainly do not consider myself to be someone having inherently freakish characteristics. I take great offence.
The point of order is understood. Whilst the reference was couched in terms of the broad, it did follow immediately on the reference to the member for Ryan and I think it would assist the House if the member for Newcastle withdrew.
I withdraw.
Thank you.
But I am pleased to again have the opportunity to debate the CPRS legislation with the opposition. It is the third time that I do so. This is not a debate, though, that can go on forever. Action does need to be taken. Yet still from the opposition we see chopping and changing. Since we took our policy to the 2007 election, we have had four different coalition leaders, each with a different climate change position. Two of these, though, to be fair, were similar to the CPRS the government puts before the House today in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and cognate bills. As the member for Wentworth detailed in the House on Monday, the Howard government, in its lead-up to the 2007 election, had a very similar ETS model to the one we debate here. The Australian people spoke very clearly about which model they preferred at that election, however, and they gave the Rudd government a mandate to tackle head on the issue of climate change.
The first opposition leader post Howard, Dr Nelson, was captured by the sceptics, the deniers and the dinosaurs in his party, and he blindly opposed our government’s ETS. But then along came Mr Turnbull. I never thought I would hear myself describe Malcolm Turnbull in this way, but he was a voice for reason in the Liberal Party. Along with his colleague Ian Macfarlane, he negotiated a workable piece of legislation with the Rudd government that could have seen Australia be one of the leading nations on the implementation of an ETS. I congratulate Malcolm Turnbull and Ian Macfarlane, along with our Minister Penny Wong and Minister Combet, for the bipartisan and genuine spirit of cooperation they displayed in those negotiations. I must also congratulate the member for Wentworth for the admirable stand he now takes in holding to his conscience and his rational understandings and for committing to crossing the floor to support the government on this legislation. Similarly, I put on record my congratulations to Senator Boyce and Senator Troeth in the upper house, who took a principled stance when this legislation last went to the Senate.
But history shows again and again that we can never trust the Liberal Party to bargain in good faith. They just do not understand it. We are now left with another leader and his great big con job—a climate change con, totally contradictory to the position they have negotiated in good faith through Malcolm Turnbull and Ian Macfarlane. The opposition’s new direct action plan does less, costs more and is not funded. It is a great big con job that will mean either higher taxes or cuts to services to the Australian people.
There are three problems with that policy: it does not work, it does not require anything of polluters and there is no cap on pollution. To quote Andrew Probyn of the West Australian:
… the dirtiest polluters, including coal-fired power stations, would be able to continue to increase their emissions, provided it was within a “business as usual” trajectory.
But I remind the House that the Stern report specifically rejected a ‘business as usual’ approach to emissions reduction.
The opposition’s big con slugs taxpayers instead of big polluters. In fact, it is not only going to increase tax; it is going to rob taxpayers blind. Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, has refused to rule out cutting funding to hospitals, schools or defence to pay for that unfunded $10 billion climate change con job, so just where is the money coming from? Who knows?
To top it all off, we have a tricky five per cent target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Do not believe it. The opposition’s five per cent 2020 target reduces greenhouse gases less than the government’s target because it is based on a cut from 1990 emission levels rather than the government’s 2000 level—a whole decade of emissions. The difference in the reduction by 2020 will be 310,000 fewer tonnes of carbon. To make up for the difference, of course, I guess we could always plant a few more trees.
The opposition proposes an emission reduction fund to support industry and business to act, but how much is it? What is it for? Who pays? We just do not know. The challenge, though, for the Leader of the Opposition and his finance spokesman, Barnaby Joyce—I have to say: Virginia Trioli, you were spot on—is to explain how they will pay for this climate change con job. Will they increase taxes? What services will they cut? How will they slug the Australian people to pay for this?
I must also, though, comment on the member for Paterson’s contribution to this debate—firstly, the one he made in the House last week. When speaking in the debate, he committed to a $20 million Hunter region hub for clean energy. He is about 10 years too late and, in particular, ignored the benefits that the Rudd government has brought about in my region. We have already established a centre of clean energy, and he knows that, but his attempt to jump on the bandwagon after 12 years of his government’s inaction is as big a con job as the direct action plan we now discuss.
But the member for Paterson was not satisfied with just one speech; he delivered another speech yesterday to throw his weight behind a 2005 report that claimed there would be a loss of 17,000 jobs in the Hunter if an ETS were introduced. This report, in particular, was a narrow report that assumed no other measures or programs to support employment and made no link between an ETS and job creation in a clean energy economy, the jobs that would be created as new technologies are employed to reduce emissions and the jobs that will result from investment in clean energy.
I would describe it as the ‘Chicken Little speech’—you know the one: the sky is falling—and also as, ‘Off with their heads!’ Whose heads? Apparently mine and those of my colleagues the member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon, and the member for Charlton, Greg Combet. Our crimes? Apparently we are part of a conspiracy to cause massive job losses in our region. Well, Bob Baldwin, I am very willing to stand on my record regarding employment and keeping Newcastle working, even during a global financial crisis, and I am very willing to stand on the record of the Rudd government in using responsible economic management to keep Newcastle and the nation working too.
So where have you been, Member for Paterson? It is 2010, and current figures show that Hunter employment is at 5.3 per cent, when the national average is 5.8 per cent. The Hunter Valley Research Foundation says that good policy, good business decisions and good fortune have helped the region to a sustained economic recovery. The Hunter’s economic performance has indeed, it says, ‘been extraordinary’. Peter Shinnick, chair of the Hunter Business Chamber, has said that thanks to the federal government’s tax cuts, social welfare cuts and stimulatory spending, combined with the decreasing inflationary pressures—in particular, petrol prices—consumer confidence in the Hunter has stayed strong. This has been the result, though, of more than $1.37 billion invested in Newcastle by the Rudd Labor government in just two years. As I said when it was revealed that my electorate of Newcastle had received the most out of any electorate in the country from the Jobs Fund program, I make no apology for that.
The member for Paterson then proceeded in his speech to call me an ‘icon of hypocrisy’, alleging that on one hand I call for and praise investment in rail and port infrastructure. Bob, not only do I call for it, I get it—$1 billion investment into the coal chain by the ARTC—and I will continue to meet regularly with our coal loader operators—Port Waratah Coal Services and the NCIG—and assist their engagement with the Rudd government to make sure their activities and issues are understood by this government and that genuine working relationships are established so that optimum benefits flow to Newcastle and to the Hunter region. The member for Paterson went on to say that, on the other hand, I condemn everything to do with coal powered energy. That is not true. It is just another con job, and that will not work—because, Mr Baldwin, I remind you that I am the granddaughter of a miner, a union man who took part in the Great Lockout at Rothbury. Coal is in my blood, and I have never, and will never, condemn its contribution to our economy and to the energy it produces.
In fact, as member for Newcastle, I have worked closely with the University of Newcastle to support their return to the clean coal CRC. And I have worked closely with the CSIRO energy flagship in my electorate to support their work in carbon capture and storage and their work with our energy generators to reduce carbon emissions from coal fired power stations. Mr Baldwin, I even went to America and met with the head of FutureGen, the great carbon capture and storage consortium, to learn more about clean coal technologies, as well as the US energy department and the US commercial and government equivalents of our CSIRO energy flagship. Bob, I also meet regularly with the Miners Federation to support our miners, and I meet with our mining company managers as well, so as to be able to represent their issues with my government. I am also a regular with HunterNet, our manufacturing cluster organisation, which has many members who rely upon the coal and power generation industries. Why would I do those things? It is because coal fired energy remains the cheapest base load power available to the world at this time.
The member for Paterson also alleges that I am prepared to just export our emissions overseas. No, that is not true either. But I am prepared to export our coal, our research and our technologies, because I have visited some of those developing nations and resource-poor nations that benefit from our coal, and I have seen the benefits that lift people out of poverty through access to cheap power generated by coal.
But perhaps the member for Paterson mistakes for hypocrisy my ability to build a clean energy agenda in Newcastle and the Hunter whilst at the same time supporting our coal economy. He just does not get it, does he? They are not mutually exclusive, and I am very proud of my record in doing just that. I remind him that we have seen $130 million invested by the Rudd government in just two years in Newcastle alone—$20 million for the Clean Energy Innovation Centre, $100 million for the Australian Solar Institute based in Newcastle, $5 million for CSIRO’s solarthermal research at Steel River and $2.3 million for renewable energy integration research with India, also at Steel River. Initiatives such as Newcastle City Council’s Together Today and the Energy Australia led bid for the federal government’s smart grid city program distinguish us as leaders in the clean energy agenda. I am very proud that the stakeholders work so well with me and my government to deliver these wonderful achievements and initiatives. I take this opportunity to point out that the national Clean Energy Innovation Centre has its website up and running at www.cleanenergyinnovation.net.au, and it is a wonderful resource for businesses trying to reduce their emissions and enter the clean energy economy.
Bob, supporting coal and clean energy are not mutually exclusive. Together they represent the path to energy security, employment growth and economic prosperity in Newcastle and the Hunter. But perhaps that is just too complex for the member for Paterson. After all, he has never shown any signs of building any future agendas with the good people of Paterson, just his usual vote buying with his big spend campaigns. That is why the member for Paterson will always be a marginal seat MP.
In his speech, the member for Paterson also mentioned Tomago Aluminium, a smelter in my electorate, and implied some sort of betrayal of them by my support for our ETS. I quote:
With … Tomago Aluminium in her electorate, her hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Rubbish! Even your own colleague Senator Boyce, who crossed the floor last time to support our ETS, said that as a manufacturer she knew that early adopters of new technologies and new approaches were always the winners in business, and that applies to Tomago Aluminium as well.
But I thank the member for Paterson, because it gives me the opportunity to praise the work of the CEO of Tomago Aluminium, Mr Andre Martel, who recently announced that he will be returning to Canada, with a new CEO to be appointed. I would like to put on the record what a pleasure it has been working with Andrew Martel and his organisation and assisting their access to our ministers so that their needs and their issues are well understood. I recall, too, a business dinner some years ago at which someone questioned the reality of climate change. It was Andre Martel who cautioned his colleagues then that they ignored climate change at their peril—that it was significant for their businesses and that they should include it as an important factor in their strategic plans, just as Tomago Aluminium has done for some time. I wish Andre Martel continuing success and thank him for the professional relationship we established.
I say to the member for Paterson: the coalition of old is clearly back. Do not let facts get in the way of your great big scaremongering and sledging campaign. Member for Paterson, Tony Abbott’s great big con job on climate change and your great big rant and attack on me and my hardworking colleagues just does not cut it—with me or with the people of Newcastle and the Hunter, who understand the importance of responding to climate change, who know that an emissions trading scheme is the most effective way to assist polluters to cut emissions, to compensate working families for any cost transfers and to give certainty to business to invest in the clean energy economy for the future. So, Member for Paterson, apparently your leader believes climate change is just crap—and from your speech yesterday it seems that you are up to your eyeballs in peddling exactly that.
In contrast to the opposition, the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme makes polluters pay for their pollution and thereby encourages them to invest in cleaner technologies. In fact, almost every other developed nation envisages some form of carbon price as a key plank of its policy. None currently relies, as does the opposition, solely on direct action. In particular, the European Union has an ETS that will cover about 45 per cent of emissions but uses regulation to drive emissions down in the transport and agriculture sectors. Japan has also proposed a cap-and-trade scheme or a carbon levy to meet a promised 25 per cent emissions reduction by 2020. Over 30 countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States and New Zealand, either have introduced or are preparing a CPRS.
The Rudd government’s market based scheme is the most cost-effective way of reducing emissions. I must say that when we are talking about hypocrisy there is some in the coalition not supporting a market based approach, one that gives incentives to business to set that market itself within a limited cap. I find that remarkable. Market based schemes are widely recognised as the best way to reduce carbon pollution. John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey—most of the mainstream members of the Liberal Party have all supported that approach.
The government’s responsible approach is based on the global scientific consensus, including the work of our own scientists from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. Climate change action is in the nation’s interest. As one of the hottest and driest countries on earth, our environment and our economy potentially will be hardest and fastest hit.
We have heard lots about the impact on household costs. The modelling shows about a one per cent increase, but our compensation plan—one which has been fully costed and modelled—means that 92 per cent of all households will receive assistance. The difference between the Rudd government and the opposition on climate change is simple. Our plan caps and reduces Australia’s carbon pollution for the first time ever. Abbott’s plan does not reduce pollution; in fact, taxpayers will be slugged with a $10 billion bill to see emissions grow, apparently, by 13 per cent by 2020. Our plan makes polluters pay for their carbon pollution while offering them assistance to manage that. Abbott’s plan lets polluters off scot-free while households pick up the bill. Our plan takes the money raised from the polluters and reallocates it as cash assistance to working families. Abbott’s plan does not deliver a single dollar in assistance to working families.
If coalition history is anything to go by, I can see that direct action plan rolled out only to the electorates that they need to win in an election. We remember their history with the Natural Heritage Trust and the Regional Partnerships. Those were rorted; they were only about direct action where they needed to buy votes.
We have taken direct action. We have taken early action. We are providing up to $200 million in 2009-10 through the Climate Change Action Fund to help industries, small business, community groups, workers and communities prepare for the introduction of the CPRS. This includes up to $20 million for business information packages, up to $100 million on energy efficiency strategies and up to $80 million on capital investment grants for businesses and community organisations.
Mr Abbott’s climate con job contains no such plan to assist community groups or households. Mr Abbott’s climate con job costs more, does less and is unfunded. Our policy is a policy that works. It makes polluters pay but still provides them support, and it helps working families. It provides businesses certainty so that they will invest in clean energy alternatives. It caps and reduces Australia’s carbon pollution for the first time ever. Abbott’s plan does not reduce pollution and it slugs taxpayers. Our plan makes those polluters pay; his plan lets them off scot-free. Our plan takes the money raised from the polluters and transfers it into cash assistance for working families; Abbott’s plan does not deliver a single dollar in assistance to working families. Those are the differences. It is time to embrace change and be part of the climate change solution. Climate change is not ‘crap’, Tony Abbott, and effective management of climate change could never happen under the coalition’s great big con job. I commend these bills to the House.
I am a little flabbergasted at the previous speech from the member for Newcastle. I hope she does not injure herself as she falls off that fence that she has been straddling for the last 20 minutes. I fear that poor old Grandad, who fought so hard for miners rights at Rothbury years ago, is turning over in his grave at the selling out of the coal miners of the Hunter Valley. Indeed, over the last 12 months I have had hundreds of emails from coal miners terribly concerned about the future of their jobs and the industry which they are so passionate about.
I have spoken twice previously in this House on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and for the sake of my constituents I am speaking on it again. I heard the speech from the member for Oxley about an hour ago, and he said that he has been watching people in this debate speak about things that they do not believe in and have no commitment to. I can tell you that I have a commitment to this issue. I believe this is probably the single biggest issue that we as a country need to deal with in our generation. If we do not get this right, our country in the near future, as well as in future generations, will be paying for this for years to come.
Since this legislation was first introduced, the Prime Minister has been getting some criticism that he has not being doing a very good job of explaining it. I do not think the Prime Minister does anything without carefully thinking it through. Being foolhardy and careless is not one of the Prime Minister’s weaknesses. The reason he has not done a very good job of explaining it is that the more he explains it the more devastating the effects on Australia become.
We have heard some fantastic presentations in this House, particularly from the members on the government side, about the effects of global warming, the reality of global warming, rising sea levels. I remember the member for Isaacs had half his electorate underwater at one stage. You will get no argument from me: climate change is a real issue. Whether it is going to be as dramatic as the member for Isaacs and the contribution from before Christmas from the member for Makin, just to name a couple, have claimed, remains to be seen; but we would be foolhardy to ignore that climate change is something that we need to address.
No-one from the government side has made that link, has stood up here and said, ‘You need to support the CPRS because this is how it is going to reduce the temperature of the globe.’ Not one person on that side has said, ‘This is why you need to support this bill.’ They have been very emotive about climate change, and they have been very derisive, claiming that those of us who want to dare challenge the great world leader in environment change, our Prime Minister, are deniers, dinosaurs and worse. Not one of them has defended their legislation. If they could explain to me how this legislation is going to reduce the temperature of the globe; how it is going to make it rain in the upper catchments of the Murray-Darling, so that we can return agriculture to full production; how it is not going to put the suburbs of Port Phillip under water, I would vote for it—I would support it. But they have not done that.
The other thing that is quite fascinating is that last year we had this build-up to the world conference in Copenhagen, and the Prime Minister got himself appointed as a Friend of the Chair—sort of like the hall monitor of Copenhagen. He might have got a little badge that said ‘prefect’ and got to buzz around. He changed his timetable so that he could be there with the President of the United States and could be in all the shots as our world leader in fixing the climate. Of course, Copenhagen was somewhat of a disappointment, I suspect, to the Prime Minister. From my own point of view, what happened at Copenhagen was not surprising.
But it is like Copenhagen never happened. I was in this House at 10.30 last Tuesday, the 2nd—I remember it very clearly—and the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change, Mr Combet, was introducing this bill into the House for the third time. And guess what that day was? It is not a big deal in Australia, but many of you will have seen that great movie Groundhog Day. Last Tuesday, 2 February was Groundhog Day. I had to pinch myself that I was not sitting on the set of some bizarre movie as the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change reintroduced this bill. It was like the world had not moved on. It was like the United States had not rejected a cap-and-trade scheme and had started speaking about direct action.
The member for Newcastle’s speech was a classic example of, ‘If we say something earnestly enough, and we say it often enough, it must be true.’ On the fact that this legislation would have a devastating effect on the members in her electorate—the members of the steel industry, the coal industry, the port industry—she just said that was not the case; therefore, it must not be the case! The member for Paterson was right to highlight the hypocrisy of her, and the government she is a part of, when they trumpeted in the Newcastle Herald photos of Minister Albanese and Prime Minister Rudd in their hardhats, opening new rail links and commissioning port facilities for the export of coal, an industry that this CPRS intends to tax to the hilt. How is the coal industry going to innovate? How are the electricity industry generators in the Hunter Valley, and the people the member for Newcastle represents who work in those generators, going to adapt to a lower carbon future if the top of their profits is taken off, is taxed?
We have heard a lot from the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change about how this tax is going to be redistributed to pensioners and low-income earners—and that, as a matter of fact, some people are going to be better off under this scheme, so it must be good: ‘We are going to save the environment and people are going to have more money in their pockets; it is just those evil polluters that will pay.’ Well, guess who the ‘evil polluters’ are? The evil polluters are those people who, when they wake up in the morning, turn on their lights to see what the time is. When they turn the tap on and the system comes into play and they have a hot shower—they are the evil polluters. When they get on the electric train and travel into the city to work, and use electricity, they are the evil polluters. The irony of that is that, if you get into your V8 Commodore and travel from Campbelltown to the city, Mr Rudd is going to compensate you. I think he is going to give you a cent more for your fuel, if you go in your car, but if you go on the electric train, that is taxed under the CPRS. So you will pay more to go on the electric train from Campbelltown to Sydney than you would if you drive your V8 Commodore! Where is the sense in that?
There was talk about compensating our pensioners, our elderly. In an aged-care facility in a medium-sized town in my electorate already the increase in electricity prices means that every bill they get has gone up by $3,000. The CPRS will probably put their electricity up by another $4,000 a month. Where is the compensation for that? Are they going to say, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Jones, your contribution to this country for the last 101 years has been magnificent but, because of the government’s CPRS, we’re going to restrict the use of your air conditioner between two and four o’clock in the afternoon’? In Coonabarabran, which is the place I am speaking about, in summertime it gets very hot. ‘But, Mrs Jones, I don’t care that you’re 101 and you’ve paid taxes all your life. You’re an evil polluter. You’re using electricity.’ Where, oh where, is the sense in that? But it is worse than that. There is no environmental impact, because the idea of the CPRS is to make people use less electricity. When you do not have an alternative, you either turn it off or you pay more. If you cannot afford to pay more, you have to turn it off.
The other thing is that a lot of jobs will be exported overseas. There is no greater example in my electorate than in the town of Kandos. In the redistribution of electoral boundaries, it is going to be in the seat of Hunter, and I wonder if the member for Hunter has as much care about the people of Kandos as I do as their present member. The town of Kandos has a cement plant. It employs between 110 and 120 people and it has been there since 1880-something. There are people in that plant who have worked there all their lives and they are the sixth or seventh generation to work in that plant. Under the CPRS, Mr Rudd has said, ‘We will give you a permit for 90 per cent of your emissions—but not all of your emissions, just the emissions in the baking process.’ To make cement, you mine the limestone and the shale, then you mix it all up and crush it up and you bake it using a coal-fired power station and you end up with something called clinker. The final stage of the process is that you grind the clinker up, and that gives you your cement. Mr Rudd said to the people of Kandos cement plant: ‘We’ll give you 90 per cent for the baking process.’ That equates to 30 per cent of the total emissions cost at that plant.
At the moment, the cost of producing cement in Kandos and the cost of importing it from China or Indonesia are about lineball. There is an advantage for the owners of this company because it is located in the central west of New South Wales and has handy access to the large construction areas in Western Sydney and access to western New South Wales. But with a 30 per cent increase in tax, when the competitors from China and Indonesia do not have that, guess what is going to happen. That plant is going to close and they will be importing either cement or clinker from China or Indonesia into Port Botany. That is the reality of it. That town of Kandos has one major employer. There are 1,400 people and one major employer. The town has an excellent high school and a wonderful primary school, and a lot of the other jobs—contractors, truck drivers and whatever—spin off from that plant. If it closes down, a lot of the small businesses—the supermarket, the local butcher, the newsagent, the garage—will be unviable. So the town of Kandos is in real trouble.
When the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change stands up here and says that low-income earners are going to be better off under this scheme, can he explain how a cement worker who is currently on about $60,000 or $70,000 a year and is going to go on unemployment benefits is better off? Has he managed to explain that? It is not just my cement plant in Kandos. Professor Garnaut himself said, in the early work done for this government in the lead-up to this policy, that 126,000 jobs will be removed from regional Australia. If anyone wonders why we as the National Party came out early on in opposition to this scheme, it is because we were the sacrificial lambs. Regional Australia was going to pay for this scheme. The people in the leafy suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne may get a pang of conscience, trade the Volvo in and buy a Prius. Maybe they will tick the green square the next time they go to Fiji for holidays and pay a bit more for their airline ticket, or tick the box on their power bill and get some poor fellow in the hills at Crookwell to plant a few trees to ease their conscience when they turn on their hot-water system or their jacuzzi, but they do not see themselves changing their lifestyle. Maybe if they work in the banking sector, the finance sector or a large trading house they think, ‘There’s a bob to be made out of this!’
Who is going to pay? The people of the regional Australia, the farmers. We had a great discussion last year about removing agriculture from this legislation, but they were talking about removing some of the emissions of agriculture and the ability to claim any of the sequestration people can do. But look at the inputs into agriculture: fuel, farm chemicals based on petroleum and fertilisers based on petroleum. So the people of rural Australia, the farmers, the people that feed Australia and 50 million other people around the world, are going to be hit, but their counterparts overseas will not be. Oh, this is a wonderful idea!
What I find astounding as I sit here and listen to the members on the other side who represent regional Australia is how they just stand here and sell out their constituencies. As the Prime Minister stands at the dispatch box at question time and talks about the CPRS and saving the world, they nod and smile in unison behind him as they sell out the people that put them here. It is worse: I have not heard the member for Maribyrnong, that great champion of the Australian Workers Union—whose membership goes right across regional Australia, in agriculture, mining and trucking—come in here and defend this scheme. You can look at the record. I would be surprised if he has. Those opposite have sold out the people that put them here. Put the member for Maribyrnong in front of a mine shaft with a TV crew and he goes like a thrashing machine. Put him in here, where he has to defend a scheme that is going to affect the livelihoods of the people who put him here, and he is silent. The sell-out of the people on that side of the House has been absolutely breathtaking.
We have a debate coming up about direct action versus the CPRS. Before I came into this place, I was involved in agriculture. I understand the enormous capacity of Australian soils to store carbon. It is not a simple process. Despite the rhetoric from that side, Australian farmers are not simple folk. They do not need saving from themselves. The truth be known, Australian farmers are leading the world in their environmental practices. This is an area close to me. In the late 1980s, my brothers and I were doing experimental work with the New South Wales Department of Agriculture in zero-till farming. The carbon level in those soils has grown exponentially over the last 20 or 30 years—not because they were trying to harvest carbon, but because carbon sequestration in the soil goes hand in hand with the ability of a soil to store water. In agriculture in Australia, storing water is what you need to do to grow the crops. We need to draw on that. We need to let these people in rural Australia who have been doing their bit to improve the environment continue to do so. We need to recognise it, encourage them and reward them.
This debate has become one of rhetoric versus practicalities. The people of Australia are waking up. They are waking up to the facts. I will tell you how it happened in the couple of minutes that I have left. They did a poll. Eighty per cent of Australians want to do something about the environment. That is true. We all do. So the Labor Party said: ‘Let’s give ’em something. We won’t go too much into the detail; we’ll just give ’em something. We won’t explain too much about what it is, but we’ll tell ’em it’s good for them.’ What they have done is sold out the people of Australia. They have sold them down the drain. They are making them uncompetitive with the rest of the world for the sake of votes. They have been caught out. This piece of legislation, deservedly, is a dead duck and it should be treated as such.
I rise once more to give more support to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and the related bills, which will put in place the government’s plan to reduce carbon emissions and transition Australia’s economy to a low-carbon future. The Labor Party went to the last election with a promise to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions and to do that by way of an emissions trading scheme. This legislation honours that promise. We made that commitment based on the scientific evidence that the world is warming and that Australia is one of the countries most at risk from continued climate change. We made that commitment based on economic advice that an emissions trading scheme is the lowest cost way to achieve reductions in carbon emissions. The opposition can pretend otherwise, but there is no zero-cost way to achieve the changes in behaviour and the structural changes in our economy and our way of life that are needed to limit the rise in temperatures. The question is: how do we pay for the change that is needed?
The government thinks the big polluters should do their bit while households are protected from the extra costs that might flow through to them from the scheme. The opposition, on the other hand, thinks that the big polluters should keep doing whatever they like and the cost of reducing emissions should be picked up by taxpayers. Taxpayers will be paying for an opposition scheme that does not even promise to reduce carbon emissions. They might even be paying for emissions to rise. That is opposition value for money for you. I believe that Senator Joyce must have come up with that one.
Our scheme puts a cap on the amount of carbon dioxide allowed to be produced in Australia each year and requires the biggest polluters to buy permits for the amount of carbon dioxide that they each produce. The supply of permits prescribed by the government and the demand for permits from those big polluters creates a market and therefore a price per tonne of carbon. There will therefore be a carbon price built into the economy which will create an incentive to reduce carbon and a penalty for producing carbon. A carbon price will influence investment decisions and drive the transition to a lower carbon intensive economy through greater energy efficiency, renewable energy and other technologies for reducing carbon, such as carbon capture and storage.
In our scheme, the revenue collected from polluters buying permits will go back to households and in some cases to industry by way of assistance and adjustment measures. Low- and most middle-income households will receive direct financial assistance out of the revenue from the sale of permits to big polluters. Households will receive money to cover the extra costs of electricity and other goods and services that may be passed on to them as a result of the CPRS. The CPRS is a transparent market mechanism that will provide business with the certainty that they need right now to start making investment decisions that will shape our country for the next 20 to 50 years.
On the other hand, the opposition has come up with a grab bag of initiatives that may or may not reduce emissions at a huge cost to the taxpayer, and business does not know what it will mean for them from one year to the next. There will be a lucky dip for well-connected businesses that can get the ear of the minister and get grants for their projects if they are in the right marginal seats. We saw how that worked under the previous Liberal and National government with Regional Partnerships and the Water Initiative. Other businesses will be subject to penalties the opposition cannot even quantify.
The opposition is having us on. This is a political fix for the opposition, not a rational piece of policy making in an area of vital importance to Australia’s future. Once upon a time, the opposition did have a credible and rational plan to address climate change. It is this plan that we are debating now. These bills, amended since the last time that they were debated in this House, are to some degree the opposition’s plan. The bills incorporate the sensible and responsible amendments negotiated between the government and the opposition last year—things like the dedicated funding available to meat processors like Teys Brothers and Swift in Rockhampton or Borthwicks at Bakers Creek to support the development and deployment of technologies to reduce emissions from their waste water. There will also be assistance to convert their operations from coal to natural gas or perhaps even to move to co-generation.
The amendments also include things like the exclusion of agriculture from any liability under an emissions trading scheme while at the same time allowing farmers to earn credits for the carbon stored on their properties or carbon abated as a result of their farming practices. There is more assistance to the gassiest coalmines and measures to support the expansion of electricity generation from waste coalmine gas, a growing industry in my electorate. These are sensible and responsible amendments. ‘Sensible’ and ‘responsible’ are two words no longer associated with the Liberal Party and the National Party.
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 Capricornia will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.
I inform the House that the Minister for Sport and Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth will be absent from question time today as she is in Brisbane representing the government at the launch of the Sporting Chance program Achieving Results through Indigenous Education. The Minister for Health and Ageing will answer questions on sport and the Deputy Prime Minister will answer questions on early childhood education, child care and youth.
My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. Will the minister confirm that the CEO of the peak body representing over 5,000 electrical and communications contractors, the National Electrical and Communications Association, or NECA, wrote to him in March last year and warned, whilst thermal insulation in ceilings is a relatively inexpensive way of reducing energy consumption in residential premises:
There are inherent dangers when installed inappropriately near electrical equipment and cables.
Minister, why have you waited for almost 12 months to acknowledge the electrical and fire risk facing homeowners and installers with foil insulation, and why have you only just now responded to a matter on which we have sought a response previously?
I can confirm that correspondence, as I can confirm a series of processes that were underway in relation to both our discussions with the insulation industry as a whole and advice that I received from my department as to the most appropriate set of guidelines to deliver safe and effective home insulation to the people of Australia. Subsequent to that correspondence I have met with industry and agreed that a number of measures, as were determined to be appropriate, be brought into place in relation to the guidelines. I made a number of decisions in respect of that, and I have made another decision today.
In November, both on the advice of the department and following discussions with the industry, electrical trades groups and others, we banned the use of metal fasteners when installing insulation foil in ceilings. That is because if these metal fasteners are used there is the potential for conductivity to take place in the ceiling. That posed an unnecessary risk and on that basis I made that decision to ban metal fasteners—a decision that was acknowledged by all those portions of the insulation industry at the time. As well as that, I have made a decision to ensure that there is a mandatory risk assessment for ceiling insulation so that every installer ascertains the level of risk prior to actually beginning that insulation task. Today I can announce that every home that has foil insulation installed under the government’s Home Insulation Program will undergo an electrical safety inspection as a consequence of the initial targeted audit of foil insulation in Queensland homes in particular. This is because safety is an absolute priority for this government. It always has been, and decisions I have made in the past reflect that—as does the decision I have made today.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the fiscal challenges facing governments around the world? Have there been any recent comments on Australia’s sovereign debt position?
I thank the honourable member for her question because it goes to the state of the economy, the future of the Australian economy and this government’s determination to build a stronger economy, protecting Australian jobs and, through protecting hundreds and thousands of Australian jobs, supporting working families. On Friday a statement on monetary policy was released by the RBA. The bank emphasised that the recovery in advanced economies is likely to remain subdued for some time and that significant uncertainties remain. Among those uncertainties, the RBA noted the ongoing fiscal challenges facing some nations. In particular, the RBA noted fiscal challenges facing the government of Greece. In Greece, net debt will be 86 per cent of GDP in 2009, increasing to 95 per cent of GDP in 2010. The Greek government estimates their budget deficit to be 12.7 per cent of GDP in 2009. A significant fiscal crisis in Greece would jeopardise confidence in some parts of the wider European economy and set back the global economic recovery. That is why these are such sensitive matters for us all.
It is important to note, therefore, the Greek government’s statement concerning its stability program that aims to reduce its budget deficit to 2.8 per cent of GDP by 2012. This plan has been endorsed by both the European Central Bank and the European Commission. On the question of indebtedness around the world, US debt is predicted to rise from 58 per cent of GDP in 2009 to 85 per cent of GDP by 2014; in the UK it is predicted to rise from 62 per cent of GDP in 2009 to 92 per cent of GDP in 2014; and in Japan it is expected to rise from 105 per cent of GDP in 2009 to 143.5 per cent of GDP in 2014. Across all the major advanced economies, net debt will increase from 69.5 per cent of GDP in 2009 to around 93 per cent of GDP in 2014.
It is important at this juncture to note the absolute contrast with Australia, because net debt peaks as a percentage of GDP in 2013-14 at 9.6 per cent of GDP. This is around one-tenth of the average of the major advanced economies. As the director of Fitch’s Asian sovereign ratings said today, there are concerns in the market right now with other European nations regarding their debt positions, but Australia’s sovereign has a very good debt position indeed. That is where we stand. That is the fragility of international debt markets at the present because of perceptions of sovereign risk in certain European countries.
Enter into this equation the statements yesterday by the alternative finance minister of Australia, Senator Joyce—reckless and risky in the extreme. His statement was:
We are getting to a point where we—
Australia—
can’t repay it …
I draw to the attention of the House statements from Joshua Williamson, of Citigroup, yesterday, who described Senator Joyce’s comments as incredible. In fact, that is one of a large number of responses from the economic and financial marketplace. He said:
We have an excellent debt to GDP position which is also the envy of the industrialised world. And we are being distinguished by international investors as an excellent credit risk.
When asked specifically about Senator Joyce’s remarks, he also said:
… the market is very sensitive to negative information at the moment. That has to do with credit availability whether it be at a corporate or a sovereign level.
He went on to say:
We’ve also got the situation … of certain European states that are having legitimate difficulties with the ability to rein in their deficits and their debts.
When asked what he made of Senator Joyce’s remarks and whether they were irresponsible, the representative of Citigroup said they were ‘absolutely’ irresponsible. That is where we have the statements by Senator Joyce and the response to them from the marketplace.
It is not the first time Senator Joyce has opened his mouth on this. He has made similar remarks about the sovereign debts of the various states of Australia and the sovereign debt of the United States of America, the largest economy in the world, where he said that they were at risk of general default, resulting in turn in global ‘economic Armageddon’. What has happened in response to this? In this morning’s Age, we have the shadow Treasurer stepping up to the plate and saying boldly that in fact there is ‘no danger’ of Australia defaulting on its debt—thank you, Joe—and, on top of that:
I—
Joe Hockey—
have no doubt Australia has the ability to repay sovereign debt …
Thus spake the shadow Treasurer of Australia last night as he sought to clean up the wreckage left by Senator Joyce. But, come this morning, he is asked what his position is in relation to Senator Joyce, his fellow economic frontbencher of the coalition: ‘Do you have confidence in Barnaby Joyce?’ He replies:
I have absolute confidence in Barnaby.
So in the Age he says he fundamentally repudiates what Senator Joyce has to say on sovereign debt, and on the ABC this morning he says he has full confidence in the shadow minister and presumably that which he says. Is it any wonder we find it a bit hard to work it all out?
But the final word on this must go to the Leader of the Opposition himself. The Leader of the Opposition, when asked whether he backs or does not back Senator Joyce, was all over the place this morning. Four times he was asked whether he would back Senator Joyce as shadow finance minister come the next election:
QUESTION: You won’t be moving Barnaby Joyce out of the Finance portfolio before the election?
The response from Tony straight-talk Abbott was:
Look, I have great confidence in my team. I have great confidence in my team. I think they’re … doing a terrific job.
The next question was:
Will he be there at the next election as Finance spokesman?
That is the question: will Senator Joyce be there as finance spokesman. Straight-talking Tony says:
… I have great confidence in my team …
Next question: what about him?
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The Prime Minister is a serial offender in this regard. He should refer to members by their title or by their seat, and I ask that he not do it again.
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. The Prime Minister will refer to members by their parliamentary titles.
That was the third time that the straight-talking Leader of the Opposition was asked whether he would back Senator Joyce as the finance spokesman for the coalition at the next election. And then, the fourth time he was asked, ‘Can you guarantee Barnaby’s place?’ he said, ‘Look, I, me, this is the team I will take to the next election.’ That was No. 4. Talk about the ring of confidence and all of that! But I presume that what we have here is the Leader of the Opposition backing in Barnaby Joyce, responsible global economic statesman personified.
What we have here is capital-R risk: risk represented in the Leader of the Opposition, who says he has no interest in economics; risk in the judgment of the Leader of the Opposition in appointing Senator Joyce to this position; and risk to the economy writ large. We know that Senator Joyce is for the high jump. It is plain from the statements by the Leader of the Opposition this morning that he is going to be cut down as soon as we get out of this place, but once that happens—can I just say—what lies very deeply imprinted in the minds of the Australian public is: what could have possessed the Leader of the Opposition to have made Senator Joyce a member of the crack economic team of the alternative government of Australia? In the history of this parliament, they have together the worst economic frontbench that an opposition has ever served up. It stands for all to see.
My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. Given that the peak industry body representing electrical and communications contractors took the extraordinary step of alerting him in writing about the fire and electrical dangers surrounding the government’s Home Insulation Program, why did it take seven weeks for one of his departmental officials to bother replying? Given the serious and highly credible nature of this warning, what advice was requested by the minister or his office from officials on this issue? What immediate action did the minister take then to ensure that the safety warnings were heeded, and what other safety warnings did the minister or his department receive from industry groups? Would the minister make a full statement to this House about what warnings he received, when he received them, what action he took and when he took it?
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I am pleased to advise the Leader of the Opposition, through you, Mr Speaker, about the consultation process that has been a central feature of this program and continues to be so. I can advise the House that at a roundtable in February 2009 industry expressed a desire for a national unit of training to be developed for installers of insulation, recognising that this is an industry that previously had no dedicated training program. My department responded to this advice and contracted the Construction and Property Services Industry Skills Council, the peak training body for the industry, in consultation with DEEWR, to develop training materials for the safe and effective rollout of insulation in accordance with the Australian standards and as required under the guidelines.
Following that, CPSISC—I beg your pardon, there are many acronyms here—the Construction and Property Services Industry Skills Council, consulted widely with relevant industry organisations, including the insulation sector, the CFMEU, the MBA and the Housing Industry Association—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! I take it by the questions that there is some interest in this subject; it is a serious matter. By the tone of interjections there is an allusion as to why these things are serious. I would think, therefore, that the minister should be heard in silence.
In addition, the industry skills council developed a pocketbook to support the training package, and that pocketbook warns explicitly of the dangers of electricity—that stapling live wires to joists can be life threatening—and that advice from a licensed electrical contractor should be sought. As I have consistently said, I will not hesitate to boost training requirements, safety standards and compliance measures under this program. That is what I have done today and that is what I did last year as well in order to have a program that meets the Australian standards, or exceeds them, as it does, and fully conforms to the advice that we have received and that I have received from my department in this matter. I am further in a position—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question asked whether the minister would make a full statement to the House detailing all warnings, all communications, all contact and all responses. Will the minister make that statement to the House?
The minister is responding to the question.
Mr Speaker—
If this list I have is the full list, he is out of a job!
The member for Flinders is warned.
In the real-time political environment which we inhabit now I am very pleased to additionally be able to advise the House in response to the question which the honourable member asked me. I have a copy of the correspondence here from Mr James Tinslay, the CEO of the National Electrical and Communications Association, and a response to that letter from the Assistant Secretary of the Home Energy Branch, who was asked to reply on the minister’s behalf, thanking him for the letter, apologising for the delay in replying and pointing out that the guidelines for the Energy Efficient Homes Package clearly state that the insulation installer must follow the minimum wiring and clearance standard distances, as stated in clause 4.5.2.3 and figure 4.7 of the AS/NZS 3000:2007, the Australian and New Zealand standard. The department’s response to Mr Tinslay was clear that the guidelines refer to the wiring and minimum clearance distances as stated in those Australian and New Zealand standards and that a development program was in place for training based on existing units. This correspondence also advised NECA that they would be added to the stakeholder register as an organisation that could provide advice, consultation and information. Subsequent to that they have participated in the consultation roundtables that I continue to hold.
Ms Speaker, I ask the minister to table the documents from which he was quoting.
Was the minister quoting from documents?
I table the letter in question as the document I have spoken to.
Mr Abbott interjecting
Order! Were there other documents that the minister was quoting from?
That is the letter I was quoting from and that is the document in question.
Mr Speaker, he quoted from a letter from the electrical contractors. I would ask him to table that. Then he quoted from a letter from his department, which he has tabled, and I thank him for that. But I would ask him to table the letter from the electrical contractors from which he quoted in his answer.
Order! I will do this as the practice of the House. Was that minister quoting from other documents?
Opposition members—Yes.
No, Mr Speaker.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Clearly the minister was quoting from other documents because the letter was passed to him midway through his answer.
I have asked the minister whether he was quoting from other documents. He quoted from a document that he says he has tabled. Whether there are other documents has been raised as a question and I have asked the minister. The minister has indicated that he was not. This is the way in which these matters have been handled in the past.
My question is to the Treasurer. What important economic data has been released today? Has there been any recent commentary about the economic recovery?
I thank the member for Hasluck for her question. Today we have had the Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index, and today’s data shows that consumer confidence fell modestly in February—down 2.6 per cent from the previous month. Westpac’s chief economist, Bill Evans, noted that ‘adverse developments in the global economy’ are likely to have weighed on sentiment. Notwithstanding this modest fall, we are encouraged that consumer confidence remains high and is still 36.4 per cent higher than it was a year ago. The data today shows that, while we can be confident in Australia’s economic recovery, we have no cause for complacency.
Of course, maintaining confidence in recovery is very important. It is important that our political leaders work hard to build confidence in our economy and not be out there talking down the economy. We still have a fragile global economy, and it is important that political leaders do not make risky and irresponsible statements that could jeopardise our recovery and put Australian jobs at risk. Today we have seen some more of the serial sloppiness from the economic team on the other side. In fact, they have had a shocker of a week—an absolute shocker. Today, the shadow Treasurer had to slap down the shadow finance minister. But also we have seen the risky behaviour of the shadow Treasurer, rushing out to claim that interest rates are on the rise and to misrepresent the statements of the Reserve Bank. The shadow Treasurer went out last night, all guns blazing, claiming there had been a speech by the Governor of the Reserve Bank that claimed that rates were going up because of the government’s fiscal policy. This was a complete misrepresentation last night by the shadow Treasurer, because what does this paper say? On page 1 it says this:
For local readers, we emphasise that the paper is not intended to provide any particular message about current issues for monetary policy in Australia.
Mr Hockey interjecting
The member for North Sydney is warned!
So sloppy is our Joe that he had not even read that message. But, of course, it gets worse today, because he goes out and continues to misrepresent what the Reserve Bank governor said. Today it is plain that the Reserve Bank governor was not saying what the shadow Treasurer said he was saying. The shadow Treasurer has continued to insist that he was saying that. This is what the Governor of the Reserve Bank had to say about fiscal policy and about the state of our national books on 28 September 2009:
There is not much argument that the state of the government accounts in this country is just so superior to virtually anybody with whom we would want to compare.
That was in the Senate committee inquiring into the stimulus. If those opposite had their way, this country would be in recession right now. The shadow Treasurer is an embarrassment to all of those who sit opposite. He is a bit like parachute pants—popular for a while but nobody would be seen in them!
Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table a map of the world that actually shows Australia on it—the same Australia that you, Treasurer, claim is excluded from—
The member will resume his seat. Is leave granted?
Mr Speaker, I seek clarity: is that a serious suggestion?
Order! Leave is not granted.
Mr Billson interjecting
The member for Dunkley is warned.
My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. I refer the minister to an email from 25 August last year from the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors, the ABSA, which is the accreditor of green assessors, urging his department at that time to urgently cap accreditor numbers to prevent further overloading and protect the work available to assessors. Will the minister accept responsibility for the impact of this massive oversupply of assessors on people like Robert from Cleveland in my electorate of Bowman, who has seen his livelihood destroyed and can never hope to recoup a return on the thousands of dollars he has invested in becoming an assessor? Why should the public have any confidence in this minister, given his gross incompetence displayed in the managing of his responsibilities?
I thank the honourable member for his question—in fact, I welcome it—because it gives me an opportunity to take the House and those listening through the process of assessment that assessors go through in terms of their accreditation, an assessment journey between wanting to become an assessor and being contracted to do work through the government. The fact is that the decision to embark on the journey of becoming an assessor is an individual decision that is taken by assessors through training organisations and through the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors. It is not a decision that involves a relationship between the government and the assessor. I welcome the fact that a number of people have expressed great interest in becoming assessors under this program because this is a good program. Yes, issues have been raised which I will address—I am absolutely clear about that—but this is the first time that we have provided Australians with the opportunity to build a career path for themselves which centres on providing information to householders about what they can do in their homes by way of energy efficiency measures and the like. The situation in relation to assessors is a matter between the assessors and the body that is required to accredit those assessors, not between the government and the assessors.
An additional point is that in this program we did not set out to limit the number of assessors. When it was drawn to my attention that there was a large number of assessors seeking to be accredited under the program and when ABSA brought forward the proposal for a moratorium on assessors being accredited, we did not oppose that moratorium. I think it is worth pointing out that ABSA communicated to all those potential assessors, by email and other means, offering them the opportunity not to continue with their accreditation and to have a refund of their application fee if they desired to take that course of action. Notwithstanding that the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors had said to its cohort of potential assessors, ‘We have large numbers of assessors coming through the system; do you want to continue with your training or not, given that we are going to impose a moratorium?’ many of them took the decision to continue.
One of the reasons for that is that there are a number of other programs that this government delivers and that state governments deliver that enable sustainability assessors to make an income and to make a living. I am very confident that, as we see increased energy efficiency standards become part of the planning code over time, as we see additional requirements and an awareness of the need—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! I say to the member for Sturt: less talk, talk, talk from him.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I have asked a specific question about the impact of delays. We are not interested in an answer about what he did two weeks ago. We would like to know how his actions and delays have affected—
The member for Bowman will resume his seat. That is not a point of order. When the question goes to matters of confidence in the minister, the minister has a long bow to use. The minister is responding to the question.
The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts has provided additional information on the rollout of the program to provide the necessary information for assessors who are accredited and those who are contemplating assessment, who are considering becoming an accredited assessor, to understand how this program is being rolled out. We have delivered over 140,000 assessments. In the period through December, when the moratorium was proposed by the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors, we saw significant numbers of assessments take place. It is the case that the increased demand on the department by way of contact did result in delays. Additional resources have been identified to ensure that those delays are kept to a minimum. But, in terms of the decision that people take to become an assessor under this program, our commitment to deliver 360,000 household assessments remains and we will have a workforce in place that is trained to do that job.
My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Why is it important to maintain clarity and consistency in approaches to fiscal policy?
I thank the member for Longman for his question. It is very important that approaches to fiscal policy are conducted with clarity and consistency. It is obviously vital for government to behave in a clear and consistent manner with respect to fiscal policy, but it is also important for the alternative government to do so. Unfortunately, in recent times we have not seen a great deal of either clarity or consistency from the opposition on issues associated with fiscal policy. In fact, it now seems that the government is almost confronted with two oppositions that more often than not disagree with each other more than they do with the government. On the one hand, we have the Leader of the Opposition almost on a daily basis putting out big spending promises and we have the shadow finance minister, Senator Joyce, again on a daily basis, making wild statements and claims that the Australian government might default on its debts, the United States government might default on its debts and so forth. On the other hand, we have the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, who seems only to be wheeled out now to repudiate statements made by Senator Joyce. We do not see the shadow Treasurer very often, but every now and then he has to reassure the Australian people that, notwithstanding the litany of big spending commitments being made by his leader, the Liberal Party actually believes in cutting government spending, not increasing it.
Yesterday Senator Joyce said that Australia was at risk of defaulting on its debt. On the doors today his statements were unequivocally supported by the member for Tangney and Senator Williams from the opposition. Yet today in the Age the member for North Sydney was quoted as saying:
I have no doubt that Australia has the ability to repay sovereign debt. It is in no danger of defaulting on its debt.
It appeared this morning that Senator Joyce was slightly getting the message, starting to inch his way back to planet Earth but just starting, when on NewsRadio he said, ‘Yea, well, it’s not going to happen tomorrow.’ It is good news for Australian investors that the threatened default is not going to happen tomorrow—thank you, Senator Joyce! This morning on ABC radio the member for North Sydney was asked, as the Prime Minister indicated, if he had absolute confidence in Senator Joyce. His response was very interesting and I read from the transcript:
Lyndal Curtis: So you have complete confidence in Senator Joyce being a partner in economic portfolios?
Joe Hockey: I have absolutely no confidence in Lindsay Tanner who is the clear definition of a Labor minister who has failed as finance minister.
As the Prime Minister did indicate, the second time around when the member for North Sydney was asked again, ‘And complete confidence in Senator Joyce?’ he said:
I have absolute confidence in Barnaby.
It took him two times. The wheels were turning in his head and he suddenly thought: ‘Whoops! I’d better actually say I have confidence in Senator Joyce.’ It had to be squeezed out of him. It was a painful process. It had to be squeezed out of him.
I understand that watching this circus is entertaining and diverting for many people, but you can get a real sense of how a prospective government is going to govern and how it is going to behave in government by watching how it behaves in opposition. If this circus were occurring in government, there would be absolute mayhem. Investors would be spooked. Our No. 1 ally would be demanding an explanation for the finance minister of this country announcing it was about to default. Australian jobs would be threatened and we would have a bitterly divided government in a period of great global challenge. By appointing Senator Joyce as shadow finance minister, by allowing this circus of great division and disunity to continue, by indicating no interest whatsoever in economic issues, the Leader of the Opposition shows that he is a giant risk to the Australian economy and that he is not worthy of the trust of the Australian people to manage our economy and our finances.
Mr Speaker, I would ask you to ask the minister for finance to table those comments Joe Hockey had to say about him being thoroughly incompetent. That would be good.
The member for Dickson will resume his seat. The only provision is that the minister has been asked to table a public document that he has quoted from. Was the member quoting from documents?
Yes, I was, Mr Speaker.
Are the documents confidential?
No, they are not. I am happy to table the display of disunity on the part of the opposition.
My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. I refer the minister for finance—
Government members interjecting—
They think it is a laughing matter—typical Labor with money. I refer the minister for finance to the reported $850 million blow-out in the solar panel rebate program. Given that the five-year, $150 million solar panel program has blown out to over $1 billion in just 18 months, how is this blow-out going to be funded?
The program that the member for North Sydney refers to was in fact a program of the Howard government inherited by the current Rudd government. Shortly prior to the election in 2007, the amount of the rebate involved was in fact doubled by the Howard government, and that in a sense has been the core reason why the program has blown out. The government has included within its budget calculations provision for the cost of the additional expense—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The minister for finance will resume his seat. The question having been asked, the question having been in order—
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! The minister for finance is responding to the question. I would hope the House’s attention span is greater than that of those who are down in the childcare centre.
This expenditure, like other expenditures which the government has committed to, is in fact provided for in the budget. Unlike many of the commitments that the Leader of the Opposition has been making in recent times, there are savings to cover this expenditure and other expenditures. There is a document called the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which I would recommend to the dwindling band of fiscally and economically literate members of the opposition. It would be an interesting exercise for them to have a look at some budget papers from time to time.
It is also important to note that, as a result of these changes in this program, the government has shifted its mechanism for subsidising householders putting solar panels on their roofs to the renewable energy target mechanism. So there is now a different system in place to enable what is otherwise a very worthwhile objective to be pursued. But again I think it is worth noting that the shadow Treasurer and the Leader of the Opposition, in pursuing—
Mr Speaker—
You are not really going to raise relevance, are you? You have got to be joking.
The minister will resume his seat. The member for North Sydney on a point of order?
I asked the question: how is the blow-out going to be funded?
The member for North Sydney will resume his seat. The minister is responding to the question.
The person who has asked the question of how this is going to be funded is somebody who presided over opposition finances where we had commitments to reduce fuel excise by 5c a litre, increase the pension, reintroduce the Investing in Our Schools Program, give a commitment to further capital gains tax relief for small business, $3.3 billion on a climate change policy that is uncosted, $3 billion of extra money for the Murray-Darling Basin and now an expanded parental leave policy—none of which has been funded by a single saving—
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. If he cannot answer where it is going to be funded, he should sit down.
The member for Menzies will resume his seat. The minister is responding to the question.
The government’s position with respect to spending and savings is very clear and has been outlined by both me and the Treasurer in this parliament on a number of occasions—that is, new spending will be offset by savings, and spending will not be increased beyond two per cent in real terms once the growth rate in this economy goes beyond three per cent. And for an opposition that is engaged in a giant, unfunded spendathon, with a daily set of new billions of dollars worth of commitments that have no savings to back them up, to suggest that the government has a problem on this front is the absolute epitome of hypocrisy. The country demands sound economic management. The Abbott opposition has abandoned its core supporters and is a risk to the future prosperity of this nation. It has no idea of fiscal management and it would be a great threat to the future of the Australian economy.
My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. How is the government investing in the future of the national health system and are there any impediments to this investment continuing?
I thank the member for Franklin for that question, particularly as she and the Prime Minister have just announced recently in Hobart an extra investment of $3½ million in the Royal Hobart Hospital emergency department as part of the $750 million investment in emergency departments. I know that, similarly, the member for Braddon was pleased when $3.7 million of that money was earmarked to be spent at the North West Regional Hospital in Burnie.
We of course are investing more in health than any other government. At the same time we know that health costs are rising, so we do need to take action to protect the long-term sustainability of the health budget and to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely and fairly. We have invested an extra $20 billion through the healthcare agreement, because we could see patients suffering after the Howard government starved public hospitals of funds for many years.
I am asked also if there is a risk to these investments. There certainly is not any risk from our government. We are absolutely determined to invest in health, and our determination is unwavering. The same cannot be said, however, for those opposite. The shadow Treasurer, for example, is on the record as saying that he would not have invested this money in health, telling the Australian just after COAG that he would not have made the generous $15.1 billion Council of Australian Governments deal. The shadow finance minister has refused to rule out any health cuts. This morning the Leader of the Opposition finally got around to admitting that he had cut money from the health budget. I have to tell you, though, that the Leader of the Opposition did not want to actually call it a cut but he did admit it. I want to read, for the benefit of the House, what the Leader of the Opposition said on 2GB this morning, because, for those of you who missed the interview, it was a real ripper and does need to be recorded. I quote from the Leader of the Opposition:
Um, the forward estimates were reduced by a billion dollars.
Was that money going to public hospitals ever reduced?
No, it was not, but the rate of growth, ah, of funding, was decreased and that is why Kevin Rudd keeps repeating that he’s ripped a billion dollars out of health. I did not rip a billion dollars out of health. Um, the rate of growth just slowed somewhat.
So this is straight-talking Tony for you. I think it must be special code for people who find economics boring—a cut here, a cut there—but I suppose it is all the same to the Liberal Party. What the budget papers make absolutely clear is that hundreds of millions of dollars appeared with a minus in front of them, and pretty clearly that is what old fashioned economists, like Peter Costello, called a budget cut. Even if the Leader of the Opposition wants to call it just a ‘ah, funding decrease’ or ‘a reduction in the forward estimates’ or ‘um, the rate of growth slowing somewhat’, that is a billion dollars, it is this man’s legacy and he cannot be trusted to be the Prime Minister.
My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Social Inclusion. Deputy Prime Minister, how is the government promoting workforce participation amongst women and supporting a balance between work and family? Are there any risks to the effective implementation of these policies?
I thank the member for his very timely question—very timely indeed. As we know, one in five working women are reliant on awards, and around half of Australian women with children under five are in the paid workforce. That is why it is so important today to make a difference for working women as they seek to balance work and family life, and that challenge will get more difficult as our population ages and as we are increasingly reliant on increasing the participation rate of working-age adults. That is why our Fair Work Act introduces new benefits and new protections to balance work and family life, including a right to request extended parental leave; including a right to request a return to flexible or part-time work; including a low-paid bargaining stream to particularly benefit low-paid areas, which tend to be areas in which women work, and to ensure that they have got access to the benefits of bargaining; including protection from unfair dismissal; and including a guaranteed safety net that no-one can rip away.
Let us compare these protections to the rip-offs under Work Choices. We know from ABS data that women on Australian workplace agreements earned less than women on collective agreements. Women working full time on Australian workplace agreements took home on average a staggering $87.40 less per week than their colleagues on collective agreements. Women working in casual jobs on Australian workplace agreements earned an amazing $94 per week less than women on collective agreements. This shameful, toxic, nasty system has been buried by us because we knew that Work Choices was hurting working women and working families. It is the Liberal Party that wants to dig up, unearth and breathe new life back into this shameful, toxic mess.
Beyond workplace relations laws, helping women balance work and family life is also about parental leave, and that is why our government is establishing the first ever paid parental leave scheme in this county. Our scheme is fully funded. They are two words you will never see pass the lips of the Leader of the Opposition. They are two words he will never say: ‘fully funded’. He will never have a sentence with those two words in a row. Until this morning, Australians would have believed that the Leader of the Opposition had announced an unfunded parental leave scheme. But from this morning we actually know that both the funding and the scheme are fictitious, because the Leader of the Opposition, was asked this morning by Alan Jones:
Finally, you have announced that you will implement if you are elected to government a policy to provide six months paid parental leave.
Alan goes on to say:
Who will? Employers have welcomed your initiatives so long as they don’t have to pay. Who would pay for your six months parental leave?
To that question, the Leader of the Opposition gives the following answer:
Yeah, well, Alan, the Sydney Morning Herald kind of jumped the gun yesterday. We have not made any announcement. I talked about this in my book Battlelines which was released in the middle of last year.
He did not make an announcement; he is on a book tour selling Battlelines. We know, of course, following today’s revelation on Alan Jones’ program is that this so-called policy is make-believe. It is uncosted and unfunded. Why would the Leader of the Opposition be out with an unfunded, uncosted, really unannounced policy? There is no policy here. Really, if you look at this Leader of the Opposition, the explanation is pretty clear. There is no policy, because he does not believe in paid parental leave. When he was a member of the Howard government, he said:
Compulsory paid maternity leave? Over this government’s dead body.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The point of order relates to the matters I raised with you yesterday. Yesterday, in a similar attack, the Deputy Prime Minister told untruths when she said the Leader of the Opposition was wrong and dishonest, and she has said it again. Why does she not just get back to her own—
Order! There is no point of order. The member for O’Connor will resume his seat. I am willing to give the member for O’Connor the call if he has points of order, but he knows that he cannot use a point of order to have a debate—about any matters. The Deputy Prime Minister is responding to the question.
The face of modern liberalism: it is so attractive and so intelligent. The Leader of the Opposition said:
Compulsory paid maternity leave? Over this government’s dead body.
Isn’t he a straight talker! What a wonderful grab. Not a word wasted!
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I ask that the Deputy Prime Minister withdraw the slur against the member for O’Connor. It was offensive.
I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to withdraw.
I withdraw. Of course, I said the wrong thing; the face of modern liberalism is Bronwyn Bishop. I apologise.
Honourable members interjecting—
10000 SPEAKER, TheThe SPEAKER—The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. The Deputy Prime Minister, on the basis that she must withdraw without qualification, will withdraw. She will refer to members by their titles.
Mr Melham interjecting
The member for Banks should really calm himself. The Deputy Prime Minister will withdraw her remarks.
Mr Speaker, I withdraw. I was referring to the straight talker, the Leader of the Opposition, when he made it painfully clear that he does not support paid parental leave. So what we have got is a paid parental leave scheme, supposedly announced by the Leader of the Opposition, then unannounced today. All this is unfunded, and his truthful attitude was revealed years ago when he said ‘over his dead body’ would there be a paid parental leave scheme. It is painfully clear that what this all adds up to is that the Leader of the Opposition is a risk to the pay and conditions of working women, because he wants to bring back Work Choices and a risk to our paid parental leave scheme which we will deliver for working Australians.
My question is to the Minister for Education. I refer the minister to the massive $1.7 billion blow-out in Labor’s school halls program and the $1.2 billion blow-out—or a massive 120 per cent—in the so-called computers in schools program. Minister, doesn’t this blow-out in government spending just put more upward pressure on interest rates?
Mr Andrews interjecting
Mr Work Choices is still alive and well on the opposition front bench.
The Deputy Prime Minister will respond to the question and ignore the interjections. The member for Menzies will sit there quietly.
This is a government that believes in delivering an education revolution. We believe in that because when we came to government the education system of this nation had been neglected for 12 long years, and schools in particular were crying out for reform. There are various members of the opposition who should be hanging their heads in shame at that track record.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question was very specific. The minister was not invited to talk generally about her programs in education; she was asked whether the blow-outs in her programs added to upward pressure on interest rates. She should answer that question and, if she cannot, she should sit down.
Order! The member for Sturt will resume his seat. The Deputy Prime Minister will respond to the question.
In overcoming the shameful neglect of Australian education by the members of the Liberal Party, we have been investing in education. Let me make it absolutely clear: I make no apology whatsoever for engaging in the biggest school modernisation program the nation has ever seen. I make no apology whatsoever for getting into the hands of Australian children hundreds of thousands of computers so they can have access to the learning tools of the 21st century. For the edification of the member for Sturt, each of these figures is accounted for in the budget. Our education spending is in the budget for all to see.
Of course, there is a risk to this education spending. The risk to this education spending is the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Joyce and the member for Sturt—all of whom are on the record as saying they want to cut billions of dollars out of our stimulus program. If you are going to cut billions of dollars out of our stimulus program, you are going to cut billions of dollars out of schools. When I asked for just a modicum of honesty from the supposedly straight-talking Leader of the Opposition, when I asked him to table a list of the schools that would bear the cuts, I got absolute silence. This carry-on from the member for Sturt will be viewed as the hypocrisy it is until the Leader of the Opposition steps up to the dispatch box with a list of schools and says, ‘These are the cuts that I stand by.’
I would say the following thing to the member for Sturt: if he is so concerned—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I refer you to page 551 of the House of Representatives Practice and note that, whilst the minister is not obliged to answer a question, it does indicate—and I would ask you to direct her—that, if she is unable to answer the question asked, she can take it on notice and give an answer in writing.
Order! The member for Mackellar has made her point of order.
And perhaps she can tell us if she is going to sue her hairdresser this week.
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! I gather from the reaction in the room that I was lucky that I did not hear whatever was said. The Deputy Prime Minister will relate her material to the question.
The Liberal Party were just proving yet again how devoid of content they are. In conclusion, I say to the member for Sturt: if he truly had any interest in the question of budgeting, why didn’t he stop the Leader of the Opposition making a completely unfunded announcement about his climate change con job? Hypocrisy is written all over their faces—
Mr Hockey interjecting
and the fake hearty laughs from the shadow Treasurer, a man who certainly is a shadow of what he used to be, proves my point.
My question is to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. What action is the government taking to protect vulnerable children in the Northern Territory’s Indigenous communities, and what are the impediments to this action?
Mr Laming interjecting
The member for Bowman is warned.
I thank the member for Solomon for his very important question, because it is a terrible fact that exceptional disadvantage continues in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. It is the case that both the previous government and now this government have recognised that urgent and continuing action is needed to address this terrible disadvantage. That is why I persevered to get a deal in the Alice Springs town camps. We have started action in those town camps, but we have a huge amount left to do.
The government have also strengthened the Northern Territory emergency response, investing an additional $1.2 billion, because we recognise that we have to be there across the board for the long term. There are now 65 additional police deployed. I would also like to inform the House that there are now 16,000 people on compulsory income management in the Northern Territory. That compares to the around 1,400 people who were on compulsory income management when we came into government.
We have also recently introduced legislation into the parliament to make sure that the Northern Territory emergency response can be effective in the long term. We are introducing major welfare reforms to extend what are clear benefits of income management to more vulnerable Australians. We want to start in the Northern Territory, but we want to be able to extend income management to other vulnerable Australians across the country.
It is the case that our reforms will make sure that people’s welfare payments are spent on the essentials of life—spent on food and rent, not on alcohol and gambling. The number of people on income management in the Northern Territory with our reforms is estimated to be 20,000. So 20,000 people are expected to be on income management under the reforms that we have introduced. This is all about personal responsibility and all about making sure that we do everything we possibly can to get children to school and to get young people engaged in work and training. We want to fight passive welfare and to link the payment of welfare to making sure that children go to school on a regular basis and that they continue their studies and go to work. I want to make it absolutely clear that these arrangements do not apply at the moment. The changes that we have proposed will make sure that income management can be rolled out in the towns in the Northern Territory—in Tennant Creek, in Katherine and in the suburbs of Alice Springs and Darwin—where we have significant and desperate circumstances for many, many people.
I have to say that it is extremely disappointing that the opposition have said that they will not support these vital reforms. It is very, very significant that the opposition are not supporting these vital reforms, which would have seen such a significant improvement to the lives of so many very vulnerable people in the Northern Territory—particularly when it would have seen an expansion in the number of people on income management. The Leader of the Opposition has previously said that he wants to see income management extended to other welfare recipients, and that is exactly what this government reform will do. The Leader of the Opposition has also said that he wants to see the Northern Territory emergency response become sustainable over the longer term—and that is exactly what these reforms will do. We do need to have welfare reform to make sure that the Northern Territory emergency response is sustainable for the longer term and that the benefits of income management can be extended to other vulnerable Australians.
My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. I refer the minister to the $1.7 billion blow-out on school halls, the $1.2 billion school computers blow-out, the $1.4 billion blow-out in Medicare, the $1.8 billion blow-out in pharmaceuticals expenses, the $850 million blow-out in the solar panels program, the $17 million failed NBN tender, the blow-out in the NBN commitment from $4.7 billion to $43 billion, the unfunded $250 million payment to TV stations, yesterday’s unfunded $200 million announcement on aviation security and the over $1 billion in consultancy contracts awarded since coming to office. Minister, why can’t you and your colleagues properly manage taxpayers’ money? Don’t these massive spending blow-outs just put further upward pressure on interest rates?
I would refer the member for North Sydney to the fact that in the budget of 2008 there was a total of $33 billion worth of savings measures put in place by the government over the forward estimates. In the budget of 2009 there was a further $22 billion worth of savings measures put in place over the forward estimates. The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook papers were released towards the end of last year. They are, in effect, a mid-term report on the budget. For the first time ever there were savings initiatives in those Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook papers to cover off new spending initiatives that were announced over that period. Finally, I would make the observation to the member for North Sydney that one of the reasons why we had a big task in front of us to find savings in the 2008 budget was that—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order going to relevance. This question goes directly to the minister’s portfolio. He is responsible for spending—
Order, that was not a point of order.
An opposition member—It was a good point.
I am not in a position to judge whether points are good, bad or anything else; I am here to judge whether there is a valid point of order. That was easy because that was not even a point of order; it was somebody coming to the dispatch box to enter into debate, having asked a question to which the minister was responding.
My final response to the member for North Sydney is that when we came to office we confronted a budget where there had been no serious savings measures by the previous government since the 2003 budget. Of course, since we have come to office that pattern of fiscal profligacy has been continued by the opposition. So we have now got to a point where it is seven years since the Liberal Party put forward a serious savings measure. We do not really hold our breath for the prospect that we will get one. Eventually we might get a savings proposal from them, but it has been seven years since the last one.
My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister update the House on measures to make Australian airports safer for Australians and visitors to Australia? Is the minister aware of other views about those measures?
I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question and for his ongoing interest in these very important matters that we confront at our airports. Yesterday the Prime Minister, accompanied by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and I, announced major national security measures that will improve the safety of passengers and those employed at our major capital city and regional airports.
I would like to outline those changes involving the Customs and Border Protection Service and also the Australian Federal Police that will make our airports safer. Firstly, I indicate that there will be $24.9 million over four years to enhance passenger risk assessment by Customs and Border Protection which will allow for a more effective assessment of a larger number of passengers earlier and faster. It will allow for proper analysis, the proper storage, the proper assessment and effective profiling of passenger data and sharing with other border and intelligence agencies—a very important mechanism to improve the way in which we track passengers who come into our ports. It will mean effectively that we will have more information about who is coming here. It will also determine and establish the history of travel of persons of interest and, therefore, we will be able to measure potential risks and also determine appropriate responses to those potential risks.
Secondly, there is a $17.7 million initiative over four years to enhance by almost 50 per cent the presence of firearms and explosive detection dogs who will assist bomb appraisal officers and other uniformed Australian Federal Police officers in making a very effective and highly visible contribution to airport security. This, of course, is fully supported by the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Tony Negus. I also indicate that there is $12.3 million over the 2010-11 year to assist the transition of the unified police model to what is now described as the all-in model, effectively ensuring that over a number of years the Australian Federal Police take primary responsibility for the security of our major airports in this country—a very important initiative, one that was not taken up by the previous government but was embraced by this government. We are working now with the state governments and the state jurisdictions of police and the Australian Federal Police in order to ensure that we bring that very important measure forward and have it properly realised.
While the majority of travellers go through airports in capital cities such as Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane, our increased security measures will also boost safety and security for our regional airports. We know that the previous government neglected the needs of the security of regional airports for far too long. We know that there were concerns raised by communities within the regions in this country about the security of our airports and that they fell on the deaf ears of those opposite. So for almost 12 years they neglected those regions. They like to say that they are the party for the regions, but what did they do? They did nothing when it came to securing the airports in those areas.
In relation to the announcement yesterday, industry has already been quick to support the government’s initiatives. Qantas will support measures that improve aviation safety and security and will work closely with the government and border agencies to ensure measures balance the priorities of passenger safety and security with practical operations of airports and airlines. Singapore Airlines has said the airline was comfortable with the changes. A company spokesperson said: ‘The government is acting in a reasonable and enlightened manner. This is a positive development.’
The events in the United States late last year involving Northwest Airlines flight 253 are a chilling reminder to us all that the threat to airports and aviation is ever present. These measures are central to this country’s national security, and the government had hoped that this challenge could be dealt with in a considered and bipartisan manner; but, unfortunately, that is not the case. So desperate are those opposite to score political points on such an important issue that they have failed to check the facts. In a joint release distributed yesterday by the members for Wide Bay and Stirling, the opposition have been very loose with the truth. First, they assert that risk based assessments have reduced aviation security. That is entirely untrue; that is wrong. Since July last year, when the new air-screening measures were implemented, there has been an increase in the number of major criminal detections, including drug detections. Secondly, the member for Stirling and the member for Wide Bay assert that the number of Australian Federal Police sworn officers has dropped since the election. This is entirely untrue. The facts prove the lie. Since the election of the Rudd government in November 2007—
Say a number.
I will, don’t you worry, Member for Stirling. One day you might even get a question.
Mr Speaker, a point of order: if I was required to withdraw on Thursday that the minister was telling a bald-faced lie, I am not sure that it is in order for the minister to be now using the same language and not be asked to withdraw. I had assumed you would ask him to withdraw.
Order! I have listened carefully to the way in which the word has been used and, in the context of the way in which it was used I did not require it to be withdrawn.
In relation to the number of sworn officers since the election of the government, there has been an additional 181 officers—that is a 6.7 per cent increase—and we are ahead of our commitment to ensure that we have 500 additional police in the five years, ahead of that forecast. So that is another assertion made by those opposite which is entirely mischievous and untrue. Thirdly, the member for Stirling and the member for Wide Bay have accused the government of ‘walking away from air security officers or sky marshals’. The opposition is wrong, wrong and wrong. The fact is that the Air Security Officer Program continues to provide an integral layer of security at our airports and there has been no reduction whatsoever in the funding for the program.
It is one thing to be loose with the truth in some other areas of public policy but, when it comes to national security, we would expect those opposite to join with us to combat serious and organised crime and to combat terrorism. What we do not expect is for them to mislead the public in terms of what the government is doing. I suggest to the opposition that they join the government—put aside their distortions and their political opportunism—and support our border and intelligence agencies by embracing these very important national security measures.
My question is to the Prime Minister and it goes to integrity.
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! The Leader of the Opposition has the call.
Why did he not only break his promise about the delivery of computers to school students but also fail to tell the truth when asked about it on Monday night? If he cannot keep his 2007 promises, why should anyone believe what he says now?
I thank very much the Leader of the Opposition for his question about our commitments on education, specifically on the digital education revolution and our undertaking to provide computers to secondary school students from year 9 to year 12 at a one to one ratio by 2011-12. Secondly, I say to the Leader of the Opposition that we have so far rolled out more than 200,000 computers to Australian secondary schools. That is 200,000 more than were ever rolled out by the previous government, of which he was a member.
Mr Pyne interjecting
The member for Sturt is warned!
I say to the Leader of the Opposition and those who seek to interject on this one: this government is proud of its record of achievement in education. This government is proud of Building the Education Revolution. This government is proud of building trades training centres in Australian secondary schools.
Mr Laming interjecting
Order! The member for Bowman will leave the chamber for one hour under the provisions of standing order 94(a).
The member for Bowman then left the chamber.
This government is proud of its record of more than 200,000 computers in Australian secondary schools; proud of the fact that we have the biggest school modernisation program underway in Australia’s history; and proud of the fact that we are undertaking fundamental reforms in the quality of education through the My School website and the investment in disadvantaged schools. This is a record of achievement in education.
When the Leader of the Opposition stands up and speaks about integrity of commitments, I have one set of words for him: rock solid, solid gold guarantee—the absolute ‘rock solid’, ‘ironclad’ commitment that he gave to the Australian people on his Medicare safety net undertaking. The Leader of the Opposition stands up and speaks of integrity, but ‘rock solid, ironclad, absolute commitment’ were his words on the eve of the 2004 election when he said he would not touch the Medicare safety net, would not touch the thresholds, and then four months later upped the thresholds both for low-income earners and for middle-income earners.
Can I just say to the Leader of the Opposition that if he raises and continues to raise questions of integrity and commitment here, one by one we will go through what happened under his period as health minister, one by one we will go through his record in terms of the Medicare safety net—that rock solid, ironclad commitment that he gave to the Australian people—and, beyond that, we will look very carefully at what the Leader of the Opposition had to say as he sought to weasel his way out of the fact that he ripped $1 billion out of Australia’s public hospital system. The Leader of the Opposition was health minister for four years and what he came out and said was, ‘Oh, it wasn’t me; in fact, it is just that the increase in expenditure on health slowed a little bit.’ I can say to the Leader of the Opposition that we are going to peel back those numbers day by day and look at precisely what he did in the period 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007—the period when he was health minister—so proud he is of his achievements in this respect.
We welcome a debate on the record of his achievement in health against the record of achievement of this government in health. We welcome a debate on the record of this government in education against the record of those opposite on education. Every time the Leader of the Opposition opens his mouth, ‘Absolute, rock solid ironclad commitments,’ we will be listening very carefully to the integrity of his words, as we watched with great disappointment the honouring of those commitments by him in the past.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I seek leave to move an extension of time for the Prime Minister to talk about my record in health—a very good record; much better than the current minister’s record.
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. There is no point of order.
My question is to the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy. Minister, how are the government’s economic policies supporting small businesses and tradies? Has the government encountered any impediments to its support for small business?
I thank my good friend and neighbour, the member for Forde, for his continuing interest in small business through the Logan Country Chamber of Commerce and the Logan Chamber of Commerce, which we share, and also the Beenleigh Yatala Chamber of Commerce.
The government’s economic stimulus plan is supporting small businesses and tradies right now right around the nation. They are engaged in no fewer than 34,000 construction projects across Australia—34,000 construction projects supporting our tradies and small businesses. Indeed, 70 per cent of the stimulus spending has been on nation-building infrastructure, including the biggest school modernisation program in Australia’s history. The Australian public think it is great. Wouldn’t you think that the opposition would think that it is really good that we are supporting small businesses and our tradies? But just on the anniversary of the stimulus package being announced in parliament the other day, what did the opposition leader have to say? He said:
It was not the stimulus package or the spending that saved Australia; it was the reforms that saved Australia—reforms that this government cannot contemplate and in fact are winding back.
To what is he referring? Work Choices, of course—the great reform of the Leader of the Opposition and his cohorts on the front bench, who he has promoted to the front bench. ‘Of course,’ he says, ‘only the name Work Choices is dead’—you know, like the parrot: ‘It’s not dead; just pining for the fjords.’ Of course, Work Choices would come back under the Leader of the Opposition if he ever were to become Prime Minister.
He went on to describe the spending on schools that everyone is fond of as ‘very low-grade spending’. Who is engaged in building these infrastructure projects that the opposition leader continues to oppose to this day? Of course, it is our tradies and the small businesses who supply them. The opposition voted against—and to this day continues to oppose—that spending and support for small business. We can conclude from that that the opposition leader, with his extreme views, is a big risk to Australia.
I can illustrate that further because yesterday the opposition leader floated a policy of six months paid parental leave. When looking for the source of funding for this—and I believe he referred to the book on the Alan Jones program this morning—he referred back to his book where he developed this policy and said: ‘It could be funded through a small general levy on business. Small business would instinctively regard any extra cost from the levy as unfair.’ You bet your sweet bippy they would regard it as unfair.
We are talking about sources of funding and integrity. When the shadow finance minister was asked on Lateline just last week how he would fund the coalition’s $10 billion climate change con job, he referred to the tax system and said, ‘That is the whole mechanism of where we get the money from.’ The whole mechanism is the tax system. That would be true to form. Why? Because the coalition holds the record as the biggest taxing government in Australia’s history, as confirmed by the budget papers. Small businesses would be in the firing line from either the levy or the taxes that Sir Barnaby Bjelke-Petersen has described as the source for this extra revenue to fund the parental leave scheme and also—
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I hate to interrupt this buffoon of a minister but he must withdraw his remarks about Senator Joyce, as you require other ministers to do.
First of all, the Manager of Opposition Business will withdraw.
I withdraw the phrase ‘buffoon of a minister’.
No, the member will withdraw without qualification.
I withdraw without qualification, Mr Speaker.
Considering his status in the House at the moment, I think the Manager of Opposition Business should be a lot more careful when he approaches the dispatch box on these matters. The minister will withdraw.
I am happy to withdraw, Mr Speaker. Senator Joyce is sounding more and more like Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson every day but without Sir Joh’s coherence or mathematical prowess. Yesterday’s unfunded six month paid parental scheme is just another example of phony Tony’s funny money scheme.
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The minister will refer to members by their parliamentary titles.
I will, Mr Speaker. Senator Joyce and the opposition leader are a big risk to the Australian economy. I can just envisage the job application of Senator Joyce when he went to the opposition leader and said, ‘I’d really like to be shadow finance minister.’ It would have gone along these lines, ‘You may be right, I might be crazy but it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for.’
Has the minister concluded?
Nearly.
The minister will resume his seat.
Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance —surely.
The minister will respond to the question and my advice to him is stringendo—that is, hasten to a conclusion.
That is wonderful Italian, Mr Speaker. Under the Rudd government Australians can be optimistic about Australia’s future because we are building a stronger economy for working families and the small businesses of this country.
Mr Windsor interjecting
The member for New England is warned. The member was a little unlucky because I was looking in that direction as the member for Kennedy had attracted my attention for the call.
Mr Speaker, some of these answers are longer than my questions.
I assure the member for Kennedy that is a serious problem.
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Could the minister advise the House of any joy on the EC assistance for the flood ravaged gulf, log jammed by the Queensland government now for over year? In light of the anniversary of this flooding from Ingham to Burketown, would he not agree that a task force of five Indigenous representatives, three bureaucrats, two greenies, one Sydney suit, a cattle rep and mining rep—neither of whom are pro-irrigation resumptions—and only one lonely farmer is not a task force that is going to, as directed, find sustainable water projects? On the contrary, their self-appointed spokesman, the World Wildlife Fund’s Stuart Blanch, most arrogantly informed the government that such would not be able to be found because of the north’s climate, soils and topography. Since most of the United States, China, India and Brazil—half of the world’s population—lie within 35 degrees latitude with similar climate, soils and topography, and since Northern Australia’s 305 million megalitres rivals the Brahmaputra, Yangtze and Mississippi, would he not agree that the findings are not only absurd but deeply embarrassing? And finally—
More!
Look, these are serious questions. If you want to interject, interject intelligently. It is a serious question on a very serious matter.
Order! The member for Kennedy will come to the conclusion of his question. The member for Kennedy will ignore the interjections.
Finally, the minister would be aware that the top one-third of Australia has 300 million megalitres of water but negligible farming, whilst the bottom two-thirds, with only 80 million megalitres, has almost all of Australia’s food production. Since most of Australia’s food comes from the crippled Murray-Darling, would the minister not agree bluntly that unless dams and weirs are built in Northern Australia the country will not be the do-nothing, free-trading Mr Tim Fischer’s food bowl of Asia but its basket case? Would the minister not agree that the task force verdict on Northern Australia—no water—has led to Australia’s verdict on the task force: no brains?
I thank the member for Kennedy for all the elements of the question. I also want to acknowledge in the House that the member for Kennedy is someone who says the identical thing in his electorate as he says in here. That is not replicated by every regional member in his place, and can easily be contrasted with Senator Barnaby Joyce, who reckons he does not like overseas investment when he is talking to farmers but is quite happy to fly around in Clive Palmer’s private jet, backed with Chinese currency.
Order! The minister will respond to the question.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order that goes to relevance. I ask you to bring the minister back to the detailed question.
Order! If the member for North Sydney had been listening at the time he jumped up to the dispatch box, he would have heard that I said that the minister will respond to the question. The minister will respond to the question.
The question goes to two issues: firstly, the northern task force and the prospects for increased agriculture in the north of the country and, secondly, an application for exceptional circumstances in the gulf area of Queensland, in particular in the member’s seat. If I could deal with the northern task force issues first. I am reminded very much of a conversation I had in the north of Australia but on the other side of the country at Kilto Station, where I remarked to a farmer that I had been advised that one of the problems with agriculture in the north is that there are a hundred things you can grow but a thousand things that will eat it all—that is, in terms of the biosecurity challenges. He quipped straightaway with, ‘But one of those things is people.’ It is true that we need to look very seriously at opportunities for improved agriculture in the north of Australia. We were reminded of this at community cabinet in Townsville where we met with a delegation with particular proposals for the Gilbert River—proposals the farmers involved made clear are very much ready to go.
There are some conclusions which have been drawn out of the commentary that has followed from the report of the northern task force to which the government do not subscribe. Some of the commentary has claimed that the government would never contemplate dams and weirs, or that some line is drawn where they would never be considered. This is not true. Where they are appropriate and where they are sustainable, the federal government does not in any way rule those things out. However, some expectations for that report were probably built higher than they should have been. The concept that all of the agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin was going to be transplanted to the north was never going to happen, but it is true that there are significant new opportunities in the north and a lot more can be done there than is currently being done.
I refer to the mosaic form of agriculture and in particular what can be done for the beef industry in the north. At the moment, one of the reasons we are reliant exclusively on the live export industry is that we are not able to get cattle to finishing. There are significant opportunities to get cattle to finishing in terms of limited irrigation in the mosaic way. Those sorts of opportunities are contemplated in the northern task force report and supported strongly by the producers involved, including Terry Underwood, whose property I visited in the Northern Territory. Those opportunities are real, and as the government works through that report we have a very clear view that a lot more is possible in the north than we have been doing in the past. That is something that the member for Kennedy has long advocated.
He has also advocated that not only should we be very mindful of the fires which happened in the south of our nation last year but also we should be mindful of the massive flood which occurred in the north of our country last year. In that context, an application was made for exceptional circumstances. Members would be aware that exceptional circumstances in the ordinary case deal with drought, and the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements deal with the immediate impact of flood. When I visited those floodwaters with the member for Kennedy—and, from memory, we went to Cloncurry and Normanton—it was made clear at the time that this was not a usual flood. Normally after a flood the pastures kick back and kick back pretty strongly. On this occasion, the water had remained over these pastures for more than eight weeks and that meant that the pasture underneath died completely.
And the seed had gone too.
The seed had gone, yes. And that means that the weeds get an advantage, but other than weeds there is not a whole lot growing in the immediate event after a flood like that. The EC application was therefore assessed not on the basis of there having been a flood but on the basis of the impact of the long-term inundation. That meant, just as the farmers predicted that day, that if you came back in a few months time it would not look like the aftermath of a flood but the aftermath of a long-term drought. That is exactly what those producers have been seeing—in addition to the loss of in excess of 100,000 head of cattle.
With all of that, we did what we always do and referred it to NRAC, the National Rural Advisory Council. They came back with their recommendations. I am glad the member asked the question today and not yesterday because this morning the government accepted the advice of NRAC and EC will be provided for that area.
My question is to the Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change. Why is a responsible economic approach important in addressing climate change?
I thank the member for Makin for his question. The responsible economic approach to reducing carbon pollution is to use the most efficient and cost-effective abatement method and certainly not the costly, pick winners approach that the Leader of the Opposition has enunciated. There is no doubt that an emissions trading scheme represents the most economically responsible approach. It has been supported by all eminent economists.
Emissions trading and the market mechanism that it involves ensure that the cheapest methods to reduce carbon pollution will be the first to be applied. Many Liberals, including of course John Howard, the former Prime Minister, and the member for Wentworth, the former Leader of the Opposition, agree with this proposition. Indeed, so too on the record does the shadow minister, the member for Flinders, who has very cogently argued this position on previous occasions. As the Prime Minister adverted to in a previous question time, I think, in a 1990 university paper—it may have been his thesis, in fact—which was titled, interestingly, A tax to make the polluter pay, the member for Flinders had this to say:
… the market is the preferable regime as it better ensures that the polluter bears full responsibility for the cost of his or her conduct.
Good advice for the new Leader of the Opposition. In more recent times, the member for Flinders has gone further on the issue of emissions trading. Indeed, in a September 2008 address to none other than the New Zealand National Party, and also on subsequent occasions, the member for Flinders had this to say:
As the Coalition has long argued, Australia must introduce an emissions trading scheme.
That is the shadow minister’s position. He is also on the record as respecting the climate science and the need for emissions trading as I have adverted to. It is almost enough to make one feel a bit for him. He is now surrounded by climate change sceptics, he is taking economic instructions from Senator Joyce and he is putting his name to an economically irresponsible and environmentally unworkable coalition policy. He is putting a brave face on it, as he did at the National Press Club today, but I tell you what—it is compromising him deeply.
The coalition policy will not work. We already know that emissions will rise by up to 13 per cent over year 2000 levels under their plan. Their policy relies on costly subsidies for favoured projects. Yesterday I pointed to the analysis by Bloomberg that the abatement cost will be in the order of $64 per tonne. The Department of Climate Change analysis also suggests the carbon abatement cost per tonne will be in excess of $50. The Leader of the Opposition claimed it would be $15, I think, when launching the policy. It is completely uncosted and irresponsible economically, with a large burden on the economy. There is no obligation on large emitters of carbon pollution to reduce their emissions. Their proposal is going to put up prices. There is no compensation for pensioners and households. It is a totally economically and environmentally irresponsible position to adopt and it is already creating uncertainty for investment in the energy market because everyone knows a carbon price is coming and that it must be fixed by a market efficient method.
The truth is that many on the other side still agree with the government’s position. It is to be remembered that only 10 weeks ago a majority of the coalition party room supported emissions trading and supported the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The fact of the matter is that they remain deeply divided over this issue. I noticed in parliament the other day, when the member for Wentworth was giving his address on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation, the member for North Sydney came in to offer support. You should have offered your support when it really counted, when the national interest was at stake, and not been seduced by the media and by the urgers in your own party to be the third man and come last in the race. The important thing is to support economically responsible policy, but all of you, if you oppose the CPRS when it goes to the vote tomorrow, will fail that test.
Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
I do.
Please proceed.
Yesterday in the parliament the Deputy Prime Minister claimed that I had misrepresented the position of the Australian Nursing Federation. Just for the benefit of the Deputy Prime Minister and to clear this up, let me quote what was said by the New South Wales federation’s acting secretary:
We thought Work Choices was crook but what has replaced it … takes us several steps backwards.
So there we have it—‘worse than Work Choices’. I table this document for the benefit of the Deputy Prime Minister. I also seek leave to table this other document which proves that, yet again, the Prime Minister got it wrong—only this time in the parliament—telling fibs about his Computers in Schools program.
Order! The Leader of the Opposition cannot table a document. The first document related to his personal explanation. Is he seeking leave to table it?
I seek leave to table both documents.
Leave not granted.
Mr Speaker, yesterday I raised a point of order relating to the words of Speaker Snedden:
The Minister will answer the question and not engage in irrelevancies, such as contrasting the Government and the Labor Party.
You subsequently referred me to page 553 of House of Representatives Practice and I ask whether the words that you thought I should read are those in the second paragraph which say:
Nevertheless, although the test of relevance can be difficult to apply, Ministers have been ordered to conclude their answers or resume their seats as their answers were not relevant. The Chair has also upheld points of order or intimations contesting the relevancy of a Minister’s answer.
Or was it something else you wanted me to read?
I am quite happy for you to read the whole of page 553. As you know, I have indicated to the House that I am not taking questions on procedural matters; I have taken questions on administrative matters. But I make observations about the matters that the member originally raised with me, and others have raised with me, which was quoting a Speaker Sneddon ruling that indicated that ministers should not:
… engage in irrelevances’, such as contrasting the Government and Opposition, and the Speaker has directed a Minister so doing not to proceed—
which is something that I think you were imploring me to do. That refers to footnote No. 280, and it is followed by a full stop. Practice goes on to say:
On other occasions such comments have been permitted,
and it refers to footnote No. 281. I just make the observation to indicate the difficulties which chairs have, in attempting to be consistent and attempting to uphold the standing orders, that footnote No. 280—a Speaker Sneddon ruling of 27 August 1981—was followed by, amongst others, footnote No. 281, another Speaker Sneddon ruling less than a fortnight later on 10 September 1981. I can assure the member for O’Connor that I have done my study and referred to the Hansard records of both those footnotes, and I believe that the way in which I am carrying out my duties is consistent with both of those rulings.
On 11 August last year, I lodged a question in writing, question No. 852, to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett, concerning the establishment of a solar power station in Coober Pedy which was to have been completed by Christmas time or the end of the year. On 26 October, I asked you to write to the minister and ask him to answer the question. That still has not occurred. It is now 183 days since I first lodged the question. I would ask you to once again contact the minister and please ask him to respond to my question.
To clarify what the member has said, he was not suggesting that I had not written. I have written and I will write again as required under the standing orders.
For the information of honourable members, I table a short statement on the consideration by the House on Thursday, 4 February 2010 of a Senate amendment to the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Serious and Organised Crime) Bill (No. 2) 2009.
On behalf of the Leader of the House, documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Details of the documents will be recorded in the
That the House take note of the following document:Private Health Insurance Administration Council—Report—Operations of the private health insurers for 2008-09.
Debate (on motion by Mr Pyne) adjourned.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Dunkley proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The damaging impact of rising interest rates on small business.
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—
The only thing that matches the concern the small business community have about rising interest rates is their concern about the lack of Rudd government interest in their plight. The Rudd government has created a perfect storm. It has produced higher interest rate costs for small business, made it harder for small businesses to access finance, caused small business borrowers to face harsher terms and conditions, and is causing hardship for small business employees and employers alike.
The Rudd government’s action and inaction spell out a menu of what you would not do if you were at all interested in supporting the small business community. The Rudd government’s insatiable spending and the unprecedented growth in Commonwealth debt is crowding out opportunities for finance for the small business community. The Rudd government’s bungled handling of the bank guarantee has killed off competition—those second-tier and non-bank lenders that the small business community turned to for competition and for competitive prices. Where that competition improved affordability and services, that has been killed off dead by the Rudd government’s bungled bank guarantee. The Rudd government has killed off the competition, it has nobbled those second-tier banks, and it has made no national interest reciprocity contingent on the enormous taxpayer support for the bank guarantee. It has not said to the banks, ‘If the Australian taxpayer is going to provide you guarantees worth tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, in some cases, we expect the banks to make a contribution to recognise a reciprocal obligation to support the growth and the recovery of the economy.’
The Rudd government has stood by while banks have increased their margins, while their profits have grown and while they look to the small business community as a source of great revenue stream and great profit growth—but have not quite taken the responsibility small businesses are looking for from the banks. The Rudd government has turned its back on these concerns. The Rudd government has heard over and over and over again that the small business community is concerned about the cost of its finance, the difficulty in accessing finance, and the impact that rising interest rates are having on their business viability, their success and their opportunities to employ.
What has the Rudd government done? It has just stood back and done nothing. When the coalition proposed a Senate inquiry to examine these very important issues, what did we hear from the Rudd Labor government? Absolutely nothing: not a word of support, not an acknowledgement that this is an important set of issues that need to be addressed, not a recognition that this inquiry is what the small business community wants. We have heard nothing. We cannot even be confident that the Rudd Labor government and government agencies will cooperate with the Senate inquiry into small business financing. We have not even been given a reassurance that the Rudd Labor government will participate and that the agencies that report to the government will be able to freely contribute in a positive and constructive way. The coalition has made that call and the small business community has, as one, said, ‘This is what is needed.’ And what has the Rudd government done? Absolutely nothing.
If the Prime Minister does not want to listen to the coalition, he could have, as an acolyte of President Obama, listened to the President’s State of the Union address. President Obama said:
Financing remains difficult for small business owners across the country, even those that are making a profit.
President Obama went on to propose a number of measures to address what was described as ‘an obstacle to economic recovery and employment growth in the United States’. If the Rudd Labor government will not listen to the small business community, if the Rudd Labor government will not listen to the industry organisations representing their view, if the Rudd Labor government will not listen to the overwhelmingly positive response to the coalition’s proposal for the Senate inquiry, who will they listen to?
We are not sure who the Rudd government are listening to because they are certainly not listening to the small business community. The recent COSBOA Telstra business survey recognised the cost and availability of funding as the biggest issue of concern for the small business community. But there was still no response from the Rudd Labor government. There was still no response from the Marcel Marceau of small business ministers, Dr Emerson, who is sitting opposite me. Have you heard a word about these issues? It is the most reductionist approach to the small business portfolio we have seen for a long time. If it is anything that is not precisely funded or overseen by his department, the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy says nothing. He says nothing about finance because that is a Treasury issue. He says nothing about workplace relations because that is in Ms Gillard’s portfolio. He says nothing about the compelling issues that the small business community raise over and over again and get nothing but a wall of stony indifference and silence from the small business minister.
You can understand why the small business community are frustrated. They are frustrated by the fact that the banks have obviously seen small business as a way of accelerating improvement in their bottom line. If you look at the figures, there is a very stark and simple comparison of the cost of borrowing for a home owner for a loan secured by a house compared to the cost of borrowing for a small business owner for a loan secured by a house—the security is the same, the currency is the same, even the lender is the same and in many cases the borrower is the same, but what do you see? You see on average a two per cent or greater price penalty paid by small businesses for residential property backed lending. It may be the same property, the same security and the same borrower but they are charged two per cent more. These examples appear right across the country, are raised with this government but still there is no response.
The COSBOA survey recognised that 81 per cent of businesses are worried about the cost of servicing their debt. This was closely followed by financing availability and access, which nearly three-quarters of the small business community were worried about. The COSBOA chief executive, Jaye Radisich, said:
The cost and availability of credit and finance has been a top issue for COSBOA and small businesses in recent times—it is patently clear that more has to be done to support small businesses in this area … Politicians, regulators and banks need to hear this loud and clear message from small business and develop innovative solutions.
The coalition parties have heard this loud and clear. We did not need the COSBOA Telstra survey, as confirming and reassuring as it is, to know this requires attention. I think that is a message for the Rudd Labor government where these concerns are being raised over and over again, but simply hit a wall of indifference from the Rudd Labor government and the small business minister. What is going on out there? We are seeing small business, the engine room of the economy and a key driver of economic growth and employment recovery in Australia, being starved of the oxygen it needs to trade, to grow and to prosper. Why on earth would any government want to have one arm tied behind its back as it seeks to pursue economic recovery? In this case that arm is the small business financing challenge that these 2½ million entrepreneurs, employers and family members face in trying to access affordable and available funding on reasonable terms, and yet the Rudd Labor government does absolutely nothing about it.
There is example after example of the tightening of credit that is available, such as unilateral risk re-rating of profitable businesses trading well in a difficult economic climate getting a phone call from the bank saying, ‘We have had a look at the financing services we offer you and you need to come in for a chat.’ Coming in for a chat usually means, ‘Where is the mortgage over your house to secure this lending?’ This means, ‘We are going to cut off that overdraft we threw at you a couple of years ago on very attractive terms because we don’t really want to let you to have that now.’ This is the bank saying, ‘We want to bump up your fees a little bit too because you know things are difficult and we have to raise money and the government is out there crowding out any cash available to be borrowed. It is tough for us to get resources so we will bump up your fees as well. And then we will come and revisit it.’ Then the banks say, ‘Look at what we have loaned. Aren’t we doing great by small business?’ They do not tell you how many of those small businesses have been obliged to refinance on a more expensive basis involving greater costs, higher interest rates and greater personal security to get access to their funding.
The opposition have heard that concern and that is why we proposed the Senate inquiry. I say to all those small businesses that have been sharing stories that have moved me that I understand how difficult it can be in a difficult trading environment when your costs are going up through interest rate rises. They should share those stories with the Senate economics committee. They should share those stories with their industry association and be heard. They should be heard through the parliament if they do not feel they are being heard through the Prime Minister’s office or the small business minister’s office. I can understand why they feel that way, because that is exactly what is happening. These concerns are being raised over and over again and all they generate from those opposite is inactivity and indifference. The concerns of the small business community are rising interest rates, increasing costs and difficulties accessing credit. But they are also concerned about the impact of the interest rate on their customers and on consumers. The small business community are feeling the slight hesitation that is in so many households around Australia as people coping with increasing costs of living are having to tighten their belts a little bit. Small businesses are also feeling that pain as their customers think twice and are anxious about their economic future. As the mums and dads running their household budgets work out how they are going to cope with this exorbitant increase in the cost of living everywhere they turn under this Rudd Labor government, they wonder what they can do and how they can be more modest in their expenditure. That is impacting on the small business community.
The issue is clear—rising interest rates are causing harm and hardship for the small business community directly and for the customers and consumers that they depend upon. Small business are saying loud and clear that accessing affordable financing on reasonable terms is becoming more and more difficult and they are paying more and more for financing services and lending that the banks are offering them however reluctantly. As we work to help the Australian economy recover, why are the small business community being starved of the oxygen, the finance, they need to carry out their business and to expand?
That is why we were proposing the Senate inquiry. That is why you see examples of the small business community unfortunately experiencing this finance and credit squeeze. This is why they are viewed, as the small business minister would say, as not having enjoyed quite the glee and benefits of the stimulus package and in fact feeling the pain of a bungled bank guarantee. That is the situation for the small business community. What we need to do as a nation is to recognise that the small business community drives our economy. It is an enormous employer and its health and vitality goes right to the heart of the health and vitality of our nation, our economy and the communities that they represent. This is why we are talking about options and opportunities.
This is why we are recognising that in other countries that are so much followed by the Rudd Labor government they are doing things that the Rudd Labor government here simply is not. There are examples that President Obama highlighted. There are examples in the UK from Prime Minister Brown. They handled the bank guarantee differently. They actually offered the bank guarantee to the borrower, so the small business could go to the bank and say: ‘Look, I’m backed by a bank guarantee. Please don’t hurt me with punitive interest rates and costs because you think I’m a credit risk.’ That might be an opportunity. We do not know whether that is the best solution for our nation, but what it shows is that governments in developed economies around the world have understood clearly what the small business community is saying, what the opposition parties know and what the Rudd Labor government has ignored—and that is, vitality in the small business community is inextricably linked to the availability of affordable finance that they can access on reasonable terms.
No-one is talking about reckless lending. No-one is talking about lending to uncreditworthy borrowers. That is not the issue here. This is about profitable, successful, creditworthy, positive cash flow businesses finding it hard to get the finance oxygen that they need. So I say to the minister opposite: you had a bit of a love-in a while back and nothing came of it. There were lots of discussions where the banks and the small business community sat around a table, but nothing came of it. What we have seen is that, when interest rates were going down, not all of that benefit was passed on to the small business community. When they are going up, more than the amount they go up gets passed on to the small business community.
We have seen a spread of interest rates for lending, in many cases to the same person with the same security for the same amount of money but incurring a two per cent plus price penalty. We are seeing available finance being competed for by a government on an insatiable spending spree with an unstoppable thirst for finance in the marketplace. It is squeezing out small businesses. We have seen a bank guarantee that has nobbled competition and has limited options for small business and we have seen a government completely indifferent to how its actions have actually made a difficult economic climate for the small business community worse.
We need access to finance on affordable, reasonable terms and a chance for small business to do what it does best, and that is drive the growth in this economy and provide jobs and opportunities for Australians. That is what is needed. That is why we welcome the endorsement from VECCI, we welcome the endorsement from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, we welcome the New South Wales Business Chamber’s support and we welcome the Australian Bankers Association saying they would happily participate in the Senate inquiry. What we would welcome is a commitment from the Rudd Labor government to play a positive and constructive role. I say to everybody who is as concerned, as passionate and as understanding of the difficulties the small business community faces: make a contribution. Make a submission to the Senate inquiry. Let’s drive home to this government that this matters and it needs to take action. (Time expired)
I welcome this debate on the matter of public importance relating to small business and interest rates. It is an important matter. I must pass judgment: I thought that the shadow minister’s contribution was low on energy. His predecessor was more energetic when he did get around to asking a question, as rarely as that was. Indeed, in the short time that the shadow minister has been in the shadow small business portfolio, his main contribution occurred at the dry-cleaning shop when his leader was talking about the fact that, in his world, housewives do the ironing. The contribution of the shadow small business minister was to correct him twice and say, ‘And house husbands,’ ‘And house husbands.’
But we have heard a debate here and a contribution from the shadow minister that lasted 15 minutes. I was ready and waiting for the one policy idea in relation to small business from a coalition who have been in opposition now for two years. His predecessor and the former opposition leader did actually have a webpage—I suppose that is a start—and they had five ideas. I do not know what happened to those, because we have witnessed the demise of both the shadow small business minister and the Leader of the Opposition. But at least, I suppose, there was some sort of effort to pretend that there was an idea—but none today.
As for a Senate inquiry, I think a Senate inquiry is fine. I would like to support a Senate inquiry. But let’s not get carried away and think that a Senate inquiry will fix all the problems of small business financing in this country. If that is what the coalition is asserting its policy is in an election year—a Senate inquiry—the people will make a judgment about that, I guess, but I think there would be an expectation of more policy than that.
I want to take the opportunity to thank the small business community of Australia for the work that they do, for the risk-taking in which they engage. There is not a lot of gratitude around the place for the contribution that small businesses make with that entrepreneurship, that risk-taking and the sense that they go out on their own and feel on their own. But of course the Rudd government has that gratitude. We always have. We did in opposition and we have it now.
There is a particularly magnificent contribution that small business has made in the last couple of years, and that happened in the midst of the worst global recession since the Great Depression here in Australia, when people were very worried and I know small businesses were very worried about their prospects. What did they do? They said to their staff: ‘We’ve got problems here but we don’t want to let you go. We value the contribution that you make to this business.’ Yes, there were reductions in hours, and even to this day employees in small businesses might be working fewer hours than they would like. Nevertheless, it was an important social contribution that small business owners tried not to let their staff go, because they remembered the value of good staff and the value of good staff during the recovery phase. So thank you to the small business community. Thank you for what you have done, and be assured that this government will continue to work shoulder to shoulder with you as we work our way into the recovery phase. But we do have a long way to go yet.
With respect to access to finance, what has the government done? We have in fact convened those roundtable meetings. They were very useful. We followed up with individual meetings between business associations and the major banks, including the Australian Bankers Association. I went to Cairns just before Christmas, where we had another very important discussion. We have set up a small business credit complaints line. We have set up a small business support line. I can advise the House that the response to that support line has really been first-rate. There has been a lot of interest and a lot of good work going on there. We will continue to support small business through the advisory services and the 36 business enterprise centres that for the first time the Commonwealth of Australia is funding. At no point during the 11 or so years of the Howard government did any continual Commonwealth funding flow to those business enterprise centres. They are very grateful for the funding they will receive.
When this global financial crisis hit and then we moved into a deep global recession, what did the government do? It supported our small businesses and tradies—a point I was trying to quietly make during question time. Business has been very grateful for that support. The shadow minister was talking about various surveys that have come out. The Sensis Business Index small and medium enterprises survey stated that small businesses are remaining strongly supportive of the economic stimulus package. Just this week the Australian Industry Group’s Associate Director of Public Policy, Dr Peter Burn, commented on results for construction, saying:
The improved conditions in January coincided with the reporting of increased tendering opportunities, new contract wins and a further uptake of work stemming from the federal government’s infrastructure stimulus programmes.
Hear, hear! Here we have small business organisations, one after the other, backing the stimulus package, backing it to this day, not just saying, ‘Oh, thanks, you did some good things last year’ but right now saying how important it is. The view of the Leader of the Opposition was, ‘It was not the stimulus package or the spending that saved Australia.’ The opposition have continually indicated that they would abandon the biggest school modernisation program in Australia’s history. That would threaten the livelihoods of small businesses and tradies right around Australia. There is this quaint idea that the Liberal Party is the party of small business when in fact it is the party of betrayal of small businesses. In their hour of need, when those small businesses were desperately worried and looking for some support from the Commonwealth government, what did the opposition say? ‘Let the market take its course. Let’s just see what happens.’ Two hundred thousand Australians would have lost their jobs were it not for that stimulus package. Instead, 112,000 jobs have been created in this country when most other countries have been in a recession in the last year, and many of the people in those 112,000 jobs would be employed in Australian small businesses. Many of those would be the tradespeople who turned to the Commonwealth in their hour of need, who turned to the Rudd government and got a response, a response through the stimulus package—and we have the Leader of the Opposition on the first anniversary of the second stimulus package saying, ‘It was nothing to do with the stimulus package.’
In a further big risk to the Australian economy and small businesses, what did the opposition leader float in the Sydney Morning Herald just a couple of days ago—a six-month paid parental leave scheme. Where is the money coming from for that? On the Alan Jones program he referred to his book, Battlelinesa little bit of book promotion. The book says, ‘It could be funded through a small general levy. Small business would instinctively regard any extra cost as unfair.’ As I said, you bet your sweet bippy, because these businesses cannot afford a new slug to fund a six-month paid parental leave scheme. That is just another example of the fiscal recklessness and riskiness of the Leader of the Opposition and his sidekick, the shadow finance minister. Shadow? He has completely overshadowed the shadow Treasurer, and the shadow Treasurer is a big guy. The shadow Treasurer is desperately trying to find a bit of space, a bit of oxygen. His only job is to go out and try to clean up the mess made by Senator Joyce, the shadow finance minister.
I note today that when the Leader of the Opposition was given the opportunity to repudiate the risky and reckless comments of the shadow finance minister he would not do so. To his credit the shadow Treasurer said: ‘It’s my job again today. What is today? It is a day ending in A-Y. I will have to go and clean up Senator Joyce’s mess.’ There they were in Queanbeyan today and there was an opportunity for the Leader of the Opposition to simply say, ‘I don’t agree with Senator Joyce and this should not have happened.’ But instead he said, ‘I’m keeping him; I’m keeping the team right through to the next election no matter what Senator Joyce says.’ This is the fact of the matter: he is in on the caper. The opposition leader is in on the caper. These are not just shooting from the lip remarks by Senator Joyce. They are perfectly well choreographed. The opposition leader says to him: ‘You go out and make some outrageous remarks to try to get the issue of public debt on the agenda. We will send out the poor old hapless tutu-wearing shadow Treasurer to go and clean up the mess’—so poor old Joe has to do that—‘but I won’t repudiate you, mate, because you and I know what the caper is,’ and the caper is saying the most outrageous and risky comments, which have in fact been reported by Reuters and other international organisations and wire services, because they do go around the world.
I was talking with Senator Brandis on radio today and he said, ‘Senator Joyce said it does not really matter; you’re saying it’s reverberating around the world.’ Do they take themselves seriously or not? This is the alternative finance minister of Australia making these reckless comments. Where was the shadow small business minister? Did he go around to Senator Joyce’s office and say, ‘Well, hold on, this is a problem, because this can make people very worried and this recklessness, this risk, does have implications down the track for small business interest rates’? When an alternative finance minister, a senior economic shadow minister, is prepared to go and say that Australia is at risk of defaulting on its loans, that the United States is at risk of defaulting on its loans, what sort of economic environment does that create in this country in terms of perceptions of sovereign risk? It is the height of recklessness, the height of irresponsibility. And make no mistake that the Leader of the Opposition is in on the caper. He sends him out with the assurance that he will not repudiate the comments of Senator Joyce. But poor old Joe will get the knock on the door and be told, ‘Go and clean it up and then we can say, “Well, you know, it was just a little bit of loose lips again from Senator Joyce.”’
The opposition is a big risk for the Australian economy and a big risk for small businesses. Just in the last week, a $10 billion climate change con job has been unveiled by the coalition. When Senator Joyce was asked at the National Press Club where the funding would come from, he referred to the tax system and he said, ‘That’s the whole thing where we’re going to get the money.’ They are going to get the money out of the tax system. What do you reckon small business will think about that? Higher taxes on small business. We know who are the champion taxers in Australian history, the gold medal taxers in Australian history, the bobsleigh champions of Australian history and the highest taxing government in Australian history.
Mr Ruddock interjecting
No, it is not Labor, and you should know better. In Budget Paper No. 1, ‘Tax as a share of GDP’, in mid-2000, the figures are 24.9, 24.9, 24.6 and 24.6. Under us, it is 22. So, if you want to find a party that is interested in reducing taxes as a share of GDP, as we have done, go to the Labor Party, but if you want to go to the highest-taxing government in Australia’s history that is the coalition—the world champion taxers.
Madam Deputy Speaker, a point of order: Dr Emerson has a minute to go. He might wish to address the MPI and talk about interest rate impacts on small business and access to finance.
The member for Dunkley will remember to call people by their appropriate titles. The minister has the call.
The Reserve Bank cash rate at the moment is 3.75 per cent. Apart from this period of easing that has been going on, that is at its lowest level since 1967—more than 40 years ago. A lot of things happened in 1967. The Cronulla Sharks and Penrith Panthers entered the rugby league competition. The shadow minister for small business was in nappies, having been born on 26 January 1966. The Beatles released Penny Lane. (Time expired)
I welcome the opportunity to address this matter of public importance on the damaging impact of rising interest rates on small business. We saw highlighted in the global financial crisis the importance of capital flows to the operation of the world economy and we saw the impact of a near breakdown of the world banking sector and what that meant to companies and businesses large and small. Credit is the lifeblood of commerce on a global scale and at a local level. If corporations cannot refinance their debt obligations, then the result is catastrophic. If the local hardware store cannot refinance its working capital needs, the result for that small business is much the same, albeit on a smaller scale.
There are two important elements to finance: availability and price. Whilst the availability of finance has improved, the price of that finance to small business has been rising rapidly. We see this government, through its spending decisions, putting upward pressure on interest rates. We see this government, through its inability to manage its budget position, being active in the market, competing with small business, competing with home owners and competing with consumers for available finance resources. It is a simple equation of supply and demand. The government, through its failure to manage its finances, is driving up interest rates to a level higher than they need to be, to the detriment of small business, to the detriment of home owners and to the detriment of consumers. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia put it quite clearly when he said:
... a relatively rapid fiscal consolidation would help keep official interest rates down, lower the government debt burden and reduce the potential for crowding out of private investment normally associated with high fiscal deficits and upward pressure on interest rates.
The crowding-out effect is alive and well with Labor. Labor has reverted to type. Debt and deficit are back, and it is small business that is paying the price. Small business is being crowded out of the finance market by the $850 million cost blowout on the Solar Homes and Communities Plan—a program that was supposed to cost $150 million. But what did it cost? Is the cost now sitting at $300 million? No, it is not. Is it $500 million? No, it is not. It is $1 billion. Small business is being crowded out by the $4 billion Energy Efficient Homes scheme—$4 billion on a scheme that is out of control, that is a haven for shonky operators and a scheme that kills people.
But wait, there’s more! There is the big daddy of them all—the yet unfunded National Broadband Network. The government will be out in the market again competing with small business for a miserly $43 billion. There is no business plan, no detailed feasibility study, no detailed costings on the rollout and no detailed revenue projections. It is all blue sky, and it will be small business, home owners and consumers who will be paying the price through increased interest rates as the government tries to finance a scheme for which there is no guaranteed demand.
No-one in the private sector could make a more modest scheme stack up, but this government is going to risk vast sums of taxpayers’ money without a business plan. In corporate Australia management would be sacked for such reckless behaviour, but for the Labor Party this is just par for the course. This government thinks it is okay to go out and borrow a large amount of money and in doing so put pressure on the funds for small business. We have a government that cannot control its own spending when reducing that spending would take pressure off interest rates and would provide better credit conditions for small business. The federal government is spending at a rate faster than any government in this nation’s history. This government makes Whitlam looks like a miser.
This government has its policy levers working in opposite directions. We have the government with its foot flat to the floor, with its spending out of control, and then we have the Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, throwing out the anchors. He is pulling on the handbrake, but Kevin and the boys have the accelerator flat to the floor. The losers out of all this are going to be small business, homeowners and consumers on the street. This government is working against those people and those small businesses, because it cannot manage money. It is working against small businesses by driving up interest rates due to their out-of-control spending.
Making matters worse, we have seen rising interest rates for small business over and above the increases in the cash rate. Back in January 2008, small businesses were paying a margin of about 3.1 per cent over the Reserve Bank cash rate. That has since blown out. Towards the end of last year, it was running at around 4.95 per cent above the cash rate. So small businesses are being hit twice: firstly, by the rise in the cash rate and, secondly, by the rise in margins. This is largely because government spending is out of control. These dual factors are putting a great onus on the government to act prudently and responsibly in the interests of small business and the community generally. But what is this government doing to help small business? Is it reining in spending to take pressure off interest rates? No, it is not. What the government is about to introduce to help small business is a great big new tax on everything. It will help small business in a number of ways. It will help small businesses by making their electricity more expensive, by making gas more expensive and by making every import that small business buys more expensive. It is a great big new tax that will cost jobs and drive small businesses to the wall.
What will this new tax do to inflation? The government’s own estimates say that the impact on inflation could be in the order of 1.5 per cent. And what will higher inflation do to interest rates? I think it will do only one thing; it will—surprise, surprise!—drive interest rates up. What will that do to small business? Once again, small business will be carrying the can for the incompetence of this government.
We have a Prime Minister who has made many promises to the Australian people. He was going to fix our hospitals by 30 June 2009. He was going to end the blame game with the states. He was going to save the whales. He was going to massively increase the number of nurses and he was going to put a computer on the desk of every child from year 9 up. And—perhaps the biggest promise of them all—he was going to be a fiscal conservative. A fiscal conservative does not rack up a debt of over $120 billion in just two years. A fiscal conservative does not waste money on programs that are so badly administered they do not achieve their objectives. A fiscal conservative does not compete with small business in finance markets to drive up the cost of their money.
What a fiscal conservative does is ensure that both arms of policy—monetary and fiscal—are working in the same direction. What a fiscal conservative does is ensure that the budget is under control. A fiscal conservative does not allow cost blow-outs of the magnitude that we are seeing from this government. We have the Prime Minister with the accelerator flat to the floor, we have the Reserve Bank governor pulling on the handbrake as hard as he can, and there is only one loser in this farcical situation. That loser is small business—small business people who work hard to make their businesses pay, who work hard to provide jobs in many regional communities and cities alike, who work hard to provide good services to their customers and who put their houses on the line to keep their businesses going. Yet we have this government driving up the cost of interest rates with a disregard for the interests of small business.
In this House on 3 February I asked the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy a question about the impact of increased electricity prices on one particular small business. Basically, the small business minister mocked the question. He showed a complete disregard for the interests of that small business in exactly the same way this government shows disregard for small business in the way it is managing its budget and the economy. This government stands condemned for the impact it is having in the marketplace on interest rates. It is going to drive small businesses to the wall and, as interest rates continue to rise, the situation is only going to worsen.
I rise to speak in response to this matter of public importance raised by the shadow minister for small business. It is a matter of public importance, and I thank him for raising this debate. It is important that we discuss matters of important public policy and it is especially important that those opposite address significant matters of economic policy and that it be done seriously and in a sober way. I think a hallmark of this shadow minister is that he does approach his work so seriously. It is in many ways an adornment to the opposition that we have a shadow minister who raises these issues in such a way so that they can be taken seriously. I know that the member for Dunkley takes these matters seriously, and he should be taken seriously by his own party.
It is a great pity that not all of those opposite take matters of economic policy so seriously. It is a great policy flaw of those opposite that they do not take the shadow minister for small business too seriously. How could they? In the course of the last five years we have seen the once-great Liberal Party, the home of conservative policy making, shattered to the point where Barnaby Joyce is now their spokesperson for finance—shattered to the point where your economic credibility is not just in tatters; it is represented by a shadow minister who brings nothing but a sense of humour, joke and shame to the serious business of economic commentary. Not so the shadow minister for small business. He has quite appropriately addressed those matters that are of concern to small businesses.
When I talk to small businesses in my electorate, they have a slightly different take; and that is legitimate because down my way the impact of the global financial crisis could have been absolutely devastating. The federal government put in place a set of fiscal measures supported by the Reserve Bank and supported by the Reserve Bank governor which supported jobs and supported our local economy. These measures supported jobs for local contractors; they supported jobs for local tradespeople such as plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers and people who now work building our schools, building our roads and building our hospitals. These people are now able again, with great certainty, to build their businesses in the face of what would have been crushing uncertainty.
That crushing uncertainty is extremely important for us to contemplate because that crushing uncertainty of the global financial crisis is something that those opposite at times seek to take advantage of. At a time of uncertainty created by collapsing global financial markets, uncertainty created by collapsing banking systems—when the world’s great banks collapsed, when the world’s great private enterprise manufacturing organisations collapsed and when the world’s great economies suffered from unemployment increasing at the rate of hundreds of thousands per week—Barnaby Joyce became the shadow minister for finance. Senator Joyce has one important qualification in becoming the shadow minister for finance—that is, he is a National Party senator.
I think those opposite—and there are members opposite who are deeply thoughtful people—should think about the following. They should think about the fact that the National Party in 1996 had 16 members in this place—16 members making a contribution and seeking to define public policy and to support regional Australian communities. By 2001 there were 13 National Party members of parliament. Following a period of incredible fiscal irresponsibility, following a period of reckless spending, by 2004 there were 14 National Party members in this place. At the time of the federal election in 2007 there were 10 National Party members in this place. Today there are nine. With that track record of dwindling public support, with that track record of a dwindling number of members of parliament and with that track record of clearly being incapable of representing their constituency appropriately, the National Party are handed the great prize of the finance portfolio. This great prize for all aspiring politicians with an economic bent is a portfolio to be taken very seriously.
I follow today in this debate the speech given by the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy. He began his career in this place as an economic adviser to Prime Minister Hawke. He was at that stage a serious young economist and he was taken seriously by the Prime Minister of the day. He was then the senior adviser to the Minister for Resources and Energy. He helped define, describe and implement the petroleum resource rent tax. This is a guy who then went on to a senior role in the public service in the state of Queensland. This is a guy who entered this place with a serious background in and with a credible knowledge of the economy, finance and public finances that sees him now being the minister for small business.
As I said at the start of my remarks, it is encouraging that the shadow minister for small business should put this motion on the Notice Paper and have it debated properly and appropriately. It is unfortunate that behind him the clowns in the shadow cabinet and the clowns of the National Party continue to bring nothing but scorn and shame upon the opposition and the way in which it prosecutes its economic debates. Why is this important? It is important because, as we all know, what we do in this place sets the tone and tenor for how our nation responds to important issues of the day. By that I mean that when we talk seriously about economics people take it seriously. When Senator Joyce speaks of the economy people are aghast. It is not as if he were an essential choice to be the shadow minister for finance, but he was the choice of those opposite. He is a reckless choice. He is a choice who places on the public record comments such as ‘we are going into hock to our eyeballs to people overseas’. He said:
You have got to ask the question, how far into debt do you want to go? We are getting to a point where we can’t repay it …
What do we believe those overseas who watch our country and who listen to our senior politicians will take away from such comments? What we know they will take away from such comments is that Senator Joyce is a clown. What he would like them to take from those comments is that our nation’s finances are in peril. What he would like them to take from such comments is that our nation’s finances are unstable. What he would like to see happen is a substantial international crisis—damaging our currency, damaging our terms of trade, throwing people into unemployment, damaging small business and causing the very harm that the shadow minister for small business would like to avoid. What is the shadow minister doing about it? He is the front man—the straight man—for the stooge. It is not good enough to turn up in this place making serious arguments but actually providing the cover, being the stooge, for the fool who continually attempts to drag down the Australian economy and continually attempts to bring nothing but disaster upon the Australian economy—because that is the only way we can interpret his public comments that attack foreign investment in our country, his public comments that attack foreign investment in our resources economy and his public comments which go to the core of damaging the lifeline which our economy has in creating jobs and in creating a future for our children and for our businesses, large and small.
It is not good enough just to turn up in this place with a plausible MPI and to argue that with great coherence and eloquence. It is important also to get your own house in order, to get an economic debate happening within your own party which is both responsible and measures up to the heritage of the Liberal Party and not the lunacy of the dwindling sideshow of the National Party—the tail wagging the dog, the tail telling the dog what economic policy it will have and bringing nothing but embarrassment upon those opposite. (Time expired)
I am very pleased today to rise in this matter of public importance discussion. First, I would like to direct my comments to the speeches from those opposite. We have heard a lot of talk today about the Liberal Party and the coalition team, but we have not heard much about what the government is doing to assist small business—small business that is struggling at the moment with the impact of rising interest rates.
Small business is critical to the engine room of the Australian economy. There are 2.4 million small businesses in Australia, which employ around 5.1 million Australians and provide them with a livelihood. In Higgins—in Ashburton, Murrumbeena, South Yarra and Prahran—there are around 19,000 small businesses, and they contribute very, very significantly to employment and to the prosperity and growth of this country. They contribute as well to the great culture of our local community.
There are some very significant threats to small business. Only yesterday we heard from the Reserve Bank governor warnings about excessive and poorly targeted stimulus spending putting pressure on interest rates. The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday reported:
Mr Stevens told the governors he suspected they had a moral duty to do more, and to target excessive growth of asset prices and debt and risk taking as they became apparent.
‘‘This amounts to an argument to err on the side—much earlier in the process—of not keeping interest rates unusually low,’’ he said.
This comes after the most recent warnings from the Reserve Bank, in their monetary policy statement:
If economic conditions evolve broadly as expected, the Board considers it likely that monetary policy will, over time, need to be adjusted further in order to ensure that inflation remains consistent with the target over the medium term.
This is very clear. It is very clear that Labor’s reckless spending is putting upward pressure on interest rates through their massive borrowing and debt. My colleagues pointed out earlier some significant issues for small business, in particular issues around access to capital and the fact that capital has been constrained—working capital so that they can pay for stock and pay bills while they are waiting for creditors to pay their bills, and capital for set-up of new small businesses and expansion of small businesses that are already established.
According to Reserve Bank statistics in September 2009, small businesses are paying a 130-basis-point premium for credit. This is the difference between a standard variable housing loan and a residential secured small business term loan. This is significant because this premium is more than six times the difference during the Asian financial crisis, which was 20 basis points, and more than five times the average of the past 10 years, which is 22 basis points.
Small business needs to be able to borrow at reasonable rates to keep going and to expand. COSBOA, the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia, had something to say on this subject. We should listen to what they say; they represent their members very well. Their chief executive, Jaye Radisich, said:
The cost and availability of credit and finance has been a top issue for COSBOA and small businesses in recent times – it is patently clear that more has to be done to support small businesses in this area.
Unlike some of those opposite, I know small businesses are hurting, and I know they are hurting because I have been speaking to them. In the Higgins by-election, I convened a forum in my electorate to talk to small businesses about the challenges that were facing them. I had an overwhelming response, and they were very, very clear. They know that interest rates are hurting their businesses. Interest rates, they say, need to be addressed by the government.
The government made many promises at the last election. They made promises that they would be economic conservatives. They made promises that they would keep interest rates low. Yet today we have not had one word from the government about the action that they will be taking. This is true of the government’s record in a number of areas. They have made significant promises in relation to health and private health insurance, they have had a number of committees and inquiries and yet we see nothing actually being done. We on this side of the House will always be strong advocates— (Time expired)
I want to compliment the last speaker. It is certainly a tough task to come new into this parliament and have to do an MPI, but she performed very well. Having been a small business man myself, I think some of the comments coming from the other side are just rhetoric. We as a government do understand small business. We have empathy for small business. I would like to ask all those speakers on the other side how many of them actually have small business experience. My understanding is that very few of them do, although maybe as a council bureaucrat, and certainly as a lawyer, some of them have experience in business.
What is small business? I know from my experiences of listening over a period of time to the opposition and their responses that they are full of rhetoric. They run the company line. They talk about mismanagement by the Rudd government and a whole lot of other issues. But they are incorrect. The thing that worries me the most is when we see the new opposition leader out there in public with small businesses talking about the threat and the fear that these interest rate rises are going to kill their businesses. I should remind the member for Higgins that our current cash rate now is three per cent lower than what it was under the previous government and when we came to government. The reality is, they are running a scare campaign on rising interest rates.
I did not hear from one of the opposition today—again, because of their lack of small business—about the reality of small business. The reality of small business is not about cost or interest rate hikes or a whole range of other issues: it is about bringing in business. When the economy is flat, when there is no business activity, small businesses fail. At the age of 21 I employed 25 people. Howard was in government as the Treasurer. We had 22 per cent interest rates. That was bizarre and terrible but we survived. The reality was that there was enough stimulus created by the work that we were doing at the time to get by. The reality is that the fear about a whole range of issues does not matter. If you do not have the business, you do not survive. How do the internal machinations or mechanics of a business work in terms of the financing and leveraging? The reality is, if the business model is not working it is not working.
Regarding the consideration that was put by the other side about how we as a government have spent a lot of money, firstly they say that we have not kept our promises and then they complain that we are overspending. I do not understand where they are coming from. The reality is that there is, through our stimulus package, a large amount of money going into the economy through projects that we identified. As the global financial crisis hit, it was something that we needed to attend for large corporations and the many employees that they have but for small business particularly. Small business can fail due to people simply pulling up and not spending on some very basic day-to-day items. We saw the dry cleaning example very eloquently used the other day. The member for Dunkley was very prominent there, reminding his leader that there are men who also do the housework. The reality for small businesses is that if the demand disappears, they have no work. That said, we as a government have responded very well through the global financial crisis. We will continue to respond and to maintain that stimulus, watching very carefully to see that the stimulus supports small business at the first level and large organisations at the higher level.
For those opposition members who have not had the personal experience of having to finance their own business, the reality is that you only survive on your own collateral and your own ability to finance your business. There are no large pools or surpluses of dollars, or some reserve or even shareholders who may make good with dollars when the company is in business. The tipping balance for a small business is very low. In fact, a small business can fall over very easily if the wrong dynamics are in place.
As a government, we understood this. We understood immediately the issue of credit flowing into this country—the large investments for big business and the credit for those right down the chain, such as the small businesses who provide services to larger companies by working on small contracts. They often have half-a-dozen employees. Without the business, they do not survive. The Rudd government provided that stimulus. We understood. Not only do we have empathy for small business—and that is evident in the work that we have done in our approach to the GFC—but we have a holistic approach to financial management. Unlike the other side, we have confidence in our economy and in the decisions that we have made. The proof is in the pudding: what we have been able to achieve as a government. (Time expired)
Order! The discussion is now concluded.
The Speaker has received advice from the Chief Opposition Whip nominating changes to membership of certain committees.
by leave—I move:
That:
Question agreed to.
I move:
That orders of the day Nos 2 to 11, government business, be postponed until a later hour this day.
Question agreed to.
Debate resumed from 25 November, on motion by Dr Emerson:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to speak today on the Tax Laws Amendment (2009 Measures No. 6) Bill 2009 and in so doing cover some of the issues that are raised in the six unrelated schedules to the bill. Schedule 1 proposes changes to the capital gains tax provisions to abolish the trust cloning exemptions of the Income Tax Act 1997 and provide for the rollover of CGT when transferring assets between certain non-discretionary trusts. This is probably the most contentious schedule to the bill. Before I discuss the different measures, I should make the point at the outset that the former minister for finance, on behalf of the opposition, referred the bill to a Senate inquiry in November 2009. We await the deliberations of the experts on our Senate Economics Legislation Committee, which are due on 25 February. The opposition will tailor its response to the bill accordingly. As I said, there are some quite technical provisions and they raise some interesting questions.
It is fair to say—again in preliminary remarks—that in picking up the previous government’s tax reform agenda when they came to government just over a couple of years ago, the promise was that they would make very few changes. Therefore, it is substantially the previous government’s agenda that has gone forward. But when that arrives at the legislative stage—when the rubber hits the road—due to the responses by the ministers to the consultation, which was extensive and positive, we may see different legislative provisions than those we would have enacted. That is why we will scrutinise the final legislation very carefully. To maintain our support, we need a positive reform agenda that looks after business interests.
Schedule 1 talks about trust cloning, which I suppose is the vernacular for the process where a new trust is created over assets that have been transferred with the same terms and beneficiaries of the original trust. Generally, capital gains arising from the increased value of such assets are taxed when the economic ownership of the asset changes. But a change of economic ownership usually occurs where assets are transferred between trusts or where a trust is created over an asset. For example, where a family trust transfers one asset to another unrelated family trust, a change in economic ownership occurs and capital gains tax liability arises. Where a trust is created over a new asset for the first time, a change of economic ownership occurs and capital gains tax liability also arises. I guess the distinction is between the legal and the economic ownership changing, and that is probably one of the points of this provision. It is critical that we make sure that we do not introduce new capital gains tax provisions where there is not that change of economic underlying ownership and it is just a change in legal ownership.
At the moment under the law there are two exceptions to this general rule, and the provisions under those exceptions are that a capital gains tax event does not occur and therefore no liability arises when a taxpayer is a sole beneficiary of a trust that was created over the asset or into which the asset was transferred; the taxpayer is absolutely entitled to the asset in question against the trustee; the trust in question is not a unit trust; or, and the fourth provision is critical, where the asset is transferred from an existing trust into a new trust, whether the new trust was created by this transfer of the asset or was an existing trust and the beneficiaries in terms of both trusts are the same. The last point is where I suppose potential tax mischief may arise, and the government has stated that it considers that these exceptions are being used to allow the transfer of assets between individuals that result in less or no tax being paid in circumstances that would normally give rise to a much larger capital gains tax liability.
The last point I mentioned of the four allows the capital gains tax free transfer of assets between trusts that have many beneficiaries none of whom are necessarily entitled to the asset in question. These are discretionary trusts where it is up to the discretion of the trustee how those assets are distributed. It is quite possible for somebody to contribute an asset to the trust or have a trust purchase the asset with funds contributed by them and have other individuals receive the benefits arising from the asset, but of course the distribution can change from year to year so such benefits could be received free of any CGT liability. It has been noted that in extreme cases it is possible for an asset to be transferred into a new trust under these provisions and then immediately sold and that would completely avoid any tax being paid.
There is a need to review these provisions, and that is what this bill does, but I also note that in making submissions to the Senate inquiry various tax organisations and the industry have expressed quite serious concern. I imagine that that concern may well be reflected in the senators’ final report. Specifically, there is concern that the rollover provisions are too narrow and they will prevent the transfer of assets between trusts in circumstances where there actually is not a change in economic ownership and there is no way of justifying that that has not indeed happened. That would introduce uncertainty into the tax profession.
There are legitimate uses for trust cloning which this bill seeks to recognise, and that is good. We all recognise that there are legitimate uses of trust cloning that really do not have anything to do with the tax provisions; they would relate to family business succession planning, a business protecting its assets and diversifying its risks, and the need to restructure property within trusts. The proposed changes do address those non-tax reasons for trust cloning by stating that, where there is a sole beneficiary, that beneficiary is absolutely entitled to the asset in question and the receiving trust is not a unit trust, the proposed provisions may be used in succession planning for a family business et cetera. My concern at this stage is that the rollover provisions are in fact too narrow and may need to be reviewed. Capital gains tax considerations must not be an impediment to the restructure of trusts and there should not be inappropriate consequences.
The policy development for this particular provision and indeed the whole bill has been substantial and I acknowledge the work that all have done since this was first a paper delivered by the ATO in April 2008. There has been a long and iterative process since then. Industry submissions to the Treasury in response to release of the exposure draft generally did acknowledge that the current provisions were too wide and may well lead to avoidance of capital gains tax. That is not good, of course, but the submissions generally considered that the proposed changes to recognise that fact are too narrow and would prevent many particularly discretionary trusts from taking advantage of the proposed relief provisions upon the transfer of assets. So, once again, we will see what the Senate Standing Committee on Economics comes back with on 25 February.
The second schedule that I want to talk about in some detail is probably the other main one in the bill, and that concerns loss relief for emerging superannuation funds. The schedule inserts a new division into the income tax act to deal with the transfer of capital and income losses to funds when two separate superannuation funds merge. Typically if you transfer assets from one fund to another, that would trigger a capital gains tax event and of course the realisation of capital gains, or capital losses, for the receiving or transferring fund as appropriate. This new provision will allow the transfer of losses to a successor fund when two superannuation funds merge. We should note that the proposed changes are temporary measures applying to mergers that occur between December 2008 and June 2011.
I appreciate that the reason for that is that the government has stated that it will review this measure after it has considered the report of its Australia’s Future Tax System Review. Leaving aside all the points that I could make about the nonrelease of that future tax system review report, the fact that the industry does not know at this stage whether this particular measure is going to continue is surely going to act as a disincentive for any mergers that it might be contemplating. Certainly, if we look at figures provided by APRA about the number of mergers between superannuation funds, particularly the main ones, over the years between 2005 and 2009—corporate funds, industry funds and retail funds would be the three main sectors, and there is also the public sector—we see that there has been significant merging of superannuation funds. That excludes all of the small super funds, but the main funds are involved in very steady ongoing merging operations.
I think the reasons behind that are positive, because there are great advantages to members and fund providers, most particularly with economies of scale. Bigger funds, of course, have access to a much wider range of investment opportunity and can adopt a longer term, more stable approach in their investment strategies. The regulatory requirements of APRA, I think it is fair to say, can be quite onerous for a small fund. The other very important thing for everybody who has their money in super funds—and that is all of us—is, I think, that larger funds can demand lower service fees from service providers. There has certainly been quite a bit in the press this week about the quantum of fees that fund managers are asking. Some commentary I read this morning—I am sorry; I cannot attribute it—said that, if fund managers cut their costs by 50 per cent, we would all have more money in super. If this measure can assist, it is certainly a good one.
The commitment began in December 2008, when the Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law announced that the government would provide an optional capital gains tax rollover for capital losses arising when funds with at least five members merged before 1 July 2010. Again, with this measure, there has been extensive consultation, and I think it has been a good consultative process. Generally, industry groups have welcomed the changes and noted that they will benefit the industry, but several groups have requested that the scope of the proposed changes be further extended to include a wider range of situations. It is important, if we are going to take these steps and make these changes for a particular purpose, that the legislation we put forward actually does achieve that.
Some of the concerns that have been raised in the context of the Senate inquiry include, as I have already mentioned, the sunset date coming up in 2011, which I believe is far too soon. It is not reasonable that the industry should bear the cost of uncertainty of the government’s dragging its heels on the Henry tax review. Other concerns are with the two different approaches for obtaining rollover relief, one of which is rollover relief in transferring the members and one of which is transferring the losses. The first option for rollover relief enables the new fund to take up the cost base of the assets as they applied in the fund which is winding up, but it is only available if the transfer of members in the winding up of that fund occurs in a single tax year, and transfers may often occur over two tax years for a variety of reasons. It may well be that the legislation needs to reflect that as an option. There will be circumstances where a transfer can legitimately occur over more than one tax year. If that were the case, the rollover relief would not be available.
The other approach is to transfer the losses from one fund directly into another. Apparently, under the legislation as drafted, losses arising after the last member transfers cannot be transferred. The recommendation, there, is that it should be possible for losses that are incurred by the old fund after the last member transfers relating to the realisation of assets and other costs associated with the transfer of members and the wind-up of the fund—which clearly would come after the last members transferred—to also be transferred to a continuing fund.
Another concern raised was that the bill should be clarified to ensure that rollover relief can apply to assets transferred to the continuing fund even if other assets have been sold to a third party. An example might be if assets were realised for cash and sold to a third party but there would be further transfer of assets remaining that would then be moved into the new fund. It is apparently not crystal clear that they would all be covered by the provisions of the bill, even though I am sure it was designed that they should be.
That is schedule 2, which deals with those transfers of losses between super funds. I think it is reasonable to say in summary that the changes probably do not go as far as the superannuation industry would like but they do remove significant impediments to the merger of funds over the set time period.
Schedule 3 concerns exempt annuity business of life insurance companies. It is fairly straightforward and non-controversial. I am not going to tie myself up in knots, because I know that anyone tuned into this broadcast is tuning out rapidly at the in-depth discussion of tax matters! Essentially, the third schedule is a clear legislative commitment to exempt all superannuation based income from income tax if the recipient is over 60 years of age and the benefits were previously taxed within the fund. Where annuities were paid, we have to clarify that they are in fact from a non-assessable, non-exempt source. Schedule 3 is totally uncontroversial.
Schedule 4 concerns deductible gift recipients. From time to time, the Assistant Treasurer adds different individuals or organisations onto the deductible gift register. Two are being added. One is the Dymocks charity and one is the Green Institute Ltd. I am compelled to state that I am concerned about an organisation as political as the Green Institute Ltd, which is—from checking its website—an arm of the green movement. It makes highly political statements. It is quite entitled to do that. It is entitled to carry out a political agenda, as is any organisation, but I do not know that it is reasonable that it should be ahead of so many others in receiving deductible gifts. It is certainly not in the same category as most of the other organisations on that list. As somebody who, as a local member of parliament, has tried—as we all have—to have listed our local organisations that, for example, are raising money for a family that has been left homeless or children who have been affected by the loss of parents and so on and are doing really good work in their local community, I know that they do not always get accepted onto this list, whereas an organisation as blatantly political as the Green Institute has been accepted. That is clearly a political decision by this government and one of which we do not approve.
Schedule 5 of the bill concerns the north-western Queensland floods. It is there to ensure that the particular amounts that were paid to the victims of the north-western Queensland floods in early 2009 are not subject to income tax and not included in separate net income of a person receiving these payments—in other words, there are no tax consequences of those payments.
The final schedule of the bill relates to spirit blending—these spirits, I hasten to say, are not consumer spirits. This schedule amends the Excise Act to ensure that the blending of certain high-strength neutral spirits—those with greater than 10 per cent volume of alcohol—are treated as excise manufacture to ensure that those spirits, when imported, qualify in the same manner as domestic spirits for the concessional spirits regime under the Excise Act. I should note that they are used for industrial, manufacturing, scientific, medical, veterinary or educational purposes.
In conclusion, can I thank the Parliamentary Library, in particular Leslie Nielson from the economics section, for the terrific work they do in assisting all of us who wish to speak on tax matters, and indeed economics matters, in the House, and for their help on this particular occasion. And may I again reiterate that the opposition will consider its position on the provisions of this bill following the Senate inquiry in the other place.
I rise to speak in support of the Tax Laws Amendment (2009 Measures No. 6) Bill 2009. Today in the Main Committee there is a long list of speakers on appropriation bills. Those are the bills that actually give out money on the expenditure side. Today in this chamber we are dealing with legislation that deals with tax laws—that is, the income that comes into government revenue. Government is like a business, in effect: you expend money and you get money in. As someone who was in business for more than 20 years before coming into this place, I know the challenges of small business—how to grow a business and how difficult it is. You need to be prudent, careful and efficient in the way you deal with things. The legislation that is before the House today is about improving not just the equity but the efficiency and effectiveness of our tax system.
I listened to the shadow minister in relation to schedule 1, and I do not share her concern with that. Schedule 1 does deal with trust cloning, which is a problem for us in terms of the mischief it can cause. People are entitled to engage in succession planning, in asset protection; but they are not entitled to change ownership in circumstances to avoid capital gains tax. People who can afford it, people with income and assets, people with access to good tax advisers, can make use of provisions in our Income Tax Assessment Act to avoid tax. No-one should be able to evade tax, but it is legitimate to minimise our tax arrangements. In fact, the Income Tax Assessment Act should effectively be used as a dumbbell it is so heavy—and it has been growing over the years. We need to make sure that our tax system is lean, efficient and simplified. We cannot have situations where people can make arrangements—using, say, discretionary trusts—to change ownership arrangements so as to minimise their tax in a way that evades it. Discretionary family trusts are fine; it is legitimate to use them. But you cannot make your trust arrangements in a way so as to effectively mean that you pay less than you ought.
I said today in the Main Committee that my electorate had received considerable sums of money in Regional and Local Community Infrastructure funding, and I outlined examples today. That is on the expenditure side. Money has been delivered in vital infrastructure. We cannot engage in the BER funding, we cannot engage in Regional and Local Community Infrastructure funding; we cannot build the roads, fix the ports, build the railways, pay social security or fix our health and hospital system unless we get our tax system right—unless we get it lean, efficient and effective. Schedules 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are the methods by which we can contribute to making sure that the tax system is fair on all of us, making sure that those on low and medium incomes are not disadvantaged compared with those who are wealthy and can afford the best tax advisers. The meatworkers, the cleaners, the public servants in my electorate should not be disadvantaged compared with those who are wealthy—the millionaires and the billionaires in this country.
Schedule 1, as the minister has said, contributes to our tax system being more lean and efficient. It effectively abolishes the exception to the capital gains tax events, what are known as E1 and E2. These are known as the ‘trust cloning exceptions’. That is the process whereby someone who is smart, and probably business savvy, can create a new trust on the same terms, with the same beneficiaries as the original trust, so that assets can be transferred between those trusts without raising what we would call a capital gains tax liability. That does not mean to say that we should not effectively allow someone to use a fixed trust where there is no effective change of ownership, but what we must do is eliminate the possibility that there can be an effective ownership change without that capital gains tax liability arising.
There is, as I said, a limited CGT rollover for transfer of assets between fixed trusts—and that is the right thing to do, because people are entitled to restructure their trusts. But we cannot have a situation where those people who have the capacity to can arrange their affairs in a way where all the rest of us can suffer disadvantage and our consolidated revenue is disadvantaged such that our health system, our hospital system, our roads and our social welfare system are disadvantaged.
We want to make sure that people can engage in trust arrangements. We want to make sure that they can restructure their trusts. We want to make sure that, as the minister said, capital gains tax is not an undue impediment to the restructure of those trusts. I think the schedules as specified in this legislation do reflect what the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy said—that this is very typical of the Rudd government’s busy work ethic when it comes to tax reform. It is important that we continue this while we wait for the government’s consideration of the Henry tax review and for the announcements that will follow.
Schedule 2 removes very substantial income tax impediments to mergers between complying superannuation funds. We have seen some pretty big superannuation funds merge. AustralianSuper is typical of that. The merger between the former Australian Retirement Fund and the Superannuation Trust of Australia took place in 2006. I believe that there will be future mergers in the sector. There have been other mergers, and the industry does want this change.
I think one of the greatest legacies of the Hawke and Keating governments is our superannuation industry. Superannuation allows our senior citizens—and we are all going to get older—to have economic security and dignity. It allows them to access the necessities of life, put a roof over their heads and not have to worry quite so much about their future economic security. Many people in this place would have parents—some even grandparents—who are in that situation.
There are economies of scale in the merger of superannuation schemes. Anything we can do to permit mergers to happen so that schemes do not have the terrible charges that so many smaller superannuation schemes seem to impose on their beneficiaries is good. Anything we can do to improve the superannuation industry is of benefit to the whole nation and those people whom we hope to represent to the best of our ability in this chamber.
Schedule 2 removes significant income tax impediments to mergers, as I said. It permits the rolling over of capital losses and revenue losses realised under the merger and the transfer of previously realised capital and revenue losses. That loss relief is going to be available for a complying superannuation fund which merges with another complying superannuation fund with five or more members. If we did not do this, there would be an impediment to such mergers. The industry wants this change to take place. Submissions made in relation to this matter after it was announced that this would take place indicate clearly that the industry is in favour of what we are doing in this regard.
The third schedule deals with exempt annuities. An annuity is really a right to receive a payment over a period of time. It is very common for that to take place in the form of an income stream from a life insurance company. They market these annuities. It is very common for people to engage in these arrangements, and they are entitled to do so. Schedule 3 clarifies the circumstances in which an income derived from a life insurance company qualifies as non-assessable and non-exempt income. It is a very technical change. It is of benefit, as it does make certain the situation in relation to this matter. I do think, however, that at some stage we need to look at an amendment to the wording of what is an ‘exempt annuity’. There is no definition of that in the legislation. I think we need to look at that in the future. That would clarify the situation and help people to understand the legislation.
The amendments in schedule 3 also make it clear that superannuation income streams offered by life insurance companies are not subject to annuity conditions. Therefore, life insurance companies will be taxed on the superannuation income stream in the same way as any other superannuation income stream provider is. Unlike the previous provisions with respect to annuity conditions, which have a retrospective aspect to 1 July 2000, those changes in the latter amendment that I referred to operate from the 2007-08 income year, so the retrospectivity is not so great.
Schedule 4 helps our community to be more charitable. It lists two new organisations, the Green Institute Ltd and the United States Studies Centre, as income tax deduction beneficiaries. Under the current law, an individual can claim income tax deductions if they give gifts to certain organisations which qualify for the status of a charity. This will help philanthropy in the country. I do not share the concerns of the shadow minister with respect to the Green Institute. There is another provision that changes the name of one of the organisations from the Dymocks Literacy Foundation to Dymocks Children’s Charities. The law of charities goes back to the Elizabethan era. It is one of the great initiatives of that time. I recommend to anyone a thesis that was written by the brother of the member for Leichhardt on that particular era and area of law as it has developed. If anyone is interested in reading that, I suggest they contact Matthew Turnour. I think this amendment is good. It will help people to contribute to those organisations and will allow the organisations to have a tax-deductible status.
Schedule 5 deals with other changes which are of benefit to our society, particularly to Queenslanders. I represent an electorate in South-East Queensland. In my personal life, my family suffered terribly in the 1974 floods when the house in which I lived as a child was eight foot under water. The devastation which my parents and my whole family suffered at that time will never be forgotten. It was the end of my childhood and I saw what my parents and their neighbours went through. I saw the economic challenges that they suffered and the emotional and psychological damage that was done to family and friends when a third of the city of Ipswich, which I now represent, was underneath the water. The support given by the Army in physical assistance, in getting furniture out of houses, and the assistance given by Social Security, churches and charities will never be forgotten by me as long as I live. Anything we can do to help our fellow Queenslanders who have suffered terribly from the devastating floods in north-western Queensland will be of benefit. Schedule 5 exempts from income tax the income recovery subsidy paid to those people affected. North Queensland suffered terribly and this legislation will help employers, employees, small business operators and the many farmers in North and north-western Queensland who suffered devastating consequences to their businesses, their farms, their homes and their livelihoods. This exemption will assist, and we must do everything we can to assist them, in their recovery. Recovery does not happen in a week, a month or a year—it can go on forever. What we do here, in exempting from income tax the income tax recovery subsidy paid, is a small step. Eligible recipients, as I said, are employees, small business persons and farmers who were in the devastated area within the designated time period. It means that those people are put in the same category as those who suffered such devastation in the bushfires in Victoria.
The final schedule is very uneventful. It deals with the excise on the manufacture of spirits. It is just a technical amendment preserving the status quo for the concessional spirits regime. I will not speak further about that, as it is self-explanatory. It really makes very little difference, as it is just a technical amendment that allows the system to operate more effectively in relation to the excise on the manufacture of spirits.
This is a complex piece of legislation, but a worthy one. It benefits people in my home state of Queensland and it will benefit the people in my electorate. It will benefit the recipients of superannuation and people who wish to be philanthropic by contributing to charity. Whilst it is a very technical piece of legislation, it is an important one and I commend the bill to the House.
I too rise to speak in support of the Tax Laws Amendment (2009 Measures No. 6) Bill 2009 and commend the member for Blair for his contribution and the member for Farrer, who preceded the member for Blair. This might be a bit of a newsflash to the chamber, but this is not the most exciting piece of legislation we have had in the House since we were elected back in November 2007. It is a bit of a sure sign that something is not particularly exciting when those in the advisers boxes outnumber the members of the public seven to one. That is a bit of an indication that it is probably not the most exciting piece of legislation; nevertheless, it is an important piece of legislation.
The member for Blair went through some of the schedules in great detail. I am going to focus on one schedule, but for the benefit of the people of Moreton who might receive this speech I want to touch briefly on a couple of points in the schedules. Schedule 2 basically removes the potential barrier to superannuation fund consolidation. We all know how important it is that we get the superannuation balance right and give superannuation funds every opportunity to decrease their expenses. That is a commendable part of the legislation. Schedule 4 lists two new organisations as deductible gift recipients. I have a couple of concerns about the Green Institute Ltd. Nevertheless, I am sure it will contribute to Australian democracy and to the environmental cause, particularly the Greens political party. The United States Study Centre Ltd does great work. I see a change of name from the Dymocks Literacy Foundation Ltd to the Dymocks Children’s Charities Ltd. I have had my problems with some of the board members from Dymocks when it comes to books, but overall I am sure that the Dymocks Children’s Charities Ltd does great work. I think Dymocks still stocks my books in certain areas, which is a good thing.
I particularly want to focus on the measure to exempt from income tax the income recovery subsidy paid in response to the north-western Queensland floods. My electorate of Moreton is nearly 2,000 kilometres from the bits of Queensland that were most affected by the floods. Those bits are part of the electorate of Kennedy. However, I have a particular interest in this area, as my wife is from Mount Isa and as I went to Mount Isa many times in my role working in the mining industry. Betty Kiernan, the member for Mount Isa, who is a very hardworking member, said that she would like me to take an interest in Mount Isa when I am down here and complement the great work done by the member for Kennedy, Bob Katter. I am from country Queensland, nowhere near the gulf and the bits of the north that were swamped by the rains.
I mention particularly when we are talking about tax that I am from St George, because obviously this side of the House takes the economy and tax very, very seriously. In fact, I loved studying economics at St George State High School and after that. But we have somebody else in Parliament House involved with economics who also comes from St George, so I just want to make sure that this speech restores some of the town’s credibility when it comes to economics. I have written fiction about the town, but Senator Barnaby Joyce speaks fiction about the nation and he speaks fiction about the economy. Unfortunately, I think Barnaby Joyce is doing to economic responsibility what Ivan Milat did to backpacker holidays. He is not making a great contribution.
Anyway, I will return to the Tax Laws Amendment (2009 Measures No. 6) Bill 2009. Early last year rain soaked much of Queensland. For many in South-East Queensland it was an incredible relief as our dams filled and our gardens became greener. But in the north-west of the state it was a very different story—unfortunately, a tragic story. Early in January 2009 ex-Tropical Cyclone Charlotte dumped rain on the far north. Floodwaters rose through the gulf region and by the end of the month the area was completely cut off. Early in February, ex-Cyclone Ellie dumped even more rain on the low-lying gulf region, and it stayed that way until March, when the floodwaters finally started to recede.
The floods affected 62 per cent of the state, or one million square kilometres. I will just try to put in context for people what one million square kilometres is. Imagine if you jumped in your car in Sydney, drove north up the Pacific Highway to Brisbane, drove past Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast on the Bruce Highway, turned west and drove on the D’Aguilar Highway, the Moonie Highway and the Balonne Highway way out west past Cunnamulla to Thargomindah, turned south and drove down the Silver City Highway all the way to Mildura, and then drove from Mildura east along the Sturt Highway, the Hume Highway and the freeways until you got back to Sydney. That is a million square kilometres—1,000 kilometres by 1,000 kilometres. It is a massive area. I just wanted to put that in context. That is the area that was affected by these floods—a gigantic area, a gigantic piece of Queensland.
During that phenomenal rain, places like Normanton and Karumba were isolated for two months. We tend to think that with rain like that the farmers must have been saying: ‘Send her down, Hughie! Thank you for the water.’ Unfortunately, because the gulf producers had pastures under water for more than eight weeks, it caused significant medium-term damage to the pastures and their land. In fact, we heard in question time today, in an exchange between the member for Kennedy and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, that the pasture was dead and the seed was washed away. It went to the gulf. The seed washed into the water, so instead of having lush grass come back after the rain it was like a desert landscape, like there had been a drought. Obviously, when you have that sort of water you also need to rebuild the physical farming infrastructure like fences. Unfortunately, because the grass had been washed away, there was also then a threat from weeds. So the results of all of the good farm management techniques that had taken place over the last 20, 30 or 40 years were wiped out because the pasture was wiped out.
Member for Moreton, could I ask you to withdraw those remarks about Senator Joyce—the reference to Ivan Milat.
Okay, I withdraw. Just returning to the matter, in response to the flooding the Australian and Queensland governments and the Australian public all worked together. They made $3 million available for fodder drops to prevent further stock losses, and I think more than 400 bales of fodder were delivered. So even though the first priority was to feed the townsfolk, the people who were on the properties, they tried to get as much fodder through as possible so that the herds were not decimated too much. There were also other initiatives. As at 4 December 2009, 10 concessional loans and 93 clean-up grants of $15,000 for the gulf region had been approved under the National Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements, worth a total of $1.626 million and $1.34 million respectively. The Australian and Queensland governments also funded $610,000 in fodder drops, as I said. The income recovery subsidy, equivalent to the Newstart allowance, was available from 29 January 2009 to 12 April 2009.
It was obviously devastating for those communities. Around 6,000 Queensland families lost their homes, their cars, their possessions and infrastructure associated with agriculture. It is estimated that up to 100,000 livestock perished. In all, the damage bill was more than $200 million. The Queensland and Australian governments responded, escalating disaster responses, as I said.
I would also like to point out, since we have just commemorated the Victorian bushfires, that Australians gave generously to the Queensland Premier’s disaster relief appeal, raising more than $8 million for Queenslanders in the north and north-west to help them get back on their feet. Through our Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements, the Queensland government received funding to provide grants for food, clothing, accommodation, emergency housing repairs and also for expenditure on public infrastructure restoration. The Australian Defence Force helped deliver ration packs to isolated families. The Rudd government also provided $1,000 for each adult and $400 for each child to help support the recovery of those affected by the floods.
It was interesting that the floods received media attention around the world. Even the Times of London reported it:
It’s the Australian nightmare. Never mind the floods and the poisonous snakes and crocodiles swimming through the town centres. Pubs in some of Queensland’s inundated towns are down to their last few kegs of beer.
So it really is dire straits when you have pubs with no beer in North Queensland.
In addition to the payments I have mentioned, the Rudd government also made an income subsidy payment for residents over the age of 16 years who lost income as a direct result of the floods. The payments were made to employees, small business owners and farmers. This bill will ensure that those payments are not subject to income tax. Obviously, the last thing we need is for those who are just starting to get back on their feet a year after the floods to be slugged with a tax bill for the payments that they needed at a time of crisis. This schedule is the last one that I particularly wanted to cover in detail. I commend the legislation to the House.
It is with great pleasure that I take the opportunity to speak to the Tax Laws Amendment (2009 Measures No. 6) Bill 2009. It gives me a chance to talk about the specific measures contained in the bill, a number of which are very important to many Australians and of course to many in my electorate of Corangamite. It also gives me a chance to say a few words about taxation policy in a broader sense, including Labor’s commitment to a progressive taxation system that enables this country to fund the services that we critically need.
This bill is another example of how Labor is committed to having an efficient and effective taxation system to support this country. It is an example of how the Rudd Labor government is getting on with the job of improving and refining our taxation system. It is an example of how we are always trying to develop fair and balanced taxation law. That is unlike the opposition, whose economic credibility has gone out the window, particularly in the last few days with respect to comments made by Senator Joyce. We are trying to develop a tax system that works for working families and, importantly, for our industries. We are undertaking this process through this legislation.
Schedule 1 of this bill abolishes the capital gains tax trust cloning exception. Previously taxpayers could use the exception to change effective ownership of an asset, potentially eliminating tax liabilities on accrued capital gains, undermining the equity and integrity of the tax system. This measure also provides a limited capital gains rollover for the transfer of assets between trusts, with no material discretionary elements, sometimes referred to as fixed trusts, with the same beneficiaries. This will ensure that capital gains tax considerations are not an undue impediment to the restructure of those trusts, while ensuring that subsequent changes to the manner and extent to which those beneficiaries can benefit from the trusts are subject to appropriate tax consequences.
Many people in the Australian community are concerned by trusts. Many people do believe that often it is a mechanism by which people can avoid their taxation liabilities. Trusts are not always set out in that way, but often the Australian community believe that they are. There are occasionally loopholes within the tax system that are exploited inappropriately by people, and the Rudd government is closing off some of those loopholes here today with these measures.
Schedule 2 of the bill is a measure which removes significant income tax impediments to mergers between complying superannuation funds by permitting the rollover of capital losses and revenue losses realised under the merger and the transfer of previously realised capital and revenue losses. This measure is aimed at assisting the superannuation industry, which was one of the great triumphs of the Hawke-Keating governments. I know that many people on the other side will disagree with this measure. They fundamentally hate to see the success of Australian superannuation reform because it was an idea born out of the Australian trade union movement and of course implemented via the last Labor government. Not only has the Australian superannuation industry been brilliant for working Australians; it has been fantastic for our economy.
I would like to take the opportunity in this debate to address a couple of particular areas of interest to me. Superannuation reforms put in place by the previous Labor government and by the Australian trade union movement have been fantastic for our economy and I believe are playing a significant role today in assisting our economy out of the worst global financial crisis. These changes reflect Labor’s ongoing commitment to superannuation and economy-wide reform.
Schedule 3 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to clarify the circumstances in which income derived by life insurance companies with respect to immediate annuity business qualifies as non-assessable, non-exempt income. Schedule 4 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to specifically list two new organisations as deductible government recipients, and changes the name of one organisation. In order for an organisation to qualify as a deductible gift recipient it must fall within one of the general categories set out in division 30 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, which is a very important mechanism for Australians, particularly in terms of giving gifts to appropriate charities. I believe that these changes are fair and prudent measures that will assist with the efficient management of the taxation system.
Schedule 5 exempts from income tax the income recovery subsidy for the north-western Queensland floods of January and February 2009. The member for Moreton so eloquently took us through those consequences, and the member for Kennedy also raised these very important issues in question time. I believe a fair tax system is fundamental to Australia and to enable us as a government to deliver the services necessary for Australians. It enables us to continue to drive much-needed reform of our economy.
Schedule 6 of this bill relates to high-strength spirits that are used in a broad range of industries such as the pharmaceutical, chemical, manufacturing and food sectors. Examples include mouthwash and antibacterial hand sanitiser. This measure enables those types of things to be appropriately taxed within the meaning of the act. The Rudd government has approached the taxation act with a real reform zeal. Later this year we will have the release of the Henry taxation review, which will set out the Rudd Labor government’s agenda in the taxation area for the coming decade. I commend this bill to the House.
Firstly, I thank those members who contributed to this debate on the Tax Laws Amendment (2009 Measures No. 6) Bill 2009. Schedule 1 of the bill abolishes the exception to capital gains tax events E1 and E2, widely known as the trust cloning exception. This is consistent with the policy principle of taxing capital gains that arise where there is a change in ownership of an asset. This schedule also provides a limited CGT rollover for the transfer of assets between fixed trusts with the same beneficiaries, each of which has the same interests in each trust. This ensures that CGT considerations are not an undue impediment to the restructure of those trusts whilst ensuring that subsequent changes to the manner and extent to which beneficiaries can benefit from the trust are subject to appropriate tax consequences.
Schedule 2 amends the tax law to remove significant income tax impediments to mergers between complying superannuation funds by permitting eligible entities to roll over capital losses and revenue losses under the merger and to transfer previously realised capital losses and revenue losses. This preserves the offsetting value of the losses, thereby removing a potential barrier to superannuation fund consolidation. The loss relief will be available for complying superannuation funds that merge with another complying superannuation fund with five or more members. This assists in maintaining a robust and safe superannuation sector. This measure has a limited period of application from 24 December 2008 until 30 June 2011.
Schedule 3 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to clarify the operation of the income tax law for life insurance companies that conduct immediate annuity business. Life insurance companies are exempt from tax on income derived in respect of immediate annuity policies that satisfy the annuity conditions. These conditions are designed to prevent the unreasonable deferral of income. The amendments clarify the circumstances in which the annuity conditions apply. This ensures that the annuity conditions in the 1997 tax act are consistent with the former annuity conditions in the 1936 tax act. Immediate annuity policies offered by life insurance companies often provide for superannuation income streams. The amendments ensure that the annuity conditions do not apply to superannuation income streams so that life insurance companies are taxed on this business in the same way as all other superannuation income stream providers.
Schedule 4 amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to make certain organisations deductible gift recipients. Taxpayers can claim an income tax deduction for gifs to organisations that are deductible gift recipients. This schedule makes the Green Institute and United States Studies Centre deductible gift recipients. It also changes the name of one organisation currently listed in the act from Dymocks Literacy Foundation Ltd to Dymocks Children’s Charities Ltd. Making these organisations deductible gift recipients will assist them to attract public support for their activities.
Schedule 5 makes the income recovery subsidy payments for the north-western Queensland floods of January and February 2009 income tax exempt. These payments were designed to provide immediate financial assistance to persons affected by the flooding in north-western Queensland in January and February of this year. They were made available to Australian resident employees, small business persons and farmers over 16 years of age who experienced a loss of income as a direct result of the north-western Queensland floods in January and February 2009. Recipients must also have derived an income from, or resided in, the affected area within the designated time period.
Schedule 6 makes it clear that when imported high-strength spirits are blended with domestically produced high-strength spirits the blends will remain free of duty under the concessional spirit scheme. This ensures the status quo is maintained. I commend this bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Debate resumed from 25 November, on motion by Dr Emerson:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to contribute to the debate on the International Tax Agreements Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2009. The bill amends the International Tax Agreements Act 1953 and the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to give domestic legal effect to three treaties—known variously as conventions, agreements and protocols—which were entered into during 2009 by Australia with New Zealand, Belgium and Jersey. Each of the three treaties is intended to avoid a situation where a taxpayer who resides in Australia or the other contracting state—New Zealand, Belgium or Jersey—is taxed on the same income both in Australia and in the other state. These agreements are commonly called double tax agreements. The tax treaties also prevent income tax evasion by encouraging cooperation and the sharing of information between contracting states and ensure that the laws of Australia and the other state are enforced.
It may interest you to know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the treaty with Jersey is a completely new agreement, made between the two states in June last year. The treaty with New Zealand was made on 26 June last year and it replaces earlier tax treaties made between our two nations. In the case of Belgium, the bill gives effect to a protocol which was signed on 24 June 2009 which amends an agreement between the two states that was originally entered into as far back as 1977. As I said, the bill deals with these three treaties. I will just look briefly at each of them.
The Australia-New Zealand convention is Australia’s fourth comprehensive tax treaty with New Zealand. It will modernise the tax relationship between the two countries and will serve to facilitate trade and investment between Australia and New Zealand. The convention will replace the agreement between the government of Australia and the government of New Zealand for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion of taxes on income that was signed in Melbourne in 1995 and the protocol amending the agreement which was signed in Melbourne on 15 November 2005. The treaty updates and modernises the bilateral tax arrangements between Australia and New Zealand. The International Tax Agreements Act 1953 is amended to insert the text of the convention as a schedule to that act. Australia’s tax treaties appear as schedules to the above act, which gives them the force of law in this country.
There are six outcomes from the treaty. It reduces withholding taxes on certain intercorporate dividends and completely removes them from others. It removes withholding tax on interest payments made to unrelated financial institutions or to the Australian or New Zealand governments. It lowers royalty withholding tax. It brings Australian managed investment trusts within the scope of treaty benefits. It provides the cross-recognition of the tax-exempt status of pensions both in Australia and in New Zealand. And it contains a short-term secondment provision which will preclude individuals from being caught up in the other country’s tax system when they are seconded to that other country for less than 90 days. People who are affected by this bill are residents of Australia and/or New Zealand and people who derive income, profit, gains or fringe benefits from Australia or New Zealand. The treaty will enter into force following the last notification that both countries have completed their domestic requirements, which in our case includes enactment of this bill.
In the second agreement with Belgium the bill amends various acts. That includes the second protocol, which was signed in Paris on 24 June 2009. This protocol is an element in combating cross-border tax evasion. It upgrades the exchange of information provisions in the tax treaty between Australia and Belgium by enhancing the ability of the Australian and Belgian tax authorities to exchange taxpayer information and to exchange on a wider range of taxes. In particular, the new provisions provide that neither tax administration can refuse to provide information solely because they do not require the information for their own domestic purposes or because the information is held by a bank or similar institution. The date of effect is 1 January 2010.
The third agreement with which this bill deals is the Australia-Jersey agreement. The bill amends various acts and protocols. This agreement contains articles that are based on corresponding articles contained in Australia’s bilateral tax treaties. The Jersey agreement is the third agreement of its type signed between Australia and a low-tax jurisdiction and was signed in conjunction with the agreement between the government of Australia and the government of Jersey for the exchange of information with respect to taxes which was signed in London on 10 June 2009. The International Tax Agreements Act 1953 is amended to insert the text of the Jersey agreement as a schedule to that act, which will give it the force of law. The Jersey agreement will promote a closer bilateral relationship between Australia and Jersey by eliminating double taxation of certain income derived by individuals, specifically pension recipients, government employees, students and business apprentices.
The Jersey agreement will provide greater cooperation between tax authorities to prevent tax avoidance and evasion. It will also provide an administrative mechanism to help resolve transfer pricing disputes that may arise between taxpayers and the revenue authorities of Australia or Jersey. The amendments made by this bill will impact individuals who are residents of Australia and/or Jersey who derive income from pensions or retirement annuities or the provision of government services or receive payments in their capacity as visiting students or business apprentices and residents of Australia or Jersey who wish to contest a transfer pricing adjustment made by the Australian or Jersey tax authorities. The amendment will take effect from the date of royal assent. Once it enters into force it will apply in Australia with respect to any income year beginning on or after 1 July in the calendar year next following the date on which the agreement enters into force. In Jersey it will apply with respect to any income year beginning on or after 1 January in the calendar year next following the date on which the agreement enters into force.
We understand that the impact of the first round effects on the forward estimates has been estimated as unquantifiable. Identifiable costs to revenue associated with reductions in the rate of withholding tax and the change in taxing rights for pensions have been estimated as $142 million over the forward estimates. However, reductions in New Zealand withholding taxes can be expected to result in an increase in the amount of Australian tax revenue through reduced foreign income tax offsets claimed and increases therefore in Australian taxable income. Given the bilateral flows between Australia and New Zealand, the current features of the Australian and New Zealand tax systems and the impact of the changes in the arrangements under the convention, the revenue costs are expected to be broadly offset by revenue gains. The important thing to note about this bill is that it has been approved by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, which of course considers all treaties and makes appropriate recommendations. In this case, it has recommended that binding treaty action be taken in relation to all three treaties. The opposition supports the bill.
I speak in support of the International Tax Agreements Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2009. Trade, commerce and investment between countries is good—I do not accept the xenophobia which sometimes permeates our community and sometimes permeates utterances in this place that it is not. Generally treaties between countries relating to trade, commerce and investment are beneficial. They improve understanding, amity and the operation and effectiveness of economies. They improve the livelihood of individuals and communities. They allow us to effectively run our tax system in a way that prevents tax evasion. We have in this place dedicated, through appropriations bills and through the operation of the Australian Taxation Office, many dollars to clamping down on tax evasion—for example, in Operation Wickenby. There have been numerous high-profile individuals involved and well-publicised cases of clamping down on tax evasion which involved individuals conducting international operations. These types of treaties and protocols entered into with other countries can only benefit the consolidated revenue of our country and make sure that people pay their fair share of tax. They overcome the difficulties where people are on short-term secondments, and that is one of the benefits of the treaty between Australia and New Zealand.
Australia and New Zealand are great partners when it comes to economic arrangements. As a practising lawyer before coming to this place I had many cases in New Zealand and travelled there on numerous occasions. I had clients from New Zealand. We got rid of the ‘dingo fence’ in so many areas in the legal profession—areas of law such as family law, corporate law and defamation law—and we have taken a more national approach to the running of the national economy. But we need to make sure that we take an international approach with respect to taxation, trade and investment. Treaties with New Zealand are invariably beneficial to us. Greater and closer economic cooperation between Australia and New Zealand is of benefit to both countries. We have had trade treaties with New Zealand before. As the shadow minister mentioned, this is a new tax treaty signed in Paris on 26 June 2009. It does strengthen and augment our relationship with New Zealand. The shadow minister correctly and aptly outlined the benefits in terms of the key features of the treaty, but there are three that I think are of benefit which I wish to comment upon—that is, those which relate to making sure that, where there are profits from the provision of services in a country, taxation is performed in that country so that there is no duplication or doubling up of taxation.
The treaty also makes clear that income from property—including natural resource royalties and profits from agriculture, fisheries and forestry—may be taxed in full by the country in which the property is situated. That is another sensible amendment. The profits derived from the operation of ships and aircraft in international traffic are generally taxed only in the country of residence of the operator. Nothing infuriates business more, apart from bureaucratic regulation and difficult public service activity, than a business operating in a way that inadvertently incurs double taxation. No-one likes to be taxed. We do need to pay our fair share of tax, but you should not have to pay it twice—once in New Zealand and once in Australia. So the treaty which we are incorporating here by law is of benefit to all Australians in making sure not only that our tax revenue and its integrity is maintained but also that those Australians who trade with, work in or have dealings with New Zealand do not suffer from the stupidity of being taxed twice.
The other aspects of this legislation deal with the Australia-Jersey agreement on the allocation of taxing rights over certain income by amending the International Tax Agreements Act of 1953. The final aspect deals with the Australia-Belgium tax treaty. In both cases they are about making sure that we exchange information, preventing double taxation with respect to Jersey—because there is regularly cross-border income derived by individuals who are residents of Australia or Jersey. It is about ensuring that there is an administrative mechanism to solve transfer pricing disputes. The exchange of information can only benefit the taxation system here in Australia. The 2009 second protocol with Belgium, again, upgrades the exchange of information provisions in the treaty between Australia and Belgium and enhances the ability of both our tax authorities and those in Belgium to exchange information to prevent people, companies and trust arrangements evading tax in Europe as well as in Australia.
This legislation is of benefit to all Australians. It is not objectionable. It is important legislation. It helps the taxpayers of this country. It will allow our taxation office to deal with authorities overseas and improve the capacity of the tax office to get information to prosecute individuals who unlawfully evade tax. It will improve the public’s view of the integrity, authority and authenticity of our tax system. In those circumstances, I commend the legislation to be House.
I commend the member for Blair for his contribution. I am pleased to speak in support of the International Tax Agreements Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2009. Mr Deputy Speaker, I assure you it will be an uneventful presentation. Increasingly, trade and investment are happening on a global scale as the ease of travel and modern communications make our planet much smaller. Who would have thought that a four-wheel drive in Brisbane could affect the rice farmers of Bangladesh, or that a power station in Biloela could affect the lives of maize farmers in Burundi? To quote from a song—and I know it is one of the favourite songs of the member for Bruce, who is at the table—‘It’s a small world after all.’
Tax treaties help enable Australian businesses and our economy to enjoy the benefits of global trade and investment. In fact, Australia has tax treaties with more than 40 countries. This bill amends the International Tax Agreements Act 1953 to put into law three agreements signed in June 2009—namely, the Australia-New Zealand tax treaty, the second protocol to the Australia-Belgium tax treaty and the Australia-Jersey agreement on the allocation of taxing rights over certain income.
I will discuss the New Zealand treaty first. This treaty will modernise the taxation agreement across the Tasman. It will give greater certainty to Australian businesses looking to venture into New Zealand markets and also promote greater economic cooperation between our two countries, thus building on our long history of sporting, cultural, artistic and family links with New Zealand. I will not dwell on the underarm ball by Trevor Chappell or even the responding incident at Ballymore on 19 July 1992, when I saw Richard Loe break Paul Carozza’s nose at the end of the first half of the Bledisloe Cup match—although Paul Carozza did score a second try after that. I will not dwell on those incidents. Obviously we have many close connections with New Zealand, going back to talk of even being one nation and obviously our fighting together in World War I, World War II and beyond.
One of the main aims of the treaty is to reduce the barriers caused by the double taxation of residents of the two countries. Other elements of the treaty include: reduced withholding tax rate limits on certain dividends, interest and royalties; profits from the provision of services performed in a country are to be taxed by that country in certain circumstances; income from real property, including natural resource royalties and profits from agriculture, forestry and fishing, may be taxed in full by the country in which the property is situated; pensions will not be subject to tax in the residence country when they are exempt from tax in the country in which they are sourced; and a short-term secondment provision which will exempt individuals from being taxed by a country when they are seconded for less than 90 days. The treaty also requires Australia and New Zealand to consult at least every five years to ensure the proposed tax treaty continues to operate effectively. This bill also amends the definition of ‘dual listed company arrangement’ in the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to ensure it aligns with the definition in the Australia-New Zealand tax treaty.
The next treaty, the second protocol to the Australia-Belgium tax treaty, will improve the exchange of information between the two countries. Under the agreement, Australia and Belgium will be able to request taxpayer information with regard to all federal taxes. This bill requires tax administrators in Australia and Belgium to provide the information to their counterparts when requested. They will no longer be able to deny access to taxpayer information simply because it is of no interest to them or because it is held by a bank. These new measures send a strong signal to those seeking to hide information from the Australian tax office and they will greatly improve our ability to detect tax evaders.
This bill also implements the Australia-Jersey additional benefits agreement to help eliminate double taxation of certain cross-border income of individuals who are residents of Jersey or Australia. Australia has agreed not to tax government employees of Jersey working for non-commercial purposes in Australia as well as students and business apprentices. Jersey has agreed to a reciprocal arrangement for Australian government employees, students and business apprentices working or studying in Jersey. In other words, they have agreed not to milk them twice.
These three tax agreements will come into force once the countries involved have put them into law. Through our negotiations with other countries, this government is working to ensure that Australians get a fair go, even when they are working or studying overseas. This bill ensures that these Australians will get fairer tax treatment. I commend the legislation to the House.
Firstly, I would like to thank those members who contributed to this debate on the second reading of the International Tax Agreements Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2009. The government is committed to supporting trade and investment whilst combating tax evasion through its network of international tax agreements. This bill will give the force of law to three agreements that will support those objectives: the new tax treaty with New Zealand; the second protocol to the Belgian tax treaty, which updates the exchange-of-information provisions; and the agreement with Jersey on the allocation of taxing rights over certain income.
Australia shares an exceptionally close relationship with New Zealand. The tax treaty further enhances this relationship by reducing tax impediments to the cross-border movement of people, capital and technology by facilitating cooperation between taxation authorities to reduce tax evasion and by providing increased legal and fiscal certainty for commerce between the two countries.
The enhanced exchange-of-information provisions in the second protocol to the Belgian tax treaty will be an important tool in Australia’s effort to combat offshore tax evasion. The enhanced provisions will allow the exchange of information on a wider range of taxes in a wider range of circumstances. This will discourage taxpayers from participating in abusive tax arrangements by increasing the probability of detection, making it harder for it taxpayers to evade Australian tax.
The agreement with Jersey was signed in conjunction with a tax information exchange agreement. The agreement on the allocation of taxing rights over certain income will help to prevent double taxation. The tax information exchange agreement between Australia and Jersey will facilitate the exchange of tax information between Jersey and Australia, once again discouraging taxpayers from participating in abusive tax arrangements. I commend this bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Debate resumed.
Before question time, I was running through some of the amendments in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills that I particularly welcomed for my electorate. These amendments, which are sensible, responsible and reflect months if not years of consultation with industry and other stakeholders, represent a time that has now seemingly passed in Australian politics, a time when—notwithstanding their numerous differences—you could say that both major parties came to the table in good faith and motivated by the national interest not short-term political gain.
I support these bills as amended because they represent an improvement on the scheme originally developed by the government. If they had any principle at all, the opposition would support them, too. And they do not even have to act according to principle if that is too much of a stretch for them—just some consistency or a bit of logic would be enough and would enable them to appreciate that the emissions trading scheme contained in these bills is the policy that they took to the last election and the scheme that they negotiated for and voted on in their party room to support just a couple of months ago. It seems that ‘principle’ and ‘consistency’ are another two words not associated with an opposition led by a man who seems incapable of coming to a position and sticking to it.
For something the coalition accuses us of not debating, the CPRS has had an absolute going over in this House. This is now the third time that I have spoken in support of the CPRS and I am pleased to say that many of the issues that have been raised by industries and groups in my electorate have been picked up in the amendments now before the House. Before I come to the specifics I would like to reiterate my reasons for supporting the bill yet again. I will rely on my previous speeches, which set out many of the arguments.
If I refer back to the first speech from August last year, I spent time discussing the science and the fact that on balance I believe that the scientific evidence of warming and its cause was something that a responsible government could not and should not ignore. It is a legitimate basis for policy action. I talked also about my confidence in the consultation that was going on with large emitters of carbon dioxide in my electorate and my confidence that the ministers and government were listening and that the concerns of industries would be taken into account in the course of subsequent negotiations over the legislation, and by and large they have.
I also spent time in that speech explaining how I saw the government’s approach to climate change not as some ideological article of faith but as a challenge facing whoever seeks to govern Australia at this time. We have done what governments facing challenges do: assess the nature and scale of the problem, seek advice on possible solutions, make judgments as to the best solution and consult on the way to developing the final policy. And guess what? When the coalition was in government, that was exactly what they did—reluctantly, for sure, but they did finally accept climate change as a reality and a challenge that no government could ignore.
Apparently when it was politically necessary, they could express belief in climate change but, now that they see some political advantage in taking the opposite view, according to the opposition climate change is no longer of any consequence. And what was the opposition’s answer to the challenge of climate change when they were in government? You guessed it: an emissions trading scheme—one based on much of the same evidence and advice that underpins the scheme we have developed. When the opposition were actually running the country, they put Australia on the path to an emissions trading scheme. Now that their only concern is winning the next election rather than finding genuine solutions for the future of Australia, they are in here repudiating their own decisions in government.
I have said repeatedly in these debates that climate change is not an article of faith for the Labor Party. Action on climate change is not a core principle or the rationale for our party. But the debate of the past couple of months has made me rethink that. I believe that action on climate change—real action, not the sound bite action of the opposition—is the kind of policy that does characterise the Labor Party. We are the party that embraces reform to ensure a stronger future and the party that manages reform to ensure that there is fairness and support in place through the reform process. As a small country, we can never stand still. However good things are in Australia we know that there is never room for complacency if we are to secure our future. We need to be continually looking ahead to the next challenge and the next opportunity and preparing our country for those.
Climate change is an environmental challenge but an economic opportunity as Australia positions itself to take advantage of the emerging demand for the goods and services of the new low-carbon economy. We owe it to ourselves and our natural environment to give the world the benefit of the doubt in this case and take out the insurance that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme represents against the potential for serious damage to the planet’s natural systems caused by continued climate change. We also owe it to our kids and future generations to start carving out a foothold for Australia in a future global economy based on renewable energy and low-carbon emissions. So there are some core principles of our party reflected in our approach to addressing climate change in the way that the CPRS prepares for the future while providing for fairness and security through the transition.
My second speech on this legislation, this time in November, addressed the scare campaign being waged by the opposition and groups like the Australian Coal Association. I pointed out how the predictions of job losses and doom and gloom were at odds with what was actually happening in the coal industry in Central Queensland. The industry continues to go from strength to strength in Central Queensland, with regular announcements of new and expanding mines and increasing investment in rail, road and port infrastructure to support the activity in the Bowen Basin and now the Galilee Basin. Just yesterday we saw the reports of Incitec’s decision to proceed with its major project in Moranbah, another sign that the coal industry and associated industries are gearing up for the next boom in coal demand and profits. The scare campaign was always pretty flimsy in the face of what is actually happening in Central Queensland, and the amendments in this legislation undermine it further.
There is now a total of $1.5 billion in assistance to the coal sector over five years. This takes the form of a $1.23 billion Coal Sector Adjustment Scheme to give transitional assistance to the most emissions intensive coalmines in the form of permits and a $270 million coal sector abatement fund to provide grant funding for coal sector abatement projects with a priority for electricity generation from waste coalmine gas. That is great news for those companies like EDL and Envirogen, who are the frontrunners in this important industry and already have power stations operating in my electorate in partnership with mining companies.
I have mentioned already the other measures that I particularly welcome in this revised CPRS—those relating to the exciting opportunities it offers to farmers and the assistance to meat processors. The Transitional Electricity Cost Assistance Program will reduce the impact of the CPRS on electricity prices paid by medium and large enterprises, which will assist coalmines and operations like QMAG in Rockhampton. I also welcome the reviews foreshadowed with respect to the appropriateness of assistance to emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries.
This week in my electorate there was another good news story coming out of Mackay Sugar—a good news story but one with a warning attached, a warning of what is at stake if the opposition persist with their rejection of the CPRS and continue down their reckless path of making up climate change and economic policy as they go. I have spoken before about the co-generation project that has been developed by Mackay Sugar with the support and cooperation of the canefarmers who are its shareholders. The plan will see the investment by Mackay Sugar in a $120 million power plant at its Racecourse sugar mill. New highly efficient boilers at the mill will convert bagasse—a waste product from sugar milling—into steam to drive a turbine generator capable of generating 36 megawatts, 27 megawatts of which will be exported into the national grid. It will be the equivalent of one-third of Mackay’s electricity needs.
The good news this week was the formal announcement by Mackay Sugar that contracts have been issued for the construction of the plant following the passage of the government’s expanded renewable energy target and the signing of an off-take agreement with an energy retailer to lock in the returns on the project. And where do those returns go? Not just to Mackay Sugar but through them to the canefarmers that are the company’s shareholders and also as an increase in the price paid to farmers for their sugar in recognition of its higher value: sugar as a source of food and now sugar as a source of energy.
Mackay Sugar has been explicit in the role the expanded renewable energy target has played in bringing this successful project to fruition. But has the opposition stopped to ask itself where its failure to support the CPRS leaves projects like this? The renewable energy target scheme goes to 2020 and always assumed that there would be a carbon price beyond that to support this kind of investment in renewable energy projects. I note that the opposition’s phoney nonplan includes something called clean energy hubs, and I see that Central Queensland is listed as a possible region that would be eligible for funding, although with the split between the other regions that are listed it is questionable how much would really find its way to Central Queensland.
My point is that there is already a clean energy hub developing in Central Queensland through the investment in projects like Mackay Sugar’s co-generation plant and the growing waste coalmine gas industry, and also through the work being done by ZeroGen on carbon capture and storage. By creating a carbon price the CPRS supports those projects and supports the growth of clean energy in Central Queensland. The opposition through its rejection of the CPRS and its phoney climate change plan puts these kinds of projects at risk.
The opposition are getting in the way of clean energy opportunities that already exist in Central Queensland just so they can parade around in the lead-up to the next election with a slush fund under the guise of a clean energy hub to make some political mileage. What about the real investment and the real decisions on clean energy that will be stalled in the meantime because of the opposition’s reckless disregard for sensible science and sensible economics? The opposition is locking regions like mine out of opportunities that will help farmers and expand our economic base.
These bills represent a sensible and balanced response to the challenge of reducing carbon emissions. They have been the subject of exhaustive consultation and up until 10 weeks ago represented a bipartisan agreement on the targets for carbon reduction and the mechanism to achieve them. For reasons of pure political opportunism the opposition have now chosen to stick with the agreed target of a five per cent reduction in emissions. But they have abandoned their principles and their economic credibility to come up with a phoney scheme that will cost taxpayers more while allowing emissions to rise. Our legislation will achieve cuts to emissions, provide certainty to business and deliver assistance to households. I support the bills.
I rise to speak on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills and again at the outset state my opposition to the legislation. A lot has changed, to say the least, since the last time we spoke on this legislation. It is important to note that as of last week Australian families do have a very clear choice—a very clear choice between the Labor government’s massive new tax on everything, which no-one understands, and our plan for direct action with practical environmental measures and no new tax, and it is something that people can actually understand.
I am not sure whether it is a factor of the government being too arrogant or too lazy, but it has failed to explain to the Australian public exactly what it is trying to achieve with its massively complex Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. In my electorate, the minister for climate change has been invited on many occasions to come to the Latrobe Valley. The local newspaper ran quite a campaign encouraging the minister to come to the Latrobe Valley and to explain the CPRS to the power workers and to the families in my electorate and be honest with them about the costs of the scheme being proposed by the government. I know I have personally extended an invitation to the community cabinet. In December of 2008 I wrote to the Prime Minister and offered him the opportunity to come to Gippsland, to visit my region and to run through a range of issues. Most obviously the emissions trading scheme was to the forefront of the minds of most people in the electorate.
I understand that community cabinet has many demands in an election year—they are probably too busy barnstorming the Labor marginals and the Liberal target seats in the suburbs to come out to Gippsland, but if they do need to make up their quota of conservative seats they are very welcome to come to Gippsland at some stage. I will certainly make them feel welcome. I think the minister for agriculture, the minister for industry and resources and the parliamentary secretary for bushfire reconstruction can all attest that I have been quite an amenable host when they have had the opportunity to come to Gippsland. I would be happy to put the kettle on for the community cabinet; if they cannot all make it at once, that is fine. I think that the minister for climate change in particular really needs to take the time to come to Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley and explain to my community what the costs of this massive new tax will be.
I said that the people of Gippsland would obviously treat the cabinet with a great deal of respect. They are a respectful community in Gippsland; they are not going to be lining up to cause any scenes. But I can assure you that the government should be showing the people of Gippsland just as much respect. It is ignoring the very real concerns of families across Gippsland at its peril. If the government has nothing to hide, come to Latrobe Valley and tell the truth about the impact this massive new tax will have on jobs in regional areas like mine.
In the absence of a visit from the minister to explain the emissions trading scheme, we have to rely on other sources of information. On the specific issue of jobs I want to focus tonight on a report by an independent consulting firm called Buchan, which was commissioned on behalf of the Wellington Shire Council to undertake a study. The report is titled The carbon pollution reduction scheme impacts on Wellington shire. It is an interesting report because it highlights the significance of this fundamental restructuring of the Australian economy, and it further highlights the failure of the government to be honest with regional communities like mine. I have said before that the broader Gippsland impacts could be enormous if industries are disadvantaged as a result of the ETS from the obvious increase we are going to see in electricity prices, particularly for our dairy farmers, who will not be compensated, to the costs to food manufacturers in my region, to the oil and gas industry and to small businesses, who, again, will not be compensated for any increased costs under this scheme.
An Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry report found that rural and regional areas will be adversely affected, and it could lead to increased urbanisation across Australia. A New South Wales government report found that regional areas could have a 20 per cent decline in economic activity. Any of the reports that have come out have mentioned regional areas and, inevitably, have mentioned Gippsland/Latrobe Valley as a region that is most exposed to such a scheme.
The Buchan report that I referred to is specifically focused on Gippsland, and I will cut to the chase in terms of the impacts that have been uncovered in that report. Gippsland workers have direct exposure to five of the emissions intensive industries identified by Access Economics as being most exposed to the CPRS legislation. Naturally, brown coal and power generation are at the top of the list, along with natural gas, gas distribution and petroleum and coal products. It is recognised in the Buchan report that the impacts on these sectors under the no international trade scenario are greater because businesses are not able to buy carbon credits from lower emission businesses offshore. I will quote from the report:
Major impacts of the CPRS are experienced in a number of sectors, including electricity supply, oil and gas extraction and gas distribution. There are significant impacts on the electricity supply sector, both output and jobs, because most of Victoria’s generating capacity is brown coal fired in the Latrobe Valley.
The report goes on to produce a table which forecasts the difference in employment and output by 2025 compared to what would occur in the absence of a CPRS program. I quote again in reference to the three municipalities of Wellington Shire, East Gippsland Shire and Latrobe City:
In the case of the no-international-trade scenario, employment across the three areas will be down by almost 3,000 jobs in 2025 compared with a base case of no CPRS, and output would be $325 million lower.
That is alarming news for Gippslanders and it probably explains why none of the government ministers have come to Gippsland and Latrobe Valley to explain the impacts of this massive new tax.
Here we have an independent source predicting the impact on my electorate alone will be 2,893 fewer jobs by 2025. This flies in the face of every reassurance and every guarantee by the government. It probably explains to me and to the people of Gippsland why we are being ignored in this debate—why none of the ministers have bothered to come to our region. They know that there is going to be a major impact on regional communities, and Gippsland is going to be at the pointy end of it. It also flies in the face of every other effort being undertaken right now in our region to try to create jobs, to develop Gippsland and to provide opportunities for our young people as they go through the education system and perhaps take on a trade or go on to university or remain in our communities. We have been trying to promote Gippsland and Latrobe Valley as great places to live and work, and here we have the government with a massive new tax and an independent report finding that by 2025 the impact will be 2,893 fewer jobs in my community. Families in Gippsland have every reason to question the policy being put forward by the government and they have no reason whatsoever to trust the Prime Minister and a Labor government which is hiding information like this from our community.
If the forecast is not accurate—and I am not saying it is—I ask the minister to give me her predictions. If I am wrong I am happy to be corrected on this point. It is not a figure I have made up; it is a report by the Buchan Consulting group commissioned by the Wellington Shire Council. If they are wrong, come to Latrobe Valley and tell us where it is wrong. Come on down, any time at all. We welcome the minister in the Latrobe Valley to explain to us what will happen to the jobs in our region under the proposed CPRS legislation. There is no question that there will be impacts on key industries in my region, and I am concerned that it is going to hurt the job prospects of Gippsland families right now and also in the future.
The other issue that I have spoken about before when we have had the opportunity to debate this legislation is that of energy reliability in this brave new world that the Labor Party likes to talk about. Energy reliability, security of supply and access to cheap baseload energy have been the cornerstone of Victoria’s development. The Latrobe Valley has obviously been the centrepiece of that. The power industry in the Latrobe Valley is something that the community has quite rightly been very proud of for many decades. One of the great disappointments of this whole debate has been the way the brown-coal power generators have been vilified and, by association, the people of Latrobe Valley have been vilified in this debate. I think it is a source of great discomfort to people in my community that they have been portrayed as somehow being evil polluters dirtying the environment for the rest of Australia. It is something that the government has to take some of the blame for, in the sense that we had government propaganda campaigns running on TV in 2009 that were very much directed at the brown-coal power industry. Also, we have members of parliament scoring political points at the expense of people who have worked very hard and are very proud of their achievements on behalf of the broader Victorian economy.
Energy reliability and security of supply are critical to the future economic growth of our nation. The simple fact is that if our power generators in the Latrobe Valley are not financially viable under this government’s ETS we are in for one hell of a shock in terms of reliability of our power supply. It is a simple fact that our community has become dependent on a reliable supply of power. Our industries and our households are dependent on it. Yallourn Power Station management has indicated that it has reduced its maintenance load due to uncertainty about what the government intends to do in terms of its ETS legislation. When you have power stations reducing their maintenance programs it is only a matter of time before reliability of supply is affected. Other generators have expressed their concerns in the strongest possible way about their financial viability in the wake of this government’s massive new tax, if it ever gets through the parliament, which I sincerely hope it will not.
The government is prepared to inflict enormous economic pain on regional areas like Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley for very insignificant environmental gains. This is a Labor political strategy. It was a political strategy going into the last election; it is a political strategy coming into this next election. It is not an environment policy. Everything from the timing of the proposed legislation before the House prior to the Copenhagen summit last year to the comments of the Prime Minister and other ministers has been about trying to achieve some sort of political advantage on the back of community concerns over the forecast impacts of climate change. I believe the government has become so obsessed with its political strategy that it has turned its back on Australia’s national interest.
We had the Minister for Finance and Deregulation last week speaking about ‘frauds’ and ‘phoneys’ and describing our plan as ‘Regional Partnerships on steroids’. But he brushed over his massive tax on everything and the government’s repeated claims that it is going to take action to save the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu. The absurdity of the Prime Minister’s proposition, when he stands here day after day in question time telling us that his action, this CPRS, this massive new tax, is going to save the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu, deserves further examination.
We all accept that Australia emits just 1.4 per cent of total global emissions, and both sides of this chamber are committed to reducing that amount by five per cent. So we have a five per cent reduction target of 1.4 per cent of total global emissions. Now, even the most ardent believer of every climate change forecast, and every piece of climate change science, does not try to commit this con on the Australian public. There is no-one else out there saying that Australia reducing its emissions by five per cent—remembering, again, that we account for 1.4 per cent of the global total—is going to somehow solve the problem, is going to save Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef. It is an outrageous con. It is part of the phoney campaign that this Prime Minister continually runs. It is a scare campaign with no substance whatsoever. It is about time that those opposite stood up to their Prime Minister and actually pointed out to him that he is the laughing stock of regional Australia when he comes out with these ridiculous claims. Cutting our emissions by five per cent, when our total contribution to global emissions is 1.4 per cent is sweet—
Dr Stone interjecting
Well, we won’t go into the colloquial terms that people would like to use to describe it! But it is remarkably insignificant and ridiculous when put in context with what the Prime Minister claims he is going to achieve with it.
While we are talking about con jobs and being honest with the Australian public, you really need to ask: who were the dills, the peanuts or whatever you want to call them on the front bench who tried to pass off a few hot summer days in Victoria towards the end of last year as evidence of climate change? One after another they stood here at the dispatch box and tried to claim that a single hot weekend in Victoria proved that man-made climate change was real. It was summer. It was hot. But one weekend of hot weather proves absolutely nothing. We are talking about long-term climatic trends, not a single hot weekend. It would be just as stupid for me to stand here in this place today and say that it is raining outside; therefore climate change is over. It is this futile, juvenile, stupid argument that has been put forward in this place which has added to the confusion in the community.
Under the Rudd government’s model we run the risk of jobs being exported from Australia to nations which do not even have a comparable scheme. A fear that is regularly expressed to me in my electorate is that we will be sending our jobs offshore. We will also export our carbon emissions to those nations, and the net result will be a deterioration in the world’s environment because the nations which take the jobs have less stringent environmental protocols than Australia. If we have learnt anything from the Copenhagen fiasco it should be that there is no prospect of a global agreement anytime soon, so any scheme which transfers jobs from Australia in high-emitting industries to foreign nations is likely to result in a poor global environmental outcome. And I fear that this scheme will add to economic uncertainty in Australia and export jobs to foreign nations, resulting in increased global emissions.
I call on the Prime Minister to start being honest with the Australian public, to actually try and explain the emissions trading scheme and admit what the costs will be in terms of job losses and household cost-of-living increases—and admit that the claimed environmental benefits are insignificant without a global agreement. As I indicated the previous time I spoke on this legislation, this government has asked us to vote to give foreign companies a competitive advantage over our own businesses, to vote for more expensive power and transport costs, to vote for more expensive food and to vote for increased costs for small businesses. But at the same time the government failed to make the case and answer basic questions about the impacts of this legislation. We do not know how much it will cost to build a house in Australia. How many jobs in regional areas will be lost? How does Australia cutting its emissions, without global consensus, achieve anything whatsoever? What will be the impact on the household income, for example, for a dairy farmer with a higher electricity bill which will not be compensated? And the minister for aged care did not even touch this subject the other day, when she was asked in question time: how much will aged-care services increase as a result of this legislation? The government has a strategy for spin but has not trusted Australians with a full explanation of the complexity of this massive new tax and how it threatens job security without achieving significant global benefits.
I want to contrast, in the time I have left, the government’s plan with that which has been put forward by the coalition in the past week. Now we have a real choice, which Australian families will welcome, between direct action, which they will understand, practical environmental projects they can work with and appreciate in their own communities, and this great big new tax—which, again, the government has just been too arrogant to try to explain.
One of the great benefits of direct action—and particularly in my community of Gippsland, where there is, I must confess, still quite a bit of division in the community about what the causes of climate change are—is that it does not really matter whether you believe activities by humans are causing the climate to change; these are positive environmental measures in any circumstances. On that point, I think it is foolish of us to believe for a second that the science is completely settled. I, for one, have a view that we live in a very variable climate in Australia; it has been changing for many decades. And the practical custodians of the land, our farming sector and people in it I speak to, are very much aware that they work in a variable climate and they adjust to it all the time. Whether or not it has been affected by emissions from human activities is not particularly relevant to the position being put forward by our plan, where there are real opportunities to invest in the future of productivity—for example, of agricultural land by sequestering carbon in the soil. So these are practical environmental measures. This is direct action which the community can understand and which will still achieve the five per cent target that has been agreed to by the Labor government. One of the other great benefits of the scheme being put forward by the opposition is that it is incentive based. It may allow for production, for example, to increase on some of our less arable land, through sequestering carbon in the soil to improve food security in what is very much an uncertain and variable climate at the moment.
I believe the practical, direct action will be welcomed by our agricultural sector and the farmers I referred to before as the custodians of the land, because they are some of the great beneficiaries under this plan. Our farmers are the real, practical environmentalists in Gippsland. They are the ones who have been adopting technologies as they have come online, who have learned new skills and who have made their land more productive. They are the ones who are actually out there getting their hands dirty and doing that practical work while we have bureaucrats in faraway offices telling them what to do.
You would never hear from the minister for agriculture, for example, what a great job Australian farmers are doing, because, if you ask him, anything to do with the agricultural sector is all about climate change and it is all the National Party’s fault. So our plan supports practical environmental measures, which makes sense regardless of your views on man-made climate change.
But, as I referred to earlier, one of the most disappointing aspects of the debate so far from my perspective is that it has unnecessarily divided Australians for, I believe, the government’s political advantage. The government is being deliberately divisive for those purposes. The advertising campaign I referred to earlier has scared people, particularly children. You hear them coming out with it in the schools. I know we all visit schools on a regular basis. They have been terrified by some of the advertising material that governments have been putting forward.
I would rather see us debate this issue in terms that we can all agree on, particularly the sustainable management of the environment. There is not a single Gippslander that I have met who has not got a passion for the environment of our region, and they will support practical environmental measures every day of the week. The people of Gippsland have embraced the Landcare movement. They have been huge supporters of Landcare. It is somewhat ironic that, when we hear talk about the environment, we have the situation where the government has actually cut the funding for Landcare facilitators.
It’s a disgrace.
It is a disgrace. And we have the hypocrisy of the minister for agriculture talking about climate change and talking about the environment but, when it comes to that practical environmental work and investing in the future of our communities through Landcare, the government going missing.
I know the minister will come out and say we have 56 facilitators. Well, that is 56 facilitators across all of Australia—56 facilitators to work with 100,000 Landcare volunteers. I would suggest to the minister that he should be engaging more with the Landcare movement and supporting them in their efforts, rather than lecturing us about climate change and cutting back on that practical environmental work which has enormous support in my region and right throughout Australia.
In conclusion, Gippslanders are great environmentalists. They are interested in this debate. They are doing the hard work on the ground—the practical, environmental, hard work on the ground—and they are adapting to what is a variable climate. They accept that, and they are acting on the science that has found better ways to make their land more productive. Gippsland families, however, do not support this big new tax, and they will be voting against the legislation.
I rise today to support the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills. I found the contribution of the member opposite to be both informative and challenging. In his contribution, he made the observation that a lot has changed in the last few years in the context of the whole carbon pollution debate. And it is true—it has—and I have been surprised by the direction of a number of those changes.
Since the election of the current government in 2007 and the first presentation of the green paper, white paper and draft legislation, there have been many in the community who have said that progression of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme would bring with it consequent destruction of Australian industry. Yet we have seen, at the time of the presentation of all of that argument, substantial new investment taking place in Australian industry across the nation.
The announcement in the third quarter last year of the Gorgon project taking its final investment decision was not just a significant decision for Western Australia but a significant decision in global terms, for two reasons. Firstly, it is a massive new LNG production facility, and the only one in the world to have been started in the year 2009. But, secondly, it is the world’s largest geosequestration project.
The geosequestration project that underpins the Gorgon project is not a requirement of the Australian government. It is not a requirement of the regulator. It is not a requirement of the government of Western Australia. The proposition to geosequester the CO2 from the Gorgon fields was a decision made by the project proponent—a decision made knowing that they would have to pay for the costs of that geosequestration. It was a decision made by the proponents of the project because they wanted to have a project that was environmentally better than the rest—that was capable, for the first time in the history of that industry, of geosequestering its massive CO2 emissions and doing that safely and in a commercially acceptable way.
In recent weeks in Queensland, BG Group in Queensland have announced the expenditure of over $3 billion in the acquisition of long-lead items for the LNG production facility that they wish to build at Gladstone. There were also announcements just yesterday of the first stages in the move to a final investment decision in two years time for the Browse Basin LNG facility—a $50 billion investment. A few months ago, the Shell company announced it was taking further steps with its Prelude LNG facility off the north coast of Western Australia. This is over $100 billion worth of new investment in hydrocarbons intensive industry that has not been scared away by the debate about carbon pollution, by the debate over an emissions trading scheme or by the difficulties that our parliament has had or Australian people have had in coming to terms with the complexities of this issue. I think that speaks volumes for the quality of our companies and for the quality of the public debate on this issue and, importantly, would lead me to conclude that, in fact, the implementation of a carbon pollution reduction scheme, as envisaged by the government, would not be a measure that would damage the Australian economy—in fact, would only enhance it.
Over the years, I have been a critic of the carbon pollution debate. Indeed, in 1990 I described climate change science as ‘pop science’. I regret that I said that. Climate change is real. The greenhouse measures proposed by the government are serious and they have serious implications. Greenhouse gas measures will affect how we create wealth, how we travel and how we work. At all times, our greenhouse gas measures must enhance our capacity to create wealth. It is wealth that allows us to protect our environment. Capping and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one of the most significant challenges of the present time and we all have a responsibility to do something about reducing these emissions. This is not to say it will be an easy task; it will not be. Compromises will need to be made on the part of industry, households, business, families and government. All will need to adjust. There will be no area of our lives that will remain unchanged. It would be ignorant of us to think otherwise.
The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills will be the most important bills we pass as a parliament. We are responding to concern from individuals, businesses and industry to address greenhouse emissions. I am contacted by constituents in my electorate continually. I will read one email that was recently sent to me. It said:
Climate change is the great moral challenge of our age.
That is the view of my constituent. I offer that view because it is a demonstration that the community do want action. Even industries that were initially sceptical of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme have thrown their support behind the amendments.
Those opposite are playing politics with climate change when they break the longstanding, commonly held view, put firstly by Prime Minister Howard, that Australia could have an emissions trading scheme. The government and the opposition held a common view and a common response. We even had a deal. We had a deal; they reneged on it. Quite frankly, it is they who are not taking this debate seriously. The opposition do not take the need for a common view from all parliamentarians seriously. Opposition leader Tony Abbott is on the record as saying that climate change is ‘absolute crap’. He is on the record, or he has been verballed, as saying that he is ‘a bit of a weathervane’ on the issue. He needs to have courage and he needs to support the longstanding, bipartisan commitment to the introduction of a carbon pollution reduction scheme.
His climate change policy will cost taxpayers three times more than the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Rather than decreasing emissions, it is said that they will ultimately increase by 13 per cent from 2000 levels and taxpayers will incur a $10 billion tax bill to pay for it. That means fewer roads, fewer schools, fewer hospitals, fewer water schemes and fewer measures that our parliament and our government can take to better look after our community and to prepare our community for such measures as may be necessary in a changing climate. He has a plan to spend $10 billion and, presumably, a plan to cut government spending on essential government services.
The government’s climate change policy will make polluters pay, while providing assistance for increases in electricity prices and ensuring that small businesses have access to grants under the $200 million Climate Change Action Fund. We will help them adjust. It will not be easy; it will be difficult. There is no magic solution and there is no magic pudding to compensate people for the pain that would be caused by these measures.
I have spoken before about industry support for an emissions trading scheme. It is an important point—10 companies in Australia, with a total market capitalisation of around $600 billion, support these measures. They realise the importance. They have factored in the carbon prices. Shareholders and stakeholders expect action. This is still the case. When I spoke before, I quoted an article in the Canberra Times. The article came after Prime Minister Howard announced, in March 2007, a task force to provide advice on developing an emissions trading scheme. It stated that Australia’s most important resource companies, including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Woodside, AGL and Alcoa, had come out in support of a carbon pollution reduction scheme. It went on to say that, of the 200 submissions that had been posted on the task group’s website, the majority called for an emissions trading scheme.
It is clear that an effective, sustained global response to the threat of climate change is required, but in the near term it is recognised that linked emissions trading schemes—ETSs—are more likely than a single global system. I think that has been demonstrated by recent events in Copenhagen.
Today in this parliament I met Bernie Delaney from BHP Billiton and Mark O’Neill, both lobbyists for large resources companies—Gary for Rio and Bernie for BHP. I have no doubt that, given the strong position taken by the companies, they were in this building to lobby for an ETS. BHP Billiton supports the development of a global, market based mechanism for valuing and trading emissions entitlements and reductions on the basis that it is broadly based, efficient and phased in such a way that industry and the country have sufficient time to adjust. So they support the government’s position. On page 5 of their submission, BHP Billiton further stated:
Australia is vulnerable to climate change, as are many of the nations in this region. Acting alone, Australia can do little to mitigate the growth in global emissions.
Those are not my words; those are BHP Billiton’s words. BHP continue:
Australia can play a leadership role in encouraging an effective, efficient and equitable global scheme taking advantage of its resources and skill endowments and accepting its share of global efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
That is what Australia did in Copenhagen earlier this year.
BHP Billiton have had a climate change policy since 2002, and they further revised it in 2007. Not only are companies such as BHP Billiton supporting moves to establish an ETS, they are actually committing to voluntary reductions of their emissions. In 1995, BHP Billiton took part in the Greenhouse Challenge Plus Programme which encouraged reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Even earlier, in 1993, BHP started measuring greenhouse gas emissions, and they have publicly reported their resulting data since then. I note that it was in about 1993 that I made my ill-advised comments about climate change. At that stage BHP and many other members of the global corporate community were already acting on greenhouse measures and climate change.
BP are a global company with a market capitalisation of $232 billion. That is, it is a quarter of the size of the Australian economy. They have also 100,000 direct employees worldwide, and significant oil and gas production and refining capacity in the global marketplace. They operate significant assets in Australia and are significant joint venturers in the great North West Shelf project off the coast of Western Australia. BP states that ‘It seems more likely that there will be an ETS in the world marketplace, rather than starting from scratch.’
On their website, BP state their support for:
… precautionary action to limit greenhouse gas emissions and works to combat climate change in several ways, even though aspects of the science are still the subject of expert debate.
I am a Western Australian, and a great Western Australian icon is Wesfarmers Ltd. They are also supportive of an ETS. On page 1 of their submission to the previous government, Wesfarmers stated they:
… have no doubt about the desirability of actions aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions because of the likely adverse effects this build-up will have on life on earth.
Those are not my views; they are the views of Wesfarmers as put to the former government.
Wesfarmers are a major public company which began in 1914 as a farmers cooperative. It was listed on the ASX in 1984. Wesfarmers operate the chemical and fertiliser business, CSBP, in Kwinana, which is in my electorate, so I take a keen interest in their policies and activities. On the second page of their submission, Wesfarmers state:
While a trading system is more complex to design and administer than a straight out tax, and while it is subject to demand variations, the cap and trade schemes most often canvassed have a strong appeal in terms of certainty of achieving environmental objectives.
More recently, the chief executive of Woodside Petroleum—and I should declare that I was formerly an employee of Woodside Petroleum—Don Voelte, who had been a vocal critic of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, was quoted on ABC’s Lateline as saying that Woodside:
… could cope with the proposal in its current form.
Voelte added:
… compensation from the government would help with the industry transition required by the CPRS.
On 4 May 2009, in a statement from the Business Council of Australia, the president Greig Gailey expressed his support:
The BCA believes that global warming is a global problem and will only be solved with a global solution. The BCA fully supports the government’s initiatives aimed at forging an effective global compact that would see all of the world’s nations placing a comparable price on carbon emissions.
… … …
The BCA continues to advocate a well-designed market-based emissions trading scheme as the least-cost way for Australia to move to a low-pollution future.
In closing, I have risen to support this bill as someone who has worked in the hydrocarbon sector, as someone whose scepticism has been noted and as someone who has observed Australia’s largest publicly listed independent oil and gas exploration and production company change its mind too, to support the idea of an emissions trading scheme.
These decisions are not easy decisions for governments to make, they are not easy decisions for parliaments to take and they are not easy matters to debate. But they are essential, and they do require that we in this place work together rather than work against each other. They do require that we work in the interests of our country and not in the narrow interests of our political parties. I commend these bills to the House.
I am pleased to follow the member for Brand in this debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills. He made some interesting comments, and I notice with some degree of interest that he also chaired a task force looking at Northern Australia and the potential for agriculture. Obviously, some of the activities in the north of Australia, particularly some of the burning regimes et cetera, have a role to play in carbon emissions.
Whilst the member for Brand is in the chamber I will briefly comment that like a lot of people from the south who have spent time in the north of Australia, I just cannot believe that a task force with reputable people on it could come up with a fairly simplistic view of the capacity and capability of Northern Australia. The member for Brand is a member of a government which believes that climate change is occurring. I do too—I do not disbelieve that. I think humans have had some impact. There will be argument about that impact, and all of us in this place will be dead before we know what it was. Personally, I operate on the precautionary principle; if there is an issue out there, and if the climate scientists are right, then we should be doing something about it. Having said that, I will talk about whether I am supporting the legislation or not a little bit later.
In terms of the Northern Australian debate, this is what we are told by the climate scientists—and the government’s view is to believe those scientists. Some members may well remember that I introduced what was called a Climate Protection Bill into the parliament—probably 15 or 18 months ago now—which was ridiculed to a certain degree. But part of that legislative package was recognising what the climate scientists were saying in relation to Northern Australia. They were suggesting that the Murray-Darling system, because of climate change, was going to suffer and that there would be up to 30 per cent less water available in the Murray-Darling system—obviously no-one can be too prescriptive. The government’s CPRS arrangements are based on some of these criteria about the way in which weather will change within Australia, not only in a negative sense, as in the Murray-Darling—that is the system I live within—but also in a positive sense: some areas will actually get more rain.
Northern Australia—or part of Northern Australia—is recognised by the climate scientists as being one of those areas that will actually receive more rain because of the increased levels of greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. So we have a situation where, if we believe in the logic, human induced greenhouse gas will create a distorted rainfall pattern in the north of Australia. I suggested in the Climate Protection Bill that, if we were really concerned about what human beings were doing to some of our catchments, we should have a serious look at the engineering of moving some of the human induced additional rainfall in the north of Australia. I am not suggesting piping water from the Kimberley to Sydney; I am referring to parts of Queensland. We should look at the percentage by which the climate scientists are saying that the rainfall will be unnatural because of human induced carbon effects and redistribute that water into the area—the Murray-Darling system—where climate scientists are saying that, because of human induced carbon effects, there will be a reduction in rainfall.
No-one is suggesting that Queensland or New South Wales is causing this; this is a global problem. But we have seen in Copenhagen that human nature is starting to come into this problem and the politics of fixing the problem. We have seen this dreadful example in our own parliament, where the politics of the short term has overtaken any real objective look at what the possibilities are if a tipping point actually does exist and we do start a process that leads to irreversible climate change. The global politics seems to me to be suggesting that human nature—human beings and their short-term attitude to life—will mean that we possibly will not do anything about the problem. If that is the case, we have to have a serious look at what is happening in Northern Australia.
The task force came up with a recommendation that says that Northern Australia, even though it has a lot of water, is limited in water, and the very same people on that task force—or some of them—are suggesting that because of climate change Northern Australia’s rainfall is going to increase. If the globe does nothing, there are a number of things that we should possibly do to protect our people and our climate. One of them may well be redistributing the carbon induced weather pattern changes by way of transferring water. Another one may well be to look seriously at the productive capacity, particularly if we do have a food security problem in the world—I have some issues with that, but the government and the opposition say we do. If we believe that, we or the globe may well need the productive sector in the north of Australia where there is a lot of water and where there is going to be more if we do not do anything about climate change. If the climate scientists are correct, we should be looking at the productive capacity far more seriously than that task force did.
Anybody that has travelled in parts of North Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia would recognise that the arable parts of some of those areas are enormous. I have not got the acreages or the hectares in front of me at the moment, but for the report to identify that there is marginal capacity to increase crop production! People might have issues with crop production, damming rivers, irrigation and those sorts of things, and they are valid issues, but to come out with a report that really does not look terribly much at the capability!
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, in answer to a question from the member for Kennedy today, talked about the potential increase in the beef industry, as if people are going to rush into that. If anybody looked at the pricing structures within the beef industry and within food generally in First World economies, there is no money in growing food. There is money in the food business—a lot of money—but there is no money in growing food. Many other members in this parliament would be fully aware that the margins in beef production are nominal. To suggest suddenly, ‘Oh, there’s more capacity out there; it’ll all happen,’ to me really creates a nonsense.
So I suggest to the parliamentary secretary that they revisit some of this report, because it really is quite damaging. If we do increase our population over the years, or the globe does, and we do nothing about climate change—there are pressures in Indonesia and parts of Asia in terms of population—we have not seen anything yet in terms of the boat people issue in relation to people wanting to get to a better land. If those meagre acreages mentioned by that task force are all that can be developed by Australians, who knows? In 100 or 200 years, other countries might be utilising that highly productive capacity that is there.
To get to the substance of the bill, I will not be supporting it. I have not supported it in the past. I am not a climate sceptic; I believe that humans are having an impact and that the globe should do something about it. We have two policies. We have the emissions trading scheme that the Rudd government has put up, which has some technical issues in my view. We now have another one, which is called the ‘direct action policy’, from the coalition. They both have the same objective; they both say they will reduce emissions by five per cent. Both of them have some positives and both of them have some negatives, but the real issue to me is the five per cent, and that is why I will not be supporting this legislation. I think that to rearrange the economy with a target level that is so low that a number of other things could achieve that outcome, particularly given the outcome of Copenhagen, says to me that the government is not really serious about this issue.
Part of the basis for my saying that is the way in which the government treated Malcolm Turnbull during the period of negotiation that went on. I pay credit to the member for Wentworth. I have had some issues with Malcolm in the past over water et cetera, but I pay credit to him and I pay credit to the member for Groom for the way in which they conducted themselves in trying to find a consensus of views in relation to what they believed, rightly or wrongly, to be a real issue for the globe. We can all argue about doing it before Copenhagen or after Copenhagen and about the impacts of Copenhagen, and we can all score our points in regard to those sorts of issues. I went to Copenhagen, and in Paris last year I met with some of the IPCC’s economics people who were working on the climate science arrangements. I was in Copenhagen in August, and 10,000 beds were cancelled then. People knew that the thing was going to be a flop; people knew that it was going to be a failure at having real impact in terms of a global decision.
The reason that I mentioned the member for Wentworth and the member for Groom was partly because I think that one of the things that we all hear as parliamentarians is, ‘Why don’t you all go down there and work on something together and make something happen?’ and that was an example of it. I did not agree with the particular legislation but that was an example of where both sides were actually trying to reach an agreement over a very tricky issue. Whilst these good faith negotiations were going on and we were getting reports of them going on to resolve this issue, the Prime Minister and various ministers of the government kept on poking Malcolm Turnbull in the chest—day in, day out—about this so-called division within his own party—and then they expected that party to not react.
The sole reason that we have Tony Abbott in this parliament now as Leader of the Opposition, the sole reason that this emissions trading scheme is going to fail for the third time and the sole reason that the government are having some degree of problems with the polls is the very bad tactics by Kevin Rudd and other senior members of the government. To expect people to negotiate in good faith, and whilst those negotiations are going on in supposed good faith—and I believe they probably were—to keep beating them up politically, day in and day out, and then expect the status quo to remain is quite nonsensical. As I said, I will not be supporting the legislation because I believe the targets are far too low and I think the activities of the government in terms of the way they treated the member for Wentworth indicated that they were not serious in terms of this issue—that they really are not serious about the importance of this issue. I have heard all of the words time and time again. If they had been serious they would have given the former Leader of the Opposition some room to move, rather than pillorying him almost daily about the short-term politics of the problem that he was having with the right wing of his party.
As I said, I have had issues with Malcolm Turnbull in the past, particularly over water issues, but I think it was to his great credit that he actually stood for something that he believed in. I think the government should have given him a bit more breathing space in order to try and come to something that there could be consensus across the nation about, because that is really what the people want. Now we have this farcical division over five per cent dividing the nation on whether one is cheaper or the other is cheaper when neither of them make any meaningful difference to anything other than perhaps the economy. There are a number of good things in both of them. Some of the soil carbon issues are definitely worth pursuing. There are issues as to whether you can fit those into a marketplace or not, but they are definitely worth pursuing. The biochar issue is something that many of us have raised over a few years now, and it is good to see that those issues are actually in there and are being looked at in a serious sense.
The other issue that I raise which is related to these bills is Australia’s non-participation under the Howard government in the Kyoto agreement. A lot of what we are seeing now is flowing from the Kyoto arrangements, and the current government has endorsed them. The mention of soil carbon, for instance, is difficult in an emissions trading scheme because it is not recognised by the Kyoto arrangements, and some people are arguing that it should be into the future. I think that is something that seriously needs to be looked at. Personally, as a farmer, I see the soil carbon issue as more about soil health and drought policy rather than about being able to trade it in a market. Irrespective of whether it can be traded in the market or not, I think it is something that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Prime Minister and others should have a very serious look at, because if we are talking about revamping drought policy, enhancing soil and organic matter is one of the ways in which we can do that.
Related to this issue has been the issue of property rights. Only last week we saw a protest outside the building. I attended that protest. The man who the protest was held around was a man called Peter Spencer, and I have had a bit to do with Peter over the years. He was making an allegation—quite rightly, in my view—that under the Howard government the land clearing laws were stopped by the states and that even though we had not signed the Kyoto agreement in terms of carbon reduction, Australia had achieved an outcome which was positive. The Climate Institute, which is a long way from where Peter Spencer would be and which is an organisation, headed by John Connor, that I have regard for, has also said that the farmers of this country—I am not talking about soil carbon; I am talking about land clearing—have actually paid—
Debate interrupted.
Order! It being 7.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
I rise to draw the House’s attention to the fact that the federal government’s funding to the New South Wales government to provide low-cost housing has resulted in the community being totally bypassed in the decision-making process. Mr Rudd has used the guise of ‘nation-building stimulus’ to help the state throw up concentrated ‘development without consent’ housing estates. They have written their own rules to self-assess and override the usual democratic planning process—which involves local government expertise—and ignored the pleas of nearby residents. My office has received numerous complaints about these projects. As a result, I have held two public meetings in my electorate with the view that if Mr Rudd will not hold New South Wales to account for the federal money being handed over then I will, and if the state government will not consult the community or the council then I will.
Here is some of the feedback I have collected for the benefit of the Labor governments. Nearby residents would like to know who will be living in the units and whether Shoalhaven residents will be given preference. If the units are intended for seniors, we would like to know why the design does not cater for seniors who might have difficulty with stairs. There is no privacy for neighbouring residents—they can plant trees but are liable for any damage that might be caused by falling branches. Overshadowing—the height of these buildings will now block sunlight from the roofs of nearby properties, rendering their solar panels absolutely useless. There appear to be no environmentally friendly measures in place for the new buildings. This is another example of power being taken away from local governments—and JRPPs is another one. Owners have not been informed, only direct occupants have. The look of the units does not appear to fit the style of each area. There are no open spaces.
New residents have moved to the area without receiving any information about the developments, as most people in the street have not even been informed about construction plans. Some have tried to sell their homes to escape the prospect of exacerbated social problems and have suffered diminished property values. There is a severe lack of transport and employment services in the sites earmarked for development. These are not buildings that council would typically approve. A serious lack of parking is likely to lead to overcrowded streets. The cost for occupants to get to medical and employment services would be extremely high, given the isolation of each site. The units will be extremely small and unpleasant for occupants, given the high density. Concentrating low-income earners in small spaces away from central services will only disadvantage them further, with copious research proving that estate-style living is not effective.
Direct neighbours have been given little or no chance to comment, while those who did write failed to receive a response of any kind. Over 400 people have attended local meetings on this issue and dozens more have signed a petition calling on the state government to give planning powers back to local government. It is a disgrace that the federal government is sitting back watching as the state government overrides the usual democratic planning processes to throw up units today with little or no thought for tomorrow. I have written to both the state and federal housing ministers, with no response. I urged them to ensure that a new approach to these projects is taken—one that moves away from high-density developments, one that utilises the expertise of local governments and, most importantly, one that genuinely consults with the community. We can do without the current method, which involves simply issuing a letter to only the direct neighbours around two weeks before demolition.
Sending a response to their letters of concern should also be a no-brainer—but apparently not. Lost in action is our state member for Kiama, Matt Brown, who has taken a back seat on this issue despite admitting that the state government has mishandled the projects. Other MPs have been scrambling to try and minimise the damage by seeking assurances about environmental impacts et cetera—knowing full well the community’s feelings on this—but Mr Brown has so far failed to even attend a public meeting. In a further blow to the community it has been revealed that a Sydney construction company using building materials from China has picked up the job. This proves that bulldozing ahead with these projects under the guise of stimulating the local economy is nothing more than a convenient justification for the state and federal governments. They are more concerned about making announcements and bragging about multiple new dwellings than creating a better future for low-income earners and the wider community, or even boosting the local economy. After all, we are now so over-stimulated we are seeing interest rates rising at excruciating levels for mortgage holders.
If the New South Wales and federal Labor governments have any credibility left they should note these loud and clear concerns and take action. It is not too late to intervene in the case of at least some of these proposals, and with 9,000 dwellings going up around the state it is no trivial matter. I take offence at the Labor Party saying the opposition are against public housing. We are not against public housing, but we do believe in a fair go. We believe the community should have a say, as should local government. (Time expired)
I want to talk about some of the good health initiatives that are underway in Page and some of the general ones. Since coming to power, the government has had to address nearly 12 years of neglect in the health system. And I have to say that the Leader of the Opposition, who was the Minister for Health and Ageing in the former government for four years, cut $1 billion out of public hospitals. That made a difference to public hospitals in New South Wales and in my area. It also froze GP training places. The Rudd government has increased GP training places by 35 per cent, and some of that will be of benefit in my area.
There have also been some big initiatives that have helped. There was $600 million to reduce the number of patients waiting for longer than is clinically recommended. That had an impact in my area on the North Coast of New South Wales. There was $275 million for 36 GP superclinics, and one of them is getting underway in Grafton for the Clarence Valley. That was an election promise. The contracts have been let and the land has been identified. That has been secured and all of that is underway. Ochre Health have the contract, and there was a lot of planning done in our local community with that.
There are also more PET scanners and 12 Medicare eligible MRI machines in locations across the country. We want a PET scanner in my area, so we have put in a bid as well. There is a whole community initiative underway, whereby the community are backing that and have raised some money themselves. Federal and state members and local government are working cooperatively with Marshall Fittler and the North Coast Community Forum to get some money for that, and we have put it forward in a number of submissions.
To turn directly to some other initiatives, just recently I turned the first sod at Grafton Base Hospital. An $18 million election commitment was made and the funds came in the budget. The planning has happened and we have now turned the first sod, although a lot of early works were already underway. I said to the Mayor of Clarence Valley, Richie Williamson, on the day, ‘It is good.’ He replied, ‘It’s better than good.’ I thank former Grafton City mayor Shirley Adams OAM, the hospital’s Medical Council chair Dr Allan Tyson, former Clarence Valley mayor Ian Tiley and Richie Williamson for their strong support and for the work that we did to make sure this happened. It was an election commitment given when we were in opposition by the now Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, and they have delivered in government.
In addition to a new GP superclinic in Grafton, we also saw in the Clarence Valley $12,400 going to Grafton’s Queens Street Medical Centre. This was money from the Australian government to refurbish and equip consulting rooms for trainee GPs and to improve and expand the large waiting areas to allow for additional patient capacity—an issue in our area. I also brought to the Clarence Valley area a men’s health forum in Grafton. I requested it because I had been lobbied actively on men’s health issues by some active grassroots services like the men’s sheds, veterans groups and the Clarence Valley Prostate Cancer Support Group. The support group were very pleased to have Treasurer Wayne Swan meet with them on a visit to the Clarence Valley. He talked with them about the challenge that he faced in that area.
Another election commitment concerned Lismore Base Hospital, and that has been delivered on with $15 million for the Lismore Integrated Cancer Centre. It is well underway and I have been up there a few times. I did not turn the first sod at that one; I actually knocked one of the bricks out where we had to set it up to do some of the early works. We have also provided $8.3 million to establish an eight-bed medical assessment unit at Lismore Base Hospital plus an additional $600,000 for new surgical equipment for elective surgery. There was also $4.1 million in operational funds and $5.7 million in infrastructure funds over two years to establish the University of Western Sydney’s new Rural Clinical School in Lismore and Bathurst—in my home town and in my seat. (Time expired)
I rise this evening to speak about something that is very critical and important not only in my electorate but also for national security. I speak about Minister Combet’s backflip on the government allowing a company to source defence fabric from China. We had the Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science only today indicate that he has overturned a decision regarding a contract to allow an Australian company that sews the defence uniforms to source this fabric from China. This directly contradicted, of course, a Defence statement of yesterday that there existed a contract to source fabric from China. It also contradicted the Labor candidate in Indi, who said this morning that only some fabric would be sourced from China.
We know what the truth is. The truth is that seven months ago there was a tender granted allowing the sourcing of camouflage fabric for Australian Defence personnel uniforms to be bought from China, and we know that seven months later, only with extraordinary publicity in the media when this was made public and there was outrage, the government spin machine moved in to try to stifle the truth of the matter.
This secret decision was taken last year around the same time as the minister adopted a very important policy regarding priority industry capabilities. An official document tells us that these priority industry capabilities:
… are defined as those capabilities that confer an essential strategic advantage by being available from within Australia and which, if not available, would significantly undermine defence self reliance and Australian Defence Force (ADF) operational capability.
The document goes on to list these priority industry capabilities, and under the heading ‘What are the PICs?’ the very last dot point is, lo and behold, ‘Combat Clothing and Personal Equipment’. So the minister himself, in allowing the department to authorise the sourcing of camouflage fabric from overseas, is actually defying his own policy guidelines. You have to wonder if this is sheer incompetence or whether it is the result of a government that has driven this nation into record debt and deficit and is now penny-pinching and scrimping to try and save a few dollars here and there.
How much are we going to save? It was revealed in Senate estimates today that the Chinese tender was only 10 per cent cheaper than the Australian tender and that was only going to save Defence $1.5 million. Think of all the money that has been wasted with the home insulation program and all the rorting that has occurred there. Think of all those school halls that schools never wanted and had been tendered at very high prices. Think of all the waste of money going overseas that was supposed to stimulate the Australian economy. And yet this government was going to jeopardise the security of Australian servicemen and women by having this highly developed fabric produced by an overseas power. It just goes to show their priorities and their desperation in trying to retrieve some economic credibility.
It is not just this pointless exercise in penny-pinching. This fabric, developed by Bruck Textiles in my electorate, in conjunction with Defence, does have very special spectral qualities. Australian taxpayers’ dollars have been invested in the development of this wonderful innovation, and this money was going to effectively be exported overseas. The government needs to stand accountable. The Minister for Defence needs to answer the questions: why did he allow this to happen in the first place and what other Defence contracts does the minister know about in his department that jeopardise Australian jobs and Australian industries? I will be pursuing the answers to these questions. These issues are of concern not only to people in my electorate but to people right around Australia. Minister, you will not be able to escape answering these questions indefinitely.
The Rudd government’s economic stimulus plan continues to support jobs and working families in Isaacs and is helping to make our communities better and stronger. I recently opened a new environmentally themed playground at Tatterson Park that will give local families in Keysborough a great place to play and enjoy a picnic in a modern and safe environment. This $1 million project was equally funded by the federal government, under the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, the state government and the City of Greater Dandenong. This kind of cooperation between the three spheres of government is what Australians are entitled to and the Rudd government is delivering. This is a terrific playground which is based on a ‘world of insects’ theme. It is designed to integrate with the natural surroundings of Tatterson Park and gives children the opportunity to learn more about our local environment. It is hard to overstate the importance for new communities, like the one that is developing in this part of Keysborough, of recreation spaces that families can take their children to. So many local families in this area have young children, and this playground is a great recreation facility for these families.
In Braeside Park, a significant parkland in the electorate and part of Melbourne’s green wedge, the federal government has committed $236,500 towards the construction of a shared bike path. The project was proposed by, and will be funded to an equal amount by, Kingston City Council, and I congratulate the council for this project. This bike path, part of the government’s National Bike Path Projects and also part of the economic stimulus plan, will increase safety for cyclists and pedestrians along busy Governor Road. As a keen cyclist myself, I am always pleased to see a safer cycling environment. Both of these projects are not only supporting local jobs but also giving local residents the facilities for better communities and healthier lifestyles.
I also recently announced 23 Community Volunteer Grant recipients in Kingston, who shared in more than $70,000 in federal government funding. These grants recognise the importance of volunteering to our community and the real difference it makes to people’s lives. I would like to mention some of the recipients. Aspendale Life Saving Club and Bonbeach Life Saving Club received $3,000 and $1,925 respectively to support their efforts patrolling our beaches and training the next generation of lifesavers, an important task in the bayside suburbs of our electorate. Chelsea Little Athletics received $4,920 to help the club’s activities. The club competes at events around Victoria, including a very successful meet recently at the Victorian Little Athletics Association State Multi Event Championships in Bendigo. The Carrum Indigenous Nursery received $4,400 to support its work propagating plants indigenous to the unique and vulnerable ecosystem around Port Phillip Bay. I am a regular customer at the Carrum Indigenous Nursery. I recently bought some excellent Banksia marginata, a particularly beautiful banksia native to the Port Phillip Bay area, which the nursery grew from seed.
I also visited the St John Ambulance station in Dandenong South to announce $30,000 in volunteer grants for community groups in the City of Greater Dandenong. Andrew Foran, First Aid Services Operations Manager for St John Ambulance, said about the grant to his organisation:
This grant will have a very positive long-term benefit on the Greater Dandenong Division. By providing funding for essential equipment, our members will be able to continue providing vital community services while ensuring that member experience, welfare and team building is enhanced.
On a more sombre note, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Mitsuko Hodgen, a local teacher at Parkdale Secondary College, who passed away in November 2009. Mitsuko was a Japanese teacher at Parkdale, as well as being the home room teacher and mentor for year 8F and the coordinator of the international students program. Mitsuko fought a year-long battle with lung cancer, during which time she continued to teach and to guide her year 12 students through to their final VCE exams. I know that her bravery, her strength and her dedication to her students has been an inspiration for so many in the local school community. The school has established scholarship awards in Mitsuko Hodgen’s memory. I was privileged to be at the first school assembly of the year, on 1 February, to present these awards to the inaugural recipients, Nick Dullard, Josh Churchward and Ramai Harker. I know that Mitsuko Hodgen is sadly missed by the whole school community.
I rise to speak about an issue that has been important to my electorate and one on which I am very pleased that the coalition was able to secure a backdown from the Australian Labor Party, and that is the cataract surgery rebate. I present a petition signed by 608 of the local residents in my electorate of Moncrieff. It is in response to Labor’s planned halving of the Medicare rebate for cataract treatment. I launched this petition in November last year in protest against the decision.
I put forward this petition with the sole and express intention of supporting the efforts of the coalition in ensuring that we were able to block Labor’s attempts to cost not only my constituents in the seat of Moncrieff but all constituents across Australia more money. We called on the parliament to block any effort by Labor to halve cataract rebates, a move that would have forced—as I said—thousands of Australians into an already overburdened public health system. It would have also inflicted unnecessary hardship on many others.
I welcome the humiliating backdown by the Minister for Health and Ageing, the Hon. Nicola Roxon. I welcome the fact that she has backed down. Over 120,000 Australians are potential cataract patients. These people would have been adversely affected had Labor’s ill-thought-through plan gotten through, with higher out-of-pocket expenses for each and every one of them. This would have been a change to public policy that would not have been welcomed. The changes would also have added to the pressure on the public hospital system, a system that not only on the Gold Coast but more broadly across Australia is already in a state of poor repair. There are many times when the public hospital on the Gold Coast is put on bypass. There are many people on long waiting lists to access elective surgery. There are many waiting to have cataract operations. This myopic move by the minister for health, had the attempt to make it been successful, would have made this big problem even bigger.
For seven months the Labor Party attempted to force this change through the parliament. I was pleased to, with the weight of community support behind me, have this petition in place to reinforce community concern and my concern on behalf of my constituents about Labor’s proposed changes. Labor proposed to halve the rebate in the 2009-10 budget. The rebate for the most common cataract treatment was going to be halved from $623.70 down to $312.64, effective from 1 November last year. As a coalition, the Liberal Party and the National Party stood up to the Labor Party. We stood alongside constituents who we knew would be worse of.
In an unfortunately abysmal attempt to compromise, the health minister adjusted her proposal to make the rebate $340.76. That was Labor’s alternative when we stood in their way. It was still a cut of more than 45 per cent. Neither of the proposals that were put forward were acceptable to me or to the coalition. I congratulate the shadow minister for health, the member for Dickson, on his fantastic work on behalf of not only the 608 constituents who have signed this petition but those from across Australia who were engaged in activities to try to demonstrate to Labor how poor their attempts were.
I sincerely congratulate and thank those 608 people from my electorate who have worked with me in signing this petition. I congratulate and thank the ophthalmologists across my electorate, who helped with the distribution of this petition to ensure that once again we successfully thwarted Labor in their very myopic attempt to try to cost Australians more money. It also would have seen an overburdened public health system become even worse. The simple reality is that without the joint will of the Liberal Party, the National Party and those not only from my electorate but from across Australia who have signed this petition we would not have achieved the fantastic outcome that we got: stopping Labor’s very short-sighted decision.
I present the petition.
The petition read as follows—
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House:
The 120,000 Senior Australians who, each year, have 200,000 surgical procedures to treat cataracts.
We therefore ask the House to:
Block any Labor Government effort to halve the Medicare rebate for these treatments. Any reduction in the Medicare rebate will force thousands of Australians into an already overburdened public health system and inflict unnecessary financial hardship on many others.
from 608 citizens
Petition received.
I rise tonight to speak about an issue that has had a lot of discussion this week, and that is the issue of climate change. In particular, I want to talk about the important element of Labor’s plan that the opposition refuses to acknowledge: the generous compensation scheme under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. We have seen the Leader of the Opposition running a fear campaign on the increases in the cost of living of the Australian people. While he runs around and visits dry cleaners, what he is not being upfront with the Australian people about is the cost of his own scheme. He needs to answer some questions. Where is this money coming from? What impact will it have on the Australian people? How is he going to compensate them?
In stark contrast, the government have been very upfront about our scheme, where we believe the increases will occur and how we are going to compensate for them. In fact, we have been very clear with the Australian people. We have said that polluters will bear the cost but that there will be a modest burden on consumers. But we have said that we will compensate for this. Indeed, 90 per cent of low-income households will receive assistance to 120 per cent of the costs, while 97 per cent of middle-income households will receive direct cash payments.
This is in stark contrast to the opposition, which has put out a scheme that we know probably will not be effective. In fact, this scheme will probably increase carbon pollution by about 13 per cent. At the same time, it will cost the Australian taxpayer and Australian families three times as much. The opposition leader has not been upfront with the Australian people about where this money will come from nor indeed how he will compensate them. In fact, the opposition leader has offered no compensation whatsoever in his scheme. He has also started talking about penalties, although it is not clear what these penalties will be, how these penalties will be applied, how they will be passed on to consumers—and we have no doubt that businesses that receive penalties will pass them on to consumers—and how consumers will be compensated. There is zero compensation in the opposition leader’s scheme.
What is really important for the electors in my electorate of Kingston to understand, and what we have been very clear on, is that any costs that are associated with the scheme will be offset by a carbon price paid by the big polluters. When we look at age pension couples, they will be around $283 better off under the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Single age pensioners will be around $169 better under the CPRS. This compensation will go to pensioners, seniors, carers and people with disabilities. That is particularly important to those on a disability pension in my electorate of Kingston. The previous government completely ignored disability pensioners when it came to assisting them with the cost of living. It took the election of this government to extend the utilities allowance to support disability pensioners. The previous government completely ignored them. When it came to the Economic Security Strategy, the lump sum payments were for the first time extended to disability pensioners. I know that disability pensioners in my electorate were very grateful that finally there was a government that took them seriously.
Order! It being 8 pm, the debate is interrupted.
The following notice was given:
to present a Bill for an Act to amend the law relating to elections and referendums, and for related purposes.
I rise today to speak on an utterly reprehensible situation that the Rudd Labor government has instigated. It is a situation that has left sectors of the Australian defence industry reeling. If a minister were to stand in this House and outline a program which would invest $40 million worth of taxpayers’ money in another country on a piece of defence equipment that our ADF could not use, that minister would be called wasteful. If they stood here and said they would do all that and at the same time deny Australian industry an opportunity to produce a piece of equipment we could use, they would be labelled not only as wasteful but as treacherous. This is exactly what Minister Combet has done in the case of Land 121 phase 4, a $1.5 billion project that aims to replace Australia’s venerable old Land Rover fleet with 1,300 new, better protected vehicles.
I have stood in this House and spoken on this subject before but I did so in the hope that this government would finally come to its senses and reverse its anti-Australian industry policy. Alas, Minister Combet has not done so. In fact, the situation has got much worse and now defence industry is questioning whether or not to even continue with the development of vehicles right here in Australia. Just last week Australian companies that were vying for this critical funding were told that the decision on whether or not to provide them funding would be put back by six months. That means the American program is at least 18 months ahead of any Australian program. If that were not enough, only this morning a report in the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph, which was confirmed by defence officials, stated that the manufacturing of top-secret fabric for Australian defence uniforms would be done in China. Australian industry has had enough of Minister Combet’s hypocrisy. On the one hand he assures local industry he will support them and on the other he actively moves work offshore.
And let us not forget the member for Bendigo, who has been equally unsupportive of the Australian defence industry, even though a major defence company resides within his own electorate. How can Australian companies possibly compete locally, let alone internationally, when Minister Combet has tied their hands behind their backs? Instead of being in a situation whereby Australian industry could export its products globally, they are now left wondering whether or not they can even continue to develop prototype vehicles here in Australia. There is no reason for the funding to be withheld any longer than it already has been. The only conclusion is that Minister Combet is deliberately setting up certain sectors of the Australian defence industry to fail, and no-one knows why. The Australian defence industry deserves better from their minister. They deserve something that I believe in so strongly—that is, equality of opportunity.
I want to raise the issue of how schools are classified as being disadvantaged schools, and I do that pursuant to last year’s list of schools under the national partnership agreement. It was interesting that my colleague the member for Werriwa had some concerns, and I recall him asking a question of the minister at that time. One of the local schools known well to me, Albion Park Rail Public School, was missing from the list, and the school requested that I take up the issue with the minister. Under that agreement states were to have had flexibility to nominate schools from outside the provisional list, outside the nationally agreed methodology, if they could provide a more accurate identification of low-SES schools using more detailed state based data, so I was involved in continuous representations, both at the federal and state level, without much success. Let me quote from the principal about this particular school, which I think on the data would show how disadvantaged it is:
My school has a 13% Aboriginal population … 8% NESB students … 13% of our school has physical, intellectual or mental health diagnosis. The area includes Government Housing, Aboriginal Housing and Emergency Housing. My school’s SaCC (Tongarra Family Cottage) caters for an Aboriginal Playgroup, Autism Playgroup, parenting courses and two young mothers groups with mums under 18 years old.
Regrettably, I was not successful in having Albion Park Rail Public School listed under the program. In that regard I welcome the announcement made by the Minister for Education this week in which she has said that an additional $11 million on top of the $2½ billion already allocated to help disadvantaged schools would flow through and that data from the My School website indicated there were an additional 110 schools that would have fallen through the cracks and missed out on additional funding. The minister said that without the My School information, the federal government would never have known these 110 schools had large numbers of students that required the additional assistance.
I welcome the announcement to cross-reference state data with federal data. I think there are obvious statistical discrepancies, such as the comparison between a local school, Bulli High School, and Trinity Grammar—and of course we all wait for the information about resource allocation, which ultimately can only stand to benefit students in disadvantaged schools.
I rise to talk about the importance of relationships with foreign neighbours and foreign interests, which I notice is once again in the news today with regard to the purchase of products from China. This relates directly to the issue of the moment in this place, climate change and energy security, which leads to the issue of foreign investment. The critical test for consistency in this place is the national interest test—not, I hope, a test shaped around xenophobia.
I want to raise two issues in the time that I have. The first issue concerns the use of uranium as part of our energy mix in the future energy security needs of this country. It was with great concern that we saw that prior to Christmas last year the Foreign Investment Review Board and the Treasury ticked off a 70 per cent Chinese takeover of an Australian uranium company responsible for 4,000 square kilometres of uranium fields in Australia. This latest corporate takeover involves Energy Metals, who have just completed the sale of 70 per cent of their nine uranium sites in the Northern Territory and Western Australia to a Chinese state owned company, China Uranium Development, at a cost of $83.6 million.
I raise this issue first because we have not had a comprehensive and consistent uranium debate in this country and we are selling off our products to overseas countries—it does not matter if it is to China—which want to use this product in their future energy mix and leave us with all the waste management issues that make us reluctant to have this debate. It is an issue for the Australian government to get a bit of consistency on regarding the national interest in allowing a sale to take place to a foreign country to use uranium in their future energy mix while we remain incredibly sensitive and concerned and are left with the bad bits of this deal for the future. We need some consistency in policy.
The second issue is the alternative policy position on climate change that has been put on the table. It is dripping with irony that the Yallourn power station has been used as an example of an incentive from the coalition when it is a fully owned Chinese company, China Light and Power. Australian taxes are potentially going to go to a fully owned Chinese company under a coalition policy. From all I have heard from the coalition today— (Time expired)
Today I want to wish all Australians who celebrate the lunar new year a happy and prosperous Year of the Tiger. The Year of the Tiger is the third year of the 12-year cycle of the lunar calendar. The tiger symbolises strength, courage and fight. 2010 promises to be a happy, prosperous and healthy year, and I wish the very best of luck to everyone who was born a tiger.
Last Sunday I was in Springvale to celebrate the Chinese Lunar Festival, which was, as always, fantastically organised by the Springvale Asian Business Association and attended by thousands of people from our local community and across Melbourne. I congratulate the new president of SABA, Mr Frankie Chen, on the successful event, especially given the challenges his organisation faced in holding the event in an area which is currently a construction site.
This Saturday I will be celebrating the Tet Festival with the Vietnamese community at the Sandown racecourse in Springvale, as the guest of the Victorian chapter of the Vietnamese Community in Australia. I congratulate Mr Kevin Tran and Mr Hung Chau, who are organising this large, important and very enjoyable display of Vietnamese traditions and culture. As in past years, the festival will no doubt be attended by thousands of Vietnamese from across Victoria and by many other Australians who enjoy Vietnamese culture. I would also like to pay tribute to Mr Phong Nguyen, the new national president of the Vietnamese Community in Australia as well as Mr Bon Nguyen, who took over from Phong Nguyen as president of the Victorian chapter of the Vietnamese Community in Australia. Their tireless work helps make the Vietnamese community one of the most vibrant and important in our local community.
This year marks a special occasion for the many Vietnamese Australians celebrating 35 years of Vietnamese immigration to this country. Following the Vietnam War, thousands of mostly South Vietnamese fled their country in the hope of finding a better way of life and the most highly valued personal right: freedom. The Vietnamese community in Australia are rightly proud of their cultural heritage and traditions. I am proud that our country has embraced the Vietnamese community and their culture and, in turn, the Vietnamese community have embraced Australia.
When I celebrated the Tet Festival at Sandown on 7 February last year in 47-degree heat no-one knew the horror that was then unfolding in other parts of Victoria. We did not know that 7 February was to become known as Black Saturday. Following the Black Saturday fires, the Vietnamese community raised about $1.3 million in donations towards those tragically affected by our worst natural disaster. On Saturday, the festival organisers are planning a minute of silence to remember those who perished just over a year ago and to show their sorrow and respect. Around 4,000 people with Vietnamese ancestry live in my electorate of Isaacs. I wish all of them and all other Australians a happy and safe lunar New Year.
I rise this morning to table a petition received from around 120 of my constituents from the Gold Coast petitioning the parliament to reject the Greens proposal to alter the definition of marriage. The petition says: ‘We, the undersigned citizens, draw to the attention of the House of Representatives assembled that the definition of marriage as “a union between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life” is the foundation upon which our families are built and on which our society stands. To alter the definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage, as proposed by the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill, would be to change the very structure of society to the detriment of all, especially children. We, the undersigned citizens, therefore request that the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009 be opposed.’
The definition of marriage was amended by the former coalition government, of which I was a part. I am pleased to place on the record my strong support for the point of view of those who have signed this petition. I stress that I certainly know that for many people the desire to ensure the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman indicates not a discrimination against people of the same sex seeking to be in a relationship but rather the fundamental belief that marriage is a predominantly Christian institution in this country. For that reason, those of the same sex seeking to be married run contrary to that very institution. Therefore, I am pleased that we amended the Marriage Act to define marriage as a heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman. I further stress that I also believe that the same exclusion should apply to the right to adopt children.
The Greens proposal by Senator Hanson-Young would dramatically alter the definition to allow marriage of same-sex couples. Marriage in its current form, I fundamentally believe, is a key institution of our society and should not be altered. It has special status in our society and culture, and it has held that status for quite some time. On that basis, I am pleased to present this petition to the House on behalf my constituents who signed it.
Can I ask the member for Moncrieff whether the petition has already been to the Standing Committee on Petitions?
I believe it has, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The petition read as follows—
To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives:
RETAIN THE DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE BETWEEN MAN AND WOMAN
We, the undersigned citizens draw to the attention of the House of Representatives assembled, that the definition of marriage as “a union between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life” is the foundation upon which our families are built and on which our society stands. To alter the definition of marriage to include same-sex “marriage”, as proposed by the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill, would be to change the very structure of society to the detriment of all, especially children.
We, the undersigned citizens therefore request that the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009, be opposed.
from 120 citizens
Petition received.
Last Friday I appeared on Al-Jazeera’s panel program 101 East as a one of a group of people being interviewed, with Flinders Street Station in the background, by the very competent host, Fauziah Ibrahim. The program, on the topic of violence against Indian students, will air this Thursday on that network.
Some people, including friends of mine in the Victorian government, were a bit shocked by the column written by the foreign affairs editor of the Australian, Greg Sheridan, which appeared in last Saturday’s edition of the Weekend Australian. I do not think there has been a stronger, or some might say ‘more strident’, identification of the problems in Victoria than that article by Mr Sheridan. I welcome Greg Sheridan’s column. I think it is a wake-up call to all of us that these kinds of things have to be addressed in a very serious way. Of course, these have been mostly opportunistic attacks on Indian students, who were working at late-night convenience stores or in taxis. Of course, Australia is basically a tolerant country. However, when people are simply walking through parks late at night and are stabbed to death, as poor Mr Nitin Garg was, it is simply foolish to say that there is no racial motivation in these attacks. How would any of us parliamentarians or public officials know that? We were not at the scene of the crime. It is much better to leave claims and protestations that these attacks are not racist out of one’s remarks.
I think General Cosgrove, the former Defence Force chief, set a much better tone in his Australia Day address, which was entitled ‘Sunshine and shade’. He said:
I sense in relation to the spate of attacks on … Indian people, in Melbourne and elsewhere, Australians are very concerned and disinclined to downplay, much less dismiss, the potential ‘racist’ elements of what has become a litany of criminality.
The problem for us is that the criminal incidents are cowardly and sly and it is easy to conclude that they are racially targeted.
We are all dismayed that there might be some kind of warped campaign in progress.
He said the vast majority of Australians totally rejected such despicable behaviour and would welcome the rigorous prosecution of those ‘preying on these visitors’.
I also welcome the speech of the Minister for Foreign Affairs last night which is another attempt to seriously address these issues by examining all of the nature of our relationship with India, including our strategic relationship. The member for Perth recounted very calmly the number of police prosecutions against people who have attacked Indian visitors in Australia or Indian-Australian citizens. The foreign minister showed the seriousness we need to show in confronting racism when he recounted the improvements to legislation in Victoria that will finally, after pressure that should have been accepted earlier, include racial violence as an extra crime. (Time expired)
I would like to congratulate Balcatta Soccer Club on their promotion to the state premier league, the highest league of soccer in Western Australia. For the record, I am very proud to be the club’s No. 1 ticket holder. This year, 2010, the club will compete against some of the best teams in the state. Balcatta senior players will be hoping to join others from Western Australia who have risen through the state’s local competition and who now play for A-league teams, including Perth Glory, and I look forward to seeing them achieving this dream.
Last year, 2009, was one of Balcatta Soccer Club’s most successful seasons in recent years. Along with the league team, the women’s and junior teams also enjoyed premiership success. Only recently, the under-11s team returned from a junior tournament in Singapore as tournament champions. These many successes are testament to the passion and commitment the Balcatta Soccer Club brings out in its members. This is a club that has helped build an outstanding local sporting community in Stirling and will now represent the community across Western Australia.
At the heart of the club is a group of dedicated and hard-working volunteers, who oversee every aspect of the club’s operations, from the seniors and juniors competitions to the planning and running of social events and fundraising activities. I have had the good fortune for many years of being able to attend the club’s annual ball, and I did so again towards the end of last year. That ball helps to raise much-needed funding, but it also gives players and members an opportunity to celebrate the end of the club’s season.
Pat Luca, the club president, has done an outstanding job at engaging both the club’s members and its sponsors in every aspect of the club, which has long been recognised as a community-founded and driven organisation. This year looks set to be an exciting time in the club’s history, following its promotion to the premier league, and I wish the club all the best for the 2010 season.
I would like to turn to another issue—that is, aircraft noise over my electorate. Over the past 18 months, residents across my electorate have raised their concerns with me over the drastic increase in aircraft noise. A change to Perth’s air route structure in November 2008 resulted in an increase in air traffic noise from low-flying planes over the Stirling area. Air Services Australia, in coordination with the federal government, conducted a review of Perth’s airspace before implementing these changes. However, no community consultation was undertaken and as a result the community have asked me to raise this matter about the constant impact of low-flying planes.
It is the lack of community consultation that I find completely unacceptable. There is always an understanding that aircraft noise will have to be a burden on the community, but you really need to consult the community before changes of this nature are made. Under its charter, Air Services Australia should have undertaken that consultation. Together with my Western Australian colleagues, we have called on the government to reveal how such drastic changes to Perth’s airspace were made without any community consultation. (Time expired)
In our lives as politicians we often come across those in the community who inspire us with their passion and their commitment to making a difference to the lives of others. Often these individuals are unassuming, never seeking the limelight for their deeds and actions, but all the while supporting, nurturing, changing and improving the lives of those they come into contact with. These people really are the glue that binds our community together.
On 31 January this year, we celebrated the life of one of those community leaders and inspirational figures, Pastor Barry Cutchie, in a service held at the Berwick Church of Christ. The service celebrated Barry’s 45 years of service in the ministry and the profound contribution he has made to the lives of many individuals. We also honoured Barry’s wife Anne and her significant contribution to the life of the Church of Christ community.
Having been raised in a family in Horsham in Victoria’s west, Barry pursued his calling to the ministry by spending four years of study at Kenmore Christian College in Brisbane, graduating in December 1968. It was during his final year of study, when he was a pastor at Murwillumbah Church of Christ, that he met his wife Anne. They married in 1970 and spent their honeymoon on a four-week mission trip to Indonesia. It was during this trip that Barry and Anne would begin their lifetime commitment to helping those less advantaged in countries such as those in Asia and Africa.
Barry began a successful 15-year ministry at the Clayton Church of Christ in 1982, where he was able to pursue his passion for assisting international students and developing a multicultural membership. During this time, Barry was also able to make a number of pastoral visits to Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia and to the Deaf Ministries International school in the Philippines. Concluding his ministry at Clayton, Barry pioneered in Australia the men’s ministry Promise Keepers, an organisation focused on Christian family values and men taking responsibility for their lives and behaviour. It was during this time, in the year 2000, that Barry and Anne began their long affiliation with the Berwick Church of Christ and it was during this time that I came to know Barry and become his friend.
Barry joined the pastor leadership team in 2000 and became Senior Pastor in 2005. Under Barry’s stewardship, the church entered a new and exciting era. Highlights included the Team Ministry, the Catch the Wave program, strong community connections and the jumping castles at Air Fair. However, the favourite for me was the iconic twilight Christmas carols, at which thousands of people would celebrate Christmas Eve listening to marvellous carols, often sung by the rest of the Sebastian family—other than Guy. It was just an amazing experience and a great fireworks display. It was a great way of bringing the community together on Christmas Eve.
On 28 March this year, Barry and Anne will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Although Barry has retired from the ministry, his work in supporting the local community and working to build strong families is far from finished. I am sure we are going to see him in other parts of the world. Today in this place I celebrate a great individual.
I would like to identify with the words just spoken by the previous speaker and congratulate him on that address and the story. Gough Whitlam’s ‘It’s time’ speech on 13 November 1972 in part said this:
We will make pre-school education available to every Australian child. We do this not just because we believe that all Australian children should have the opportunities now available only to children in Canberra, but because pre-school education is the most important single weapon in promoting equality and in overcoming social, economic and language inequalities.
Although I may not agree with a lot of what the Whitlam government said and did, I certainly agree with that statement. Thirty-eight years after Gough Whitlam said that, it is unfulfilled. There are still today Indigenous communities right across Australia and other communities in country areas where such education is not available to our youngest.
In 1989, Bob Hawke promised that one billion trees would be planted. Do we know—has there been a check—whether those one billion trees were planted? I would put to you that the Howard government’s program of funding Landcare planted far more trees than we could ever imagine and that was people power in action. Once again, this was a promise which has not been fulfilled that we know of—unless there has been an audit.
Before the 2007 election Prime Minister Rudd promised new leadership and a new future. He held up a computer and said, ‘There’ll be one of these in every child’s hands by 2011’—next year. When questioned by young people, the Prime Minister said:
We’ve said a computer for every young person at secondary from Year 9 or above by 2013 or thereabouts …
The fact is that the original 2007 election commitment was for laptops to be rolled out in four years, by 2011. He was incorrect. He said:
We’re on track to doing that. We have about 260,000 computers out there at schools now. That is a fact.
According to Senate estimates, 154,000 of the one million promised laptops are in operation. So what he said was factually incorrect.
When we as politicians make commitments before an election about what we are going to do, there should be an integrity check on the promises that we make to the Australian people; otherwise, we let them down badly. When a Prime Minister or any of us are checked like that, we have a responsibility. If we make a promise to the Australian people in an election campaign just for their green vote, like Bob Hawke in 1989, and then do not fulfil that promises, we should be called to account. And the only way we can be called to account is by the people on election day.
Day in and day out, we hear from the opposition that our stimulus plan has done nothing to cushion the Australian economy. We know that they voted against it on each and every occasion, and they still come in and talk about stopping it. However, the fact is that our stimulus package, the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, has kept our nation free from recession. Ours is the only advanced economy that generated positive growth in 2008-09. The Intergenerational report released last week shows how critical the plan is for future investment, productivity building, and investment in skills and infrastructure. It also shows that the decisions that we took over the last four years will be critical to building economic prosperity and living standards over the next 40 years.
People in the south-west of Sydney know full well that the Rudd government is working hard and investing in new and vital infrastructure. They have embraced our economic responses to the global recession, and I am confident that they can come together again and tackle the big challenges of the future.
I draw the House’s attention to the fact that, as part of the economic stimulus package, the south-west of Sydney has welcomed over $500 million in funding from the Rudd government to help local economies respond to the global financial crisis. That includes $337 million on 414 education projects; $10.8 million for 55 community infrastructure projects; $152 million for new social housing units and repairs and maintenance; 4,624 applications for home insulation; and 1,989 applications for solar hot water rebates. This funding will help deliver the local infrastructure which has a direct impact on the quality of life for residents in our local communities. Most of these important local projects are well and truly underway, and many are completed and being used by our community and its people.
Let us remember these are grassroots projects such as sporting fields, the upgrade of cycleways, new homes, social housing and school refurbishments. These projects are making a real difference to the region, building opportunities within the community and also providing the opportunity for jobs for local people. This is a welcome relief to our community in the south-west of Sydney, who are feeling the pinch. It is only a Labor government that is determined to tackle the big issues. We have seen that time and time again. We need to ensure that we keep on with this very strong agenda. (Time expired)
I rise to express my concern to members on the lack of progress by Gosford City to proceed with the construction of 400 additional parking places, agreed to be funded by the federal government. Increasingly, the capacity of car parking for commuters, which was a priority election commitment of mine in the lead-up to the 2007 election, has become an issue in the electorate. Certainly, I feel it is important that the council proceed with that construction.
Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for constituency statements has concluded.
Debate resumed from 8 February, on motion by Dr Emerson:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I want to use the opportunity afforded by the appropriation debate to talk about where we now are in a global sense in relation to climate change issues. Obviously, the starting point for that has to be the Copenhagen climate change talks and, in order to set the scene, I want to recap on a few comments that I have made elsewhere.
Copenhagen was a complete and utter failure, and there is no purpose served by trying to pretend otherwise. As Mark Lynas said in the Guardian:
After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.
Mark Lynas was attached to one of the delegations and was present during the closed-door negotiations at Copenhagen. He has reported on what happened as follows:
China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful ‘deal’ so Western leaders would walk away carrying the blame.
China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again.
Mr Lynas said that Sudan behaved at the talks as a puppet of China, ‘one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public’.
Mr Lynas said that at late night meetings, as the heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors, Barack Obama was present for hours, with Gordon Brown, other Prime Ministers including the Danish Prime Minister who chaired the talks, and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Only about 50 or 60 people were present in the room. The Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, did not attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier foreign ministry official to sit opposite Obama. Mr Lynas said the diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as were the practical consequences, and stated:
Several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his superiors.
Mr Lynas says it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80 per cent cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. ‘Why can’t we even mention our own targets?’ asked Angela Merkel. Brazil’s representative also pointed out that this position was illogical—why should rich countries not announce this unilateral cut? But the Chinese delegate blocked it. Mark Lynas says this is because China did not want the talks to succeed and wanted the rich countries to get the blame for Copenhagen’s lack of ambition. He said:
China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2°C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak ‘as soon as possible’. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050 was also excised.
Mark Lynas went on to say:
No one else, perhaps with the exception of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen.
The Chinese delegate also moved to remove the 1.5 degree Celsius target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, fought to save this crucial number. ‘How can you ask my country to go extinct?’ demanded President Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence, and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless.
It is clear to me both that the talks failed to achieve anything like the action that is needed to stop the earth’s temperature from rising to dangerous levels with unpredictable consequences and that the dynamics at work which are preventing global agreement need to be shifted or else the crippling impasse at Copenhagen will continue indefinitely.
Climate change is the great moral challenge of our time, but the problem is not being solved. In order to solve it, I believe we are going to have to rethink a number of things that we have taken as articles of faith for quite some time. We are going to have to slay a few sacred cows.
Sacred cow No. 1 is population growth. I have written and spoken a lot about this particular sacred cow during the past six months. You cannot have a serious plan to tackle climate change which does not address the world’s dramatically increasing population—estimated to be over nine billion by 2050. It is pretty hard to reduce your carbon footprint when you keep adding more feet. Australia’s population has taken off in recent years and is now tracking for an increase of over 60 per cent to 35 million by 2050.
Once of the many disappointing features about the talks at Copenhagen was that there was negligible discussion of the need to stabilise global population. Countries talking about emissions per capita, emissions intensity or anything other than absolute emissions are not going to solve the climate crisis. Stabilising global population needs to be put on the agenda for all countries as part of a suite of measures to reduce carbon emissions.
In December last year Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, from the Monash University Centre for Population and Urban Research, produced a report showing that population growth would be responsible for over 83 per cent of Australia’s growth in carbon emissions between 2000 and 2020 on Treasury’s base case scenario. Treasury has calculated that, without government measures such as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, Australia’s carbon emissions will go from 553 megatonnes of carbon dioxide to 774 million tonnes in 2020. Of this 221 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent rise, Mr Birrell and Mr Healy have calculated that population growth is responsible for 184 million tonnes, that is to say over 83 per cent of it.
To put the impact of population growth on carbon emissions another way, Mr Birrell and Mr Healy state that if population had remained at the 2000 level of 19.2 million through to 2020, cutting carbon emissions by five per cent would only have required a per capita reduction in greenhouse emissions from 28.8 tonnes per head in 2000 to 27.3 tonnes per head in 2020. That is quite manageable. But with Australia’s population rising to a projected 25.2 million by 2020, cutting emissions by five per cent will require per capita emissions to fall from 28.8 tonnes per head to 20.8 tonnes per head. That is a much more challenging task, for a five per cent reduction which some green groups are saying is not good enough given the scale of the problem.
Sacred cow No. 2 is that the rich countries alone must solve the problem. It is quite correct that it is the wealthy countries of the Western world that have pumped the carbon pollution into the atmosphere which is causing the climate to change. It is, however, quite incorrect to think that if the rich countries now reduce their carbon emissions, the problem will be solved. If the space created by falling emissions from developed countries is simply filled by rising emissions from China, India and other developing countries, the planet will be no better off.
The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which has been a key part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for over a decade, is reasonable enough, but it cannot mean that developing countries have no responsibilities when it comes to carbon emissions. There is a risk that we have been trying to do too much at once—solve global heating and world poverty at the same time. Both of these challenges are massive, and like a diver attempting a triple somersault with backward pike, or a cricketer trying to hit every ball for six, we may overreach and fail to achieve either objective.
No doubt, it will be objected that this approach will hurt the poorer countries because they are the ones who are going to need to increase their emissions to break out of their poverty. There are a number of flaws in this argument. Firstly, it may have worked if the world had accepted it and come up with an agreed approach for the developing countries’ emissions. Copenhagen makes it clear that the world has not. The attitude that the rich countries have to fix the problem single-handed is a recipe for ongoing failure. It is simply not going to achieve the necessary carbon reductions.
Secondly, the ensuing stalemate—the stalemate we have now—damages many of the poorest countries most, because it is they who are in the firing line from rising sea levels and increasing climate disasters like hurricanes and floods, and it is they who have the least wherewithal to adapt to climate change.
Thirdly, we need action to produce money to help the poorer countries and reward those who are genuine about decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions. Of course it is desirable to close the gap between rich and poor. I support measures such as lifting Australia’s aid contribution to the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income with this objective in mind. But I fear that trying to close the gap between rich and poor through the same mechanism as tackling climate change is trying to do more than we are humanly capable of.
Copenhagen failed because it had only a very small carrot, and no stick. Why do I say this? Because China did not need anything to come out of the talks, and wanted to avoid the risk that in years to come it would be required to adopt more ambitious carbon targets. Its coal based economy is doubling every decade, and its leadership does not want to change this. China was not put under any pressure from within, where there is a glaring absence of democratic debate. In January, Google announced that it had detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack by the Chinese government on its infrastructure, including the theft of intellectual property and spying on human rights advocates. Google said it would not tolerate this, and that if it cannot broker a satisfactory new arrangement with the Chinese government it may shut down its Chinese operation altogether.
Nor was China put under any pressure from without, where non-government organisations routinely line up the Western countries for criticism, but ignore developing countries. Mark Lynas also noted a complete lack of civil society pressure on India, who he says uses:
… the language of equity (“equal rights to the atmosphere”) in the service of planetary suicide …
After Copenhagen, India skited about the lack of action at Copenhagen. According to an article in the Age, India’s environment minister, who attended the Copenhagen talks, told the Indian parliament:
… his mandate had been to protect India’s right for fast economic growth, and listed killing off binding targets for reducing emissions as a key victory for his country.
“We can be satisfied that we were able to get our way on this issue [targets],” Mr Ramesh said.
Mr Ramesh later told a news conference that a bloc of key emerging economies - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - had worked effectively to protect the rights of the developing world.
India is one of the world’s top five greenhouse gas emitters.
I want to express great disappointment at the role played by China and India in blocking action on climate change. I contest absolutely the idea that allowing carbon emissions to increase is in the interests of developing countries. The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment, and the report by Nicholas Stern has made it clear that the costs of inaction will exceed the costs of action.
The developing countries are highly vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events, such as floods and cyclones. They are highly vulnerable to the impacts of melting glaciers, to drought related food and water shortages and to the resulting boat people and conflicts. China, India and all the countries of the world have an obligation to press for action on climate change; to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. In order to succeed we need a lot more of both carrot and stick.
Sacred cow No. 3 is 1990 baselines. I think one of the things which are causing us to struggle with climate change solutions is that we have tended to focus on big, far-off targets, which can be an excuse for inaction on both counts. If the targets are big, that can be paralysing—we think that the mountain is too high to climb. And if the targets are long term, we think we do not need to do anything now—we can act later, or even leave it to those who come after us.
I am attracted to thinking of the carbon reduction task in small bites which are at once both more manageable and more demanding because they require immediate action. Worryingly, Australia’s carbon emissions have been continuing to rise. I think we should be setting a goal of stopping them this year, stabilising our carbon emissions by the end of the year. Then each year after that we should aim to cut our carbon emissions by two per cent. It does not feel that impossible, taking it one step at a time. If we could do this for the next 40 years, we would have cut our carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and if we could do it for the next 50 years we would have made our country completely carbon neutral—a 100 per cent reduction by 2060.
These reductions use a 2010 baseline rather than a 1990 or 2000 one. So some environmental organisations may see them as too soft, but the fact is that emissions rises have already happened. In Australia’s case, they were authorised under the Kyoto protocol. So harking back to 1990 is particularly onerous for Australia—effectively an attempt to rewrite Kyoto history—and I also think it complicates matters so much that it makes it impossible for the public to understand who is doing what and when. If we reset the clock and ask countries to commit to stabilising their emissions this year and reducing them by two per cent every year from now on, this is something that communities in Australia and around the world could potentially understand and embrace.
For Australia it could demystify the task of reducing greenhouse emissions and make it more publicly understandable and, therefore, make governments more accountable. Australia’s present greenhouse emissions are around 550 megatons of carbon dixode equivalent. If we are committed to cutting them by 80 per cent by 2050, which is consistent with what the climate science is telling us, and committed to a two per cent annual reduction target, we could cut to 440 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020, 330 megatons by 2030, 220 megatons by 2040 and 110 megatons by 2050. Indeed, we could seek to go the extra mile and make the economy completely carbon neutral by 2060, which would simply involve more annual two per cent reductions. The Australian Capital Territory government has committed to being carbon neutral by 2060, in 50 years time, and I commend it for this initiative.
I know these sacred cows will take a lot of slaying. They are sacred cows for a good reason. The population growth sacred cow is one very beloved of the business community and the right of politics while the climate change sacred cow that rich countries must solve single-handedly is much beloved of the left of politics, and the 1990 baseline is much beloved by environment groups who do not want countries that have been slack over the past 20 years to get off lightly. But the present approaches are simply not working. We cannot solve this problem by being less than honest about the situation. The fact is that our global measures to tackle climate change have nowhere near the seriousness or the urgency that the problem demands and, therefore, some new thinking is required.
I rise to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. It is quite apparent that this government was intent on being a two-term government. That is, it thought it had enough electoral cushion and could delay the comprehension of the devastating state of the nation’s debt for long enough to enable it to scramble home to a second term, fully aware that the jig would be well and truly up by then when most of the current members would be happy to leave the parliament, having left a mark on the nation—and what a mark it would be. The only problem is that the realisation is hitting the public much faster than it would have thought possible. They are awake to the fact that Australia is plunging into unprecedented debt and the government has no idea on how to pay it off.
I am reminded of the delivery of the budget back in May, when I went to a briefing by KPMG after the event and they were giving their assessment of the budget. At the briefing I asked the question: when did the government expect to pay off the debt? A Labor member who was sitting close to me muttered around the table: ‘In 2016. Why don’t you read the budget papers?’ In fact, that is not when the debt will be paid off; that is when Australia stops going into further debt. The debt will still remain. That is when, according to the government’s forward forecast, the books will balance, but we will still have the $150 billion to pay off. So, in fact, I think the government can be likened to a bunny sitting in the headlights. They are paralysed and can only watch the headlights of unsustainable debt bearing down on them. They just hope that perhaps the truck will make a deviation and go around them.
So what will the electorate make of a government which has taken us from a net savings position of $60 billion and is now planning to be in net debt of $150 billion? The government has not had the intestinal fortitude to face the long line of people and organisations in the electorate to whom it has promised largesse and tell them that the party is over and that its stimulus program is not well targeted, is not adding to Australian productivity and is undermining our ability to compete in the future. We have had the appallingly managed ‘pink batts’ scheme, now officially also a dangerous scheme; the equally appallingly managed Green Loans scheme; and the borrowed billions to put $900 cheques in people’s letterboxes. The government has tried to convince the general public that borrowing money to give to taxpayers to spend as quickly as they can was a stroke of economic genius. I wonder whether, if the government had explained that the $900 cheques will ultimately have to be repaid with interest, the public would have been so pleased with it.
We have had the Julia Gillard memorial school hall project. While it is to be expected that most schools will welcome any assistance, not all have been happy with the funding guidelines; in fact, some are extremely resentful of the autocratic direction behind the project. Local communities, in many cases, are bewildered by the blow-out in costs that they know are not justified. A number of small schools who qualify for the $255,000 assistance have chosen covered outdoor learning areas, or COLAs. They have reported to me that they know these glorified haysheds should be constructed for well under $100,000, when in fact they take the full $250,000. These people are not silly. They come largely from rural communities. They know a shed when they see one, and they know what it is worth.
I might point out also that a number of these schools have been told that, as part of the $250,000 construction, they will install rainwater tanks. One would think that that is a very worthy cause, except that they may not use the water out of these rainwater tanks and they have to be plumbed to the mains supply so they can be kept full at all times. It is a nonsensical suggestion. They are supposedly put there for fire water supplies, but in many cases adequate fire water supplies exist within a very short distance. One would think that, if we are going to put rainwater tanks into schools and capture rainwater—which is a very good idea—we would actually use the rainwater, not just let it sit there.
This government is accumulating the biggest failure on electorate commitments seen in modern government in Australia. Financially inept, the government is prone to grand announcements, having never given a thought to how it might deliver. I refer to an article in the Adelaide Advertiser by Ben Packham, published last Thursday:
An analysis of Labor’s 2007 election commitments reveal many have been quietly axed or are far from being met.
The Prime Minister apologised to the Stolen Generations and signed the Kyoto Protocol, but just one of 2650 promised trades training centres will accept students this semester.
Of 260 child care centres he pledged would be built in schools and TAFEs, only one has opened its doors. And just two of Labor’s 31 promised GP Super Clinics are fully operational.
Promised Healthy Kids Checks have failed to make an impact on pre-schooler health, with GPs seeing just 62,823 children so far.
Plans to attract retired nurses back into hospitals have also bombed, with just 752 accepting a $6000 return-to-work bonus. Labor hoped 7750 would take up the offer.
And 52 of a promised 2500 new aged-care beds have been opened within two years.
Labor’s original election policies have been removed from the ALP website, but a copy of the website as it was on election day has been preserved by the National Library of Australia. Promised A-E grading of childcare centres, listed on the site, has been dumped.
A replacement grading system will use terms such as “unsatisfactory”, “operating level” and “national quality standard” to assess childcare standards.
The much-vaunted “education revolution” is taking its time putting computers on desks—only 28 per cent of promised computers have been delivered halfway into a four-year program. The Government’s biggest broken promise was largely outside its control as it pushed the Budget into deficit to fight off recession.
But its move to scrap its $4.7 billion National Broadband Network was deliberate. The five-year plan was replaced by a $43 billion eight-year project. The Auditor-General yesterday—
this was published last week—
revealed the aborted tender for the project cost … $30 million.
Other—
big-ticket—
promises such as Grocerywatch and Fuelwatch have fallen by the wayside, while the Government is yet to take Japan to court to save the whales.
I did not write that; that is what others are saying. It is a sad story; it is a story of unfulfilled commitments.
Now I have another broken commitment to bring before the House: the saga of a committed magnetic resonance imaging machine for Port Augusta. It is not just for Port Augusta but for the whole region, including Port Pirie, Whyalla, Port Lincoln, the farming areas of the mid-north and the Eyre Peninsula and the growing mining region in the far north of South Australia. This machine, along with another 12, was committed to by the Howard government in the second half of 2007, and its strategic placement in Port Augusta would see it service 75,000 people. Tenders for the installation and operation of the service were called and were due by mid-November 2007. I have since found there were three tenders.
On the election of the Rudd government, the Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister Roxon, affirmed the new government’s commitment to delivering this service, and I welcomed that. Tenderers initially expected decisions within six months, but they have suffered no fewer than three extensions, eventually being informed in September 2009—almost two years after the tender was lodged—that the government had decided that none of the tenderers were suitable and it was cancelling the project. At no stage had the tenderers been asked for additional information or to make any alterations. Nor had it been adequately explained to them why they had been rejected. In fact, the one tenderer who has confided in me said that during a debriefing after the rejection he was told that his submission ticked all the boxes; it was an excellent submission.
The tenderers have had their lives on hold for almost two years, financially committed to property so they could deliver what they had promised, only to be informed at the end of the process that the government was not interested. It is a pity that other parties, namely the government, would not keep their commitments. Tenderers were required to meet a number of prerequisites, including public access, professional standards, business plans, staff training programs et cetera. I have since the election inquired of the minister on a number of occasions as to when we can expect this service to commence, and have continually been referred to the minister’s statement of January 2008 affirming her commitment to the establishment of the service.
Following the news of the cancellation, I contacted the minister’s office and sought a meeting as a matter of urgency, and I was pleased that she granted me an audience. At the meeting I explained that I believed her department had made an error of judgment and she committed to review the process. She also asked me to in the interim not publicly attack her and to work with her on the process, to which I agreed. On 22 December, after the country media had gone to sleep for Christmas, I received information from the minister’s officer reaffirming her decision to slash the project. I had by this time been privy to one of the tender documents. While it requested start-up finance, it clearly stated that if it were not forthcoming then the proponents were prepared to meet the whole cost of establishing the service, the building, the machine, the staff—the whole lot. What a deal for the taxpayer: no money, no risk.
All the proponents are asking for is the operating licence and the Medicare fee-for-service payments—the same as for every other MRI machine in Australia. The financial risk is all to the proponents. If their business were to fail, what would be the cost to the taxpayer? It would be nothing. The taxpayer has not funded the machine or the premises. Surely this decision must just be a bureaucratic stuff-up. I wrote twice more to the minister, asking her to take personal interest in the issue. My last correspondence was on 18 January. I have made repeated attempts since then to elicit a response from her, and last week was told to wait another two weeks. My patience is at an end: I have appealed to the minister in the most reasonable manner on this issue and been repeatedly rejected.
If the minister believes that this is a cost-cutting measure, it is a disgrace, because if we assume these services are delivered anyway—in this case, in Adelaide—then there will be no increase in the number of MRI scans, just a displacement. It just means that South Australians living in the region will not have to travel thousands of kilometres to access services others take for granted. If the department does assess this move as a saving then that is an admission that we in regional Australia are underserviced, and that is even worse. That decision would infer that we in country Australia are second-class Australians.
It is a sorry tale of promises abandoned to go with all the other commitments this government is running away from on the day. There may be some light on this particular project, but it comes not from the government but from the party for all Australians, the Liberal Party, which has always recognised the worth of regional Australia. Last Saturday, the state Liberal leader, Isobel Redmond, committed $2½ million to establishing this service, and the voters of South Australia will have the opportunity in six weeks time to make that happen. It is an opportunity to get rid of another underperforming, smug, out-of-touch Labor government, but the central question will still remain: will the health minister stand by her 2008 commitment and supply the operating licence. If she does not, it will not matter who pays for the installation; it will still need the operating licence.
I rise today to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. These bills appropriate funding for government decisions included in the Mid-Year Economic and Financial Outlook and decisions made since its release. Last Wednesday was the anniversary of the $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan, and I think it is worth reflecting on how our nation has fared over these last 12 months. I think it is also worth reflecting on the very clear delineation of economic policy that the stimulus policy has made stark in Australian politics.
On the one hand we have the government’s response—to take timely and effective action in the face of the most serious financial and economic crisis that the world has faced in more than 75 years. It is a response by a government that was prepared to use the full range of policy tools at its disposal: fiscal policy, both through transfer payments and government investment in infrastructure; monetary policy; financial regulation and intervention in financial markets; and international trade and finance policies. It is a response that has involved the federal government working with other nations, with the state governments, with local governments and with businesses to craft a response that would protect and strengthen Australia’s economy now and in the future. Fundamentally we have a government that understood that to contain the damage caused by the meltdown in global financial markets we had to maintain confidence in our financial system, encourage households to maintain consumption and provide businesses with the certainty and confidence to continue investing.
On the other hand and in very stark contrast we had the opposition’s reaction. The Liberal and National parties opposed the infrastructure stimulus package at the height of the global financial crisis and have continued to oppose the stimulus package since. We have had the new Leader of the Opposition saying in the last day or two that the stimulus was a waste of money. We have had the new opposition leader saying in the clearest possible terms that it is the intention of the Liberal and National parties to stop the stimulus. That provides the clearest possible contrast. We have an opposition that would, by stopping the stimulus, stop economic policy which is supporting thousands of jobs, supporting tradies and small businesses across Australia and supporting thousands of Australian working families. As I say, the contrast could not have been clearer.
And now, as Australia makes its way through this crisis, we are beginning to see the effects of the government’s response. The response has helped to maintain and rebuild confidence in the Australian financial system, it has helped to sustain consumer and business confidence and the government has made up for the decline in business investment and household consumption by injecting significant government spending into the economy. The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook included significant upgrades in economic growth compared to the budget forecast for financial year 2009-10, which improved from negative 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent. Forecasts for 2010-11 improved from 2.25 per cent to 2.75 per cent. The fiscal stimulus added around one percentage point to GDP growth in 2008-09 and should add 1.5 per cent to GDP growth in this financial year. According to the Mid-Year Economic and Financial Outlook, private demand will contract by 0.75 per cent rather than the four per cent in the budget forecast.
Australia has managed to avoid a recession through the worst global downturn in more than 75 years. Australia’s economy is the only advanced economy that expanded in the year to June 2009. According to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook update, Australia’s economic growth was positive, and Australia was the only advanced economy to achieve this. No major Australian financial institution collapsed; none required government to take significant shareholdings in return for dealing with toxic debt; nor were any nationalised. This can be contrasted with the situation in the United Kingdom, where the government has nationalised Northern Rock and taken significant shareholdings in Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Most importantly, the government’s response to the global economic crisis has helped to protect hundreds of thousands of Australian jobs. Unemployment is now expected to reach around 6.75 per cent. This is 1.5 per cent lower than it is estimated would have occurred without the stimulus. It is now clear—if there was ever any doubt—that the government’s response has been the correct response. It has left the opposition with no credibility on economic matters.
On 12 October 2008, in the days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Australian government took the first steps to secure Australia’s economic position in the face of a rapidly deteriorating situation in global financial markets. Through the guarantee scheme for large deposits and wholesale funding, and the financial claims scheme, the Australian government made it clear that it would ensure confidence in our financial institutions was maintained. These measures ensured continued consumer confidence in our financial sector and guaranteed that Australian banks would still be able to access global capital markets—in particular, to rollover debt that was falling due. Without the guarantees that the government provided, financing for business investment would have dried up, interest rates would have been higher and we would have seen a sharp contraction in economic activity and a resulting loss of jobs for Australian workers.
The very next day, 13 October 2008, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer announced the $10.4 billion Economic Security Strategy, which would become the first part of the government’s program of economic stimulus. It contained $4.8 billion for immediate financial assistance to Australia’s four million pensioners, carers and seniors; $3.9 billion for low- and middle-income families; $1.5 billion for the first home owners boost; and $187 million to create 56,000 new training places in 2008-09. It also brought forward significant investment in nation-building infrastructure projects to 2009.
This first initial boost to the economy focused significant transfer payments to those most in need and most likely to inject that money straight back into the economy—pensioners, carers, seniors and low- and middle-income families. It provided significant help for the building and construction industry as well as for first home buyers seeking finance in the midst of a drastic credit tightening by Australian banks. It helped to boost economic activity by bringing forward the government’s investment in infrastructure to make up for the failure of the Howard government in dealing with the capacity constraints during the boom.
As the global economic situation deteriorated, the first stimulus the government announced was followed in February 2009 by the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. We had the anniversary of that plan, that infrastructure stimulus, just last week. Key details of this plan included $12.2 billion in one-off cash payments and $29.9 billion in shovel-ready infrastructure projects, including investing $14.7 billion in schools across Australia; $8.5 billion in critical road, rail and port infrastructure; $4.5 billion in the Clean Energy Initiative; $2.6 billion in the Education Investment Fund; and $3.2 billion in the Health and Hospitals Fund. The final element was investing more than $1 billion in the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, which is the largest one-off investment in local infrastructure in Australia’s history.
Locally, in our community, what this infrastructure program has meant is large local council projects. A key example is the complete rebuilding of the Noble Park pool, which is now over 50 years old. That coincides very happily with the centenary of the community of Noble Park. The complete refurbishment of the Noble Park pool is a long overdue local project. The federal government funding is in the order of $7 million, and to that is going to be added a contribution from the City of Greater Dandenong and a contribution from the state government from its Better Pools program. What you see there are the three spheres of government—local, state and federal—working very cooperatively together to produce a community project which has been long awaited and is much needed. The work on that Noble Park pool refurbishment is well underway and will provide very direct benefits to the whole of our local community in Noble Park.
The other major council in my electorate, the City of Kingston, received funding for the refurbishment of the Kingston Heath soccer facility—a project of over $2 million, provided through Commonwealth funding through the Regional and Local Infrastructure Program. Again, the works at Kingston Heath soccer facility are well underway. It is a much used and much valued local facility, used by soccer clubs from across south-east Melbourne, and the refurbishment of it is going to make a very substantial contribution to the sporting facilities in our area.
The two main councils in my electorate, the City of Kingston and the City of Greater Dandenong, as well as the City of Frankston—which is responsible for the Carrum Downs area in the south of the Isaacs electorate—have all embarked on a range of smaller infrastructure projects, which have been funded by the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. Many of those smaller projects have already been completed or are well underway. I could mention a couple: the opening in January of the refurbished Tatterson Park, with a very extensive playground, in Keysborough, which is a City of Greater Dandenong Project; and the extension of bike paths in and to Braeside Park in the City of Kingston—notably, bike paths from Waterways to Braeside Park. Again, these are much needed and much welcomed local projects that the local councils have been able to undertake with the assistance of Commonwealth government funding.
The schools projects, which have been funded by the Building the Education Revolution funding, have produced construction programs in every primary school in my electorate. The projects that have been undertaken at every primary school in my electorate are all welcome. They are all now underway and some of them are on the point of completion. I think the first primary school in my electorate that is going to complete its Building the Education Revolution project will be St Joachim’s in Carrum Downs. They have built a truly excellent school hall, which has already been welcomed by the whole of the school community. It is a facility that St Joachim’s, in the Catholic system, thought that it was never going to be able to build, and it is a hall that is going to provide a terrific facility for not only the school community but the wider local community as well.
Other primary schools have embarked on the construction of classroom complexes. Again, many of the school principals, school council presidents and parents throughout my electorate have said to me over and over again over the last year how pleased they are at the building works being undertaken. They know very directly the support that these building projects at primary schools have provided for local tradies, in the creation of thousands of jobs through this program, and the great benefits which will flow from the construction of classrooms and halls—which primarily is what is being constructed—at each of the primary schools in our electorate. They are in no doubt as to the timeliness of the economic stimulus and the long-term worth of what is being constructed with the Commonwealth government funding.
Returning to the national level, according to the latest Global Economic Prospects from the World Bank, the worst of the global economic crisis is behind us. Although this can provide some confidence, it should not allow complacency. The opposition, having opposed the effective and timely economic response of the government, is now demanding that that response, the stimulus, be withdrawn. That can be contrasted with the comments that have been made by economists across the world. To pick one, notably the International Monetary Fund in the November edition of Cross-Country Fiscal Monitor called for countries to maintain fiscal support but to devise credible exit strategies. That is precisely what the Rudd government has done. In contrast to the opposition—and the contrast could not be greater—the government has a clear and properly communicated strategy to withdraw the stimulus progressively as private demand recovers. As Peter Anderson, Chief Executive of ACCI, has said ‘an in-built scaling down of economic support is preferable to sudden withdrawal’.
There should be no doubt as to how the infrastructure funding provided by the stimulus package has been able to step in to take the place of a downturn in construction activity in a whole range of sectors across Australia. You have only to look at the construction figures in different sectors of the economy to see just what a downturn there was and to readily understand that, if the government had not stepped into the breach and provided this infrastructure funding, there would have been a disaster for the Australian construction industry, with the direct loss of thousands of jobs and the direct removal of support for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Australian working families.
You can contrast the steady, measured and decisive approach of the government with the immense risks to the Australian economy which the opposition presents. It is a contrast between the Rudd government building a stronger economy for Australian working families and an economic team that could best be described as a rabble, an economic team which cannot even agree among themselves—highlighted by the extraordinary statements made by the opposition’s finance spokesman, Senator Joyce, just yesterday. Commenting on debt, Senator Joyce said:
You have got to ask the question, how far into debt do you want to go? We are getting to a point where we can’t repay it.
One can only listen to that kind of comment in amazement and think, ‘What was the shadow minister for finance, the alternative finance minister of this country, thinking in suggesting that Australia lacked a capacity to repay its debt?’ It is a direct attack on confidence in the capacity of our economy. It is a comment that the shadow Treasurer did not waste any time slapping down, saying yesterday and again on radio today—correctly, I have to say: ‘Australia can repay its debt; there is no doubt about that.’
What we have is the shadow Treasurer saying correctly that Australia can repay its debt, in the face of ridiculous comments—and they are not the first we have heard from the shadow finance minister—to the effect that Australia in some way cannot repay its debt. It is to be hoped that Senator Joyce will not much longer continue to occupy a senior position in the opposition’s finance team because—even though, happily, he speaks from opposition—it does no good for the Australian economy to have a person occupying such a senior position making these kinds of ridiculous comments. It is symptomatic of the confusion and uncertainty about economic policy that the opposition presently has. It is symptomatic of the fact that the opposition has not the faintest idea of what to suggest about the course of the Australian economy. And it is symptomatic of the fact that—faced with the government having taken correct, decisive and prompt action in the face of the worst economic downturn that the world has seen in 75 years—the opposition is simply bereft of ideas. It seems likely, given the confusion we have seen from the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Treasurer and the shadow finance spokesman in the last— (Time expired)
I want to make my contribution to the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 by dealing with a number of unrelated issues of relevance to my electorate. I have not spoken too often about legal matters in the parliament, but today I want to address serious concerns about the administration of justice, particularly the treatment of one my constituents, Mr Gavin Wright, who was formerly of Mackay but is now based in my electorate.
Mr Wright has a range of concerns about his treatment by the legal system, particularly regarding the performance of his solicitor, Mr Robert Cochrane. Mr Wright was referred to Robert Cochrane, the then principal of Hope Lawyers, a firm now bankrupt, to deal with family law matters following his family breakdown. Mr Wright alleges that Mr Cochrane did not handle his case in a competent, honest or professional manner, and that, as a result, his case was never properly presented to the courts.
I know many honourable members may have heard from people who are dissatisfied with the outcome of a court case but in this instance Mr Wright’s arguments are very compelling. I perused some of the documents in Mr Wright’s possession, and I have to say that I am also deeply disturbed about the management of his case and the failure of the legal system to address what has happened.
The allegations made by Mr Wright, which are supported by the documents, include that Mr Cochrane failed to appear in court on 6 April 2006 as required, even though it seems he charged Mr Wright for the appearance. The Federal Magistrates Court made an order which required action from Mr Wright before 7 June 2006; however, Mr Wright was only provided with a copy of the order on 9 June 2006—two days later—making it completely impossible for him to respond to the court’s requirements. Mr Cochrane informed the Federal Magistrates Court on 30 May 2006 through a barrister that Mr Wright could not proceed with the case because funds were not available, when in fact Mr Wright had paid all of the required funds. There were adequate funds available to meet all of the costs that were required by the court.
On 22 November 2006, in quite an extraordinary case, the Federal Magistrates Court ordered that Mr Cochrane, the solicitor who was representing Mr Wright, be made a second respondent in the matter and ordered all costs against Mr Cochrane because of his incompetence in managing the case. We have an extraordinary case where even the magistrate came to the view that this guy was so incompetent that he made him a respondent to the case and then ordered all the costs against him. The costs have never been paid and Hope Lawyers went into receivership. It does not end there. Mr Wright complained to the Legal Services Commission about Mr Cochrane. On 28 February 2008, the Legal Services Commission wrote to Mr Wright advising that the commissioner had filed a discipline action with the Legal Practice Tribunal against Mr Cochrane.
In all, some 15 charges were laid against Mr Cochrane, only two of which involve Mr Wright. Eleven of the charges concerned non-compliance with the notices from the Legal Services Commission or the Queensland Law Society. The others involved misleading the Federal Magistrates Court, contempt of the Family Court of Australia, failure to return trust account monies within 14 days of being required to do so and engaging in legal practice without a practising certificate. Whilst all of these charges related to quite grave events, the actions taken by the Legal Services Commission were more in relation to technical matters such as failing to comply with notices issued to Mr Cochrane to respond to requests for information rather than dealing with the substantial allegations of misconduct against Mr Cochrane.
Consequently, most of the serious allegations against him have not even been assessed by the Legal Practice Tribunal. In view of the grave nature of the charges against Mr Cochrane, including the 15 specific charges arising out of his general conduct between 5 August 2005 and 13 December 2007, the penalties which were imposed on Mr Cochrane seem to me to have been manifestly inadequate. The penalties involved a public reprimand; a fine of $7,500, which he had a year to pay; $2,500 worth of costs; being restricted to a practising certificate for three years which required him to practise under supervision; and some mentoring requirements.
In view of the scale of this misconduct, it seems to me that those penalties were manifestly inadequate. If you read the judgment by the tribunal, all the way through it seems to be trying to find excuses for Mr Cochrane and his behaviour, pointing out in one instance in relation to my constituent’s concerns:
… the charge does not impute any neglect or default. It is not alleged, for example, that Mr Cochrane misled the court carelessly or neglectfully, let alone recklessly or, worse still, knowingly. The charge concerns a result: that the court was misled. It ignores the cause.
The reality is that is because the issues involving the clear careless and neglectful behaviour of Mr Cochrane were not even considered by the tribunal; it was merely whether or not he had responded on time to notices from the legal commission. Of course he acted carelessly and neglectfully. He told the court that funds were not available when in practice they were.
In relation to the misuse of the trust fund, the tribunal said that the client had not suffered any loss through the delay in the repayment and:
… it is not charged that Mr Cochrane suspected that he had no lien …
Therefore, the tribunal was trying to excuse the solicitor for his behaviour. The judgment makes comments like this:
Things were not going well, professionally, personally or financially.
… … …
He experienced anxiety attacks when things got too much: for example, on receiving a notice from the Legal Services Commissioner. Clients lodged complaints.
These are all supposed to be excuses for Mr Cochrane’s clearly unacceptable behaviour. It further said:
The difficulties festered.
… … …
He was forced to house-share. He drove a damaged car he could not afford to repair. Debts were piling up.
In Family Court proceedings, Mr Cochrane defended allegations that he was drug-dependent. And the ‘constant battle to try to see (his daughter) has been very stressful and upsetting’ …
In early 2007, Hope Lawyers was placed into receivership.
The judgment is full of excuses. The tribunal simply failed to address the serious issues of Mr Cochrane’s conduct.
I am also concerned that the Legal Services Commission were reluctant to take the matter any further. When they got some legal advice, they took the view that they would be unlikely to succeed if they appealed against the leniency of the judgment. They were also concerned about the leniency of the penalty. The Legal Services Commission acknowledged that. But their advice was that an appeal would be unlikely to succeed.
Part of the reason that they put up as to why the appeal would not succeed was that Mr Cochrane had lost the file, so the information upon which to further the charges was not available and they would have to rely entirely on Mr Wright’s record. As far as I know, the man is still practising under supervision. He has never paid the costs that have been awarded against him and he has never returned Mr Wright’s file as he clearly ought to have done. But my biggest concern about this issue is that there may have been a miscarriage of justice because Mr Wright’s arguments were not properly presented to the courts as a result of the unprofessional conduct of his solicitor.
It is clear that there does need to be a better way to resolve these sorts of issues. The tribunal itself did not seem to care that the clients had been failed. They were more interested in finding excuses for the solicitor. Injustices may have been perpetrated because the cases were not properly presented to the courts. I do not think it is good enough for people in the legal profession to say, ‘Well, Mr Wright can go out and get a competent lawyer and seek to have his case reopened—it is no good suing the lawyer; he’s already bankrupt.’ But how can he go out and have the cases reheard? It is four years ago now. The man is homeless. He does not have the resources to be able to undertake this sort of action. In addition, the Family Court orders have, of course, all been activated by now. The children’s care arrangements are in place and the property division has all occurred. It cannot be undone. So the activities of this solicitor in the case of my constituent—and, I might add, in the case of a number of his other clients—simply cannot be undone.
I know the legal profession has a bit of reputation for looking after its own, for those of us who are not a part of the legal profession—I know there are lots of people in this place who are. But, if the profession wants the public to respect its competence, it has to find a way to deal with those amongst its number who are not performing satisfactorily. In this particular instance it is the Queensland Attorney-General, who unfortunately is also a lawyer, who must have the courage to investigate the activities of the Legal Services Commission and particularly the way in which the Legal Practice Tribunal deals with the cases of solicitors, such as Mr Cochrane, who have clearly failed their clients. In dealing with this issue, the priority needs to be: how can we make sure that those people who trust and rely on a solicitor get justice and value for their money? Almost everyone goes to a solicitor because they are dealing with issues they do not personally understand or are not competent to deal with themselves. So they have a right to expect a quality of service and competence. The profession itself, as a group, has an obligation to make sure that the expectations of the community in relation to solicitors are, in fact, met.
Now I want to have a complete change of pace and talk about something completely different, and that is the plight of Australia’s koala population. I have to say that I have a particular love of koalas. I live on a one-acre block and koalas are regular visitors to our allotment. In fact, I prize a picture, which reached the final of the Pulitzer Prize last year, of a koala and her baby in our backyard. But I am concerned about the plight of koalas, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland. I accept that, in some places, koalas are in what is referred to as ‘plague proportions’—
Kangaroo Island.
and need to be moved, but the numbers in Queensland and New South Wales are becoming seriously depleted. Many people say that this is because of a loss of habitat, and that is certainly a factor. Farmers tend to get the blame for that, although I think that is unfair because a lot of the habitat is, in fact, destroyed for urban development. The areas where koalas live are also the areas where people like to live and so the koalas’ territory is often invaded for urban development. But it is possible, as I mentioned from my own personal example, for koalas and urban populations to cohabit. There are risks—for example, motor vehicles on the road. Also, domestic dogs can attack koalas. Even seemingly pleasant little pets, if they have a koala crossing their yard, will see it as invading their territory. While koalas carry a nasty scratch, a dog will often win the fight.
There are issues, but the biggest concern affecting the New South Wales and Queensland koala population is the onset of a range of new diseases which threaten the entire population. There are some colonies where there are few breeding animals left, and science does not really understand these diseases. There is a need to do a lot more research on trying to find a way to address the diseases and establish and preserve disease-free colonies so that the populations of koalas in Queensland and New South Wales can be at sustainable levels.
Ms Carolyn Beaton, who has been a koala advocate for many years, has been advocating the establishment of a sanctuary in the Noosa area for koalas. The iconic Noosa National Park is thought to have as few as 10 or a dozen koalas left. She would like to see that population enhanced or in fact see new sanctuaries established in the region to make sure that the Sunshine Coast koala population is maintained and preserved. She has sought funding for a Noosa koala sanctuary education and research centre. She has the cooperation of a number of the other wildlife establishments in the region, and I think it would be a very sensible move to establish a research centre for koalas in the Sunshine Coast area. Its priority needs to be to address disease issues to make sure that we do not—as with the Tasmanian devils—run the risk of having the population lost not because of the intervention of man but because of the advent of a disease that we do not seem to be able to effectively combat.
I wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts about this issue. He tells me:
I have asked the Australian Government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee to assess the status of the koala for possible listing as a nationally threatened species under the … EPBC Act …
The Australian Government is also leading a steering committee to revise the National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy … under the auspices of the National Resource Management Ministerial Council … The Strategy provides the national framework for conserving koalas.
I have to say that that is a bit of a bureaucratic response. A strategy is not going to cure the diseases. A strategy is not going to deal with the need to preserve and provide appropriate habitat. It sounds like talk rather than action. Indeed, as the honourable member opposite interjected, there are some places where koalas are anything but an endangered species, so that is not the solution.
We simply need to deal with the impact in New South Wales and Queensland. We need to address the ongoing loss and fragmentation of habitat. We need to look at issues like the threats from dogs and motor vehicles when koalas and people seek to cohabit in residential areas. And we certainly need to better understand the effects of disease. The minister says some of those issues will be central to the strategy, but unless there is a real commitment of funding to research efforts I am afraid that the strategy will just be an empty talkfest. So I call on the minister to think sympathetically about the proposal on the Sunshine Coast to establish a suitable reserve and research strategy to deal with the small remaining population of koalas in that area and to take positive action in the interests of preserving this really iconic Australian species in New South Wales and Queensland.
Finally, in the few minutes that are left to me, I want to refer to digital television, particularly the close-down of analog television which begins in regional Australia later this year. This must be the first thing that a Labor government have done for the country before they have delivered it in the cities. We are the first to lose our analog television, and it is clear that there are going to be serious issues about reception for people living in country communities.
The minister has announced that 100 of the existing 600 self-help television transmitters—these are mainly the black spot transmitters provided by the previous government—are to be converted to digital. For those people the transition should, therefore, be relatively smooth. However, what about other 500 transmitters? The government said it is going to cost $18 million to convert 100. That means $90 million would convert the other 500. The government is proposing to set up new satellite services. They will end up costing more than converting the existing transmitters. Once more, these satellite services will mean the death of localism. No longer will people have access to their local television advertisements or their local community service announcements; those will come from Sydney or Melbourne and will be irrelevant to their needs. As one satellite covers all of Tasmania, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, maybe Tasmanians are going to have to start looking at rugby league football instead of something they might want to see, because it could be coming out of Sydney.
So the government has not answered these sorts of issues. They are proposing a new satellite to deal with news services. But that is not the only thing that people want to see from their own local region. They do want localism, and I call on the government to make sure that there is a system in place—before they start closing down analog transmitters—that guarantees that everyone who gets television now will have it after digital television is introduced.
I rise today to support the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. These two bills provide timely funding for numerous very successful government programs, schemes and funds, with the appropriations being sought amounting to a little over $2 billion. A lot of these projects have been part of the federal government’s successful stimulus plan. Our nation-building plan has been very successful and widely appreciated, certainly in my electorate of Kingston.
Only two weeks ago I went with the Minister for Housing to visit some of the projects that are happening on the ground in the area of social housing. We visited 16 houses being instructed in Hackham—a lovely suburb—and these houses are well on their way. I visited this location with the minister only six months before, and at that time it was an empty block waiting for construction. At that time, we met with the company organising the construction of these houses. Six months later, we are seeing houses having their kitchens put in, the plastering done, the insulation put in and very soon will be ready for the first tenants to move in. This is an incredibly successful scheme not only because it has provided much-needed housing in my local area but also because it has provided an economic stimulus and has supported jobs.
When I visited there six months ago, we discussed with the project managers, Quattro, that we wanted to ensure that local people were employed. So I was very pleased to have a visit from the Minister for Employment Participation, Senator Mark Arbib. He came down and had a ‘keep Kingston working’ forum. As a result of this, we saw on the worksite, only a few weeks ago, local tradespeople—local kitchen makers from Lonsdale, local tradies from Aldinga—all working on this project. They were all getting work because of the government stimulus strategy. So I think that was an exciting project and I thank the Minister for Housing for attending that.
While the minister was in the electorate of Kingston, we also visited Southern Junction Community Services, a very reputable non-government organisation providing housing to people most in need. I do note that Appropriation Bill No. 3 provides an additional close to $20 million to the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs for payments under the Rental Affordability Scheme. The Rental Affordability Scheme is a particularly important scheme for electorates such as Kingston where we are seeing that the affordability of rent—and I have spoken about this many times in the parliament—is becoming out of reach. We do know that when the cost of rent or repayments exceeds 30 per cent of someone’s income they are under housing stress. I meet people day after day in my electorate who do feel housing stress, so I was very pleased that, when the Minister for Housing was down, we were able to visit Southern Junction Community Services in an area where the scheme will deliver 83 new affordable rental homes in Adelaide’s southern suburbs by 2011. We met with Graham Brown and his board of Southern Junction Community Services and we were able to discuss exactly how this was going to impact on people within our community, particularly looking at people under housing stress whether they be families or young people in southern Adelaide.
These houses will have a significant impact and deliver some great outcomes. The 83 homes being built will include a mix of studio apartments, two- and three-bedroom townhouses and three-bedroom houses. This is really important because in the southern suburbs of Adelaide we have often seen that housing availability has not always accommodated the different types of households looking for it. In some areas there is not enough housing for individuals—single person houses—and in other places there is not enough housing for families. These houses are really important and they will be rented out at at least 20 per cent below the market price to tenants who meet eligibility criteria.
The financial pressure caused by high rental prices is something which is hurting low- and moderate-income earners around Australia. The additional funding proposed in this bill is required due to the larger than expected number of charities and non-government organisations, such as Southern Junction Community Services, seeking to participate in the scheme. The previous government really did nothing when it came to housing affordability. I know that this was an increasing issue in my local electorate. Certainly, people in my electorate have welcomed the very practical and positive things that this government has done. There is the National Rental Affordability Scheme, which I have mentioned, and also the social housing under the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan. These two things are really making a difference on the ground in Kingston.
Appropriation Bill No. 3 also proposes to bring forward $290 million from 2011-12 for the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts to meet the increase in demand for the Home Insulation Program which is, once again, part of our practical solution to dealing with the financial crisis. This program offers up to $1,200 in ceiling insulation to owner-occupiers, landlords and tenants. Having opened on 1 July 2009, this has been an incredibly popular program that many people have taken up. To illustrate how popular it has been, as at November last year take-up of the government’s Energy Efficient Homes package saw ceiling insulation provided for over 600,000 Australian households and around another 100,000 households took up the solar hot water package. This compares to the previous government where only 4,000 people took up the solar hot water rebate.
This government has seen where there is a need. It has looked at it in a time where we needed to actually do something that not only stimulated jobs and interest in the short term but also in the long term. These programs will help many people to cut their electricity bills. I think that this is really important. We have seen in South Australia just how hot it can get. Last year we had record heatwaves. This year we have certainly had many days over 43 degrees. This does produce significant stress especially on the elderly. We saw in the 2008-09 heatwaves that people had a lot of complications and found it very difficult to keep cool in their own homes. Certainly, a number of people have approached me who do not have insulation and cannot afford air-conditioning. Enabling these people to put insulation into their homes will be particularly important.
The Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010 also proposes an extra $510 million for the Solar Homes and Communities Plan. This program will be replaced by the solar credit scheme, but they both provide assistance to households, small businesses and community groups for the cost of installing solar panels on their roofs. Once again, this has been a particularly exciting and well taken up program. I know that the opposition will say, ‘Well, it was our program.’ But let us just contrast how many people have taken this up in the two years that we have been in government. In less than two years, as of November, the government was on track to fund more than 120,000 installations of solar panels. This compares to just 10,000 rebates funded over the entire period of the previous government. This is another example of where this government is taking practical action to help people reduce their energy costs and to let them feel like they are making a contribution to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. I do know, despite what the opposition might have us believe, that people are concerned about climate change. They do want to do their bit to reduce carbon emissions, and the assistance through the government’s energy efficient home package and the solar credit scheme will specifically do that.
Specifically, $40 million will also be provided to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations to meet the increasing demands of general employee entitlements and the redundancy scheme caused by the significant increase in bankruptcies and insolvencies. I have spoken about this before, and I anticipate that the reforms in the Bankruptcy Legislation Amendment Bill 2009 will pass through the Senate committee process. Additionally, this bill provides more remedial assistance to those affected by the provisions in this bill.
Finally, these appropriations bills propose an additional $12.5 million for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for the Local Government Reform Fund. This will allow the fund to continue helping councils to manage their infrastructure plans for the future and will assist in the construction of community buildings such as libraries, community centres, sports grounds and environmental infrastructure.
I make the point that this is really important for electorates like the electorate of Kingston. It is an outer metropolitan electorate where a lot of the community infrastructure was built perhaps 30 or 40 years ago, and nothing has really been done on that community infrastructure since. So 40 years later we see infrastructure that is ageing and—unfortunately for the local council—it is in need of repair and update all at the same time because it was all built at the same time. This is causing significant concern for the council and also shows that when infrastructure is built it does need a plan for how you are going to update it, because 30 years does come around pretty quickly. In my electorate we see the need for significant upgrades in community infrastructure but, at the same time as the infrastructure that was built 30 years ago needs updating, we also see new suburbs being built that are in desperate need of this sort of community infrastructure.
Once again, the government’s Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan did provide significant money to enable a lot of local community infrastructure. I was very pleased to see that the council put that money into things in my electorate such as upgrading footpaths, which were in dire need of upgrading or, in fact, needed to be put in. It sounds like a very small thing, but not having footpaths is a really difficult thing, whether for parents trying to walk around pushing prams, or for older people in their gophers. Footpaths are just a basic thing to be provided, and I take this opportunity to reflect what my constituents are saying. Whether it is local or state government, these footpaths really do need to be made a priority. So I am very pleased that the money that the federal government gives will really help local government plan for the future in terms of infrastructure. I just want to note that footpaths really need to be one of those things.
In conclusion, it is important that we pass these appropriation bills in a timely fashion because they will provide money to some significantly popular programs that are creating some real stimulus in the economy. We know that the opposition wants to pull the rug out from under the stimulus, but these programs are on the ground, helping to ensure that people remain employed and building some significant benefits for the future of Australia. I commend the bills to the House.
I take this opportunity firstly to publicly and formally welcome the member for Bradfield to the parliament. I certainly hope he represents my two sisters, who are members of the Roseville and Lindfield communities, very well. He also has another new resident who was born overnight—Alex Emma Lackenby, who is the fourth daughter of the best man from my wedding.
No doubt there will be a card!
I am sure she will be a valued member of his community.
When I first arrived in the parliament I had a difficult decision to make in my first couple of weeks: whether or not to spend $80 billion. It was a pretty big call for someone who I do not think had ever used the word ‘billion’ before. It was a challenging decision to make, and the tipping point for me was listening closely to the head of Treasury, Ken Henry, who is from the electorate of Lyne and still has a lot of family there. I listened to him argue the case quite clearly that we should hit the ‘Go’ button and hit it hard. His reasoning caused me to support that stimulus package. It seems like an age ago but it happened only 14 months ago, at the end of 2008.
With the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the cognate bill, we are seeing some of the results of those actions taken 14 months ago. They appear to contain some reallocation of funding to the various programs that are wrapped up in the ongoing workings of government and also some funding for many of the stimulus measures. As this proposed legislation is being debated in the Main Committee it is not opposed. I am sure no-one in this place would oppose these appropriation bills, so I will give a bit of a rundown of some of the issues from a local perspective contained in these appropriation bills.
I am pleased to say that, 14 months down the line, now that we are starting to see some of the results of the stimulus, we on the mid-North Coast have been incredibly resilient during what was supposed to be a year of economic storm clouds. The regional labour force figures, which are released about two weeks after the national figures, came out last week. They have us for the first time under the levels prior to the global financial crisis. Unemployment on the mid-North Coast is at record lows. The figures for the Port Macquarie-Hastings region are just extraordinary at 5.8 per cent. While they are still slightly higher than the national averages, for a regional community that has traditionally had an entrenched problem of higher than normal unemployment rates to be now just about at the national average is a pretty exciting thing for us on the mid-North Coast. Communities in the north and south, in the Macleay and Manning areas, are still about three or four per cent higher than national averages, but, as everyone knows with statistics, it is all about the trend lines, and the trend lines are down and those trend lines are good. So there will be exciting times on the mid-North Coast if we can keep those unemployment figures heading in that direction.
All the feedback throughout the end of last year and the start of this year is overwhelmingly of a sense of resilience within the small business community and within many households. Yes, lots of people with their personal savings—in particular those who were on fixed retirement incomes—took a real hit throughout 2009, but what we are seeing is that even some of that is now starting to swing around. I would hope that, regardless of your politics in this place, that is a shared sentiment of, hopefully, good times ahead for all. So things are good on the mid-North Coast. Yes, there is plenty to be done, but those unemployment figures last week, in particular, were pretty exciting, I think, for everyone involved in the process of community building and trying to make a better place.
Over the last 14 months we have seen record funding into the electorate of Lyne. It is the most Commonwealth money ever going into the seat, and it is largely based around the issue that hit us at the end of 2008 and the stimulus package response. Also linked in last year—which I think was helpful and did make a difference—was a two-day visit from the Prime Minister and a community cabinet. They are things that inject a bit of spunk into the local settings, and many people had the opportunity to put their issues directly to cabinet ministers and to the Prime Minister. We are all watching to see how some of those issues are responded to.
It is one of those that I want to lead with, and that is the issue of health services. There are some mentions in here in regard to some allocations, rollovers or reallocations in health. On the mid-North Coast, we are sweating, and in fact in many ways it is D-day for this government in regard to how it responds to the issues around the Commonwealth’s role in the delivery of health care in Australia. The Prime Minister, to his credit, visited a local hospital in my electorate that is under enormous physical strain and physical pressure. Its ED and ICU are operating at twice the capacity they were built for. Everyone is doing a marvellous job in clinical care, but the physical infrastructure remains a problem. To the Prime Minister’s credit, he came for an hour’s meeting and stayed for two. At his call, he extended the meeting with the clinicians to hear firsthand what their views are on health care not only on the mid-North Coast but for future plans in Australia.
We are now sweating for some feedback. We are looking for some significant and difficult decisions from the Commonwealth about the future direction, and I would hope that sooner rather than later—sometime in the next three or four months—we get that announcement from government and that it is a good and strong one. It needs to be, because business as usual is unacceptable. As a growth region—and we are no different to any other growth region—we are missing out on equity in the state’s own funding formulas that they use. Populations move and government decisions seem to be very slow in responding to that population movement. We on the North Coast of New South Wales are consistently anywhere between two and four per cent under equity on the state’s own funding formulas—which in percentage terms does not sound like much but in dollar terms is around $50 million a year that we are missing out on because of the lack of decision-making fortitude to take away from somewhere else to deliver equity across the board. That is where the Commonwealth now has to kick in and start to flex a bit of Commonwealth money, show a bit of care on where those Commonwealth taxes end up on the ground and make sure that there is equity.
Importantly as well, the other message that came out of our community is that efficiency is not rewarded at present, and efficiency should be rewarded. Those hospitals or those others within the system that deliver efficiently in their health care seem to be asked for more rather than supported by more. If anything, the current mantra within the health system seems to be not to come in under budget but to come in over budget because, if you come in under budget, you will lose your allocation next year. There is no incentive for efficiency built into the system at the moment. There should be, and I hope that is a significant part of where the Commonwealth comes in and starts to claim a bit of ownership for the flowthrough of their dollars. So we watch and wait in anticipation. I hope that the Prime Minister and the community cabinet heard the messages about the importance of upcoming health care announcements loud and clear, and I hope that they respond and respond strongly.
There is also the issue of education, and we are trying to have our own mini revolution on the mid-North Coast. We are trying to really fire up the aspirations for education within the households of the mid-North Coast. Traditionally we have been an area that comparatively does not get as involved in education as other areas. That is to our detriment and I think it is not too much of a leap to directly link that to issues of lower than comparison wages and higher than comparative unemployment rates. Therefore, this aspiration for education is a goal that many of us are really trying to push our regions on.
The work that government is doing helps in many ways. For example, on the issue of tertiary education, we are traditionally an area where about one-in-six school leavers go on to education at a tertiary level. That is a long way short of the government’s own target of 40 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds having a bachelor degree or higher by 2020. We have a lot of work to do and we need government to assist us in that work. That is why issues such as the youth allowance debate need to be resolved. They are not assisting in building aspirational spirit within the homes of the mid-North Coast. If anything, they are causing confusion, and the lack of a resolution through this place is scaring people away from making choices for their future that they might otherwise have taken and which have broader community benefits—and that is going to tertiary education of some sort.
The removal of caps in 2012 is pretty exciting for universities, and I think that is one decision that really talks to our region. I would hope that we can get some greater assistance from government in this environment in regard to the consideration of a window of about a five-hour drive between Newcastle and Coffs Harbour for a population of roughly a quarter of a million people who have no bricks and mortar campus. We rely totally on universities coming in and delivering a low number of places or an online university and distance education in an area where telecommunications are not crash hot. We have natural barriers in place at the moment which I would hope the government, as part of their revolution, are willing and wanting to blow up, and that we do have an NBN rollout that makes a difference in the delivery of distance education and that we have consideration of regions of Australia that do not have a bricks and mortar campus.
There is therefore the choice of either providing that and providing a campus experience or working overtime to get the universities—many of them with inward-looking sandstone views of the world and as to how their institutions run—to deliver and deliver well to regions such as ours. To date, it has been piecemeal and it has been in many ways more about a marketing exercise than anything else. It really has not crossed that bridge of allowing someone to truly go to university but still live in the location they choose to. So I would hope that we are in an environment where that matters to government as well.
At a school level, I want to mention some of the stimulus packages. I had a message come through only today about some of the ones that are being completed, so this is an opportunity to put those on the record. I will just run through the six schools involved. I have just had a report that Upper Rolland Plains has been finished as a stimulus job. Byabarra is a week away. The Comboyne renovations are just being completed, so they are nearly finished. The Long Flat school is almost finished. The distance education centre at Port Macquarie Primary School—and I hope everyone in this place has a love of distance education; it does matter, so those centres are critical—has been completed. The nice one today is Beechwood Public School. They are moving into their new library as we speak. That is some good news on the record with regard to education.
There are two issues I wanted to touch on in the time left. There are some moneys, allegations—sorry, allocations—and partial offsets with regard to immigration and citizenship tied into this appropriation bill. It probably is a Freudian slip to say ‘allegations’, because it is a topic that in this place has a lot of allegations wrapped in it. It seems to be a continual political sore, incredibly sensitive in the eyes of many. I went to a breakfast this morning with Catholic Social Services. Many other MPs attended. There was Justice Brennan. I quite clearly remember some of his campaigns over the last years to get government to think more clearly about this topic rather than messing with Australian borders and including or excluding islands. The issue here for us, I would have thought, is how we meet our international obligations of justice and how we process in a timely way those who, for whatever reason, are coming to this country.
The benchmark that is used internationally is 90 days. I would have thought that was a very nice goal for us to try to meet in our processing requirements, for good or for bad: weed out those who are unwelcome, throw arms around those who are welcome and try to do it within that 90-day time frame. If we spend our resources and put our focus on that, I do not think the Australian communities, pubs I go into or barbecues I attend will have conversations focusing on Christmas Island, Nauru or whatever location in which this processing takes place. So long as the process is timely and just, the location is less important. But there seems to be a lack of focus on the process and meeting those processing deadlines in a timely manner. The focus in this place seems to be more about where, and I think that that is disappointing and, hopefully, something for us all to reflect on.
An anecdote: I ended up on an email list of Rural Australians for Refugees and had some refugees who had finally made it as Australian citizens staying in my house. They wanted a holiday after having two years in detention and being split from their families. It was extraordinary to hear from them what the Australian process is: essentially, splitting families and putting them in jail for a couple of years in an exercise that is disguised as processing. I think we can do better. I hope we can do better. If we are going to welcome people into this country in a way that tries to make a better place, we want to have the best possible Australians coming through that process. At the moment, if we delay this process too long, we mess with people’s heads. We do not make better Australians; we make worse Australians as a consequence. It is in our national and sovereign interest to make it a timely and just process. I would hope that it is considered by all those who want to make the allegations on this topic in the future, picking at the political sore that is immigration and citizenship.
The final issue I want to raise is in relation to aged-care funding. I make mention of some aged-care packages that have just been released on the mid-north coast. The Greater Taree region has just received 180 residential places. The Hastings and Great Lakes regions have received 62 community aged-care packages. Hastings and Kempsey have both received 10 extended aged-care in the home packages. Coffs Harbour, which is outside, my electorate, has also received six dementia-specific aged-care packages.
These aged-care packages are critical for the future of this country. We are an ageing population. Unless we nail this, we are going to have some substantial issues at a community level. These packages are welcome, but I urge government to spend more and focus more on these aged-care packages, and in particular on the community aged-care packages. Everyone seems to love delivering those. It is the way aged care needs to be delivered in the future—in the home as much as possible. I urge the government, therefore, to up the efforts to greater than what they already are in order to make sure we meet that ageing population bubble in Australia that is hitting us right now. So, with that, I do not oppose the bill, and I certainly hope the money is spent wisely.
I congratulate the member for Lyne on his contribution to the debate. I would like to join him in welcoming the member for Bradfield into this place. I listened intently to your first speech yesterday, Member for Bradfield, and remembered my own. While I did not agree with everything you said, I certainly respected the passion with which you delivered your speech. So congratulations to you. I can see you are already working your way up the chamber—whipping duties in Main Committee—so it will not take you long to work your way into a shadow ministry.
I would like to speak today on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010, because I think they relate to the nuts and bolts of being a member of parliament. The reason a lot of us are here is to represent our region. We have debates on various issues to do with the national interest—whether it be border security or the global financial crisis or different positions on climate change or how to deal with its effects. Certainly, as the federal member representing the Darwin-Palmerston area, the electorate of Solomon, my job is to go in to bat for my electorate, to push as hard as I can, and to get what I can for the people who have elected me to this place. I think that all members do that.
It is an interesting conversation that I often have with people back in my electorate if we do not get as much money as people thought we should from a spending package. People need to realise there are 150 electorates in Australia and we all believe that we are the best electorate and that our needs are more important than everyone else’s. We all believe that we have the best population, that we are the most multicultural and that we have the best of everything. We all believe in our electorates, and we get in here and we scrap as hard as we can to get our share of it. I am realistic enough to realise that you are not always going to get everything you want. I am an Australian as well as a Territorian, and I know that there are areas in Australia that need assistance. My area has a young population, and we are a developing area—remembering that Cyclone Tracy basically devastated Darwin in 1974. When you look at it like that, we are only about 35 years old at the moment. And we are growing. Our population, like those in a lot of regions in Australia, will continue to grow.
I remember the caucus meeting back in, I think, October 2008, when the global financial crisis was first mentioned to us. I remember the measures that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer put in place to put us in the best position to continue to develop and grow during what was the worst global financial crisis in 75 years. We know that we are not out of it yet, but the measures that have been put in place by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have gone a long way to protect us against the worst of it. By comparison with other countries, we are doing remarkably well.
Part of that program was Building the Education Revolution. I would just like to touch on a few of the things that my electorate got from that, and will continue to get into the future. Part of that program was the National School Pride Program. The government put $1.3 billion nationally into this program, fixing up existing infrastructure and helping to keep people employed during this time. In my electorate we received $5.4 million for 36 schools in round 1, and $1.8 million for 13 schools in round 2. It was great to see our local schools and community benefiting from the money that the government was prepared to give us with regard to refurbishing a lot of our schools.
I would like to also outline a couple of the things that the government is doing with regard to infrastructure for the schools through the Building the Education Revolution. It is a diverse list. There is Primary Schools for the 21st Century, science and language labs, the National School Pride Program, as I mentioned, trade training centres, digital education and local schools working together. The Australian government’s Indigenous Boarding Infrastructure Program funds urgent projects. We have three very successful Indigenous focused boarding schools in St John’s College, Kormilda College and Marrara Christian School in Darwin. There is the Diversity And Structural Adjustment Fund. The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation has been very well received in my electorate as well. Alawa school, and now Driver school, have started that program, and it has been very well received by the students. Then there is the Early Learning and Care Centres Program, and the Investing in our Schools Program. So some $55.5 million has been put into our electorate. If the coalition win they have flagged that they will cut back on the stimulus. My opponent in the election will need to come clean with the people in Solomon and Darwin at some stage and tell us which schools will not be getting the funding.
Another area that has been fantastically well supported by the Rudd government in the electorate of Solomon is the health area. It was with a great deal of pleasure that the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, and I announced the Rudd government’s commitment to investing a massive $85 million in three key health projects for the people of Darwin.
The $28 million Flinders University project, to build a dedicated network of hospital and community based medical education facilities to allow a full medical program to be delivered in the territory, is a significant investment. For a long time we have lost our best and brightest kids who have graduated from high school with fantastic marks and have gone interstate to study medicine. Unfortunately, a lot of the time when they go interstate, they make new friends, they find life partners and we never get them back. So we have a shortage of doctors. Often we have to fly doctors in from southern capitals, and they stay a short time. I remember the days when we had Dr Scatini and Dr Short in Katherine. They were long-time residents. I have probably had my own personal doctor for 17 years. It is not the sort of thing you chop and change; you like to have your doctor long-term. I think that for the people in Darwin it will be significant that, starting next year, we will have our own doctors being trained. By 2015 I think we will have about 40 a year graduating.
Recently we had an information night at Charles Darwin University, where a facility is currently under construction for the students. About 80 parents, students and people interested in how this program will roll out turned up. I am very happy about that. For the government and the minister to commit to that, and to see the bigger picture about the north of Australia, is such a significant investment.
Our government will provide $18 million to build an accommodation complex of 50 units on the grounds of Royal Darwin Hospital for patients and their carers. Once again, we have a lot of people come in from communities who have treatment. Once they are discharged from the hospital and become outpatients, often they sleep rough; often they do not have family support or accommodation, so they will sleep rough and then come in and have their outpatient treatment. This hostel will allow a lot of community people who come in and use the hospital services to be able to stay somewhere safe and clean and will aid in their rehabilitation from whatever medical problems they have. It was much needed. It was an investment to alleviate the problems I just alluded to. It shows that we are moving forward within our health precinct on the Darwin Hospital campus, and to have that hostel will be fantastic.
More than $34 million has also been invested in a centre of excellence in Indigenous health and education in Darwin through the Menzies School of Health Research—a leading researcher of health, especially Indigenous health. Indigenous health is something that is close to my heart. I have lived in the Territory since 1974 and a lot of people I have known and have played football with have died prematurely, a lot of them because of heart disease through having rheumatic fever as a child and then getting into their late 30s or early 40s and dying. That is something that as a nation we have to address. We have to address the gap in the life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
I would like to put on the record the efforts of the Menzies School of Health Research in continuing to research and continuing to close that gap. The research is in integrated clinical care and workforce training and focuses on early childhood, education—certainly preventative education—chronic diseases, substance misuse and child abuse. The funding will also mean an increase in Indigenous employment and training at the Royal Darwin Hospital campus and remote communities. That is significant in itself. I would like to see a lot of Indigenous health workers working with Indigenous people, because they have an acute understanding of the challenges that community life brings and are able to assist them in closing those gaps that I spoke about.
Other investments include the $10 million superclinic. I was out there inspecting it with the minister a couple of weeks ago. It is moving ahead pretty well, considering the weather. We have had, I think, nearly 100 inches of rain so far in this wet season. It has been an enormous wet season. It has been a very difficult task, but the companies that are working on the GP superclinic are working diligently. Already, we are averaging about 30 people a night using the after-hours service. It is now a 24-hour service, which has taken a lot of pressure off the Royal Darwin Hospital. These investments are significant in the way the Rudd government is assisting my electorate in improving our health services.
We have also been very well supported, to the tune of $130 million, in the Northern Territory’s roads and rail infrastructure—an investment that will support local jobs and local businesses. In fact, our government has delivered an increase in federal funding of $51.4 million or 66 per cent over the 2008-09 budget for Northern Territory roads and rail projects, as well as putting in place modern, well-planned transport infrastructure—vital to the Territory and the nation’s long-term prosperity. Our record investment program will support jobs and provide an immediate stimulus to local economies.
There has been $25 million allocated to stage 2 of Tiger Brennan Drive. That is a significant investment, which will now give seamless access basically from the Stuart Highway down to the port facilities at East Arm. From a commuter’s point of view, the families living in Palmerston and the rural area who commute into the city to work will have a better run that what has been in the past bumper-to-bumper traffic. It will mean that people will be able to get to and from work quicker, in a safer environment, and be able to spend much-needed time with their families. Completing this extension is certainly something close to my heart, as I live in Palmerston. There are thousands of other Palmerston and rural residents who sit in the gridlock every morning and afternoon getting to and from work. I can see that progress is being made by Macmahons, the company that has the contract. They are doing a fantastic job in getting that ready.
One of the things that we as a government focused on was better interaction between the federal government and local councils. I know that my councils—the Lord Mayor of Darwin, Graeme Sawyer, and the Lord Mayor of Palmerston, Robert Macleod—are very grateful for the efforts that the federal government has made towards working more closely with local government. They only have praise for the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for the way in which he has gone about getting projects on the ground. We realised that with the money spent in the stimulus packages we needed to engage Australia in working and building projects to protect jobs. Certainly, the councils around Australia have benefited greatly from these programs.
We received $2.1 million for bike paths around the Darwin area from the $40 million National Bike Path Projects. That was greatly needed. Any time that we can make bike paths safer and make bicyclists safe from cars is important. The government provided $3.6 million to improve the CBD of Darwin and a lot of these landscaping and streetscaping jobs are going on at the moment. Places for people to sit are being put in and the planting of trees along roads in the CBD is taking place. It is really beautifying the city of Darwin. A lot of people come up there. Darwin is a great place to live, it is a great place to visit and it is a great place to bring up a family. These types of projects in the CDB are ever expanding. We are getting a lot of high rises and I can see that in the future the CBD will have many more people living there, and these types of projects are making it a great place to live and a great part of the Territory lifestyle. Darwin City Council, the Palmerston City Council and the Litchfield Shire Council have all been able to receive money through the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. I commend the minister for that program.
The Darwin port expansion is also very dear to my heart as we grow as a city. There has been the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce report on the live cattle industry. We currently move a substantial amount of cattle across our port each year. A feasibility study was funded by the federal government to look at the expansion of the port facilities. We initially contributed $50 million to the Darwin port facilities. That was for some pond work in reclaiming some land there and putting in a rail loop, as well as a conveyor belt, to move iron ore more quickly off the port. It was a substantial investment. More needs to be done and I will continue to harass and harangue the minister, as I often do, by leaving very pointed voice messages on his phone about the funding requirements of Solomon.
You have done very well.
Yes, I have done well by doing that. I will continue to do that because I know that investment in Northern Australia and in our area is very important. Defence is huge in our electorate. This year we have got some key capital works projects going on. I was on the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works earlier in the parliamentary period. There is $19 million for the $72 million Robinson Barracks redevelopment and $16 million for the $49 million RAAF Base Darwin redevelopment. Those are significant investments in both those bases. There is also $9.8 million for the fuel installation at the Darwin naval base.
Defence Force homes have always been an issue and we were lucky enough in Solomon to receive the most funding for Defence Force homes—some 185 new homes for defence families. We can now get defence families into comfortable accommodation and, as we know, they deserve to have that sort of accommodation. They move around a lot and it must be very unsettling for families with young kids in school to continually move around. It is a great investment by the government into making housing much more comfortable for our defence families. They bring a lot to our community and they are very valued members of our community.
All in all, these appropriation bills signal a significant investment by the Rudd Labor government in the Northern Territory, particularly in the seat of Solomon. I do not like to make this public because some of my colleagues do get a little envious, but the Prime Minister has dropped in on eight occasions—which can be good but it can also be a double-edged sword because sometimes I think he is just coming up there to check on me—and his visits have been very well received by the people in my electorate. The more he is there, the more he gets an understanding of the challenges that we face in Northern Australia.
The Inpex project will be an investment in the Northern Territory of anywhere between $30 billion and $50 billion over the next 40 years. It is a very significant investment by Inpex, a Japanese company, that will see my electorate become bigger and stronger, and put more money into Australia’s GDP. I will continue to fight very hard for the people of my electorate. I believe that the federal government will continue to support me in those endeavours. I would like to thank all the ministers who make the effort to visit Darwin, hang around and listen to what the locals have to say.
I rise to speak on several issues of significant concern to my electorate and which, in the spirit of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010, will deliver excellent value for money to our nation if they receive the support of this federal government. I take up the contribution of the member for Solomon, in particular his final references to those valued members of our community: Defence Force personnel. It is in that spirit that I refer to my first issue of concern relating to the East Sale RAAF Base. I am sure the member agrees with me that on issues of defence there is no room for politics and that a bipartisan approach has to be taken by both sides, and decisions facing the future defence needs of our nation should be based entirely on merit.
It is on that note that I raise the future of the East Sale RAAF Base within the context of the current review of defence facilities right across Australia. I know that reviews often lead to some ill-informed speculation and rumour. I recently had the opportunity for a briefing from the Department of Defence and an adviser from the minister’s office—and I do appreciate the courtesy extended to me by the minister’s office—in relation to the future plans for a Defence Force base at East Sale. In that meeting, I stressed the case for East Sale’s continued role in meeting Australia’s future defence needs. I highlighted the fact that East Sale RAAF Base has many advantages in terms of its geographic location and the availability of airspace for training Australia’s next generation of defence pilots. I know the future operations of the base at East Sale have strong support from the Wellington Shire Council and the local community are very much behind it. The council have been very proactive in protecting land for future development which may take place at the East Sale site.
Following the successful development of the officer training school at East Sale—driven in large part by my predecessor, Peter McGauran—I have been in regular contact with the Minister for Defence to seek support for the future expansion of the East Sale RAAF Base. I make no apologies for continuing to lobby the minister at every opportunity and to support the council in the work it has done to show its full support for future development at the site. The East Sale RAAF Base is well regarded and I am confident the base will continue to grow.
In relation to the specific opportunity of Gippsland hosting the interim basic flight training program, I have made representations to the minister and there is certainly strong support from the local community and Wellington Shire Council, and the Victorian government have been on board with this particular issue. I urge the state government to continue to do everything in its power to talk to appropriate people amongst Labor colleagues to help secure the facility for Gippsland. I recognise it will be a hotly contested contract and I expect the decision to be based on merit. I am sure the state government is well aware of its regional development responsibilities and will continue to support Wellington Shire Council in that regard.
The opportunities that would be available in Gippsland from the interim basic flight training facility coming to Gippsland would be significant in terms of local contractors and businesses supplying the facility. It is anticipated that it could start operations in 2012 and it would operate for six years. There would be scope for local contractors and businesses to assist in the supply of fuel, building, security, health services and transport amongst a range of other needs. If it gets the go-ahead for Gippsland, there is a forecast of a $90 million boost for the regional economy over the school’s six-year life cycle—before a permanent basic flight training facility is established. I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker Washer, you would understand why it is a matter of great interest to the people of Gippsland where the interim basic flight training facility is located and where it is located in the longer term. I am very confident that East Sale RAAF Base will expand in the future and continue to play a very important role in meeting our nation’s future long-term defence needs.
I recently had the opportunity to meet with the new senior ADF officer, Group Captain Glen Coy, and Wing Commander Sharyn Bolitho. They were outstanding service personnel in the way they recognised the need to keep building links with the local community to ensure that the great reputation that the East Sale RAAF Base has in the Gippsland community is enhanced into the future. I really appreciated the opportunity to speak to both service personnel and to discuss the opportunities for the community to work closely with the base in the future.
I certainly welcome the news that there are plans to spend $140 million upgrading the base. A step forward has been taken with the construction firm Thiess being signed as the managing contractors to undertake the scoping work for that project. It is certainly positive news for the region. In the past, Thiess have held the management contract for the officer training school development which I referred to previously. In that case, local firms like GBG Concrete and Construction and Laser Plumbing were able to subcontract, generating significant employment spin-offs to the local community. It really does underline the importance of putting locals first.
In that vein, I would like to refer to another organisation in my electorate that also recognises the very important need of putting locals first—Centenary House in Latrobe Valley. I have spoken before about the important work that Centenary House does in my community. It is worth repeating, though, just to remind the government that we have such an outstanding asset in Latrobe Valley. It does, however, need support looking towards the future. Centenary House provides support for patients and their families attending Latrobe Regional Hospital, primarily the patients attending the Gippsland Cancer Care Centre. These patients and their families are at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives and it is reassuring to know that they have that support available. Centenary House is only 400 or 500 metres away from Latrobe Regional Hospital. It provides on-site accommodation units for people at vastly discounted rates. No-one has ever been turned away for not being able to afford to stay a night at Gippsland’s Centenary House. It is something that the volunteers from the Rotary clubs right across Gippsland wear as a badge of honour. It is a matter of pride that, over a few years now, they have been able to establish these units which have been servicing people who do not even live in the local community.
That is the remarkable thing about the Centenary House project. While it is based in Latrobe Valley, the patients and their families, rather than being people who live in the immediate vicinity, tend to travel from 200 and 300 kilometres away, from East Gippsland, West Gippsland and South Gippsland. So it is a real credit to the business houses and the Rotarians of the Latrobe Valley that they have been able to establish this facility even though the benefits extend to a far broader region. I have had the opportunity to visit Centenary House and to attend their fundraising functions on various occasions and I am always amazed at the spirit of the committee and its dedication to raising funds on an almost continual basis.
There are always improvements being made at the facility and quite often the improvements are being made by the ‘guests’, if you like, of Centenary House. You will have, perhaps, a mother in for some treatment for a few days and she may be accompanied by a husband or partner who has some skills in a trade and is happy to help out around the place. A lot of improvements have been made on the basis, with new barbecue areas constructed, a playground installed and a range of facilities created which you would not have been able to get in any other way than by members of a regional community helping each other out and providing voluntary services in that way.
The current facility contains six large ensuite units and two smaller self-contained units, along with a communal kitchen, a dining room and lounge facilities. As I said, there is also a children’s play area and there is a quiet room for family consultation and privacy. The first stage of the work received significant state and federal government support. It was a coalition government at federal level and a Labor government at state level, so it certainly had bipartisan support and, as I said, Rotarians across Gippsland answered the call and raised a considerable amount of money for this first stage, which was a $2 million project.
I have spoken directly to the Minister for Health and Ageing, Ms Roxon, about Centenary House and I invited her to inspect the facility if she ever got the opportunity to come to Gippsland. She would certainly be very much welcomed by the committee. They are not interested at all in playing politics, I can assure you. They just want to see some extra support coming forward in the future. It is an open invitation, so if the minister is ever in the area and has the opportunity to drop in for 10 or 15 minutes, she would be very much welcomed by the committee. They would love to show her around and let her know exactly what it is they do there. They are very proud, and justifiably proud, of what has been achieved at Centenary House. Of course she would be particularly welcome if she turned up with a large cheque.
The Centenary House board has recently applied for funding from the Health and Hospitals Fund under the regional cancer centres initiative and I sent a letter of support to the minister. Naturally enough, I pointed out that Centenary House is, perhaps, a victim of its own success in the sense that it is quite tragic that the demand for units is outstripping supply and is continuing to grow. With an ageing population in Gippsland, it is almost inevitable that we are going to require more of this sort of service in our community. Plans have been drawn up for another nine units and some of those will include facilities for people with disabilities. I strongly recommend the project to the minister.
Supporting the next stage of Centenary House would have to be about the best $1.5 million the federal government could spend in the Latrobe Valley this year, if it has it within its capacity under this program. I urge the minister to support the outstanding and selfless efforts of the local community and to do everything in her power to assist this project both now and in the future.
The issue of Centenary House is about delivering an improved service. I have another concern with a service that does not even exist in my electorate. For the benefit of the House, I want to give a brief history of the lack of childcare services in the small community of Yarram. Prior to the 2007 election, building a childcare centre in Yarram had bipartisan support. My predecessor, Peter McGauran, and the Labor candidate both indicated to the community at that time that they would support the development of such a facility if they were successful at the subsequent election. I draw the House’s attention to the headline in the Yarram Standard on 31 October 2007. While I am on the topic of the Yarram Standard, I would like to congratulate the staff and the owners of the Yarram Standard. It is a magnificent little country newspaper which this year received the award of best country newspaper in its circulation category in Victoria. It is well-deserved recognition for a little country newspaper. It is very critical for us in regional seats that these community newsletters are able to prosper into the future. They are such an important part of community life.
Back to the topic at hand, on 31 October 2007, under the headline ‘Labor backs childcare centre’, the story reads:
The Labor Party has pledged to offer child care services in Yarram if voted to government on November 24 … Ms Rowe—
The Labor candidate—
has pledged a child care centre would be incorporated into a broader community centre, rather than a stand alone complex.
So it is fairly unequivocal. We had a strong endorsement by the Labor candidate at the time, the coalition candidate at the time also expressed strong support for the establishment of childcare services in Yarram but, unfortunately for the community, precious little has happened in the subsequent months which have passed. Since the election and the change of government, there has been a lot more talk in the community about the need to establish such a service, but here we are almost three years later and the issue of Yarram childcare services has not been resolved and I am certain that it will be an important election issue again for the local community as we move forward in 2010. I am personally frustrated and disappointed—and I know the community is as well—with the lack of progress, but the community does remain determined to secure such a service in the future, and I will continue to back the Yarram community 100 per cent on this very important local issue.
There is a committee in place to investigate a range of issues, including the best location, what sort of operational model will work best, and funding opportunities, and there is strong support in the local community. In fact, I would suggest that support is stronger now than it was 2½ years ago. Without childcare services, it is very difficult for a small regional centre to secure professional services and professional people in a whole range of industries. Yarram is currently experiencing quite a bit of difficulty in recruiting doctors, and I have no doubt that it is going to be easier to attract such professional people in the future if support services such as child care are in place. The provision of appropriate childcare services for Yarram remains an issue that I would like to work in partnership with the federal on to solve in the months ahead.
Mr Deputy Speaker, in case you get the feeling that I am being a bit too negative, I would like to give some bouquets to the government in relation to some funding announcements in my electorate which have been very well received. There was a timely announcement by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in May 2008. Given that the Gippsland by-election was in June 2008, it was very timely that the minister announced a funding commitment to the establishment of Cunninghame Quay in Lakes Entrance. I understand that it is a $4.4 million project with the East Gippsland shire receiving $1.6 million for the on-land works—the car park, the paving works and the boardwalk access and bollards. It has been very well received and I am happy to report that construction is underway on the esplanade at Lakes Entrance on this project. Gippsland Ports will also receive $2.8 million for the on-water component of the project.
The federal government’s commitment in this regard stands in stark contrast to the state government’s attitude towards the Gippsland Lakes and towards infrastructure on the Gippsland Lakes. It seems to be a situation where the state government has dropped the ball in relation to the future management of the Gippsland Lakes in terms of both its environmental management and its infrastructure. We have seen from the federal government a small commitment of $3 million over three years to the environmental health of the Gippsland Lakes and catchment, and I have written to the minister previously in that regard to encourage him to ensure that funding is ongoing in the longer term.
The environmental pressures upon the Gippsland Lakes are growing on an annual basis. For those not familiar with the Gippsland Lakes, it is quite a large waterway—it is the largest inland waterway in the Southern Hemisphere. Even though it is a large lake system, it is actually impacted on by a massive catchment which stretches right throughout the Gippsland-Latrobe Valley region. The environmental characteristics of the lake system have changed dramatically since an artificial entrance was opened more than 100 years ago. The lakes have been the subject of much debate. Graham Harris told me I think eight years ago that CSIRO research showed that the lakes were at an ecological tipping point as an estuarine system heavily impacted on throughout the catchment. Major work is required to address these very significant signs of stress, with algal blooms occurring throughout the lake system on a far too frequent basis.
It disturbs me greatly that we do not seem to have a commitment by the state government in particular in terms of the future environmental management of the Gippsland Lakes system. I look back to 2002 when the state government allocated $3.2 million per year over a four-year period to the Gippsland Lakes and Catchment Task Force, primarily directed at reducing the amount of nutrients entering the lake system. Contrast that to four years later, 2006, when the funding was cut by 50 per cent—it was cut to $2 million per year over the future three-year period. Last year the state government made no allocation whatsoever to the Gippsland Lakes task force in terms of ongoing funding. It is an appalling situation. I urge the federal minister and any others with any influence over their state colleagues to see what they can do in terms of raising the pressure on the government in that regard. We have seen the federal government’s announcement of its Caring for our Country program, and they talk a lot about the Great Barrier Reef and making it a national priority. As far as I am concerned, the Gippsland Lakes are the Great Barrier Reef of the south—they are so critically important to the future of my region, to the environmental health of the Ramsar wetlands that are there and to the future of the tourism industry. It is a critical issue for us.
In conjunction with the environmental needs not being addressed, the infrastructure needs of the lake system are not being met either. I referred to the project which the federal minister for agriculture announced a couple of years ago. That stands out as a beacon amongst a couple of years of neglect—more than a couple of years of neglect; it goes back decades. The Gippsland Lakes system has become increasingly popular and recreational vessels are getting larger and larger. But the infrastructure in place to accommodate those vessels has not been replaced in the Gippsland Lakes system. You can only wonder how organisations like the East Gippsland Shire Council and Gippsland Ports can continue to stretch a shoestring to try to accommodate the future needs of a very popular lake system. The boating community is demanding improved facilities in terms of jetties and wharves and boat launching ramps, and the infrastructure backlog is getting out of control. Without the state government taking a greater interest and perhaps without the federal government also taking a greater interest, I fear for the future of the tourism industry in the East Gippsland region and the Gippsland Lakes in particular.
I would like to end my contribution on a more positive note by referring to the Lakes Entrance Surf Life Saving Club. It is about to host the Victorian state junior and senior titles, in March this year. The Lakes Entrance Surf Life Saving Club is one of those little institutions in regional towns that you take for granted to some extent until you realise just what sort of contribution they make to your town. I am a member of the Lakes Entrance club and three of my children are enrolled in the Lakes Entrance nippers program. Last year Lakes Entrance was awarded the Australian Surf Life Saving Club of the Year, which is an extraordinary effort for a small country town of only 6,000 or 7,000 people and when you compare the size of the surf clubs it was competing against.
The surf club does play a critical role in the social life of our town and the economic life of the region, providing the safe swimming beaches which are so important for the tourism industry. As I said previously, tourism is a major industry in the East Gippsland region. Without the surf club providing those controls on the Ninety Mile Beach on a daily basis through summer I am sure it would be very difficult for us to attract any families to that beach. Perhaps the greatest service that the surf life saving club does provide to our town is the development of our young leaders of the future. It is an incredible program to see the young people develop through the nippers program, to take on responsibility as only 13-year-olds on surf patrols, and it really gives them a sense of the importance of belonging in the community, of making a contribution to their community.
It is with great pride that I inform the House that Lakes Entrance will host the Victorian junior and senior titles in March this year. It is an incredibly important event for the town in terms of the economic benefits it will bring over that weekend, with thousands of competitors and their parents in the town. We are hoping for perfect weather so the young nippers can enjoy their stay in Lakes Entrance, and we hope for some bigger waves for the seniors to be well and truly tested as they take on the elements. The club did a magnificent job of holding the junior titles in 2008. It is a credit to them that, only two years later, Surf Life Saving Victoria has seen fit to give the club both the junior and the senior titles on the one weekend. This will inject thousands of dollars into the local community. More importantly, it will give the region an opportunity to showcase its attractions and encourage people to return in the future. I commend the Lakes Entrance Surf Life Saving Club on its efforts to secure these titles. To finish on a positive note, I commend the state government for providing some assistance with the future infrastructure needs of the club and allowing for the expansion of the clubhouse in the future.
I rise to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. In the time allotted to me I intend to speak about what the Rudd government is doing in terms of local and regional community infrastructure in my electorate of Blair, and also what we are doing in terms of infrastructure relating to school funding. This nation building goes hand-in-glove with supporting jobs and getting us through the global recession, and this is particularly important in South-East Queensland. I have lived in Ipswich all my life, and my family has lived for many generations in the area I have the honour to represent. The Ipswich and West Moreton area is the fastest-growing region in South-East Queensland, which is the fastest-growing area in Australia.
Apart from Ipswich, there are regional council areas to the north, the north-west, the west and the south—Somerset, the Lockyer Valley and the Fassifern Valley. These regions include Hattonvale, Glenore Grove, Fernvale and rural communities such as Boonah. These are extraordinarily fast-growing regions, with people moving there from overseas and interstate. But these councils face the challenge of council amalgamations. The Somerset region is a new council, formed from Esk and Kilcoy. The Lockyer Valley Council was formed from Gatton and Laidley. The Scenic Rim Council is an amalgam of the Beaudesert Shire, the Boonah Shire and part of Logan City. These councils face infrastructure challenges, which are so important. They face the challenge of getting these communities together to form the kind of community life which is necessary. Areas such as Boonah and Kalbar have not always seen eye-to-eye on issues. Accordingly, the Scenic Rim Council has challenges. Gatton and Laidley have had a friendly rivalry for a long time, as have Tagoolawah and Esk. Putting people together and building a sense of community is important. This is why the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program is so important. The appropriations bills deal with this sort of funding.
The Intergenerational report just released by the Treasurer makes it clear that Australia faces substantial change in the next 40 years. We need to lift our productivity by investing in skills and giving our young people every opportunity. But we need to invest in infrastructure as well. The Building the Education Revolution funding is critical to ensuring that our young people have 21st-century libraries. I went to Ipswich East State Primary School for seven years. It was across the road from me. We did not have the kinds of library facilities which I hope will be provided under the BER across so many schools in the Blair electorate.
The infrastructure funding in my area was sadly neglected under the Howard coalition government. The best example of that was the Ipswich Motorway, the most important arterial road in South-East Queensland, linking the rural areas of Ipswich and Toowoomba to Brisbane. The Rudd government is putting $2.5 billion into the Ipswich Motorway, upgrading it, making it six lanes and also improving the service road and bikeways which are so important for community life along that western corridor.
What the government is doing in facing the economic challenges that confront it is critical to the people who live in the western corridor south-west of Brisbane and the rural areas outside. If we want to build a strong future for the fastest-growing region in South-East Queensland, we need to make sure that we increase the funding for it. Within the boundaries that the Blair electorate had in the 2007 election, the BER funding is providing 313 projects, totalling about $124 million across 85 schools. There are literally thousands of people who have jobs and are keeping jobs by reason of that funding.
The Somerset Regional Council—which has been added to the Blair electorate for the next election, as it lost Fassifern and Lockyer—is receiving, across 28 projects in 18 schools, $20.8 million in BER funding. I have spoken to a number of the school principals in the Somerset region. Recently I had the privilege of talking to David Raine, the principal at Fernvale State School, inspecting the school and looking at the infrastructure funding there for the multipurpose hall and the new library. David has been at that school for about 10 years, and he said how wonderful the school funding is. I also spoke to Ray Maddison, who has been the principal at Kilcoy State School for a long time as well, and Ross Robertson, the principal at Kilcoy State High School, about the BER funding in those schools. Each of those men, who have been at those schools for a long time, spoke about the importance of not just supporting local jobs but giving the young people in those areas every opportunity. Whether they live in Kilcoy, Fernvale, Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, those young people should have every opportunity in life.
We are also partnering with local councils, because local councils are at the coalface of our communities. The Australian Local Government Association says there are about 6,600 elected councillors in Australia. There are many hundreds of councils across our continent. They provide very important infrastructure: social and community infrastructure, town halls, community centres, libraries, public squares, sporting and recreational facilities, walking tracks, playgrounds, tourism infrastructure, footbridges, bus shelters—you name it, they provide it. In our community infrastructure funding, we are giving those councils the money they need to provide for the community life in those regional and rural townships west of Ipswich and in Ipswich itself. We have provided record amounts of money for those councils.
In the general purpose and local road financial assistance funding for the 2009-10 year, the cash payment made, for example, to Ipswich City Council was just over $5.6 million. In the Lockyer Valley, it was just over $2.9 million. For the Scenic Rim Regional Council, it was just over $3.2 million, and for Somerset it was just over $3 million. For each of those councils, this is a record amount of money for general purpose funding and funding for local roads. If you travel on those roads in the rural areas outside Ipswich, you know how important that is. I have spoken to Councillor David Pahlke, whose rural division makes up much of the rural areas of Ipswich, about the importance of road funding in those rural areas of Ipswich city itself.
Partnering with local councils has made a big difference in my area. For example, for many years a lot of people have campaigned hard for the construction of a hydrotherapy centre in Boonah, and I pay tribute to the many people who have campaigned so hard and long and who have recently received plaudits from the local council and the local community. The Boonah Shire Disability Support Group, ably led by Natalie McDonald and her husband Kevin, has done great work in partnership with the Rotary Club and the Lions Club of Boonah, working hard to ensure that funding has been given for the construction of the Scenic Rim health and hydrotherapy centre. On 17 May 2009 I had the privilege to do a sod turning with the Scenic Rim mayor, John Brent. I commended the council for putting federal government money to the tune of $480,000—out of the $667,000 given to the council—to that project. This is important community infrastructure, providing jobs in the local area and also tending the health and fitness levels of the area.
We have provided an enormous amount of money to the Lockyer Valley Regional Council area, and the council, to its credit, has put that money into upgrading things like the Lions park at Laidley, the streetscape enhancement for Patrick Street in the middle of Laidley, the Lake Apex playground equipment which the children will benefit from in Gatton and the upgrade of the of the Laidley skate bowl. It is very interesting to see young people across the region using those skate bowls and skate ways to get away from committing acts of vandalism and violence. It is important to provide barbecues and better parks, better shelter for people as they wait for a bus—such as in Winwill in the Lockyer Valley—and to refurbish our parks. This is what the council has done with the federal government money in the Lockyer Valley. I have spoken to mayor Steve Jones and been told that that is what they have done in the past and that is what they will do with the most recent funding.
The Ipswich City Council has put money into many projects with the federal government money. On 16 December 2009 I, with Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale, was pleased to launch the Terrace Sails, a cafeteria at the Ipswich Civic Centre. The federal government is providing money to help the Ipswich City Council undertake the refurbishment and redevelopment of Ipswich CBD, and, to the credit of the council, they put money towards this project. There was also a canteen opened there. The Ipswich Civic Centre was officially opened in 1975 by then Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Since that time the facility has become more than a hall; it has become a premier entertainment venue, not just for shows but for eisteddfods, for weddings and for ceremonies—and I have attended many citizenship ceremonies in that locality. I am pleased that the council has undertaken to use some of that money that we gave for community infrastructure, totalling $921,000, towards that project. In fact, the council put $336,500 towards that outdoor area and the Terrace Sails cafe.
There are many other projects the council undertook with federal government money in partnership, such as the disability access footpath in Canning Street in Ipswich, curbing and channelling in Redbank Plains, the construction of an ecofriendly public toilet in Springdale Park, improved disability access in Barkell Street and the Cobb and Co display at Rosewood Community Park, which is another great project. All these projects are important for community infrastructure, for the lifestyle and livelihood of the people of the Ipswich and West Moreton area. But none of it—not one cent of it—could have been done without the support of the Rudd Labor government.
It is a shame, and it is to the discredit of the opposition that they have opposed funding and the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan which is so vital to the Ipswich and West Moreton area. The funding here has made a difference and will continue to make a difference in Ipswich and the rural areas outside. I just cannot understand why those opposite oppose the economic and infrastructure stimulus. Dozens of people have come and told me that it has been important for their areas. A number of school P&Cs have spoken to me about why the nation-building funding was important. For example, Craig Isaacs, who is the president of Immaculate Heart School P&F Association, a great little school in the Ipswich area, has told me:
My children attend Immaculate Heart Primary. As a parent and current President of the P & F … I am pleased to see the government improving our schools’ infrastructure, benefiting the economy and investing in our children’s future.
Julie Jackson, the Vice President at Boonah State School P&C Association, says:
The federal government investment in our school has been enormous. As a parent I am thrilled to see the improvements underway. This is a great investment in my children’s future and the entire community will be able to benefit from the new facilities now and into the future.
Troy Barton, President of Riverview State School P&C Association, says:
Construction is well under way at our school thanks to the BER … building programs and our school is getting a much needed face lift. The outdoor learning centre and the new hall will be valuable assets that we believe the whole community can benefit from.
Councillor Andrew Antoniolli, who happens to be the councillor in Ipswich City Council for the CBD, who also is the President of St Joseph’s Primary School P&F Association, says:
Our children have been going to St Joseph’s since 2000. As a parent it’s great to see this investment in their school. The new classrooms and library will greatly improve the learning environment and benefit the entire school community. It’s an investment for the future and good news for Ipswich.
Indeed, the nation-building plan and the economic stimulus we have given Ipswich and West Moreton area, is good news—as Councillor Antoniolli says—because it makes a difference. Those practical things do make a difference.
I want to finish in the time that remains by talking about some community infrastructure we have put into the Somerset region. I was very happy to be at the Australia Day awards in Esk recently and see the enthusiasm on the young people’s faces as they were competing in the skate park competition. Around $120,000 of federal government money went into the construction of the skate park just opposite the Somerset Regional Council headquarters. Every single time I have been in Esk I have seen young people at the skate park. They absolutely love it. I have to confess that there is a picture in a few local newspapers of me on a skateboard, which caused great merriment in my household, with my daughters. It is a great community facility. The Esk fitness trail was constructed for $167,560. I admit that council workers were using that fitness trail in a sort of ‘Life. Be in it’ campaign. They were encouraging Mayor Graham Lehman to also get involved. This is a gravel surface walking trail on Sandy Creek in Esk. It is important.
Recently I was also in Fernvale, where the Campdraft Park amenities block was opened by Senator Mark Furner and myself. That was the construction of a 65-square-metre facility containing showers and toilets. This is important for tourism as well as for the pony club. Finally, there is the $2.1 million that the Rudd Labor government is investing in the indoor sports centre.
But there is another important piece of funding for regional and community infrastructure, and that is the $10 million that the Rudd Labor government is giving to Ipswich city for the Springfield Central Parklands. Recently the first stage was opened by Premier Anna Bligh; Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale was there, as were a number of other people. I want to congratulate Springfield Land Corporation, particularly Maha Sinnathamby and Bob Sharpless, and to acknowledge that Bob and his wife were also specially mentioned on the day and that they have had the first stage named after them.
This important community infrastructure will make a big difference in the election of Blair and the whole western corridor. It is the Rudd Labor government which is making a difference. But, sadly, by indolence, by idleness and by ignorance, those opposite have failed community infrastructure. And, sadly, they have voted against the very infrastructure which I have described in detail today.
I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. These bills continue the Rudd government’s policy of spending sensibly to steer this nation through the global financial crisis. They continue our policy of keeping unemployment as low as possible through the tough conditions that the world experienced over the last year. Amongst other initiatives, they include funding for the Solar Homes and Communities Plan, funding to make us better prepared for a viral pandemic and funding for the Home Insulation Program. They include extra funding for the Regional Local Community Infrastructure Program to support investment in valuable infrastructure such as libraries, community centres and sportsgrounds. These are real projects that meet a real need in the community. They provide work for local builders and tradespeople in a tough time.
The bills continue this government’s support of the General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme to guarantee workers’ entitlements in the event of corporate insolvency. To lose a job is bad enough, but to lose the money that is rightfully yours and which you have been relying on to help feed and clothe your family and pay your mortgage is something that no family should ever experience. The global economic crisis has led to a higher possibility of companies failing, and that is why we have budgeted an extra $40 million for the GEER Scheme to which I have just referred. This money will help see many families through the loss of a job, and ease, at least somewhat, the stress and fear that spreads when companies collapse.
These bills will continue our economically responsible approach to the global financial crisis—an approach which has seen us avoid recession whilst maintaining lower debt levels than our OECD trading partners. We are not a government that is content to focus on the 24-hour media cycle. We are thinking about the big challenges of an ageing population—about how we want our country to look in 2050. The Intergenerational report released by the Treasurer last Monday laid out the stark challenge facing us: how do we increase our productivity as our population ages? I regard our ageing population as a triumph, not a problem; an opportunity, not a challenge. There will certainly be many opportunities arising from the fact that the number of people aged over 65 will double by 2050 and the number of people over 85 will quadruple—and that number will, hopefully, include me.
Many people will acquire a disability as they age. And one of the effects of an ageing population is an increase in the rate of disability. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released figures last year that show that there are around 1.5 million people living with a severe or profound disability this year, and it will be almost 2.3 million people by 2030. Added to the moral challenge of how we empower people with a disability and their carers there is now an economic challenge. To keep Australia a wealthy and productive country, we will need to reshape the way we think about disability and how we include people with disability and their carers in our society. We must cease thinking of people with a disability in terms of charity or as a burden. These people cannot be an afterthought. We will need to recognise that people with a disability are people with skills and talents who can contribute to any organisation and help build our nation.
There are two million Australians either living with a severe or profound disability or, indeed, caring for a person with a severe or profound disability as their primary carer. We cannot prosper as a nation and do as well as we should do whilst this group remains minimally engaged in the workforce. We need to recognise that making our public buildings and our private buildings, our housing stock, suitable for people with a disability is not a cost—it is an investment in our future. I believe it is a sad fact that people with disabilities are still not equal citizens in our country.
Too many Australians live in a state of under-resourced poverty due not just to their impairment but to the attitudes of society towards their impairment. The truth of the matter is that, if you are a person living with a significant disability or if you are a primary carer for such a person, you are likely to be poor and powerless. These people are continually forced to make hard choices. They are forced to save every spare cent for aids and equipment and to have their lives limited both by their impairment but indeed, more significantly, by the community’s treatment of their impairment—something which something can be done. People with disability in Australia, by and large, are forced to bear the stigma of being different and to accept reluctantly a second-class status. Changing this will be a long-term process that will involve not just governments but the whole of society.
The Rudd government has made a start, and I am proud of the real improvements that we are making to the lives of people with disabilities and their carers. We doubled the funding to the states and territories under our national disability agreement last year, including the highest ever level of indexation. We have increased the disability support pension for around 740,000 Australians and given extra payments to carers. We have brought in the first support program for children under six with autism, which has provided early intervention to thousands of children. We are working to help people with disability into work, and away from the purgatory of long-term unemployment.
The ageing of our population gives new urgency, I suggest, to reforming how we fund disability in this country. Without fixing up the funding of disability in this nation, the rest of the valuable efforts we are currently making will be undermined. Despite the best efforts of thousands of professionals in the disability sector, the system we have remains a patchwork of services which remains crisis-driven and inactive. We have started working on benchmarking with the states, but there is still too little information about how much money is spent, where it is spent and what the unmet need is. People are not treated according to their need but according to how much money is left in rationed budgets. Recent trends indicate that the demand for specialist disability services will grow about seven per cent a year in real terms over the next decade, as ageing carers, sadly, can no longer support their children or their spouses.
It is clear that the current system cannot go on forever, and this is why the Rudd government has asked the Productivity Commission to investigate a national long-term care-and-support scheme. This kind of scheme, popularly known as a national disability insurance scheme, which has huge and growing support among people with disabilities and their carers, has the potential to change the way that disability is supported in this country. A child born with an illness can receive medical and hospital treatment under Medicare if necessary, for some conditions. A person injured in a car accident is paid compensation under third-party insurance schemes, in most jurisdictions. An employee hurt at work is appropriately eligible for workers compensation. But for people who are deaf or blind or autistic or who have cerebral palsy or Down syndrome or severe intellectual disabilities—or any other kind of disability—there is no coherent system and there is an inadequate safety net.
Why in this country is the manner in which you incur your impairment the determinant of the level of care you get, as opposed to the effect of the impairment itself? We know that a disability can be acquired in an instant, through an accident, through a genetic quirk or, indeed, through the consequences of age. But we should not have in our society these strokes of fortune defining and limiting a person’s life. Acquiring an impairment should not sentence someone to a life of boredom, unemployment or discrimination. Disability in Australia should not mean internal exile. We are a rich nation which is capable of doing better than to be unable to answer the question posed by thousands of ageing carers: what will happen to my adult child when I die? Until our nation can provide an adequate answer our job is not done. Parents with a child diagnosed with autism or another global developmental delay should not be left alone to struggle with the challenge and the trauma of having a child diagnosed with special needs. They should not be forced to turn to Google to find out where to go next. And their children should not miss out on early intervention services which can improve their ability to learn at school, to interact with their peers and to hold down a job in later life.
Starting this year, the Productivity Commission will look into the costs, benefits and feasibility of approaches which provide essential care and support, on an entitlement basis, for eligible people with a severe or profound disability. It will look at a no-fault social insurance model reflecting the shared risk of disability across the population. Such a scheme will be a massive task to implement. It will have implications for our health system, our schools, medical negligence, and road accident and workers compensation schemes. The detail will be complex, but we have given the Productivity Commission the time and the tools to do the job properly. We have provided them with an advisory panel of eminent people to assist in all these matters. We have appointed an associate productivity commissioner, John Walsh, who has been researching these questions for a lifetime.
We are not a government that shies away from major reforms. Labor governments in the past have fought cynicism and opposition to introduce programs like Medicare and compulsory superannuation. The governments that introduced these schemes were told that they were too hard or impossible or too expensive, and I predict that we will hear, yet again, these arguments of ‘too expensive’, ‘too hard’ and ‘impossible’ and, for people with disability: ‘What can they expect? You can’t cure their disability, so there’s little that can be done.’ Yet we have schemes like Medicare and superannuation, which make us proud to be Australian, as bedrocks of our political system.
I suggest today, in discussing the appropriations bills, that a national disability insurance scheme would provide a better deal for people with disability. I believe that this is something we owe our fellow Australians with a disability, their families and carers, who struggle every day to pay bills, to get adequate care and to find work. I believe we owe it to the ever-ageing parents of needy children, who chew up the best years of their lives in ever-lengthening sacrifice. People do this not because they are saints but because they love their children, but we have too many people with disability living in what amounts, as I have said, to second-class exile in our country, which is still sometimes in denial of the existence of people with disability, their uniqueness, their numbers or, indeed, the cries of their hearts. There are things that many take for granted here in our nation: a job we like, a house we may own outright, retirement years in comfort as the respected elders of our community. Unfortunately, too many people with disability dare not hope for or even dream of those things—not in this lifetime.
The New South Wales government has introduced a scheme in recent years called the Lifetime Care and Support Scheme for people with serious motor vehicle injuries such as spinal cord damage, multiple amputations and burns. The New South Wales scheme pays for medical treatment, rehabilitation and care, including domestic help, child care and educational and vocational support. The scheme currently only benefits people injured in car accidents, but I believe it is an indication, a sign of hope, of what can be achieved if the political will is there.
The Rudd government is committed to social inclusion. We are committed to moving people with a disability from the margins to the centre of our society. We do this, I suggest, because we believe that it is not right for a wealthy nation in the 21st century to have people who are shut out and denied opportunities available to the rest of the population. But the argument for a national disability insurance scheme is not just moral; it is about responsible economic management, of productivity and of planning for the future of our ageing population. Australian governments spend approximately $20 billion a year on our disability welfare system. There is perhaps $8 billion to $9 billion spent on the disability support pension and another $4 billion spent on payments to family and carers. Another $8 billion is paid for community care and support providers across the federal and state governments and local government. When I look at some of the indirect costs of disability—the fact that nearly 20 per cent of the population of our jails are people who have an intellectual disability and the cost to the health system of disabilities diagnosed and treated too late—and when I look at the opportunity cost of two million Australians not having the opportunity to be productively engaged, I recognise that it is an economic issue.
It will be up to the Productivity Commission to crunch the numbers of an insurance scheme and look at competing models, but I believe it is common sense that a better system is one that intervenes early, that offers support before a problem becomes a crisis and that gets people into work where they can and want to. This system will actually save us a lot of money. We are still some years away from a final scheme. I know that the disability community is patient—they have had to be, sadly. The progress of disability rights in this country has been too stop-start, and my words take nothing away from the many accomplishments of many people who have accomplished much. There have been the efforts of hundreds and thousands of committed activists, people with disability and their families, winning one small victory at a time to get us to where we are today. But these people are tired and they need our assistance. They need the assistance of the mighty Australian society.
The Rudd government is committed to policies that will rethink the way we support people with disability, not just putting money into a system that is not coping but big game-changing ideas like a national disability insurance scheme. I believe the Productivity Commission study will be the most important breakthrough, potentially, in disability in a generation. It starts to tackle the fundamental problems of disability, which are poverty and powerlessness. We recognise that it is inevitable that profound and serious disabilities could afflict any of us at any time, through birth, accident, disease or old age. I think it is one of the tasks of our civilised society, which we claim and aspire to be, that we determine how best to ensure that those who are struck by a disability are given that measure of security, of freedom from fear and of hope for the future that should be their birthright as Australians; that our society can move from looking at the person’s impairment to looking at the person’s ability and including them with all of us.
Debate (on motion by Ms George) adjourned.