The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the member for Port Adelaide has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.
I am pleased this morning to speak on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Abolition of Limited Merits Review) Bill 2017. But the first question is: how in the world did we get into this mess? How did a nation that's one of the world's leading exporters of coal, gas and uranium, one of the most energy rich nations in the world, a nation that used to enjoy the world's lowest cost electricity, get into a mess where we now have some of the highest electricity costs in the entire world? In fact, in South Australia, they've actually managed to achieve that proud title. South Australia, as unbelievable as it may seem, actually has higher energy costs than places like Denmark and Germany. The world champion, the gold medal winner for the world's highest electricity prices, is South Australia—and yet, here we are, one of the wealthiest and energy-rich countries in the world. We have average households struggling to pay their power bills. We've had a record number—more than a doubling—of households having their electricity cut off, and no more than in South Australia. Their power has been disconnected totally so when they walk home and try to flick the switches on in their house, they simply have nothing.
We have tens of thousands more on payment plans because of the high cost of electricity. We have many who have had to go back to the good old days. In winter, they wear extra clothes and rely on firewood to keep their homes warm. In summer, we have people who abandon their houses because they can't afford to turn their air-conditioning on and they basically go and camp out in shopping centres during the day—this in the richest country for energy in the world.
In the decades and, in fact, in the centuries to come, how we got into this mess will be studied in economics in universities around the world. They will sit there and they will scratch their heads about how we achieved this. One of the reasons that we've achieved this is something that goes under the name of the Renewable Energy Target. When I say 'goes under the name', that is actually an Orwellian name, because it's not a target. It is a compulsory, enforced government mandate. It is enforced by the threat of a government penalty—an extra fine, an extra tax levied on top of electricity retailers in this nation if they do not acquire the correct number of renewable energy certificates. So it's not a target, nor is it about energy; it is only about electricity.
In our market, electricity only contributes about one-third of our carbon dioxide emissions. The so-called Renewable Energy Target has nothing to do with the energy that drives our trucking fleet, passenger cars, aviation or farm equipment. It has nothing to do with the gas that people use to heat their homes or cook with or that industries use. The so-called Renewable Energy Target is actually only about electricity, and it's not about things being renewable, because renewables certainly ain't renewable.
When you look at the coming problems that we have with wind turbine blade waste, around the world it's estimated there will be millions and millions of tonnes of wind turbine blades—which are made up of composite resins, polyesters and fibres—that simply cannot be recycled. Millions of tonnes worth of these so-called renewables will need to be buried in landfill. It is the same thing with solar panels. Solar panels only have a life of 10 to 15 years—so much for their being called renewable. In the near future, the solar panels that were previously rolled out under generous state government subsidies will start to mount up, broken and disused. We'll have to bury millions of useless, broken solar panels in landfill around the country.
What is the cost of this policy? We've had The Australian, to their great credit, recently add up some of the costs and they came to a sum of $60 billion. By 2030, the Renewable Energy Target and various other schemes that this federal government has implemented on both sides of the House will cost $60 billion. That's around $2,500 for every single man, woman and child in this country. At $2,500 per person, the average household of four is looking at a cost of something around $10,000.
This is only the federal government cost. On top of that, we have the state government costs. We know the cost of their jurisdictional feed-in schemes. Last year they added $772 million to consumers' electricity bills. These schemes are nothing more than a reverse Robin Hood—taking from the poor, forcing up their electricity prices, and giving to the rich, green people. Take the Grattan Institute's report into solar energy titled Sundown, sunrise: how Australia can finally get solar power right. They said:
By the time the subsidies finally run out, households and businesses that have not installed solar PV—
mainly the lowest income earners in this nation—
will have spent more than $14 billion subsidising households that have.
It is a $14 billion reverse Robin Hood. They concluded:
… lavish government subsidies plus the structure of electricity network tariffs means that the cost of solar PV take-up has outweighed the benefits by almost $10 billion.
They are just the costs of the direct subsidies. They're also the costs of the hidden subsidies—the additional costs on the network of hooking all these new wind farms and solar panels up to the grid.
We know that in western Victoria, where there are plans to put more wind farms in, the cost to improve the grid to enable that is over $1 billion. That cost simply goes on to household bills. But the real cost is the cost of the hidden subsidies and the distortion of the market—the distortion that artificially forces dispatchable power out of the market and replaces it, by a forced government mandate, with intermittent and unreliable sources of power. This distorts the entire market. We have seen promises on the cost of wholesale electricity—and if someone comes to you and starts talking about the price of wholesale electricity, either they do not know what they are talking about or they are a spiv that is trying to con you, because the cost of wholesale electricity is only one component. All the experts told us that, if we have this renewable energy target, the cost of wholesale electricity will go down. It hasn't gone down; it's doubled. We have a cost of wholesale electricity at the moment of over $100 a megawatt hour.
What most Australians don't understand is that the renewable energy target ratchets up year after year after year, to 2020. This is because of the requirement we put upon the electricity retailers to purchase renewable energy certificates. Those renewable energy certificates are generated by wind farms, for example. When they generate one megawatt hour of electricity they are entitled to create one renewable energy certificate. A certain quantity of those certificates must be purchased by the electricity retailers. Last year the requirement we had was that over 21 million certificates had to be bought. This year, 2017, it has jumped up to 26 million certificates that need to be bought. The current market price of those certificates is over $80 per megawatt hour each. If you simply do the sums—$80 per megawatt hour for each certificate by 26 million—you come up with something in excess of $2 billion. That is the cost that is added to the price of consumers' electricity. Next year we require the retailers to buy 28 million certificates, and the year after it will be 31 million certificates. By 2021 we will require them to purchase another 33 million certificates. On from there, from 2021 to the year 2030, we will require them to still purchase 33 million renewable energy certificates every single year. So, over the next decade, that is 333 million certificates that must be purchased by the electricity retailers, which will simply push up the price of electricity to consumers in this nation.
The problem that we have in the market is that we do not have enough dispatchable power, but you must have dispatchable power at least in excess of your peak demand. We have seen coal-fired power generators closed down—in fact, not only closed down but blown up by state Labor governments. If you were fighting in a war, the first thing you'd do would be try to target and blow up your enemy's coal-fired power stations. We have Labor governments in Australia that have that as a policy, and that is the reason we're short of dispatchable power. There has simply been no incentive for business to put more money into investment to replace that dispatchable power, because of mad policies like the renewable energy target. So we're left with a shortage.
And why won't business invest? They say, 'Certainty.' Who is going to invest and put their capital into a coal-fire generating power station that needs a return over at least 20, 30 or 40 years? By then they'll know there is a chance of some mad, left-wing, Green-Labor government that potentially could get into office and sit on the this side of the House and pull the rug from underneath them. We see complete and utter confusion from Labor on this point. We look at the amendment moved by the member for Port Adelaide. He talks about a national energy policy causing an investment strike in new electricity generation—an 'investment strike in new electricity generation'! Yet, in the same speech he talks about the renewable energy target underpinning substantial investment in the electricity market. He doesn't seem to know whether he's Arthur or Martha. It shows Labor don't understand it or they're misleading the Australian public.
There is ample investment in more unreliable and intermittent power in this nation—something like $6 billion worth of investment is underway now—but that's not what the market needs. The market needs investment in dispatchable power, which you can turn on with the push of a switch. We have the member for Port Adelaide saying that coal is a legacy technology. Let's pray that this shadow minister is never the minister for energy in this country. He talks about coal as a legacy technology—maybe he should tell that to the Chinese with their 28,000 megawatts of coal-fired generation under construction; or the Indians with 176,000; the Turks with 69,000 megawatts; the Indonesians with 46,000 megawatts under active development; or the Japanese with 43 new coal-fired power stations. (Time expired)
In summing up, I thank all members for their contribution to the debate on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Abolition of Limited Merits Review) Bill 2017. The legislative package will amend the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to abolish the limited merits review regime. However, information disclosure decisions made by the Australian Energy Regulator, the Economic Regulation Authority of Western Australia and the Australian Energy Market Operator will not be included in the amendments and will still be subject to the limited merits review to prevent the Australian Competition Tribunal from reviewing certain decisions under the national energy laws and to ensure that decisions made by the Australian Energy Regulator under those laws are not subject to merits review by any state or territory body. This is intended to prevent energy network businesses from using this appeal mechanism to increase their regulated revenue, which results in increasing costs to consumers.
Since it was introduced in 2008, the limited merits review regime has enabled around $6.5 billion more to be passed on to consumers than would have been the case if the Australian energy regulator's decisions had been upheld. Not once has an appeal by a network business delivered lower costs for consumers. A strong regulator is the best way to reduce pressure on network costs, which make up around half of the average electricity bill. We will be providing an additional $67.4 million to the Australian Energy Regulator to empower the regulator to put downward pressure on energy prices. The government is committed to reducing pressure on energy prices through the introduction of this bill. I commend the bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Port Adelaide has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question now is that the amendment be agreed to.
Question negatived.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I move:
That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House condemns the Government for pushing ahead with its agenda that will worsen inequality, including increasing penalties for sympathy strikes to hundreds of times the size of other industrial action penalties."
It is timely for this House to be debating competition policy given the increasing concern internationally about the impact of rising market concentration on growing inequality around the world. The importance of competition policy has not always been appreciated by the economics profession. In a recent speech, Rod Sims quoted from a number of doyens of the economics profession, including Milton Friedman, who was sceptical of the role that antitrust has to play. But, as he noted, the economics profession has come around on that issue.
The notion that firms will always demand a competitive environment in which to operate is not borne out by the evidence. Indeed, one only has to look to the strategy literature to see precisely that. In his speech, Rod Sims quoted from perhaps the most famous paper in the strategy literature, Michael Porter's 1979 Harvard Business Review piece, 'How competitive forces shape strategy', in which Professor Porter laid out five focuses of firms that will drive commercial success: 'erect high entry barriers', 'keep suppliers weak and dispersed', 'reduce competition', 'curb buyer power—for example, with high loyalty' and 'reduce the likelihood of substitutes'. In other words, as Rod Sims notes, competition policy equals corporate strategy multiplied by minus one.
The Economist magazine has recently analysed the extent of market concentration in the United States across 900-odd sectors, comparing concentration in 1997 with concentration in 2012. They found that the weighted share of the top four firms in each sector had risen from 26 per cent to 32 per cent. Inspired by their analysis, last year Adam Triggs and I published a paper in The Australian Economic Review, 'Markets, monopolies and moguls: the relationship between inequality and competition', in which we used private market research data to estimate the degree of market concentration across 481 industries. We found that the largest four firms controlled 36 per cent of the market—a higher degree of market concentration than in the United States. In a number of industries, the big four controlled more than 80 per cent of the market, including department stores, newspapers, banking, health insurance, supermarkets, domestic airlines, internet service providers, baby food and beer.
The impact of this emerging research on the growth of market concentration has been significant within the economics profession. As The Economist noted on 12 April this year:
ONE sign that monopolies are a problem in America is that the University of Chicago has just held a summit on the threat that they may pose to the world’s biggest economy. Until recently, convening a conference supporting antitrust concerns in the Windy City was like holding a symposium on sobriety in New Orleans. In the 1970s economists from the "Chicago school" argued that big firms were not a threat to growth and prosperity. Their views went mainstream, which led courts and regulators to adopt a relaxed attitude towards antitrust laws for decades.
But the mood is changing. There is an emerging consensus among economists that competition in the economy has weakened significantly.
Increasingly, researchers are suggesting this is not just a problem for growth but also a problem for equity with the increase in market concentration potentially behind the rise in the profit share, the fall in the labour share, stagnant wage growth, and sluggish research and development and productivity statistics. Indeed, the overall rise in inequality has been well documented and the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Treasurer and many others on the Labor side have spoken about it.
With regard to the Competition and Consumer Amendement (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017, Labor opposes schedule 6 and supports the remaining 13 schedules. Were the government to remove schedule 6 from this bill, Labor would support it in this House and in the other place. The bill is largely uncontroversial. It flows from a panel led by Professor Ian Harper that was commissioned in 2014 and reported in March 2015. It has been 2½ years since the Harper review was handed to the government, and the parliament could have acted with much greater alacrity to implement the recommendations. As the shadow Treasurer has made clear, Labor engaged constructively with the Harper review throughout and would have been happy to support these recommendations in 2015 when the Harper review finished its work. We won't be supporting schedule 6 of the bill since that schedule proposes to increase the maximum penalty for breaches of secondary boycott provisions—also known as sympathy strikes—from $750,000 to $10 million. I will detail later in my remarks the reason that Labor won't be supporting this largely industrial relations measure.
Labor has been the party of competition for decades. We recognise that competition means lower prices, higher wages and better-quality products for Australian families. It brings about a more productive and innovative economy and increases the standard of living. Labor backs competition law because Labor backs the little guy. We believe in an economy in which start-ups are able to break into new markets. For us, supporting competition is about supporting consumers over vested interests. It is about supporting the little guy over the rent seekers.
Labor introduced the Trade Practices Act in 1974. Prior to that, there was no act of parliament dedicated to competition matters. The original act is now known as the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and remains the backbone of competition law in Australia. Under Prime Minister Keating, Professor Fred Hilmer was commissioned to chair a comprehensive review into competition policy. The Hilmer report set the agenda for the next two decades of competition policy reform in Australia. The Grattan Institute has described national competition policy as one of 10 big reforms which has underpinned recent decades of strong economic growth in Australia. The Productivity Commission found that the reforms from the Hilmer review led to a significant and permanent increase in Australia's economic capacity.
Under the Rudd and Gillard governments, further changes were made to competition and consumer policy settings. The introduction of the Australian Consumer Law in 2011 was a cooperative reform between the states, territories and the Commonwealth government that created a consistent approach to a range of consumer issues, such as unfair contract terms, consumer rights and product safety.
Labor went to the last election with a suite of policies to strengthen the Competition and Consumer Act, including increasing the penalties for anticompetitive and anticonsumer conduct—one of which we're pleased to see was picked up in the government's budget this year—and to use some of the additional revenues generated by those higher penalties to increase the competition watchdog's litigation budget from $24.5 million to a maximum of twice that level. We welcome the government's budget announcement, as I said, but we urge the government to adopt policies that are in line with international best practice, such as making fines for anticompetitive conduct referable to total turnover.
Labor is also committed to giving the competition watchdog a completely independent market studies function, which would allow the competition watchdog to use investigatory powers to look at particular industries, rather than waiting for a reference from the government on a sector such as the electricity distribution industry. This market studies power would help the ACCC identify competition challenges before they become systemic. Labor criminalised cartels back in 2009 and, prior to that, this form of white-collar crime was merely a civil offence. We did so because, again, it brought Australia in line with international best practice.
Labor understands that reducing barriers to entry and protecting consumers is fundamental to a stronger economy. We have consulted widely to ensure that this bill does not water down cartel provisions. We certainly don't want legitimate joint ventures to be unintentionally prohibited by the cartel provisions under the act. This bill broadens the exemption so that it covers not just contracts but also agreements and understandings. The bill also extends the joint venture exemption to include provisions that are 'for the purposes of and reasonably necessary for undertaking the joint venture' and extends the exemption to the acquisition of goods and services, not just the production of goods and services.
Another measure worthy of special consideration is the introduction of a reasonable search defence. Labor's consulted widely to ensure this measure wouldn't allow companies or individuals under investigation to use this defence in refusing or failing to comply with a compulsory information request by the competition watchdog under section 155. Section 155 is the foundation of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's ability to investigate alleged breaches of the act.
Labor is also committed to ensuring that sensible measures in this bill receive bipartisan support. Schedule 1 of the bill, which Labor will be supporting, defines 'competition' to include competition from goods and services that are capable of being imported, in addition to those actually imported. The ACCC says it already considers potential imports, so this change merely provides greater clarity than any substantive alteration to the law. We support schedule 2, the changes to the cartel conduct provisions, which I've mentioned already. Confining the application of the provisions to cartel conduct affecting competition in Australian markets is a logical reform which reinforces other parts of the act to prevent extraterritorial application. We support schedule 3, dealing with concerted practice; and creating a new offence in section 45, prohibiting a corporation from engaging in a concerted practice that has the purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition. Section 45 continues to also prohibit making, arriving at or giving effect to a contract, agreement or understanding with a purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition.
As recommended by the Harper review, 'concerted' isn't defined because it has a clear and practical meaning. However, there is more information in the explanatory memorandum. An example of concerted practice would be where petrol stations communicate their prices to each other whereby—short of creating a contract, arrangement or understanding—a common practice develops where they then set their prices in unison. A recent academic study into the Perth petrol markets suggests that this kind of behaviour may be increasingly widespread in a big-data era.
Schedules 3 and 4 repeal provisions on price signalling and exclusionary provisions—and Labor will be supporting them—as those provisions are made redundant because of the introduction of the above concerted practice offence. Exclusionary provisions are defined as an actual or proposed contract, arrangement or understanding between competitors where the provision has the purpose of preventing, restricting or limiting supplies of goods and services to, or acquisitions from, particular persons or classes of persons. The concerted practice provisions capture this conduct and prohibit it across all industries. The existing price signalling provisions apply only to the banking sector. They were introduced by Labor in 2012 and relate to the private disclosure of pricing information to a competitor on a per se basis and the general disclosure of information where the purpose of the disclosure is to substantially lessen competition in the market. The concerted practice provisions capture this conduct and prohibit it across all industries—not just banking.
We support schedule 5, which deals with covenants affecting competition, simplifies the act by defining 'contract' and 'party' to include covenants. This allows for the repeal of redundant provisions which separately deal with covenants. I'll return in a moment to schedule 6, which Labor opposes. Schedule 7, which Labor supports, deals with third-line forcing—effectively, the behaviour of saying, 'I'll sell you this pen as long as you buy the ink from my sister.' It is prohibited per se, meaning that it's prohibited regardless of its effect on competition. Schedule 7 changes this, such that third-line forcing is only prohibited when it has the purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition, which is consistent with other parts of the act and other jurisdictions.
Schedule 8, which Labor supports, deals with resale price maintenance and the supply of goods on the condition that goods not be sold below a price specified by the supplier. Currently, a supplier can seek an authorisation from the ACCC to engage in conduct that would otherwise be prohibited as resale price maintenance when it is in the public interest. The Harper review noted that the seeking of such authorisation is seldom done due to cost and delay and that notification is generally a quicker and less expensive means of obtaining an exemption and is available for other forms of vertical restriction.
Schedule 9, which Labor supports, consolidates the ACCC's various authorisation provisions, including those relating to mergers, into a single authorisation process. It also grants the ACCC a class exemption power, which allows it to provide its usual exemption but across a class of kinds of conduct rather than individually. It also allows the ACCC to impose conditions on notifications for resale price maintenance. Schedule 9 allows the ACCC to impose conditions on notifications for collective boycotts and to introduce a stop notice requiring collective boycott conduct that is the subject of a notification to cease. Schedule 9 also provides for tribunal review of merger authorisation decisions made by the ACCC, and Labor supports that.
Schedule 10 deals with admissions of fact and allows a party bringing certain proceedings under the act to rely on admissions of fact, in addition to findings of fact, made in other proceedings. This makes it easier for parties to bring proceedings under the act and provides clarity in an area that was particularly unclear. Schedule 11 extends the ACCC's power to obtain information, documents and evidence in section 155 to cover investigations of alleged contraventions of court enforceable undertakings and merger authorisation determinations. This has been a gap in the ACCC's powers and is strongly supported by Labor. The bill also introduces a reasonable search defence. Stakeholders in our consultations have assured us that this would not allow companies and individuals under investigation to use this defence in refusing or failing to comply with a compulsory information request by the ACCC under section 155. The bill also increases the fine from noncompliance with section 155.
Schedule 12 amends provisions relating to the National Access Regime, which allows access to nationally significant infrastructure services. The bill's aim is to make it easier to access infrastructure to compete in the provision of services. Its changes include that the declaration criteria that must be considered by the council and minister are contained in a single section; the promotion of public interest in access declarations; and that the minister is taken to have accepted the council's recommendation if he or she doesn't publish a decision on the declaration with the 60-day limit. Schedule 13 inserts a new division 3 into part XIII of the act, which deals with the transitional application of amendments made by a number of other schedules, and schedule 14 includes eight minor amendments, which Labor will be supporting.
I return now to schedule 6—which Labor will not be supporting—which deals with secondary boycotts. Those who are familiar with this issue will know that it has a long history. Following the 1974 introduction of the Trade Practices Act by the Whitlam government, the Fraser government came to power and, with then Treasurer John Howard, introduced section 45D and later section 45E into the Trade Practices Act. Those sections outlawed secondary boycotts, also known as sympathy strikes, and were particularly targeted at trade unions. The Hawke government attempted to repeal sections 45D and 45E in 1984, but the legislation was defeated in the Senate. The Hawke government's view was that these were essentially industrial matters, best resolved through specialist industrial courts or tribunals rather than through competition law and the competition regulator. The repeal attempt was defeated in the Senate, as I said, in 1984, and another attempt by the Hawke government to repeal these provisions was dropped in 1987.
In 1993 the Keating government repealed secondary boycott provisions, modified section 45D and deleted section 45E. The effect of the amendment to section 45D was that the prohibition covering secondary boycotts in the Trade Practices Act was restricted to boycotts that involved a substantial lessening of competition. Other secondary boycott provisions were re-enacted in a much modified form in the Industrial Relations Act of 1988, which limited the operation of the prohibitions on secondary boycott actions and made relief available only if conciliation of the dispute was first attempted through the commission. The effect of this was that, if an employer wanted to commence legal action in respect of a secondary boycott, they had to first go through the conciliation and arbitration process.
Sadly, however, the Howard government, in 1996, introduced the Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Act, which reformed enterprise bargaining, removing secondary boycott provisions from industrial relations legislation and returning them to the Trade Practices Act.
A secondary boycott, as members will be aware, involves one person in concert with another person engaging in conduct that hinders or prevents a third person from supplying or acquiring goods and services to or from a fourth person. Schedule 6 of this bill attempts to increase the penalty for breaching those provisions from $750,000 to $10 million. International Labour Organization convention No. 87 says that sympathy strikes should be permitted, provided the original industrial action was lawful. The International Labour Organization has indeed turned its attention specifically to Australian law and noted that the prohibition of secondary boycotts in Australian law is beyond what they regard as permissible prohibitions. The higher penalties would move Australia even further away from international best practice.
Unsurprisingly, as befits this government's agenda, secondary boycott laws are typically used against unions that engage in sympathy strikes. They are not as prevalent as they have been in the past, which makes one wonder what the policy case for higher penalties might be. There has been one instance of the ACCC undertaking action on secondary boycotts in the last decade.
This is a move that would put Australia out of step with international best practice. I mentioned previously the criminalising of cartels and Labor's move to increase penalties for anticonsumer conduct and anticompetitive conduct—these have all been done in the knowledge that Australia was out of step with international best practice. But international best practice would not see us increase the penalties on secondary boycotts; indeed, quite the opposite. For more than four decades Labor has held the view that secondary boycotts are primarily an industrial issue rather than a competition issue, and that is reflected in the legislative history to which I have referred.
It is worth, therefore, comparing the penalties that the government proposes to impose on sympathy strikes to penalties for unprotected industrial relations activity under the Fair Work Act 2009. The maximum penalty there is 60 penalty units, which is $12,600. If schedule 6 of this bill were to become law, the maximum penalty for a secondary boycott would be nearly 800 times higher than the maximum penalty for unprotected industrial action. We can also compare this to the proposed penalties associated with noncompliance with a section 155 order—20 penalty unites, $4,200. Yet the government thinks that a $10 million penalty is appropriate for a sympathy strike.
The government is pushing ahead with measures that will not improve competition in Australia. We've got the government at the moment still pushing ahead with an effects test, with their proposed changes to section 46. In the words of Peter Costello:
The so-called effects test is designed to protect competitors, particularly less efficient ones, from a competitive challenge.
Since 1974, 10 of the 12 inquiries into Australian competition laws have considered the proposal of an effects test and rejected it. In submissions to the Harper review, an effects test has been described as 'legally unworkable', something that will 'chill competition' and something that 'will create uncertainty for business'. That's why, when an effects test came to the cabinet, the now Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, argued against it, as did other colleagues, including Senator Brandis and, we're told, Senator Cormann. The attempt to put in place an effects test is the National Party tail wagging the Liberal Party dog. This is not good competition reform. This is a smokescreen attempt to suggest that the Turnbull government are serious about competition.
If they were serious about competition, they would be supporting Labor's small-business access-to-justice reforms. Those reforms recently passed the Senate, and we believe that, now that they have passed the Senate, they should come before the House of Representatives for a vote. Labor's access-to-justice proposal will overcome the basic problem that small business have when considering whether they have the ability to take on anticompetitive conduct by the big guys. They're willing to pay their own legal costs but what they're scared about is the prospect that, if they lose, they could be bankrupted by an adverse costs order—that they might have to pay for the armada of QCs engaged by the big end of town.
Labor's access-to-justice bill allows court cases in the public interest to seek a no-adverse-costs order from the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. Such an order would allow the litigant to go ahead in the public interest, knowing that, if they lose, they'll pay their own costs but not those of the other side. This would supplement the work that's being done by the ACCC. Having private parties litigate breaches of the competition law in the public interest is indeed a pro-small-business measure. It's rumoured that there are many within the National Party who support Labor's access-to-justice reforms, who recognise that to support access to justice is to support small business. That's why many small-business organisations, and the Ombudsman, have come out supporting Labor's position on access to justice. An effects test will simply create additional confusion. Access to justice will create new powers for small business, to level the playing field.
In conclusion, Labor supports good competition policy reform. We are the party of competition law. We are the party that recognises the market concentration challenge that Australia faces today and that is dragging down the productivity and the equity of the Australian economy. We are the party that has constantly been proposing constructive solutions to rein in monopolies and ensure that the Australian economy operates as productively as possible. But we will not support the attempt, under the cover of competition reform, by the government to further attack unions. The attack on unions through the massive increase in penalties for sympathy strikes doesn't make our economy more productive, but it is to be expected from a government which has supported cutting penalty rates for up to 700,000 Australians in the retail, hospitality, fast-food and pharmacy sectors. Despite some positive signs on wage growth in the last quarter, these sectors have seen sluggish wage growth over recent years.
In an environment of sluggish wage growth, Australians don't need further laws that will demonise unions, because we know from careful economic studies that unions are one of the strongest forces for equity in the labour market. A study by Jeff Borland suggests that about a third of the rise in Australian inequality over recent decades can be attributed to the declining share of unions. Other work in the United Kingdom by John Pencavel and Richard Freeman and others in the United States have shown a similar picture: an attack on unions is an attack on equity.
Labor will stand up for penalty rates and will stand up for working Australians. Labor will stand up for Australian egalitarianism. At the same time, we have a government that is denying that Australia even has an inequality problem. No wonder, if you deny that Australia has an inequality problem, you look to bash the representatives of working people. Labor will oppose schedule 6 of this bill and, unless it is removed, we will vote against the bill.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
The original question was that this bill now be read a time. To this the honourable member for Fenner has moved an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House, I will state the question in the form that the amendment be agreed to. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.
I actually rise to support the government's changes to the Competition and Consumer Act as defined by the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017. It's interesting to hear the previous member talk about studies and all sorts of other things. I can talk about a lived experience, because it was the actual access to justice issue that helped to bring me into this place through a lived experience, not through some study. That is why competition policy and this bill is so important to small businesses just like my own. As someone who owns and built—absolutely built—a small business from the ground up, part of the reason that I came to this place was the access to justice issue and that is why I support the government's bill. We were typical of the majority of small businesses right around Australia.
We actually bought our first business, a dairy farm, on the day that we got married. Yes, it was run-down. Yes, it had very little infrastructure, and it had a pretty mixed old herd. And, of course, it was tough going. We lived in two army huts joined together, and the simple economics of it were very interesting for us. We received about $2,000 a month, and our interest and payments were $1,300 a month. We basically had to grow a business, do all the development and live with that income. We bought this on the day we got married with just $12,000 worth of equity between us. We had $118,000 worth of debt. We took a huge risk as two young people—I was 18 and he was 21. I would really like a dollar for everyone who laughed at us and for everyone who said we would go broke and fail.
But like most small-business owners know only too well: it takes courage; it takes debt, as the great motivator; and it takes sleepless nights. This is the real lived experience—not a study. It takes those sleepless nights wondering how you're going to pay your bills and getting up to calve cows in the middle of the night, especially when at the time interest rates went from 17 per cent to 23 per cent. It takes hard work over many, many years. This is not a short-term investment when you're a small-business person. And, in fact, it was actually a separate contract hay-baling round, that my husband did in between milkings—with me raking and at times baling and mowing hay, as well as my husband—that kept us afloat. In fact, it was eight years before my husband and I could actually afford a holiday.
The Competition and Consumer Act was called the Trade Practices Act at that time. I saw immediately how competition, or the lack thereof, affected our business. We sold culled cows and sometimes dairy store cattle at the cattle sales. There was a limited number of buyers and they would frequently decide well in advance of the sale which pens of cattle each would buy and, therefore, they would not compete with each other. This of course meant that we, as the sellers, received far less than we should have in what should have been an open and fair marketplace. They were even brazen enough in those days to call out across the pens as to whose turn it was to buy and to not bid on my pen.
I learnt very early as a dairy farmer in a regulated environment. I learnt that government decisions had a major impact on my business, which is why I got so involved early. Following deregulation of the industry in 2000, there was the vulnerability of being a producer of one of the most perishable products in what is a majority domestic market in WA, with very few buyers and a lot of sellers. One thing I learnt was that we actually had no bargaining power. In fact, we became absolute price-takers, as we see today with current contracts. That's why measures in this bill continue to be so important. As chair and a member of Dairy Western Australia, we worked with dairy farmers to set up a milk negotiating agency, with the voluntary membership of the same dairy farmers. We applied to the ACCC for authorisation through a collective bargaining process. What blew me away was the attitude of the ACCC at that time. I remember vividly a meeting in Perth. I walked in to present the case for around 300 dairy farmers. I was really concerned about the need to change the ACCC because their disdain was palpable. A comment was made that they were particularly disappointed with the submission by me and Dairy WA because they'd previously had an inquiry into Air New Zealand and Qantas and expected something along those lines. I was representing a group of dairy farmers who were going through very tough times. I reminded the ACCC that they were small business people and that this was the best that we could do. When we walked out of that meeting, I knew that we were done. Our plans to set up the agency and then potentially attract manufacturing and export investment simply would not happen because, not surprisingly, the ACCC said that the action would substantially affect competition, and they refused to let us set up a milk negotiating agency.
I look at where the dairy industry in WA is today. Three farmers were put out of business last year when their contracts were not renewed: Graham Manning, Tony Ferraro and Dale Hanks. I wonder where the industry would have been today had the ACCC approved the application that we made back in 2005. I would suggest it would look entirely different. To add insult to injury, I presented to the ACCC some information about breaches to the Trade Practices Act that made us even more vulnerable, which is why I support so strongly the work of the government on this bill. There were four breaches of the Trade Practices Act that included third-line forcing. At the time, they were not acted on. One very salutary lesson for me was the fact that one of the processors who gave me information about what was actually going on in the marketplace with their interaction wouldn't meet me unless it could be at a parking lot in Perth where there were no cameras. That told me a lot about where we were as an industry, and that is why we need the changes that the government is making.
I note that the Harper review considered that secondary boycotts had not been vigorously enforced by the ACCC compared with other offences. In fact, the Harper review stated that, as with all competition laws, the secondary boycott laws will only act as a deterrent to unlawful behaviour if the laws are enforced consistently and effectively, which is what the government is intending to do.
I'm counting on the ACCC to be a completely different entity today. It has moved on—and with a lot of action from this government. I want to see the ACCC actually focused on small business. I'm looking forward to some very strong recommendations from their current inquiry into the competitiveness of prices, trading practices and the supply chain in the Australian dairy industry. And, of course, it is subject to intense focus by my dairy farmers. There are a number of the inquiry considerations that they'll be very interested in, such as: the nature of competition between processors for both acquisition of raw milk and supply of processed milk and dairy products; the nature of the commercial relationship between dairy producers and acquirers of raw milk; the terms on which raw milk is acquired from dairy producers and the means by which such terms are agreed; and the existence of, or potential for, anticompetitive conduct and the possible impacts of any such conduct on businesses in the supply and dairy chain.
I want to talk, also, about other measures that this government is taking, not just the measures within this bill that I support. The government set up the Office of the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman—not the Labor Party but our government set this up—as an independent advocate for small businesses like my own that went through those challenges. It supports small business efforts to be innovative, to employ and to thrive. That's what it should be about. That's what this agency is about. The key principles of a fair and competitive trading framework is exactly what I want to see as a small business owner and someone who has built a business.
One of the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman's principles is adequate access to justice for small business where there is likely to be a significant imbalance of bargaining power. I look at the assistance, the pre-mediation and the alternative dispute resolution available through that office. It is looking at the payment times and practices inquiry, the small-business loans inquiry and, of course, the impact of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal payments order. This had a huge impact—the RSRT—on small businesses in my electorate. I saw so many small businesses in absolute dire straits. These are small, family-owned enterprises.
What were some of the key findings of the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman's inquiry? One was that the payments order resulted in owner-drivers in the long-distance and supermarket distribution sectors being made uncompetitive. There was uncertainty and anxiety for owner-drivers about the impact of these. They were extremely complex and had a short implementation time. I note, with great regret and sympathy, that it was reported to the inquiry that some owner-drivers who found they were unable to cope with further hardship caused by the payments order took their own lives. When we talk about the real world of how decisions made in this place actually impact on small-business people and individuals, there is no greater indication than this one.
I want to thank every small-business owner, particularly those owner truck drivers, who came out and supported us while, often, under significant pressure from unions. And there was significant pressure from unions on those small-business owners at the time. They had courage—the courage that it took them to actually start their own business in the first place, invest and mortgage their home. And they've been consistent in their efforts ever since. They understand exactly that it is this coalition government, the Turnbull government, that stood up for small businesses in the RSRT issue. It was a very significant one, putting small business owners actually out of business and worse. I saw so many of them in my electorate, and I want to acknowledge the work they do as a transport industry. We take them for granted, but they are small businesses who do it tough and who are on the road. And, basically, Australia pretty well runs on the back of the trucks of those small business owners, and I want to acknowledge their efforts. I also want to, again, support the measures that the government is taking with this bill.
Small business is a key part of the reason the amendments in this bill are so important. As I have said, from personal experience and from building and developing a small business and facing the challenges that go with it, I want to acknowledge every small business out there that is investing and that is having a go. They know that this government is there supporting them through the changes in this bill.
I am speaking in support of the second reading amendment moved by the member for Fenner in relation to the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017. Labor support the majority of the schedules contained in this important legislation; however, we do oppose schedule 6, which seeks to increase the maximum penalty for breach of secondary boycott provisions by a substantial, and we would say unreasonable, amount.
Labor, of course, is the party of competition. It was the Whitlam government that introduced the first Trade Practices Act into Australian law in 1974. That reform was brought in with the aim of promoting competition and producing productivity and efficiency outcomes in our economy. The aim was to prevent monopolistic and cartel behaviour that was stifling competition in numerous Australian markets. It was also to prohibit practices and policies which reduce competition in a market.
So it was a Labor government that established the foundations for competition policy in this country and it has been successive Labor governments, after the Whitlam government, that have built on that competition legacy. Probably the most important reforms in modernising our economy and promoting productivity, efficiency and competition were introduced by the Keating government, when Prime Minister Paul Keating commissioned Fred Hilmer to review Australia's competition policies. This led to massive sweeping reforms in a number of industries, but particularly in aviation, banking and financial services, and utilities, most notably in electricity by the establishment of the east coast electricity market. These have laid the foundations for decades of successive and uninterrupted economic growth in Australia.
This was again built upon by the Rudd and Gillard governments in 2011, when they instituted a wholesale reform—an overview of Australia's consumer law through a COAG process. The aim of that was to harmonise Australia's consumer and competition laws, to produce a consistent national approach when it came to consumer issues associated with unfair contracts, consumer rights, product safety and of course competition reform. Those laws and those changes criminalised cartel conduct, which up until that particular point in time in 2009 had been a civil penalty. They also brought Australia into line with international best practice that mandated jail time for people and organisations that were caught fixing prices through unfair and uncompetitive behaviour and also through cartel conduct.
When it comes to competition policy and ensuring that we're promoting competition and efficiency in markets, those opposite tend to have a different approach and a different philosophy to the Labor Party. They seek to use this platform of competition review and reform as a means of reducing wages, working conditions and safety in particular industries in Australia. They've used competition laws as a smokescreen for reforms to what essentially are workplace laws and worker health and safety laws. They have used this to reduce collective bargaining rights and collective action in support of fair incomes and safe workplaces. The way they do it—and it's not just this government; there have been successive Liberal coalition governments in the past—is by seeking to have secondary boycott provisions within Australia's competition and consumer laws when they probably rightfully should be within workplace relations legislation. When they have it in this particular piece of legislation, they massively increase the penalties. That is what schedule 6 of this bill does today, by introducing, quite simply, unreasonable and unrealistic penalties for breaches of secondary boycott provisions.
It's all to do with their core philosophy of making life harder for workers and their families. We've seen this over recent years with the policies that have been introduced by this government and their recent support for cuts to penalty rates for weekend workers in Australia. This is the Turnbull government that's stood by and done absolutely nothing when it comes to ensuring that workers' penalty rates for working on Sundays in retail and hospitality industries are protected. Malcolm Turnbull, the member for Wentworth, as Prime Minister, could have stepped in and supported Labor's bills to stop cuts to penalty rates but chose not to. They've sought to restrict collective bargaining in workplaces. They seek to restrict union rights to enter workplaces and they seek to introduce unreasonable and unrealistic penalties that are not internationally consistent for breaches of workplace laws. This bill contains one of those in the increases in penalties for secondary boycotts.
In respect of that particular piece of legislation, what this bill is seeking to do in relation to schedule 6, which Labor is opposing, is introduce and increase massively the penalties for secondary boycotts. A secondary boycott involves one person in concert with another person engaging in conduct that hinders or prevents a third person supplying or acquiring goods and services from a fourth person. Schedule 6 of this bill will increase the penalty for breaching those provisions from $750,000 to the greater of $10 million or three times the total value of the benefits obtained from the secondary boycott or, if the court cannot determine the total value of these benefits, 10 per cent of the annual turnover of the corporate for the 12 months leading up to when the secondary boycott occurred.
This is an unreasonable approach from this government and puts us out of step with what's occurring internationally in respect of competition and consumer provisions and secondary boycotts. The International Labour Organization's convention No. 87 does permit sympathy action. This change is inconsistent with that approach. It will introduce higher penalties for anticompetitive and anticonsumer conduct in terms of international best practice. Penalties for unlawful conduct under the Fair Work Act attract a maximum penalty of $12,600. That's for a breach of industrial and workplace laws, where these provisions should be. But under this reform of schedule 6 the penalty will be 800 times that, at $10 million, for a secondary boycott penalty. In our view, that is unfair. It's inconsistent with Australia's obligations that we've signed up to through the International Labour Organization. It's not something that Labor will be committing to.
I have some brief comments in respect of the effects test. That's been another hotly contested issue in respect of changes to competition and consumer laws. The original draft bill that we're debating here today included the effects test amendments to the misuse of market power provisions in the act. It was removed by the coalition government and introduced separately, because they know that the effects test is the very definition of dangerous economic policy. As the member for Fenner pointed out, the Prime Minister has argued against an effects test in cabinet. We know, through leaks from cabinet, that the Prime Minister argued against this policy when he was the Minister for Communications. Senator Brandis argued against this policy. But, because the member for Warringah wanted to keep the National Party onside, they agreed to this effects test.
God help us when the National Party is determining economic policy in Australia! God help Australia! But that is exactly what is occurring with this introduction of an effects test into the parliament in separate legislation to this. It's dangerous because the major effect of an effects test will be to create a climate of fear for businesses looking to compete through reductions to prices. Every time a business reduces its prices, it will be creating a legal risk for itself if there is an effects test. We know that, since 1974, at least 10 inquiries into Australia's competition laws have considered a proposal for an effects test, and all of them have rejected it, apart from Professor Harper's review, which is the only one that's recommended the effects test. In the words of the former Treasurer, Peter Costello:
The so-called effects test is designed to protect competitors, particularly less efficient ones, from a competitive challenge.
That's the antithesis of what we're trying to do with an effective competition policy in this country. We all know that the government's own former Minister for Trade and Investment, Andrew Robb, was also opposed to an effects test. An effects test is bad economic policy. It will end up being a lawyer's picnic when it's up to them to argue before the Competition and Consumer Commission or before the Federal Court whether or not there has been an effect, or a likely effect, on competition by an organisation reducing its prices.
This bill also seeks to introduce a reasonable search defence. We've consulted widely to ensure that this measure wouldn't allow companies and individuals under investigation to use this defence in refusing or failing to comply with compulsory information requests by the ACCC under section 155. Section 155 is the foundation of the ACCC's ability to investigate alleged breaches of the act, and Labor went to the last election with a suite of policies to strengthen it. We're committed to increasing penalties for anticompetitive and anticonsumer conduct to ensure revenue to increase the ACCC's litigation budget from $24½ million to a maximum of twice that level. We welcome the government's announcement to align Australian consumer law penalties with the rest of the act but urge them to adopt Labor's other policies that are in line with international best practice.
In conclusion, Labor has long recognised that an effective competition policy is at the heart of a well functioning economy, but it's also at the heart of a fair society that protects the interests of consumers over rent-seeking monopolists. Our record on this could not be stronger.
I am pleased to rise to speak on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017. I'd like to make some comments on what the member for Kingsford Smith said about the effects test back in section 46 of what was previously known as the Trade Practices Act and is now known as the Australian competition law.
The effects test has long been debated, and some of the things that the member for Kingsford Smith said about criticism of the effects test in the past were correct. But he is confused. The effects test that has been put in recent legislation is not the effects test that has been debated over many decades. To explain further, previously under section 46, for there to be a violation, the company had to firstly have what is called a substantial degree of market power. Unless it could show that it had a substantial degree of market power, it could not be in breach of section 46. And that was the basic problem with the law. In fact, in the Boral decision, one of the learned judges highlighted the issue in predatory pricing cases. He said the problem with the law was that it's not applicable at the time that the conduct is engaged in, even if a substantial degree of market power is obtained. His words in that case were that section 46 was ill drawn because of that first-up 'substantial degree of market power' test. The second test under section 46 was that a company had to take advantage of that power. 'Take advantage of' is simply defined as 'used', which is fair enough—you have to use your market power to be in breach. The third section—the section to which the effects test debate relates—previously said it had to be for the purpose of damaging a competitor, restricting entry into a market or limiting a supply. Basically, it was about having a substantial degree of market power and taking advantage of that power for the purpose of damaging a competitor.
The effects test debate over many years was about replacing the word 'purpose' with the word 'effect', so the act would say that a corporation that has a substantial degree of power in a market shall not take advantage of that power for the 'effect' of damaging a competitor. But the change that was made was not just replacing the word 'purpose' with 'effect'. Firstly, there was a strong case that that was not required, because another section in our competition law, section 46(7) said that the purpose could be ascertained from the conduct. In proving purpose, you did not need a smoking gun, you did not need an admission from the company accused that they actually went out for the purpose of damaging their smaller competitor and wiping them out, because a specific section, section 46(7), enabled purpose to be ascertained not by direct evidence but simply by inference of the purpose of the conduct. So much of the debate over the effects test over many years was simply a debate about nothing, because the purpose could be inferred.
We are not just substituting 'effect' for 'purpose'. That was one thing that the member for Kingsford Smith seemed to be confused about. But we're not just changing the word from 'purpose' to 'effect'. We are changing the test from 'damaging a competitor' or 'limiting a competitor's opportunity to enter the market' to 'a substantial lessening of competition'. So it is no longer the purpose of damaging a competitor; it is the effect of substantially lessening competition. Those words may not mean very much, but 'a substantially lessening of competition' and 'damaging a competitor' are two completely different concepts. For there to be a substantial lessening of competition, you almost need a case where the act of substantially lessening the competition results in a near monopoly in a market, or where one player is able, as the court said, to increase their prices without losing business to their competitors.
Under the new effects test, if a small business has been damaged or has been the victim of a predatory scheme of a company taking advantage of their market power—not using their greater efficiencies, not using a superior product or a superior marketing platform but simply using a predatory scheme, using the weight of their market power to eliminate a smaller competitor—that will not be an offence unless there is also a substantial lessening of competition. You have the test up-front that that company must also have a substantial degree of market power and it must engage in conduct that involves a substantial lessening of competition. It's almost like being pregnant and engaging in an act to get yourself pregnant again. The concepts simply do not make sense. Yet this is what the Labor Party are accusing the coalition of not understanding. Clearly, it is the Labor Party who do not understand the effects test. They do not understand the significant change from 'damaging a competitor' to 'a substantial lessening of competition'. If they did, we would not hear speeches like we've heard from the member for Kingsford Smith, who clearly does not understand the concept. I hope I am wrong in this, but my prediction is that we will see even fewer cases and less ability for small business to take advantage of section 46 with that change.
We're doing many great things for small business—lowering the rate of corporate tax and extending the instant asset write-off. We have encouraged small business to invest in this economy, and we have seen that in the numbers. We have seen substantial increases in the number of people being employed by small business in this country. We will see what effect the change to the effects test and section 46 will have. But there is one thing that I can assure you. The concerns about the effects test raised by the Labor Party simply will not come to fruition.
This bill makes numerous changes. One of the changes is to the law on resale price maintenance. I would have preferred to do what they have done in the USA and actually eliminate our resale price maintenance laws. That is what they have done in the USA. Resale price maintenance is the concept where the supplier of a good, a wholesaler or a manufacturer sets out to the retailer the minimum price that he can sell his goods for. We've seen numerous examples over the years. It could be a retailer of jewellery or of perfumes setting a minimum retail price that their goods can be sold for. That may very well be anticompetitive in highly concentrated markets where there's not much interbrand competition, but in markets today, where they are highly competitive, a law on retail price maintenance simply no longer makes sense. That's what they discovered about a decade ago, because there is interbrand competition. I believe that a wholesaler or a manufacturer in a highly competitive market should be able to determine the retailers that stock their product and ensure that their product is sold under certain conditions which enable them to set a resale price. If they set that price too high, there is such competition from so many other brands, they could actually be harming themselves.
This law was introduced into the Trade Practices Act in 1974. Since that time we've seen this law used against very small businesses in the wholesale sector and in the manufacturing sector that simply haven't been aware of the law and have done something that they thought they could do in a free market—that is, they selected the retailers that they distribute their goods through on the basis of the price and the quality that they sell for. Many of these small companies have found themselves before the ACCC, before the courts, and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, when all they have done is try to protect their brand.
So I welcome the change in this legislation that allows a business that wishes to set the retail price amongst their retailers to obtain an authorisation from the ACCC. This is good policy. This is pro-competitive policy. This is pro-small business policy. I hope that the ACCC understand the intent of the parliament in allowing businesses to obtain this authorisation, and that they grant those authorisations where they practically can, because we've seen many cases where the law has been unfairly and very harshly used against many, many small businesses.
Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. Debate may be resumed at a later hour. Are there any statements by honourable members?
This morning, like many of our other colleagues here, I was privileged to attend the BuyAbility breakfast put on by the National Disability Services initiative. I met with fellow Territorians Noelene Swanson from the NT government and Tony Burns, the CEO of Helping People Achieve, HPA. The vital support of the employment sector is concerned that the viability of disability enterprises—those businesses or organisations that employ people with a disability and support them in their work—is threatened by current economic conditions and a changing regulatory environment.
The BuyAbility campaign highlights the social and economic benefits of supported employment for people with disability, and it has been a pleasure to work with Tony Burns in particular and to liaise with Commonwealth agencies such as Defence in order to see ways that, at every level of government—local, territory and federal—there can be partnerships with organisations like HPA.
HPA, like many other of these organisations, sees the BuyAbility campaign as an opportunity to work collaboratively with local, state or territory governments and the federal government. I commend Dr Ken Baker from National Disability Services as well as the NT government and Tony Burns from HPA for their dedication to the cause of supported employment.
I would like to talk today about the Dowerin GWN7 Machinery Field Day, which I attended last week. Held over two days, the Dowerin Field Days are recognised as being one of the three largest agricultural machinery events in the country. The WA Liberal team was out in full force, and I was joined by—and would like to thank—my colleagues Christian Porter, Linda Reynolds, Dean Smith and Slade Brockman for attending. Many of my state colleagues were also in attendance, including but not limited to, Mike Nahan, leader of the state opposition, Ian Blaney, Ken Baston and Jim Chown. I'd also like to acknowledge Andrea Selvey, who is the CEO of the Dowerin shire. Her detailed knowledge and anecdotes added an extra dimension to the trip and I'd like to thank her for her hospitality. Thanks very much to Andrea.
I'm very happy to report that the mood at the field day was indeed very positive. We Western Australians—as you know, Deputy Speaker—are a resilient mob and, despite the difficult season we've been experiencing in many parts of the wheat belt, we certainly experienced a very positive, up-beat crowd. The strong showing by the Liberal Party was welcomed, and I spent much of the two days standing in the same spot talking to constituents—which I know you would appreciate, Deputy Speaker—and my sore feet were definitely testament to that.
Congratulations to the organisers. Well done once again for a fabulous two days. All of us enjoyed experiencing the thrill of Western Australia's agricultural industry, and I look forward to returning next year, which will be my fifth Dowerin field day in a row.
It was my pleasure to be at the recent opening of the first Mandaean place of worship, known as a Mandi, in my electorate. The purpose-built facility allows those of the Mandaean faith to properly observe their religious practices by providing a clean source of running water for baptism. Mandaean faith is an ancient religion based on the teachings of John the Baptist. The importance of the event was obvious by the number of attendees, including many of my colleagues from Liverpool council and state and federal parliament.
Until 2003, most of the world's Mandaean population lived in the southern part of Iraq. At that time, the population was thought to number over 60,000. Over the course of the years since, with the ongoing conflict in that region and persecution of the Mandaean minority, they now number fewer than 5,000. A recent ABC article estimates that there are between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide. Of that population, Australia is home to approximately 10,000, who live in or near Sydney's western suburbs, including my own constituency. The construction of this place of worship is certainly an accomplishment which will be well-used by this close-knit community. I congratulate the leaders of the Mandaean community on the achievement, especially Dr Amad Mtashar for his leadership in this project.
Last weekend was the 100th time the Wondai Show was held, although it missed a few years due to drought, depression and war. The first show was held on Wednesday and Thursday in May 1911, a date chosen because it was close to a full moon to ensure patrons could find their way back home on horseback or in buggies. The Queensland Governor His Excellency Sir Paul de Jersey, with his wife, Kaye, beside him, marked the fourth occasion a governor had opened the event, but he was the only governor to have opened the 100th show, as His Excellency proudly announced. Also in attendance at this milestone event and joining the huge crowd was the Mayor of South Burnett, Keith Campbell; Deputy Mayor, Kathy Duff; Councillor Ros Heit; and the member for Nanango, Deb Frecklington. Competitors travelled across the state to take part in 21 competition sections across the two-day event. There was a non-stop program of action, including the judging of dogs, horses, beef cattle, stud cattle, dairy cattle and poultry. Big congratulations to the Wondai AP&I Society, including the president, Dennis Morris, and the rest of the dedicated group of locals for putting together such a wonderful event for the people of South Burnett.
I rise on behalf of the women, the children and the men of this country who have been raped, bashed and traumatised by violence. I rise to share my anger and disgust at the government's abandonment of the funding used to support the National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line. The changes and the defunding of the service are diabolical. Jane Gold, who is the chair of Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia and the manager of my local women's health centre in Lindsay, stated that the hotline has been a critical support for women all around the country, particularly in Western Sydney. There is no profit in rape, and I want to make sure—and I put this on the record today—that the Prime Minister understands there is no profit from rape victims. There is no profit in outsourcing this specialist service. All it is doing is spitting in the face of the women who are already highly traumatised. Most victims are women. The organisation does assist men, but most of the people using the service are women.
The Prime Minister gives a rousing speech when it comes to supporting women. He talks about women holding up half the sky. Why then does he preside over cutting 75 per cent of the funding for the counselling of women, children and men who have been raped and bashed? The Prime Minister is putting lives at risk. I call on him and all of those opposite to ensure that victims and survivors of rape and domestic violence have access to specialist well-trained, experienced violence counselling services. This is unnecessary cutting of funding. The Prime Minister needs to do less talking about supporting women and more action on these things.
It's a great pleasure to report to the House that I officially opened the new Headway Acquired Brain Injury Australia WINGS Wellbeing Centre at Molendinar on Wednesday, 23 August, during Brain Injury Awareness Week. Headway provides life-enhancing support for the development of locals who have an acquired brain injury, as well as support for their friends, family and the wider community. They make rehabilitation an interesting and positive experience. The new WINGS Wellbeing Centre has a weightless gym and the latest physical therapy tools. These facilities are accessible to anyone with a functional impairment or chronic health condition. I saw their Jintronix system, which includes therapeutic games and functional assessments for all ages. The system assists functional development and recovery and is a fun way for people to get moving. I also saw their amazing ICARE machines that are changing people's lives. The machines take a person's weight and help to move their legs so they can feel what it's like to walk again. This is taking 21st century technology, as well as gaming technology, to assist those who are recovering from difficult conditions. There are some wonderful and inspirational stories of recovery after brain injury, including one from a young man who now helps others with their rehabilitation at the Headway WINGS Wellbeing Centre. It was wonderful to be there. It's a great community that is working together to support those with acquired brain injury. I wish them all the best for the future.
On Sunday, Clinton Pryor arrived in Canberra. Clinton is a Wajuk, Balardung, Kija and a Yulparitja man who has walked over 6,000 kilometres from Perth, where he started his journey a year ago. Clinton has come here to deliver a message of justice and sovereignty for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It was my privilege to sit down with Clinton when he came through Melbourne three months ago, and this morning at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, along with other MPs and senators, I listened to Clinton and elders.
The elders talked of the injustices that face Aboriginal peoples across Australia: the forced closures of Aboriginal communities on homelands in Western Australia; 10 years of the Northern Territory intervention; cashless welfare cards, taking us back to the shameful days of the ration system; rights of custodians to land and water being ignored and abused by big mining companies; deaths in custody; a justice system that too often is not justice, but merely a code for power exerted against Aboriginal peoples; too many children still being taken from their families and communities, years on from the stolen generations; and the failure of Australian governments to take real action to address the injustice.
We live in a land where injustice is an ongoing reality. The sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was never ceded. The Australian government must act in good faith to work towards a genuine treaty or treaties with sovereign Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This is the message that Clinton has walked so far to deliver. Politicians here must listen and act.
On the weekend I had the great privilege of opening the art exhibition for the painters of the Flinders Ranges at Wilpena Pound. This group has been operating since 2002, and it features nine highly-skilled artists: the chairman Graham Chapman, Don Gangell, Trevor Hancox, David Chalmers, John Simmons, Elizabeth Collins, Michael Carey, Lynette Chamberlain, Marion Sheidow, Patricia Houston and Roe Gartelmann.
As I remarked at the opening, the Flinders offers endless opportunities for artists—the stunning landscapes with softer, higher-rainfall forests in the southern Flinders through to the magnificent Wilpena Pound and to the incredibly rugged desert mountains of Arkaroola and the Gammon Ranges in the north; the beautiful creeks and waterholes and the unique light which changes by the hour and by the day. The Flinders have three histories: first a geological display which tracks the development of the Earth, the long and detailed Indigenous record and the graphic history of European settlement. All this is coupled with a wide and individual range of flora and fauna.
It is the work of these artists to capture a slice of all that and to recognise the simple beauty of something the rest of us may well walk past. They do that in this fabulous exhibition, which runs through to 2 October at the Wilpena Woolshed, an old pastoral shearing shed of great charm. If you're anywhere near, don't miss out—make sure you visit—it's too good to miss.
I pay tribute to a great Australian, Dean Mercer, who tragically lost his life last week. Dean was not from the community that I represent, but I competed against him for many years and he became a good mate. Dean was quite simply the gutsiest competitor that I ever saw race. Small in stature, but big in heart, he often beat men twice his size through pure guts, determination and hard work.
Dean was born and raised in Thirroul and, with his brother Darren, dominated ironman racing over decades. They made the Mercer name a household name. Dean won two Australian Ironman titles, five New South Wales Ironman titles, a Coolangatta Gold and a World Oceanman Series. In 2014 he was inducted into the New South Wales Sporting Hall of Champions and in 1992 awarded the Order of Australia medal. He competed in his last Coolangatta Gold at the age of 40. In recent years Dean had been passing on his skill and prowess in the surf to younger generations as a teacher of nippers.
Surf lifesaving is a quintessential Aussie sport and last week the sport of surf lifesaving in our nation lost one of its greatest too early. I offer my condolences to his family and, in particular, his brother Darren, his wife Reen and their four young children. Rest in peace, mate.
I wish to thank the Prime Minister for visiting Gilmore. The first stop was Yumaro Industries, a disability employment provider in Moruya with Mark Brantingham at the helm. Pete Magnus was first in line for an autograph, before the tour began. The showcasing included the process of transforming towels to cleaning cloths, which are sent to Bunnings stores around Australia. Mieke Tys was screen printing for bags. There was also embroidery, survey peg manufacturing and the recycling of cardboard and plastics. Leadership certificates were presented to employees, and we heard Lily and Jack talk about the benefits of the NDIS, which allows them choice and an expansion of opportunities, including learning to cook. I secured 20,000 for Yumaro to expand and provide more supported employment positions. We celebrated their work and the milestone of 100,000 Australians with a disability now signed up with the NDIS. Congratulations and thanks to the board and volunteers: John and Brenda Gillett, Greg Malavey, John and Kerry Hozack, Jennifer Clark, Lynne Anlezark, Rhonnie South, Kylie Brantingham.
Then we toured Batemans Bay High School with their wonderful principal, Gregory McDonald, and school leaders Emilee Clout, Erin Pye, Blayne Abela, Daniel Stuart, Nioka Kerry and Alkyra Reynolds. They took us to a whole stack of Aboriginal learning centres. We made pies in the kitchen, we visited the technology centre and we looked at the hands-on learning centre. On another note, the Berry Rotary Club has their Berry Small Farm Field Days on 8 and 9 September. Come and join us at the showground. (Time expired)
I wish the Prime Minister would come to my electorate of Paterson. Monday marked a very memorable milestone in Paterson. It was two years since the people of the communities of Fullerton Cove, Williamtown and Salt Ash woke to a front-page story that said 'Don't drink the water, eat your vegetables or your eggs'—even fishing was banned. These people went to sleep in their homes and woke up in a red zone, a PFOS-tainted nightmare, and two years on the nightmare continues. The contaminant is still leaching from the RAAF base into surrounding communities.
Blood test results are revealing elevated levels, further outside the designated red zone. A Walkley award-winning piece of investigative journalism has uncovered 50 cases of cancer along one single stretch of Cabbage Tree Road. Our communities have tied red ribbons to their fences and letterboxes, and I'm wearing the red ribbon today to remind the Prime Minister of the Australian government's responsibility to help these people. I call on Senator James McGrath and the Prime Minister to make things right. If you two believe that the government should be accountable for its mistakes, please show your support: wear a red ribbon for the red zone, and put up a red ribbon at your place for the red zone. These people deserve our support and respect. I, again, urge the Prime Minister: please, Prime Minister, come to Williamtown.
I rise to acknowledge the contribution of Glen Shailer, one of the pioneers of the city of Logan. Lynette Shailer honoured her father simply at his eulogy at St Mark's Anglican Church yesterday: 'A good man, a good life.' Charles Glen Shailer was a man of character, a man who valued family and hard work, and our community is a better place because he was part of it. Publicly, he will be remembered as the first mayor of Logan City, serving one term from 1982, after which Logan was officially declared a city in 1981.
Privately, he will be remembered as a family man, a father, a farmer and a fighter who never shied away from his duty. Charles Glen Shailer was born on 20 May 1918. Shailer Park in Logan is named after his family as they were the first settlers in the area. Most of his childhood was spent growing up in 'an exciting time'—in his own words—and one of his favourite childhood memories was seeing Charles Kingsford Smith fly over Daisy Hill during the last leg of his famous flight across the Pacific in 1928. Mr Shailer contributed so much to our community over the years. Glen met Sylvia Bahr in Carbrook in 1941 and they were married for some 60 years. I wish to thank him for his service to our community, and may he rest in peace.
Last week I was pleased to welcome the member for Chifley to the electorate of Lalor. He came down with me to listen to those looking for work in my electorate. We all know and understand in this place the dignity of work. What we heard was that looking for work is not so dignified. We heard from young people looking for entry level jobs, as well as university graduates. We heard from single mothers with toddlers desperate for work. We heard from men and women with a work history and tertiary qualifications looking for work. We heard from men and women over 50 looking for work, and what we heard was shattering. We heard that the Commonwealth job support agencies are not giving the level of support that we in this place all expect that they are, and we cannot afford for this to continue. We also heard about Jobs Victoria. We spoke to people employed by west@work, where our state is overlaying the Commonwealth spend in this area to actually get people back to work, and it's active in my community. What I learnt was that we need to make looking for work a dignified thing to do. We need to ensure that the people who are putting in hours and hours of their days seeking to make a better contribution to our community are given the kind of support that will help them get to work, rather than the disheartening disillusionment they are now facing.
Last month I spoke in this place about the tremendous success of CASTEC Rural Pioneers basketball team in Mount Gambier. Today I rise to update the House on their continued success. The last time that I spoke on this topic the Pioneers had just won the first semi-final in the east conference of the South East Australian Basketball League against the Nunawading Spectres. They went on to beat that same team again in the conference grand final on 25 August, with the match being decided in the final seconds of the contest. It was a nail-biting contest, as my colleague across the border the member for Deakin will appreciate. The Pioneers snuck home by three points against Nunawading, 79-76, making the Pioneers the SEABL east men's champions—their fifth conference championship in a row. The Pioneers then went on to play the league's national men's final last Saturday night in Melbourne, beating the Dandenong rangers 92-85.
The Pioneers have been extremely successful in recent years. This win is their third championship in four years, with their only blemish over that period being a runner-up finish in 2016. The Pioneers' fifth consecutive conference crown and now third championship win in four years places them as, arguably, South Australia's most successful sporting team competing on a national stage. Whilst the Pioneers have always been the toast of Mount Gambier, to borrow a phrase from another South Australian sporting team the Pioneers really are the pride of South Australia.
Last Thursday I visited the electorate of Lalor at the invitation of my colleague Joanne Ryan, who has become increasingly concerned by the impact of the Turnbull government's failing job programs on the people she represents and cares about. I heard firsthand the experiences of jobseekers—the often fruitless efforts they put in to navigating these programs. We heard from people who are long-term unemployed, underemployed and everything in between. We heard from mums trying to get back into the workforce after raising their kids, experiencing job knockback after job knockback. We heard from older workers who were told not to bother applying for jobs. We heard from young university-qualified and disabled jobseekers unable to get job interviews. We heard concern after concern about a system not providing tailored support when it's supposed to do just that. We heard from people feeling like they're forced into a routine job search for the sake of meeting a provider's KPI and made to feel worthless because they don't have a job.
Looking for work has become hard work in itself. The reality is these people are being let down by a failing system and a weakened labour market. Instead of our nation's employment minister obsessing about ideological campaigns and union bashing day in and out, maybe she could actually meet these jobseekers face-to-face for a change and then apply the same energy to fixing her failing job programs. I want to not only thank the people of Lalor who were so open with us but tell them that we will push for better. They deserve better. We want to get them into work. We know they want to be employed.
Last week I had the honour of meeting a true local hero, Mr Edwin 'Ted' Bousen. Ted is a 97-year-old resident of Upper Mount Gravatt and a World War II veteran. I want to share his incredible story as a reminder of the bravery and sacrifice of our veterans.
On 25 August 2017 the Department of Veterans' Affairs held a private reception and last post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Milne Bay. Ted flew down here with his carer to attend this important commemoration. I was fortunate enough to meet him on his return home. He shared with me his war experiences in such a raw and emotional way. It's a meeting that I won't soon forget. Ted worked as a plasterer before he volunteered for service in March 1941 in Toowoomba. On 28 August, 1942, he embarked for service with the 61tst Australian infantry battalion in New Guinea on the MV Anshun and he went on to serve in Milne Bay.
Milne Bay was the first major battle of the Pacific War. While it was a decisive allied victory, reputed to be the first defeat of a Japanese amphibious landing in World War II, Australia suffered heavy losses. It's hard to imagine what Ted went through there. More than 370 Australians were killed or wounded, and the Japanese suffered almost 1,500 casualties. (Time expired)
Last week the immigration minister announced that he would be cutting financial support and housing for up to 400 asylum seekers presently in Australia. He also complained that lawyers who defend people's legal rights are un-Australian, suggesting that the social justice motivations of law firms, including those at the top end of town, were part of a politically correct plot. Then he accused these un-Australian lawyers of wasting taxpayers' dollars on High Court cases. If the minister is so concerned about the impact of his decisions on the budget bottom line, perhaps he and his department should make decisions according to law. Maybe he should work with our international neighbours to make regional resettlement a reality and save the cost of offshore detention centres. Seriously, how on earth does upholding the rule of law and protecting a person's legal rights undermine our nation's values? I thought a fair go was central to who we are as a nation. It's the sort of argument you hear from a bent cop. It's not what we should be hearing from a minister of state.
If large corporate law firms around the country are prepared to give up staff time and profits to assist with claims against the government—a government that provides these firms with millions of dollars worth of legal work—surely that should be telling him something. It should be an alarm bell—not that there are too many do-gooders out there but that there are serious problems with the way that this government behaves.
The Leader of the House?
I think there was an implication in the member for Burt's remarks, and I think it should be withdrawn.
I do need to say to the Leader of the House that I'm not sure what implication he is referring to.
Well, he was talking about the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and he used a phrase beforehand about the minister's former profession, which he then described in a most unparliamentary way. I think it would assist the House if the member for Burt were prepared to withdraw it.
The Manager of Opposition Business?
If the Leader of the House is seriously saying something needs to be withdrawn on the basis that there was a criticism made of the job people had before they were here, I would love you to make that ruling—and there will be points of order consistently during question time. Unless that's the principle and the new line that's going to be drawn, I think the comment should stand.
As I was getting ready and getting papers ready for question time, I didn't hear the offending remark, as I said. I don't want to spend another 90 seconds on it now. I say to the member for Burt: I will review it, rather than try to make a judgement on something I didn't hear. I don't think that's fair to anybody.
Unlike the member for Burt, I'm very proud of our emergency services because, when times are tough, we Aussies know how to step up, rally the troops and pitch in to help those in need. Aussies working on the front line—not just in the Defence Force but in our emergency services—put others ahead of themselves every single day. It's, therefore, no surprise that when a bushfire unexpectedly broke out in Caloundra recently, in the electorate of Fisher, it was our local fireys that responded in force and worked relentlessly to protect homes and businesses from destruction.
The fire broke out in bushland that backs onto a new housing development in Caloundra. Families who have only just recently moved into their brand-new dream homes were ordered to evacuate. This tight-knit community of families and businesses scrambled together—family members, pets and belongings—to move to safer locations. If it were not for the efforts of the QFES—the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services—our police and volunteer rural fireys, this dangerous situation could have been so much worse. Weather conditions were working against our community that afternoon, with dry winds continuing into the night. We should be very proud of all emergency service workers that continue to keep our communities safe.
If you've been raped, one thing you don't need is for the most private details of your rape, your assault, to be available to anyone who subpoenas them. What you do want to know is that the person counselling you is an expert and will, like any professional, maintain confidentiality so that you, the one who has gone through the traumatic experience, has control over that information. Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia has provided exactly that: confidential, specialist sexual assault and domestic violence trauma counselling to thousands of women, children and men who have contacted 1800RESPECT since it was established in 2010.
But the Minister for Social Services decided to defund RDVSA, based on information provided by Medibank Health Solutions. That was a bad call. Now RDVSA counsellors cannot, rightly, based on their professional ethics, deliver a service via Medibank where client confidentiality will no longer be respected. You don't measure the quality of a trauma counselling service based solely on how fast the phone is answered. It's about the quality of the service that people on the end of that phone receive, which can take time and needs expertise. The minister has devalued highly skilled trauma counsellors and has sold out rape victims. It's time he showed some respect.
In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
I inform the House of the death on 31 August of John William Bourchier, a member of this House for the division of Bendigo from 1972 until 1983. As a mark of respect to the memory of John Bourchier, I invite all present to rise in their places.
Honourable members having stood in their places—
I thank the House.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Section 64 of the Constitution states:
… no Minister of State shall hold office for a longer period than three months unless he is or becomes a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Senator Nash and Senator Canavan were all appointed on 19 July 2016, and the three-month period had well and truly expired by the time the government was aware of doubts over their qualifications. Has the government sought or received any advice that ministerial actions of the Deputy Prime Minister, Senator Nash and Senator Canavan might be at risk of challenge? (Time expired)
I thank the honourable member for his question. All of the ministers will continue to administer the departments to which they are sworn. I've explained the government's position in terms of the High Court litigation, the basis of the advice on which we are very confident that the Deputy Prime Minister and, indeed, Senator Nash and, indeed, Senator Canavan will be found not to be disqualified from sitting in this House or, indeed, in the Senate.
My question is also to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on action the government is taking to ensure that energy is affordable and reliable for households and businesses, including in my electorate of La Trobe? Is the Prime Minister aware of any threats to the government's approach?
I thank the honourable member for his question. The government is delivering on the issues that matter most to the Australian people: energy prices, jobs, economic growth and national security. So, while the opposition have spent the past fortnight talking up their plans to try to make the House of Representatives appear chaotic, what we have done is stayed focused squarely on the issues that matter to Australian families and businesses. And we're delivering measure after measure that is putting downward pressure on energy prices. Our commitment, our focus, is on affordable and reliable energy—and we know because our policies are driven by engineering and economics. That is why we can be sure, and Australians can be sure, with a practical, commonsense approach to energy policy, that prices will be lower.
Now, regrettably, we've seen today another report highlighting the failure of Labor's experiments with energy. The Australian Energy Market Operator has released its Electricity Statement of Opportunities, its annual stocktake of what is needed to ensure that Australians get the electricity they need affordably and reliably. What it shows is a sorry tale of Labor mismanagement, particularly in South Australia and in Victoria. It's left our national electricity market vulnerable. It confirms that, in those states, they'll need to put in costly backup arrangements—
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
Member for Sydney!
including diesel generators, to secure supply. The likelihood of a shortfall and load shedding to keep the power on is between 39 per cent and 43 per cent in Victoria and 26 per cent and 33 per cent in South Australia. AEMO has had to put in place its own emergency measures to stop this from happening.
AEMO has measures in place to cover the immediate gap, but it once again highlights that we cannot risk another one of Labor's big energy experiments; the Australian people, families and businesses, simply can't afford it. The report also warns that, on top of the immediate risk, there will be more pressure in 2022, when the Liddell power station is due to close. The energy minister and I are already in discussions with the owner of Liddell, AGL, about how we can ensure that that power station stays in operation for at least another five years after 2022. How has the Labor Victorian government responded to this crisis? More of the same mistakes, calling for more renewables with no backup. It's not just ideology and politics on their side; it's ideology and idiocy. (Time expired)
I've already mentioned the members for Ballarat and Sydney for interjecting. I now add the members for Burt, Shortland and, again, Moreton. I refer them to my previous statements.
My question is to the Prime Minister. In the last answer, the Prime Minister answered with respect to a different section of the Constitution, so I ask now: has the Prime Minister received advice as to whether there is any legal risk to the ministerial actions of the Deputy Prime Minister, Senator Nash or Senator Canavan because of section 64 of the Australian Constitution?
I can assure the honourable member that I am fully aware of section 64 of the Constitution. It's been there for quite a long time. I can assure the honourable member that the government is very satisfied that the ministers he's referred to are fully entitled to serve as ministers, just as they are entitled to serve in this parliament.
Will the Treasurer update the House on how the government's national economic plan to boost exports, drive investment and build new economic infrastructure is creating better days ahead for the Australian economy?
I thank the member for Bonner for his question and his interest in the issues that matter to the Australian people, which are growing our economy, creating more jobs, seeing exports drive from this country to lift the incomes of Australians working all around the country. That better days are ahead is the emerging economic consensus in this country, and that is being reinforced day after day, week after week, month after month by the improved economic data we are seeing.
Just today we have learnt about more exports. Export volumes rose 2.7 per cent in the quarter, despite the effect of Cyclone Debbie, and export volumes grew 4.3 per cent through the year. That was particularly supported by a service sector, which was up 5.4 per cent, and our rural sector. We know that the growth in our rural sector exports are flowing through the main streets of regional towns all around the country. Today we also saw more business investment. Capital imports, the predominant form of imports to the country over the period of the last 12 months, rose almost 25 per cent over the past year. That reinforces the strong figures I referred to yesterday on the resurgence in non-mining investment. So we're seeing more investment. We're seeing more exports flowing through these numbers, particularly on those capital import numbers. That is the strongest annual growth since around the peak of the mining investment boom some five years ago. So that is more business investment and more growth. The shadow Treasurer has absolutely no interest in this topic. In fact, he hasn't asked me a question since the end of May. He asked me 11 questions defending the banks; 11 out of 12 questions since the budget, and 11 of them were defending the banks.
We've seen more public investment as well—which rose 12 per cent in the June quarter. An important part of that was that Defence procurement rose 30 per cent in the quarter. So our Defence industry plan, which is creating jobs in manufacturing and right across the supply chain, is making a difference in this country. This is all part of the national economic plan that the Turnbull government is implementing and that is driving jobs and growth. The Labor Party opposite remain opposed to this plan. They continue to oppose the tax cuts that we've put in place that are already driving investment. They are going to walk away and turn over the legislated tax cuts for small- and medium-sized businesses up to $50 million. The Leader of the Opposition has no plan to drive jobs and no plan to drive growth in this country; he is just on one big, long whinge.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister notified the Governor-General that the member for New England will be the Acting Prime Minister in just over 48 hours? If not, why not?
The answer is yes. They were notified quite some time ago. There is a standing instrument that makes the Deputy Prime Minister Acting Prime Minister when I am out of the country or, indeed, absent from duties and so forth.
I inform the House we have present in the gallery this afternoon a parliamentary delegation from Japan, led by Mr Nukaga. On behalf of members, I extend a very warm welcome to all of you to the House today.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
Prime Minister, last week, ABC Lateline aired further allegations of illegal water diversion and capture from the Murray-Darling Basin, this time in Queensland. Given that the serious allegations of water theft in the Murray-Darling Basin have now extended beyond New South Wales to Queensland, and therefore have become multijurisdictional, what possible reason could the government have to opposing a royal commission into the $13 billion plan's implementation—the only form of inquiry that could compel witnesses across all jurisdictions to appear or provide information?
I thank the honourable member for her question. Might I say that, at this point in time, we have five inquiries into the water issue. The first inquiry is by Ken Matthews, who is reporting today. That Ken Matthews report is imminent. This Ken Matthews inquiry also has the assistance of three former ICAC officials with policing powers. We know that ICAC has been terribly effective in dealing with corrupt politicians. A couple of ex-Labor Party ones are now residing at Her Majesty's pleasure. Also, Hanlon has referred himself to ICAC. So ICAC can, at any point in time, expand its investigation in New South Wales. On top of that, we have an audit inquiry that is also looking into this issue. We have the Murray-Darling Basin Authority also having an inquiry into this. We have recently also started a Senate inquiry into the same issue. So, amongst these five inquiries, I believe that we are doing everything that is diligent in investigating this.
Might I say that, if someone is thieving water then they are in the same realm as anybody who's thieving anything else. If they are thieving water and they are caught, they will have the full force of the law placed against them. But I might also say, in the same breath, that we have to be exceptionally diligent in noting what is an allegation and what is a fact, because what we have seen recently are merely allegations. I'm very aware of a defamation case that is currently underway to deal with precisely the fact that some of the ABC reports might have gone too far.
Before I call the member for Chisholm, I also would like to inform the House we have present in the gallery this afternoon the Hon. Don Page, former New South Wales member for Ballina in the New South Wales parliament. On behalf of the House I extend a very warm welcome to you too.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Energy: will the minister update the House on action the government is taking to strengthen energy security and maintain energy affordability? How would an alternative approach jeopardise energy security and affordability?
I thank the member for Chisholm for her question and acknowledge her deep concern about the rising power prices affecting the 15,000 small businesses and many households across her electorate. She knows, as we know on this side of the House, that the Turnbull government is taking action on a number of fronts to put downward pressure on prices. We've reined in the power of the networks. We have called in the retailers and won significant commitments from them to provide more information, better information and more comparable information to consumers. We're investing in storage and in projects like Snowy 2.0. And, of course, we put in a place a mechanism to restrict gas exports.
But I'm asked if I am aware of any alternative approaches. We know that the Leader of the Opposition, in order to chase green votes, is prepared to sell out blue-collar workers in manufacturing sectors by closing down Australia's coal fired power stations even though coal provides a stable, reliable, cheap source of power. The Leader of the Opposition dons the high-vis vests and says at a doorstop that he supports coal fired power stations and it has a future here in Australia. But then the Labor Party in the Senate supports a motion with the Greens that coal has no long-term future in Australia. The Labor Party took to the election last year a platform which said that they will kick-start the closure of coal fired power stations. And the Leader of the Opposition is refusing to criticise the Andrews government even though it placed a 300 per cent increase on coal royalties in the Latrobe Valley and hastened the closure of Hazelwood.
So I was surprised to read in the Financial Review today a headline that said, 'The Labor Party rules out energy deals with the Greens.' I was surprised to read that out, because the reality is somewhat different. Just like Kevin Rudd told the Australian people before the election that he was a fiscal conservative, just like Julia Gillard told the Australian people there'd be no carbon tax under a government she led, the Leader of the Opposition says he supports coal fired power stations. But, given a half a chance in government, the Leader of the Opposition will join with the Greens, close down our coal fired power stations, increase power prices and create a less reliable system.
Only the coalition can be trusted with our energy future and only the coalition can bring down energy prices.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday the Prime Minister refused to answer when I asked how many executive orders, grants, delegations, appointments and legislative instruments the Deputy Prime Minister has signed or made since the government became aware there were doubts over his qualifications. So I ask again: since the government became aware there were doubts over the Deputy Prime Minister's qualification to be a member of parliament, how many executive orders, grants, delegations, appointments and legislative instruments has the Deputy Prime Minister made or signed?
The government does not doubt the Deputy Prime Minister's eligibility to sit in the parliament.
My question is to the Minister for Health. I refer the minister to media reports that show hospitals in Victoria are struggling to fund vital services due to skyrocketing energy costs. Why is energy security essential to healthcare services across Australia, including in my electorate of Dunkley?
Ms Chesters interjecting—
Ms Keay interjecting—
The member for Bendigo is warned, as is the member for Braddon.
Ms Catherine King interjecting—
The member for Ballarat will leave under standing order 94(a).
The member for Ballarat then left the chamber.
I want to thank the member for Dunkley, who fought hard for and helped deliver a new MRI licence for Frankston Hospital. One of the things, though, that he is concerned about is the impact of electricity prices driven by state Labor policies on Victoria's hospital system. The Andrews government deliberately drove out of Victoria that state's lowest cost base-load power station and, in so doing, they deliberately drove up the price of electricity for pensioners, for seniors, for families, for businesses—but especially for hospitals. We know this from a report in last week's TheAge headlined, 'Victorian hospitals and health services reeling from electricity price bill shock'. What does that mean? It means that Health Purchasing Victoria has identified a $44 million hit on the ability of Victorian hospitals to fund vital services due to the increase in prices coming from the Hazelwood power station being deliberately pushed out of operation by Labor policy.
This, of course, is not just state Labor policy, it's also federal Labor policy—and the impacts are very clear. We've heard that Cobden Health, for example, has been hit with a near-doubling in its electricity prices following the closure of the Hazelwood power station. And what does the CEO of Cobden Health, Leonie Rooney, say? She's made it clear that these higher electricity prices will threaten their physiotherapy services, their rehabilitation services, their exercise programs. These are real world consequences of Labor's deliberate policy to increase electricity prices.
By comparison, on our watch, we took steps, which were fought every step of the way by Labor, to bring about the largest reduction in electricity prices in Australian history. We voted for it. They voted against it. What that means, though, is that while we are reducing pressure on electricity prices, they are deliberately increasing their pressure at the state level and at the federal level. And if you want to know what they propose to do at the federal level, let us just remind ourselves: 'ALP's $600 billion Carbon Bill'.
The minister knows the rules on props!
What the Leader of the Opposition wants to do is take what's occurred in Victoria and multiply it nationally. It will hurt hospitals and schools. It will hurt families and small businesses. Because in the end, while our goal is to take the pressure off electricity prices, they are deliberately planning to send electricity prices skyrocketing, just as they've done in Victoria.
My question is to the Prime Minister: for the second time in two days the Prime Minister has refused to answer, when asked, how many executive orders, grants, delegations, appointments and legislative instruments the Deputy Prime Minister has signed or made since the government became aware there was doubt over his qualifications. Why is the Prime Minister acting so recklessly?
Mr Hill interjecting—
The member for Bruce is warned.
One may well ask why the member for Sydney is incapable of drafting a question. The honourable member's question is based on a premise that the government have doubts about the Deputy Prime Minister's eligibility to sit in the House—and we don't. We are satisfied that he is eligible to sit in the House, so the question is based on a false premise.
One may well ask: Where is the interest from the opposition in energy prices? Where is the interest in the cashless welfare card? Where is the interest in the fact that it was the Labor Party in government through its complacency—confessed to by the member for Port Adelaide, and we do acknowledge he did finally fess up—with reckless disregard for the interests of the people they claim to represent who allowed gas prices to go through the roof—
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The Prime Minister will resume his seat. Has the Prime Minister concluded his answer?
I have.
The Prime Minister's concluded his answer. The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order.
Government members interjecting—
The Treasurer and the Leader of the House will cease interjecting.
There's been a ruling you've previously made concerning preambles, but we're consistently getting a situation now where the preamble is the entire answer and there is no moment of the response that fits the relevance rule.
I think if the Manager of Opposition Business reviewed that answer he would find that the beginning of it was very relevant to the question and on the—
Honourable members interjecting—
If members on either side interject while I'm addressing the House on a point of order, they'll pay a very severe penalty. The Manager of Opposition Business will find, if he reviews the answer, that the beginning of the Prime Minister's answer was very relevant to the subject answer. The Prime Minister did there compare and contrast—I know the member for Sydney rose to take a point of order—but it's entirely up to the Prime Minister and ministers how long they wish to use of their three minutes. There is no point of order that can force them to give a shorter answer or a longer answer.
My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Will the minister advise the House on actions the government is taking to put downward pressure on electricity prices for families and small businesses, including those in my electorate of Murray? What obstacles stand in the way of growing jobs and increasing productivity for small businesses?
I thank the member for Murray for his question. The member stands proudly in the corner of the more than 18,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in his electorate. Like all of us in this government, he is fighting for them each and every day. The member grew up on a dairy farm and he had his own steel-manufacturing business in country Victoria before being elected, so he knows the challenges small businesses and farmers face with the rising cost of energy. He knows there are locals, such as Rob Priestly of Gouge Linen and Garment Services in Mooroopna, who are struggling to stay afloat as a result of energy prices rising significantly. Rob told the Shepparton News:
Everybody in our industry is in the same boat.
I'm more worried about the impact on the broader community and on food manufacturing.
The member for Murray and this government are determined to back small businesses, we are determined to back families and we are determined to back hardworking Australians to make ends meet. That's why we're taking real action with energy bosses to get a better deal for all Australians. That's why we will reserve Australian gas for Australians, if necessary, to make it more reliable. That's why we've asked the consumer watchdog, the ACCC, to investigate the National Electricity Market and retailer behaviour to ensure families and small businesses come first. And that's why we're forging ahead with Snowy Hydro 2.0, a long-term vision which will deliver reliable and renewable energy for half a million homes. The member for Eden-Monaro might be interested in this: Lorraine Wysman, who is from the Tumut Regional Chamber of Commerce, told The Canberra Times of the high demand for housing in Talbingo and Tumut as a result of the Prime minister's Snowy Hydro announcement. That's great news for the local economy.
Each of these are actions on energy to put Australians first, but I'm asked about obstacles, and there are quite a few. In fact, I'm looking at them. Just as the data released today from the National Australia Bank shows our plans are working, 84 per cent of small businesses believe the government should provide better tax breaks for small businesses—something Labor opposed. Just as businesses look with confidence, those opposite launch a reckless and ideological approach to energy, pushing up bills and putting families under the bill bus. Just as job numbers are up, Labor has small business in its sights, ratcheting up taxes, with fewer businesses able to access the instant asset write off. Just as those businesses and families rely on a trust to make ends meet in a season or a year which is not as good as others, Labor launches a crackdown. How typical.
Backing small businesses, backing jobs, creating more jobs and backing hardworking families is about making choices. But, time and again, Labor chooses union bosses, even when that means selling Australian workers up the river if that pays for union bosses' excesses and certain members' election campaigns. Shame on Labor. Start getting behind small businesses instead of hurting them each and every day. (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister believes there is no doubt about the Deputy Prime Minister's qualifications then why was the matter referred to the High Court?
It is in order to give the High Court the opportunity to clarify the law on this matter. That's precisely the matter. But our advice is very clear, and we are very confident, as I've said many times, that the honourable member referred to is qualified to sit in this House and, indeed, to be the DPM.
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister update the House on the steps the government is taking in response to tensions on the Korean peninsula?
I thank the member for Berowra for this important question. He knows that the recent threatening, dangerous and provocative behaviour of the North Korean regime is not only deeply unsettling for our region but also a matter of deep concern to the Australian public. I certainly judge that from the number of emails and phone calls that my electorate office and my ministerial office have received, and I'm sure other members can attest to that.
The North Korean regime has been a security risk for some time, but it's the sheer scale and pace of its recent illegal ballistic missile and nuclear weapons tests that is so confronting. Since Kim Jong-un assumed the leadership of North Korea in December 2011, there have been over 80 ballistic missile tests—more than the combined total of the previous three decades. Of North Korea's six nuclear tests, four of them have been conducted under Kim Jong-un.
It is overwhelmingly in Australia's interests for there to be a peaceful resolution to the crisis on the Korean peninsula, and Australia is adding its voice and actions to the collective effort to bring greater pressure to bear on North Korea to make it change its behaviour. Particularly, we are fully implementing the UN Security Council mandated sanctions and also additional autonomous sanctions. The Australian government has also lodged formal protests directly with the North Korean regime through its accredited embassies in Jakarta, New York and Seoul. Given that North Korea is threatening the international nuclear non-proliferation regime that has governed the use of nuclear technology since 1970, we instructed our ambassador in Vienna to make a statement overnight at an extraordinary session of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization commission and we demanded that North Korea cease its ballistic and nuclear weapons programs and that it abide by international law and international norms. Also overnight, the UN Security Council held an extraordinary meeting, and the United States will be circulating a draft resolution to be adopted next week.
Australia supports stronger UN Security Council responses, including even stronger and tougher economic sanctions, particularly those where China can exercise its leverage. The Prime Minister and I continue to talk with our counterparts in the region and also with the permanent five members of the Security Council. It is overwhelmingly in our interests to pursue every avenue and use every effort to find a peaceful resolution to this crisis.
On indulgence: we thank the foreign affairs minister for her update to the House. The opposition very strongly supports the actions that the government are taking. It is a most grave and serious matter. Stronger sanctions for the United Nations Security Council resolution is a very important step. The best path, of course, remains doing all that we can to restrain and contain North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister please advise the House on what other occasions his government has referred a matter to the High Court to provide the High Court with 'an opportunity'?
I can't recall any other occasions, but I want to stress that the government does not doubt the eligibility of the Deputy Prime Minister or, indeed, of Senator Nash or Senator Canavan—or, indeed of Senator Xenophon. But it is important that the court be given that opportunity, and they will do so. The court will take that opportunity, as we know, and the matter will be heard in a matter of weeks from now.
The opposition want to talk about the eligibility of the Deputy Prime Minister. I think the one thing Australians know about the Deputy Prime Minister is that, as opposed to the member for Maribyrnong, the Deputy Prime Minister is thoroughly Australian, thoroughly fair dinkum and thoroughly committed to the national interest. The Leader of the Opposition—
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order, on direct relevance—and on misrepresentation of the Deputy Prime Minister!
Has the Prime Minister concluded his answer? The Prime Minister has concluded his answer.
My question is to the Minister for Social Services. Will the minister update the House on the government's commitment to identify welfare recipients with substance abuse issues and support them to pursue treatment and overcome barriers to employment? Are there any alternative approaches?
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The member for Banks, whom I thank for the question, is far too well aware that, unfortunately, too many Australian communities are suffering the debilitating and tragic effects of drug consumption. But particularly we see in all our electorates the tragic effects of the consumption of the drug ice. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare—
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The member for McMahon and the member for Sydney seem to be engaged in some interjection competition. They're both warned. If they are not silent for the rest of question time, they'll be watching it from their offices.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has reported that the use of ice is 2½ times more likely amongst unemployed Australians. The member for Banks is also aware how ice creates terrible barriers to employment. Over the last five years, the number of people being exempted out of critical appointments like job interviews has nearly doubled, and the excuse rate for missing appointments like job interviews because of drug and alcohol consumption in the last year has increased by 131 per cent. The cashless welfare card and the drug testing trials are designed to try new approaches to assist people and communities where alcohol and drugs are perpetuating welfare dependency. No-one would lose a dollar of welfare because of a positive test; rather, income would be managed and the welfare system used to require treatment, which would be formulated by a medical professional.
I was asked about alternatives. The Labor alternative was recently contained in a media release which is possibly the most insipid press release in political history. The opposition made their big announcement about drug policy in Perth with the member for Brand. To quote Labor's decisive new approach to dealing with the ice epidemic tearing at our communities, it refers to 'a consultation period, after which a task force will produce a report that will feed into a strategy'. Member for Brand, the drug dealers in Brand must be quaking in their leather boots. The drug dealers must be calling emergency meetings—'What will we do when consulted?
What will we do when then hit by the task force? What, then, if there is a report? And what about the possible future strategy?' Let us be absolutely clear about this point: the reason for trialling income management based on drug tests is because this side of the House believes that welfare should always be distributed to people who need it. But we absolutely do not accept that taxpayer funds should be endlessly redistributed as cash to drug dealers.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Given that the Prime Minister has guaranteed to the parliament that his government is legitimate based upon the strength of the advice from the Solicitor-General about the eligibility of the Deputy Prime Minister, will he now please table that advice. And if not, why not?
As the honourable member knows, it has never been the practice of the government—or any government, as far as I'm aware—to publish legal advice. And we certainly don't propose to change that practice now. I know the honourable member is very interested in the position of the DPM, who is also the minister for agriculture. It gives me the opportunity to observe that we're seeing strong growth in exports at the moment, up 4.3 per cent compared to a year ago. Rural exports are 18.7 per cent—
Opposition members interjecting—
The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Prime Minister has concluded his answer.
My question is to the Minister for Human Services. Will the minister please update the House on the results of the independent evaluation of the cashless welfare card and the government's plans to expand the operation into new regions. How has the government's approach been received by local communities, including in my electorate of O'Connor?
I thank the member for O'Connor for his question. As members would be aware, we've been operating trials of a cashless welfare card in Ceduna and the East Kimberley for 18 months now. The aim is to reduce the very significant welfare fuelled alcohol, gambling and drug abuse that, unfortunately, operates in these communities. Indeed, as the initial conditions reports said, these communities were at crisis point and had faced a steady decline over the last five to 10 years.
Last Friday, we released the final evaluation of the trials. It showed that the card was making a considerable positive impact and turning these communities around. In relation to alcohol abuse, for example, 41 per cent of people were drinking less. There was a decrease in the alcohol related hospital presentations of 37 per cent in Ceduna. There was a 14 per cent reduction in apprehensions for public drunkenness and there were fewer referrals to the sobering up centres. There was evidence of a decrease in the number of women who were drinking while pregnant. Half of all people said they were gambling less. Half of all drug takers said they were taking fewer drugs.
There were also other broader benefits which were documented in the final evaluation. It included that people were reporting that they were better able to look after their children. Indeed, 45 per cent of people said they were better able to save money. There was also a decrease in requests for emergency relief. There were reports of more baby and children's products being bought at the stores. The local senior sergeant said of one prominent park: 'You can now see children playing and families sitting down, whereas previously we would be attending there virtually every afternoon for brawls.' These are incredible results. East Kimberley leader Ian Trust, who led the advocacy of the card, said that he hoped in 20 years time we would look back and say that this was the defining moment when things started to change for the better. Every indication is that he may be proved right.
Last week, the Prime Minister and I announced the Western Australian Goldfields, in the member for O'Connor's electorate, as the next site for the card. The Goldfields, like other regions, has extensive problems with alcohol and drug abuse paid for by the welfare dollar. And I commend the member for O'Connor's advocacy of this card and for bringing together his community around it. It was welcomed very widely by community leaders. Perhaps the most powerful comment of support came from Betty Logan, an Indigenous woman and local councillor, and I'll finish with this point. She said: 'We know it will help make a difference to young kids' lives. Kids are neglected and parents are out of control because of excessive drinking. We can't stop that unless we have something like this.' (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to his immediate previous answer where he claimed that there's never been the practice of governments to release legal advice. But when there was doubt under section 44 of the Constitution about the qualifications of the member of Leichhardt to be a member of parliament in 1999, Prime Minister Howard tabled this legal advice from the Solicitor-General about the member's qualifications. Why won't the Prime Minister follow the precedent set by Prime Minister Howard and table the Solicitor-General's advice about his Deputy Prime Minister's eligibility to serve?
Honourable members interjecting—
Members on my right and minister for health.
If the honourable member has to go back 18 years to find an exception to the precedent, it rather proves the point I made in my earlier answer.
Thank you very much—
Opposition members interjecting—
I've called the member for Leichhardt.
It's great to feature here today.
The member for Leichhardt will ask his question.
My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry representing the Minister for Employment. Will the minister update the House on how the government's protecting vulnerable workers bill will protect vulnerable workers from unscrupulous employers? Is the minister aware of any alternatives?
I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question. He, like me and all members on this side of the House, will be glad that last night the Senate passed the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017, another big win for the Minister for Employment, Senator Michaelia Cash, who is doing an amazing job on behalf of workers and employers around Australia.
It's a bill that will give the Fair Work Ombudsman new powers over franchising and ensure that workers like those at 7-Eleven, for example, are not able to be exploited again in the future by unscrupulous employers. It's another brick in the wall that this government has been creating to protect the rights of workers, protect honest union leaders and ensure that the cosy, corrupting arrangements between bosses and union leaders will be a thing of the past. And, bizarrely, the Labor Party voted against the second reading of the bill in the Senate last night—yet again, opposing looking after workers and protecting honest union leaders. They've done it on the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the Registered Organisations Commission, the corrupting benefits bill and, now, the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017. There is one vulnerable worker who must be secretly pleased with the protections afforded him by our reforms. He's been out treading the boards again. The member for Grayndler has written a manifesto today, 'Voters hungry for alternatives'.
The Leader of the House knows the rules on props.
I think that we all know what alternative he's talking about. The member for Grayndler has been having quite a run in the park, as they say, in the last few months, whether he's opposing the Leader of the Opposition's position on statues being ripped up and removed and put in the bin, but he took the more sensible view. TheDaily Telegraph agreed with him—not this Leader of the Opposition. He opposed Labor's bungled penalty rates ad. Do you remember that, the so-called racist ad? He supported expelling John Setka from the Labor Party. The Leader of the Opposition stood by John Setka. He said that Labor should embrace the budget because it contained Labor measures they would have done if they were in government. He produced his citizenship documents over two weeks ago. We had to wait until last night for the Leader of the Opposition to produce his, and now he's opposing the Leader of the Opposition's politics of confrontation at all costs. As he said in his manifesto today:
Australia also has its self-styled outsiders who seek to capitalise on public disenchantment …
Bill, he's having a go at you in that manifesto. (Time expired)
The Leader of the House will refer to the members by the correct titles.
I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Watson from moving the following motion forthwith:
The House calls on the Deputy Prime Minister to stand aside from Cabinet immediately.
Immediately! Who would have thought that the High Court was just being given an opportunity—
The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Leader of the House has the call.
Mr Speaker, they've got to build some momentum before they do this suspension motion.
The Leader of the House will go to his point of order.
They haven't got any momentum, so I move:
That the Member be no longer heard.
The question is that the Manager of Opposition Business be no longer heard.
Is the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business seconded?
I second the motion. The Prime Minister and this government are showing contempt—
The member for Isaacs will resume his seat. The Leader of the House?
I move:
That the Member be no longer heard.
The question is that the member for Isaacs be no longer heard.
The question is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to. I call the member for Hunter.
Mr Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister—
The member for Hunter will resume his seat. The Leader of the House?
I move:
That the question be now put.
The question is that the question be now put.
The question now is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to.
My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister update the House on the importance of maintaining integrity in Australia's migration programs? Why is a clear, consistent and forthright approach needed? Is the minister aware of any other alternatives?
I want to say thank you very much to the member for Moore for his question and for the hard work that he does in his Western Australian seat. He's a great member of this parliament and we acknowledge that today. He's a person of great character. Look across the benches here. This side of the parliament is full of people with great character. I'll tell you a person who has questionable character in this place. He's sitting right there. The Australian public have got him pegged, as does the member for Grayndler, who's in The Australian newspaper again today—the people's choice. Remember the people's choice? Former Labor senator John Black pointed it out last weekend. He's got the number of the Leader of the Opposition. He knows, like every Australian does, as every member of this side of the parliament knows, that the Leader of the Opposition does not have the character, does not have the strength or the integrity, to be the leader of this nation.
The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection will resume his seat.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The member for Grayndler will cease interjecting. I listened to the question—even though it was difficult above the noise—very carefully. I allow preambles, with greater tolerance for the Prime Minister, but the minister has now been going for a minute and he has not got to the substance of the question. He will need to bring himself to it immediately.
I was trying to break out of that preamble, but I was on a roll. Thank you for your forbearance.
You can roll out of the chamber, too!
Let me say, this Leader of the Opposition, when he was a minister in the glory years—that is, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, when he was the employment minister—he said to the Australian public that he believed in Australian workers and that he would stand up for Australian jobs. You know what happened? When he was the employment minister, there were 40,000 extra visas created. If you want to talk about integrity—
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The member for McMahon will resume his seat. The minister has come to visas, and he'll stay on that subject or the broader subject of the question.
The Labor Party may not want to hear this, but the Australian public already knows it. Whether we're talking about border management, whether we're talking about visas, whether we're talking about Australian jobs, this Leader of the Opposition has a track record for a lack of integrity.
Opposition members interjecting—
They can scream and yell as much as they want, but they know—as the member for Grayndler knows—that this Leader of the Opposition has big question marks over his character.
The fact is that this government, when we were elected, was elected to clean up a mess, and clean it up we have. We've stopped deaths at sea. We've stopped children arriving into detention. And, at the same time, in a compassionate way, we have been able to increase the number of refugees coming into this country. The Labor Party, in contrast—including this Leader of the Opposition, who was a minister in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years—presided over 1,200 people drowning at sea, including men, women and children. At the same time, he's been out there saying to the Australian public that he wouldn't tolerate that again, that he would adopt the policies of this government. But the fact is that he won't, because you cannot trust this Leader of the Opposition. You cannot trust this man. The Australian public gets it, and the member for Grayndler is going to act on it soon enough.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
I seek leave to address a misrepresentation.
The minister claims to have been misrepresented?
I do.
The minister may proceed.
The member for Macquarie, during the 90-second statement period, asserted that, as social services minister, I'd terminated a contract with Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia. The actual situation is that there was a relevant subcontract between Medibank Health Solutions and Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia, which was due to end by the effluxion of time on 30 June 2017. That contract was extended to the end of next month to allow for the completion of a tender process. That tender process was conducted by Medibank Health Solutions, not my office or the department.
The result of the tender process was to offer future subcontracts to four not-for-profit providers and to increase the funding by $5 million and counselling to 17 extra counsellors. The four successful not-for-profit groups were DV Connect, safe steps, Women's Safety Services and Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia. No termination occurred. In fact, Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia declined the offer to be a subcontractor on the panel.
I've been misrepresented. I seek leave to make a personal explanation—with some coaching.
Does the member claim to have been misrepresented?
Yes, I do claim to be misrepresented.
The member may proceed and go to the misrepresentation.
The minister claims that I said that the RDVSA had not received funding. I said they had been defunded, which is exactly what has happened. I also made it clear that they had chosen—
Ms Husar interjecting—
The member for Lindsay will cease interjecting. The member for Macquarie has outlined where she's been misrepresented. If there is a second misrepresentation—
There is a second misrepresentation.
I'm addressing the chamber. If there's a second misrepresentation, the member for Macquarie will go to it. But these are not opportunities to debate the issues. Otherwise, you can both come back in the 90-second statements tomorrow.
The minister also said that there was a tender process. What I made very clear was that they had chosen not to because their professional ethics did not allow them to do it under the terms the government had created.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Perth proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The role of Western Australia within the Commonwealth.
I call upon all 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—
An honourable member interjecting —
All that and more, Mr Speaker! As one moves through life and gets older, one accumulates a collection of memories, memories that I put into a category of visions or things that are seen that then cannot be unseen. We all have them. We all know what they are—let's be honest. Wandering through and inadvertently catching one's parents in the act—that's a vision that, once seen, cannot be unseen. But perhaps more to the point, having to watch and listen to the member for Canning use the words 'sexual intercourse between a man and a woman' as a reason not to back marriage equality is something that cannot be unseen.
I'd just say to the member for Perth—resume your seat for a second. This matter of public importance has a defined subject matter, written by him. There is no reason why he should stray from it. Otherwise, he will give the shortest MPI in living memory. The member for Perth will come to the subject matter.
There are so many other things that, once seen, cannot be unseen. I'll go to the heart of the MPI—what was seen that cannot be unseen at the Western Australian state Liberal conference last weekend. For those who aren't aware, Ned Flanders of The Simpsons has a doppelganger in Western Australia. His name is Mike Nahan. He is the leader of the Liberal Party, and, in an amazing call to arms, he has tried to inspire visions of Howard's battlers and Tony's tradies. And what does he call them? 'Mike's mates'. He said, 'Do you know what we need, fellow Liberals? We need more of Mike's mates in Western Australia!'
The funny thing about 'Mike's mates' is that it's a bit like saying you're a strong Prime Minister. If you've got to say you need mates then everyone knows that you don't really have them. And why is it, I hear you ask, that Western Australian Liberals have so few mates? One only needs to see the course of financial mismanagement that's occurred under the hand of Colin Barnett and the Liberal Party in Western Australia over the last eight years. That has been compounded—make no mistake—by four years of financial mismanagement under this Liberal government.
Let's start at home. Let's start in Western Australia. Let's see what Colin Barnett actually did whilst he was handling the books, then not handling the books and then handling the books. Where do we start? In 2008 we started with a surplus in Western Australia—believe it or not—of $2 billion. Yes, we had some debt. That debt was $3.6 billion. After eight years of a Liberal government, what are we left with? We are left with a deficit of $3 billion. We are left with a debt of $33 billion, which will then go to $41 billion in the course of the forward estimates. How's that for financial mismanagement! One wonders why they don't have any mates!
During that period of time, what did the federal Western Australians do to try to prop up this ailing financial basket case under Colin Barnett?
Let's see what they did. They spent like drunken sailors. Let's see what happened to the GST distribution in the four years in which this federal Liberal government was in charge. In 2014 there was a return of 44c in the dollar under the GST, and they did nothing; in 2015, a 37c contribution under the GST redistribution, and they did nothing; and in 2016, 29c as a GST redistribution, and they did nothing. Are we seeing a pattern here? In 2017, 30c as a GST contribution, and they did nothing; and 2018 and going forward, 34c in the dollar, and they're doing nothing.
Coming back to the state Liberal conference, what did we see this Prime Minister do? Well, he did the same thing that he did at the last state Liberal conference. One could be forgiven for having some deja vu. He promised a floor. He promised some mythical floor to the GST. He promised a floor last time, but he didn't say when, didn't say where and didn't say how much. He promised a floor this time, and didn't say when, didn't say where and didn't say how much. I'll tell you what—I'm glad this Prime Minister isn't a tradie specialising in floors. I'm glad this Prime Minister doesn't say, 'Don't worry about things; floors are us.' There is no floor under this Prime Minister; there is a fundamental flaw, and that flaw is his failure to do anything meaningful to address the disparity faced by Western Australians under this federal government.
Meanwhile, what does Western Australia contribute to the federal government coffers? Well, they contribute more than we could possibly know, and certainly more than you'd be expecting under these federal Western Australian representatives in government: 10 per cent of the population, 15 per cent contribution to the economy and 35 per cent in exports. Let's look at commodities. Iron ore—$48 billion into the economy; petroleum products—$18.4 billion; and gold—$10 billion. And all of that comes to the Federation.
Mr Keenan interjecting—
I hear the member for Stirling ask how many seats they have in Western Australia. They've got 11 out of 16 seats—and what have those members done?
Opposition members: Nothing!
Nothing, I hear you say. So let's amp it up a bit. Let's look at their composition in the ministry. How many ministers do they have who are from Western Australia?
Mr Keenan interjecting—
And how much have those six ministers from Western Australia done? Even less; even less than nothing.
Mr Keenan interjecting—
The member for Stirling asks me: 'What have we ever done for you?' Straight out of the Life of Brian: 'What have the Romans ever done for us? Oh, that's right: highways and plumbing.' This just says so much. Only a fortnight ago, our leader, after—
Mr Keenan interjecting—
Let's call it for what it is. The Western Australian federal Labor MPs have been in this place for 12 months, not four years of government—and are certainly not of the calibre of the member for Stirling here! After 12 months of advocacy and after 12 months of listening to their community, what did the federal Labor leader do not one fortnight ago? He came to Perth and said, 'I've listened to my Western Australian colleagues and I am implementing an historical fix to address the GST disparity on a once-and-for-all basis.' We have a federal leader who is prepared to put his money where his mouth is: topping up our GST disparity to the equivalent of a 70c floor, $1.6 billion, to once and for all address the disparity. That's what we do. After 12 months, we did more than it took you mob four years in government. That's what we do.
So what's the response from this Liberal crew? Well, the response is this: 'We're going to sort of talk about a GST floor, but we don't know when, we don't know where and we don't know how. Instead, what we'll do is we'll put on the table a $100 million exploration development incentive.' Anyone who knows anything about the EDI will tell you that it was this mob who took it off the table in the first place four months ago in the budget on the basis that it didn't work. So what are they going to do? They said, 'We're going to reheat this musty old package that doesn't work and we're going to roll it up to Western Australia,' but they omitted to tell anyone at the conference that this package actually applies across the country—not just to Western Australia. That's not $100 million to WA.
In the absence of that, what else do they talk about? I thought they were actually talking about regeneration within the Liberal Party. I thought they were talking about succession in the party. Turns out I got it wrong. They'd all been in the Dominion League, which is a pub in my electorate—they'd clearly taken some inspiration from that—and wanted to talk about secession from the Federation instead. When the going gets tough, the tough just run away, do they? They run away and say, 'We don't want to be part of it anymore.' Where does that leave the most senior minister of the Western Australian mob, the Minister for Foreign Affairs? Will she be the world's only foreign minister with a policy that she should not be a citizen of the country that she represents on the world stage? How is that going to work, do you think? How do you reckon that's going to go? I'll tell you what: it's not going to go well.
On a serious note, if you want certainty in relation to a GST top-up to a real floor, vote Labor. If you want federal representatives to face up to a problem instead of running away from it, vote Labor. If you want a government that will listen, consider and act in Western Australia, you'll vote Labor.
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! Order! Order!
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! This is a general warning. There will be no more warnings. I put up with a lot of rowdiness with that first speaker. Everyone is warned!
It's good to see I engender such excitement with the opposition! It is a great honour to be able to speak on this MPI, discussing the role of Western Australia in our Commonwealth, as described by the member for Perth. Western Australians don't have to think back too far to remember what the vision for WA is from the Labor Party. All they have to do is look back to see what the Labor Party in government did to the Western Australian economy. The two stand-out achievements from the Labor Party's perspective, from their glory years—the absolute glory of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years—were the mining tax and the carbon tax, those absolutely fantastic policies for your constituents, Member for Perth! That's why they turfed you and that's why they keep returning so many fantastic Western Australian lower house members of parliament—because they remember what the vision of the Labor Party is for Western Australia, and that is just to milk it a bit more, milk a bit more tax out of the Western Australians, through the resource super profits tax, as it started, and the MRRT, as it ended up. They ultimately capitulated on the minerals resource rent tax. They said it was going to raise $16 billion, and it didn't even raise a fraction of that. We know that they felt that the carbon tax was somehow going to be strong for an economy like Western Australia's, rich in mineral resources. But the Western Australians sent the Labor Party a message, and they turfed them. They unceremoniously turfed them because they don't agree with the vision that the Labor Party has for Western Australia.
We know why Western Australians have entrusted so many good, hardworking, solid members to the lower house: because ingrained in Western Australians are the values of this party, ingrained in the Western Australian economy are the values ingrained in us—aspiration, hard work, entrepreneurialism. That is the essence of the psyche of the Western Australian public. I was there only a matter of weeks ago. As a Victorian visiting Western Australia, may I say it reinforced my understanding of why they repudiate the Labor Party and why they repudiate this waffle from the member for Perth. And it was absolute waffle—a pretty good comedy routine but not much substance.
I must say, I was watching Sky News yesterday and I saw a bit of a train-wreck interview with the member for Perth. He's normally pretty good on TV—the hipster beard; the sort of cool attitude—but it was a train wreck of an interview. The member for Perth was crowing about some so-called additional funding for Western Australia. Who knows where the funding's coming from? Here's an extract of the interview. Sam Maiden: 'How are you going to fund the $1.6 billion?' Hammond: 'It's been backed in by shadow cabinet.' Maiden: 'That doesn't explain how you're going to fund it.' Hammond: 'It's been assessed by Chris Bowen.' Sam Maiden is very persistent—a great interviewer. She wanted an answer and she wasn't getting one. She said, 'Okay, but how are you going to fund it?' Hammond: 'It's funded. It will be funded.' Maiden: 'How are you going to fund it?' Hammond: 'Out of general consolidated revenue.' Maiden: 'So taxes will have to go up. Which taxes are you going to put up?' I could keep reading through it. The poor old member for Perth stammered on. There's not really a complete sentence that I can read out. In the end, Sam Maiden, in her wonderful fashion, said, 'Mate, this is the biggest magic pudding argument I've ever heard. You're smarter than that.' I'd say to the House and I'd say to Sam Maiden: I'm not sure whether the member for Perth is actually smarter than that, because he's been unable to explain how the Labor Party is going to address these problems.
We've seen recognition from the government, through the Productivity Commission review. We want to ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that the distribution of GST is fair for everyone and we want to ensure that it doesn't hurt jurisdictions or states like Western Australia which do show that entrepreneurial spirit—using their natural resources. Let's be frank, other states do not utilise them properly. Look at the socialist Labor government in Victoria which has locked up all of our gas reserves—conventional gas reserves, as much as anything else. So why should the Western Australian economy be punished? That is why we announced in May this year an additional $1.6 billion for infrastructure in Western Australia. This additional infrastructure funding will support projects, including $792 million towards the METRONET proposal to upgrade and expand the Perth metro rail link, and a tick over $760 million towards priority new road projects to address safety and congestion at a number of key locations. There's quite a large laundry list of projects, but they are funded. We know where that money is coming from. It is funded in the budget. We know how it is being met.
The Labor Party's proposal, ruthlessly flushed out yesterday by Sam Maiden, is a magic pudding. There's no money behind it. Where is the money coming from? Well, the money is coming from a litany of new Labor taxes that have been spoken about in this House. We've had discussions about the Labor Party thinking that small businesses with a turnover of $2 million should be treated like Apple and Google and shouldn't be entitled to things like accelerated depreciation, lower company tax or ordinary structures that small businesses use in family trusts, with their new trusts tax. We know the Labor Party has a housing tax masquerading as a housing affordability policy. I say to the Labor Party and the member for Perth, when he's trying to make his magic pudding numbers work: when you talk about your housing taxes, how do taxes on commercial properties help housing affordability? Why is it fair to allow a surgeon with investment income to negatively gear a property, but not to allow a nurse, a teacher, a fireman or a police officer to negatively gear against their PAYE salary and wages? How is that fair?
So there's an absolute litany of new taxes that will fund this. But just come clean, member for Perth. Just saying, 'It's consolidated revenue. Oh, Sam, it's consolidated revenue' is not going to cut it until you can say where that money is coming from. Western Australians know there's no money coming from the Labor Party—and that's why you've been consigned to where you are. You're going to come under a bit of heat because your state counterparts have made a big deal out of this issue, and we'll see if they're able to deliver. I suspect they're going to find it difficult to deliver on the very lofty objectives they stated before the election. So I'd say to the member for Perth: that was a pretty funny little comedy routine in this MPI. I laughed, I laughed, I found it very amusing, but there was no explanation to Western Australians as to how you were going to fund what you purport to fund. Therefore, you've not even met what the government has announced and, until then, you don't have a leg to stand on. So I'd say to the member for Perth and I'd say to all the members over there: until you have a vision that matches the entrepreneurial spirit of your constituents, they will continue to consign you to where you are in Western Australia. I hope that following speakers on the opposition side can say where the money is coming from. Where is the money coming from? Otherwise, it's just a magic pudding. (Time expired)
You couldn't write this stuff, could you? This is gold. They've got 11 people who could stand up and speak on WA and instead we get somebody Melbsplaining it for us. It's not enough that he mansplains it—he has to stand up and Melbsplain it to us West Australians about what WA needs. And in the meantime the member for Stirling is sitting next to him and all he can do is yell out across the table, 'Stand up and speak for your electorate. Stand up and speak for your state.'
It's interesting that the previous speaker spoke about a vision, because the Liberal Party is so bereft of ideas and so bereft of vision that they had to look all the way back to 1933 to get inspiration for WAxit. But I can see why the Liberals are right at home in 1933—no unemployment benefits, no Medicare, a white Australia policy—
Mr Keenan interjecting—
Mr Champion interjecting—
Order. The minister and the shadow minister at the table, please refrain from interjecting and let the member for Cowan speak.
As I was saying, I can see why the Liberals are right at home in 1933—no unemployment benefits, no Medicare, a white Australia policy, none of those pesky equal rights laws to worry about. And, hey, Malcolm Turnbull's NBN fits right into the last—
The member for Cowan will refer to members by their title.
The Prime Minister's NBN fits right into the last century. As much as we like to have a joke about this, it really is not a laughing matter. It really does belie some real grievances in Western Australia—grievances around unemployment, stagnant wages and, particularly, around our fair share of the GST. It's a very real issue, because Western Australia at the moment is getting just 34 cents in the dollar in return for our GST, despite the numerous things that we contribute to the economy. Apart from that, we don't get much of a say in the national conversation, whether it is on the GST or on things like housing affordability, which in Western Australia—I'm sorry that the member for Deakin has left the room, because I could Melbsplain to him what housing affordability is like in Western Australia. In Western Australia, mortgage stress is such a huge issue. A reduction in equity in people's homes is what's facing them after the big housing bubble. All of this underlines some real grievances from Western Australians around these issues and around the lack of fair share in our GST returns.
What does this government do? What's the government's response to it? It's not offering any solutions apart from a spectacularly ludicrous proposal to establish the faraway mythical land of 'Westralia'. Apart from that, this government's response is to sprinkle a little sugar, bring the GST up to about 37.6c in the dollar, as if Western Australians can easily be shut up with a spoonful of honey. Well, they just don't know us sandgropers and what a force we can be. And of course they wouldn't know that, because—look over there on that side—out of 11 from Western Australia there are four here in the chamber today, and not one of them could stand up to speak about their state and speak up for their electorates and for their state.
Last week, amidst much fanfare, the Prime Minister came to Western Australia. What did he announce? He announced a paltry $100 million exploration development incentive which, like a soggy, reheated meat pie, is just a rehash of the policy that they'd abolished previously. The Prime Minister was given a choice. He could have matched Labor's commitment of a $1.6 billion fair share fund for Western Australia, which would be the equivalent of a 70c floor. He could have done more, by promising to fix the GST share, or he could have done nothing. What did he choose to do? He chose to do nothing. He chose to tell us to wait a while. No wonder the WA Libs don't want him to govern them.
I call the member for Swan.
Oh, my god! It's another member for Melbourne!
The member for Wakefield is warned.
I saw the member for Perth slip across and make the suggestion to the member for Wakefield that he yell that out. Keep up the rhetoric, Member for Perth; it's consistent. It's great to be able to speak today on this matter of public importance put forward by the member for Perth, because of the great role WA has within the Commonwealth. And it does have a great role: our resources sector and the mining boom bring considerable revenue to the state and federal governments. The raw materials, the technology used and the economic benefits to this country have been immense and have shaped our modern Australia.
But for too long the GST system has failed our home state of Western Australia. I'm confident when I say that nobody envisaged the distribution of GST would drop so low that any state would be getting around 34c in the dollar as a return for GST. It obviously tells us the system is flawed. But the Turnbull government has taken action. We've made regular top-up payments, and the Treasurer has announced the Productivity Commission will investigate whether Australia's system of GST distribution is affecting our national economy and productivity. This is a durable solution. It's not a quick fix, nor is it a bandaid solution, but it is a long-term and reasonable solution to such a complex issue.
We heard the member for Perth speak about the visit from the Leader of the Opposition. All that the good people of WA were given was a vote-grabbing exercise, which effectively proved he has now officially ruled out fixing the GST-sharing arrangements for WA. I must say, I was particularly eager to speak on the MPI from the member for Perth. I heard the member for Deakin talk about a train-wreck interview. There was another one in Perth last week, and that was a train-wreck interview with Gareth Parker on 6PR, supporting the Leader of the Opposition's plans for a grand rescue of Western Australia with his GST.
For the members opposite, I'll read some of that interview out; I have the transcript here. I can see that the member for Perth's really looking forward to this. This is Gareth Parker to the member for Perth, talking about the Leader of the Opposition. Gareth:
What he did announce was $1.6 billion of tied infrastructure funding to be delivered in 2019 and 2020, as I guess a bit of compensation—that's welcomed, but it's not a GST solution.
Tim Hammond said:
Look, Gareth, I don't agree with you, mate … and the way in which the reform package is structured, is plucked out of thin air. There are very good reasons why the package is set up as it is. Firstly, this $1.6 billion, again, is not just a figure made up because it sounds good. It's because it equates to a 70 cent floor, in terms of GST allocation, for WA …
Gareth Parker goes on, to Tim Hammond:
You mentioned the 70 cent floor, it's predicated on WA's GST share rising automatically through the natural rebound that we're told is going to come to about 60 cents in the dollar—
so you're not taking it from 34c to 70c; you're taking it from 60c to 70c—
let's say that that doesn't happen, let's say that our GST share only rebounds to, say, 50 cents in the dollar. …will the $1.6 billion commitment rise to bring us up to 70 cents … Is that guaranteed or is it capped at $1.6 billion?
Tim Hammond said:
No; Chris Bowen addressed this yesterday.
… … …
Chris Bowen has said, as late as yesterday, that he's prepared to reassess, depending on whereabouts the projections actually go, but this is as good a start as any. What it's actually about …
Gareth Parker said:
Hang on, Tim—this is important because you can't run around saying you've guaranteed a 70 cent floor in our GST share if that's not in fact what you've done.
There we have it, the member for Perth being told by his mate—and he called him his mate—that he hasn't done the 70c as he promised he would.
Certainly it's a far reach from what Labor is promising. In fact, all the Leader of the Opposition could do when he came up to WA was sprout unfunded promises—a trick straight out of the Labor playbook. Unfunded promises will have to come straight from the pockets of our constituents. As we on this side of the House know full well, when Labor increases debt, it means more taxes on every hardworking Australian. In fact, all Labor has done for WA is promise unfunded GST top-up payments. I'm not sure where the member for Perth or the Leader of the Opposition have been hiding, but the federal coalition government has been doing this, and our top-up payments have already been paid to the state of Western Australia. They are already in the bank.
We've seen this before where the member for Lilley, Wayne Swan, made it out to be the big Wild West in 2010, promising a $2 billion infrastructure fund. What did we get? We got nothing—nothing from him or Kevin Rudd, who promised $100 million a year. What do we get? There was not even one cent. (Time expired)
The confidence that was shown by the WA Liberal Party in the governance of this nation was writ large last week when they decided they had so much confidence in this Prime Minister, his governance and his financial management of the country that they want out. This is a pretty consistent line from the Liberal Party when we come to think about it, because, when it came to thinking about Federation, their like weren't particularly keen on it for WA at the time, but the workers of Western Australia—the people who were out in the Kalgoorlie mines—all knew that they wanted to be part of a federation. We made sure that WA came in, and an important step it was.
But Western Australia still didn't get a very good deal back then, because all of those protectionists across the nation wanted to impose protectionism on Western Australia—a classically free-trade jurisdiction. It was from then that our position in the Commonwealth has always had a question mark hanging over it. It has been since then that Western Australians in this parliament have had to stand up and roar to make sure that they were heard by those over east, and that is what I am proud to continue the tradition of doing. Because Western Australia, whilst making up only 10 per cent of the population of the country, still provides 15 per cent of the economy and takes up a third of the land mass of the continent of our great nation it is a force to be reckoned with, and it is a force that has delivered great Australian prime ministers like John Curtin and Bob Hawke, and I'm sure there are many more to come.
After that great blast into the Federation, we had the secession movement come to Western Australia, and it is a movement that has stuck with the Liberal Party because the president of the Liberal Party continues to fly that flag. He likes to come back to it again and again. It's a process that did deliver us the Grants Commission, which is a good thing in theory—except it doesn't really deliver for WA in practice anymore, but I'll come to that again. When we look at the trajectory from Federation, the next great step—as I understand, from my great research on Wikipedia—was the concept of the Brisbane Line. It seems the conservative forces on the other side, when we came to that great existential threat to our nation of the Second World War, thought that Western Australia could be given away. That's how much confidence they had in being able to defend our nation. That's how much store they put in the integrity of our Commonwealth over there. They were prepared to give WA away. But, again, that great Labor Prime Minister, John Curtin, when that idea came to his cabinet, said, 'Get stuffed; we are keeping WA in the Commonwealth.' And good on him for doing so.
This Liberal state government that we just got rid of in Western Australia has form when it comes to understanding our position in the Commonwealth. It basically spent its entire eight years not signing up to any Commonwealth agreements and not participating in any national schemes, and, when it came to Infrastructure Australia, it submitted no projects for Western Australia. We had to wait until we had a Labor government in WA—fortunately we now have the Mark McGowan WA Labor government—to even get around to submitting projects to Infrastructure Australia so that we could have them funded. That is what we've been getting on with since the election. But, of course, that would not have made any difference to this government if it weren't for the fact that WA not only had a great, resounding win at the state election but started returning some more federal Labor members as well. It was only after that that this government started to listen.
The member for 'Sukkilala'—sorry, the member for Deakin said that there were all these projects but he didn't actually know what any of them were. Let me tell you. We've got: fixing the Denny Avenue rail crossing; bringing forward the duplication of Armadale Road; the new Armadale Road bridge; the extension of the Thornlie rail line through to Cockburn Central—and that's all just in my electorate. There are many other projects as well. In fact, there's even some in the member for Tangney's electorate, because we understand the need to make sure that they happen. I know you're very supportive of it, member for Tangney. They're just a few of the projects.
But I think it is appropriate that I turn to the GST. We have many Western Australians in the cabinet of this government, in the ministry: the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop; the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate and the Minister for Finance, Mathias Cormann; the Minister for Employment and the Minister for Women, Michaelia Cash; the Minister for Indigenous Health and the Minister for Aged Care, Ken Wyatt; the Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter; the Minister for Justice, Michael Keenan, who's at the table but not speaking about this issue at all, apparently; and the Chief Government Whip, Nola Marino. They're all from Western Australia and they have delivered diddly squat for Western Australia when it comes to the GST. They came in and offered a $100 million tax incentive for mining, which is of course welcome but not limited to Western Australia. (Time expired)
This is a great opportunity to talk about the GST in Western Australia. Members will be pleased to know that there is support in this chamber, from all members from Western Australia, for doing something about the GST. But the approach is very different. One of the things I'd like to do today is to have a look at the different approaches of the Liberal Party and the Labor Party in relation to the GST. The Liberal Party is committed to a floor in the GST, and the Prime Minister has made that very clear. We're also committed to the Productivity Commission review. This is a very important approach. When we have a look at the different approaches of the parties, we can see that the Labor Party has a smoke-and-mirrors approach and the Liberal Party has a real approach to achieving change.
When we looked at the Labor Party's submission to the Productivity Commission review, what did it say? Shamefully, it said:
The WAFPLP seek an outcome to this situation, but one that doesn’t negatively impact other States and Territories.
They absolutely gave away the opportunity that they had to stand up for Western Australia and to deliver real change for WA. That's not the approach that we're taking. When the Treasurer announced the Productivity Commission approach, he did so saying that the approach was taken because of the commitment of the WA Liberal members and senators to making sure that we fix this problem in a way that sticks.
In relation to what has been achieved already, $1.2 billion of top-ups have been made in the last two years alone. A $2.3 billion infrastructure package negotiated with the state government, including $1.6 billion worth of federal funds, has been committed to Western Australia for important infrastructure. Then there's the $1.2 billion for the Perth Freight Link that sits there ready for the state government to receive from the federal government for the important project of getting cars and trucks from the Kwinana Freeway to the Fremantle port.
We hear a lot from the member for Cowan in relation to the GST. It's very interesting when you compare what she said in the chamber today to what she says to her constituents. In a letter that the member for Cowan sent to her constituents, she said: 'WA Labor has been working for years for a better GST deal for WA. The process of getting WA a better GST share is going to be long and complex. Since Labor is not in government federally, we cannot commit to a process for doing so since we do not yet know everything that needs to be changed.' I think that absolutely sums up the position of the Labor Party in this chamber. The Labor Party have announced a $1.6 billion fund. There isn't a problem they've had in the past which they haven't solved by taxing more and spending more. It's a big promise and it's like the promises they've made in the past and never followed through on.
In 2007, Kevin Rudd promised a $100 million a year infrastructure fund and it never happened. In 2010, Wayne Swan promised a $2 billion WA infrastructure fund and it never happened. There was a review by Mr Swan in 2012 and it never happened. The minister stole my thunder in relation to the member for Perth's interview on Sky News where he couldn't explain how the $1.6 billion promise will be funded by the Labor Party. He said that it's been 'backed in by shadow cabinet'; they're going to fund it because 'it's been assessed by Chris Bowen'. He said, 'It's funded. It will be funded.' You cannot believe Labor's position that fixing the GST issue for Western Australia means that they've got a big bucket of money and an infrastructure fund—more tax, more spend—but their solution does not, in any way, change the distribution of the GST. Is it believable? Absolutely not. It cannot be believable. If you ask the Labor Party to explain to this House whether they have a plan to fix the distribution of the GST that actually changes the distribution of the GST, they will say no. I encourage newspapers like the Hobart Mercury to put the question to Bill Shorten: does Labor have a plan to change the distribution of the GST? The answer is no. The Labor Party members in this chamber should be very honest in relation to that fact, but they're not because it's all smoke and mirrors.
I'd like to start by noting the near absence of Western Australian MPs from the Liberal side of politics. It's a desperate shame when you have a such great topic to speak on today. I'm very pleased to be able to speak today on the role of WA in the Commonwealth. Geography is important. Faced with the vast Indian Ocean before it, with all its bounty and all its peoples, we can never get away from the fact that we are separated from the rest of the nation by vast deserts and the Nullarbor Plain. It was Tim Winton, that great Western Australian author, who observed that West Australians, for the most part, live on the veranda of this continent, with the Indian Ocean before us, the desert at our backs and the spaces in between used for mining, agriculture and education to build a prosperous state.
Each state in this remarkable nation makes its mark in different ways. My colleagues all enjoy talking about the fine attributions and contributions of their home states—we all do. The role of mining and the resources industry in WA is well-known and the successful exploitation of natural resources gifted to us has been a cornerstone in the development of our state and this nation. The Wheatbelt of WA is the largest grain producing region. The last harvest was the biggest ever experienced, with Western Australian farmers harvesting over 16½ million tonnes of grain. Most of this grain is exported through the largest grain handling facility in the Southern Hemisphere—the CBH grain handling facility, with the blue iconic silos at Kwinana Beach in my electorate of Brand.
WA is playing its part in science and research. The world's largest public science data project is happening in Perth and in the radio quiet of the vast Murchison, where the CSIRO, the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research and their global partners are building the Square Kilometre Array. In the arts, WA excels. The Perth International Arts Festival, established in 1953 by UWA, is the oldest and best—of course—international arts festival in the nation. In our splendid isolation, great artists have emerged from the west: Guy Grey-Smith, Elise Blumann, Mary Moore, Elizabeth Jolley, Shaun Tan, Tim Minchin, the great soprano singer Sara Macliver, the Triffids, the Hoodoo Gurus and INXS. Before all that, the art of the oldest living culture in the world, Australia's first peoples, came to being on the rocks of the Kimberley and the Pilbara.
We all love our homes, but shouldn't we in this place think of this country as a nation made up of its states that is greater than the sum of its parts? I, for one, love Australia so much I would not part with a single piece of her. And to think the WA Liberal Party hold this nation in such disregard that they would seek to tear it apart. Yes, we've all heard about it. The WA Liberal Party state conference last weekend voted to set up a committee to seek to divide WA from the Federation. Such confidence they have in the Prime Minister and how he treats WA, they seek to leave the Federation! Can't get your six cabinet ministers to help out WA? Can't get your PM to listen and do anything? I guess if you are a WA Liberal you take your bat and your ball and you go home and take a third of the pitch with you.
This absurd motion came forward from the Brand division of the Liberals, from a local Liberal, Rick Palmer. I spoke with him just the other week at a chamber of commerce awards event in my electorate. He's been a great member of the community. He's flown the flag for the Brand Liberals for a while. But I'm not sure who else is in the Brand division of the Liberals, given their electoral results in 2016 and then in the four seats across Brand in the WA state election in March. They have clearly left the building. There is no doubt that WA Liberal secession talk is fodder for vast amusement, but the laughs mask a very serious issue. Political leaders have an obligation to work in the interests of the community, to seek to bring people together, to work hard for workable solutions to the problems we all face. In bringing forward this motion for WA to seek independence from the Commonwealth, the Brand division of the WA Liberal Party have engaged in the most rank of politics.
In supporting this absurd motion, the WA Liberal Party have sunk to new depths, by seeking to harness a populous and divisive agenda. This is very serious. How dare the WA Liberal Party damage the reputation of Western Australia and Western Australians in this ridiculous and shameful fashion? Their poor judgement serves only to divide a nation—a Commonwealth that is greater than the sum of its parts. WA is proudly a part of Australia. We have played and continue to play an important role in this great Commonwealth. As leaders, our political skills should be used in working hard to resolve federal difficulties like the GST distribution, not throwing our hands up in the air, insulting our friends and colleagues and deserting the nation. We have seen, around the world, divisions that are stoked up by such irresponsible political leadership. It's a dangerous game. WA is better than this. WA is better than the Liberals. I would say to WA Liberals and anyone drifting towards this separatist sentiment: you don't need to secede to get a fair share; you just need to vote for Labor.
I think the people in Western Australia know exactly what they'd get if they voted Labor, because they saw it last time. They saw massive debt, $191 billion worth of Labor deficits and projected deficits of $123 billion. That's what you'll get if you vote for Labor. That's what you need to do—vote Labor, and you'll get more debt and deficit and another $1.5 billion worth of tax hits on Western Australian small businesses. That's a great Labor strategy! That's what we get from Labor.
The member for Cowan made some pretty shocking comments about a white Australia policy. It was actually Labor Prime Minister John Curtin who reinforced the philosophy of the white Australia, saying:
This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race.
It was Arthur Calwell who sought to deport people on that basis. But it was Liberal Minister Holt's decision in 1949 that actually started the changes towards a non-discriminatory immigration policy—something that, as a Liberal, I am very proud of, in the same way that I'm very proud to be a Western Australian. That's what we've done.
What will Western Australians get if they get another Labor government? I suspect they'll get another chance at having live cattle exports shut down. If you were in the agricultural sector under Labor, all you got was increased pain. Look what happened to our ag sector. That decision basically took the heart out of that sector. It was a dreadful decision. We saw it reverberate right around Australia. Labor had absolutely zero interest in the agricultural sector. In rural and regional Australia, you were in a desert under Labor during those years. What we do know is that Labor has zero interest in small business. We will see small-business taxes increases. We will see that, and we will see changes. We won't see the instant asset write-off that the small businesses not only in Western Australia but right around Australia are taking advantage of.
I am very pleased to speak about the importance of Western Australia and my electorate of Forrest. It is an amazing part of this country. It's famous for all sorts of products, from its wine to its food, and its fabulous people. And it's a premier tourism destination. There is no better place than the South West with our gross regional product at $16 billion—this is an incredible contribution to this nation—and that's an increase of 35.5 per cent over the previous five years. The South West accounts for 36 per cent of the gross state product in the same year. How vital our region is to the state and the country, an area that I'm particularly proud of, and I'm proud of the men and women who live and work there.
The region's agricultural production was so maligned by Labor. They shut down the live cattle exports overnight not only depriving those people in Indonesia of a source of protein but having a massive impact right across Australia, right down into my South West. They have zero interest in agriculture, and zero interest in rural and regional Australia. That's what Western Australians know, should there ever be another Labor government. They have zero interest in rural and regional Australia, and there are very, very few on Labor's side who've ever had any experience in small business. That's what they know. And, of course, I have so many diverse industries. Whether it's agriculture, whether it's tourism, whether it's forestry, whether it's fishing, whether it's mining, whether it's manufacturing or whether it's construction, all of that happens in my fantastic part of the world in Western Australia. And I am very, very keen to represent that part of the world here in this parliament. But they do know in Western Australia what they will get with a Labor government. It is debt, it is deficit, and it is taxes guaranteed.
To my small businesses, my small-to-medium enterprises: you know what's ahead of you. You know so many of the initiatives that we've introduced—be it tax cuts for small business, be it issues around that instant asset write-off—and we're seeing the green shoots of improvement in the economy right around Australia. They are being generated by what this government is doing. I am very proud of what we're doing, and I know what Labor will do, if it ever gets back into government.
Western Australia has made and continues to make a distinctive contribution to our Commonwealth. I've said before, like my Labor colleagues from the west, I'm not an arch parochialist; I'm a proud Western Australian. It doesn't mean I underrate or undervalue any part of Australia. It does mean, as a representative from WA, that I'll speak up for my state and I'll argue for the proper recognition of WA's contribution to the Commonwealth and a fair and proportional response to the WA's needs.
The reality is, in the current climate under this government, the Abbott-Turnbull government, that you have to call out the ignorance and the neglect and the complacency of their approach to Western Australia. We contribute to the life of this nation in ways that span the full range of social and economic activity, and my colleagues today have described in compelling detail our state's special characters and qualities, our industries and entrepreneurs, our environment, our cultural and social diversity and strength, and I want to outline some of those aspects of Western Australian life too, but I do want to mention today the particular contribution that Western Australian women have made to political life in this country.
Edith Cowan was the first woman to serve in any Australian parliament. Dame Dorothy Tangney was the first woman to serve in this, the national, parliament when she served in the other place as a senator. Dr Carmen Lawrence was the first woman to serve as a Premier and, indeed, as a treasurer of a state government. The member for Curtin is the first woman to serve as foreign minister. I take this opportunity to remember and pay tribute to former Senator Pat Giles who passed away last month. She passed away on 9 August. She was a lion of the labour movement. She was an unstinting advocate for women in leadership, and the first woman to chair the Senate privileges committee.
Unfortunately, notwithstanding the great contribution of Western Australian women, WA experiences the highest gender pay gap in this country. And at a time of record and rising inequality in Australia as a whole, inequality is the worst in Western Australia. That's what you get from the double whammy of nine years of a Barnett state government and four years of the Abbott-Turnbull federal government. It's now the case in WA that the wealthiest 20 per cent of households get 44 per cent of all state income, the highest on record. The bottom 20 per cent, the lowest quartile, gets seven per cent of all state income, the lowest on record. And the shares of all three quartiles in between have fallen over the last decade. When you throw in the fact that WA is in deep recession and is experiencing high unemployment and record underemployment, you begin to understand the impact of this government's policies on the state of Western Australia. That's why the disparity between what WA contributes and the support it receives hurts us so much.
We account for 42 per cent of Australia's merchandise exports—15 per cent of the economy as a whole. We're a third of the land mass and 11 per cent of the population. We're apparently due 50 per cent of all shipbuilding, because that's what the Western Australian Liberals take out full-page ads in The West Australian to tell us. But, while the maths on the other side isn't so good, the reality is we're getting $3.5 billion out of $89 billion. That is less than four per cent. We're getting 3.8 per cent of road and bridge projects. We are getting zero per cent of regional jobs and investment, and we get 3.7 per cent of the GST. We contribute 15 per cent of the Australian economy, and we get 3.7 per cent of the GST, at 34 cents in the dollar. We get nine per cent of Australia Council funding and 5.4 per cent of Catalyst funding. We basically get hurt and dudded by this federal coalition government at every turn.
There's only one measure by which we get more than our fair share, much more, and that's in the form of Liberal representatives in this place. We get 11 out of 16 representatives in this place from the Liberal Party. That's 69 per cent. They want to put a floor under that! That's what they're working on—they want to put a ratcheting floor under that. There's no action on the GST, no dollar figure. The Prime Minister comes once every 12 months to say he's thinking about it and he wants to fix it, but there's no action—there's no floor; there's no dollar figure contribution. There's just this parade of Liberal representatives from Western Australia, flying over here and giving us nothing.
But the people in WA are cottoning on to this government. They know there's a solution. It doesn't involve rushing off the cliff like a pack of lemmings. It doesn't involve seceding from the Commonwealth or abolishing the minimum wage or halving foreign aid, or all of the other brilliant ideas that come out of the conference. It involves changing the government and electing a Shorten Labor government. (Time expired)
I am pleased to add to the contributions of fellow members on the role of Western Australia within the Commonwealth. As a proud Western Australian, I'm a federalist who believes in preserving the rights of the states which formed the Commonwealth at Federation. Western Australia is an economic powerhouse which punches well above its weight. Western Australia, with a population of 2.57 million residents in 2016, represented just 11 per cent of the Australian population but accounted for 42 per cent of Australia's merchandise exports and 24 per cent of Australia's business investment. Western Australia's gross state product of $239.7 billion in 2015-16 represented 14.5 per cent of Australia's gross domestic product. Our gross state product per capita of $92,056 in 2015-16 was 33 per cent above Australia's GDP per capita of $69,134. Western Australians are consistently achieving at higher levels than most of our other productive Australians. Western Australia is the main minerals and petroleum exporting region of Australia. WA accounted for 55 per cent of Australia's mining gross value added in 2015-16. WA accounted for 53 per cent of world seaborne exports in 2016. Our state is certainly an economic powerhouse.
Our state has been penalised for its strong economic performance by the Commonwealth Grants Commission GST distribution formula, as Western Australia effectively subsidises the other less economically performing states in our federation. Currently, WA receives just 34 cents in the dollar in GST revenue returned.
The government has commissioned a review by the Productivity Commission, which is due to report early in 2018. A greater share of GST distribution will strengthen WA's ability to invest in productive infrastructure, further increasing our state's economic-producing capacity. Options such as a GST floor and a per capita GST funding distribution model must be explored. The Commonwealth must ensure equitable funding arrangements for all states, including Western Australia. In particular, the declining share of revenue from Commonwealth based taxes, such as the goods and services tax, and royalties needs to be addressed as a priority.
The remoteness and tyranny of distances in Western Australia make for costly infrastructure to support these industries. Since its election, the coalition government has committed $6.8 billion to fund infrastructure projects in WA, leading up to 2021. The WA infrastructure package is being funded partially from the $1.2 billion previously allocated to the Perth Freight Link. A further $226 million was announced in the 2017-18 budget to address WA's GST shortfall. This adds to the top-up payments of $499.1 million paid to WA in June 2015 and $490 million in June 2016. Projects such as the Mitchell Freeway extension, which was funded to the tune of $209.1 million in my electorate are examples of this.
The government's $1.6 billion investment in the $2.3 billion WA infrastructure package announced on 7 May will support 17 new projects and provide a major boost for the WA economy, with around 6,000 jobs expected to be supported. The government's investment in the WA infrastructure package includes $792 million towards the Metronet proposal to upgrade and expand the Perth metropolitan rail network, including projects such as extending the railway line from Butler to Yanchep and Thornlie. Constructing the dual carriageway on Wanneroo Road between Joondalup Drive to Flynn Drive to coincide with the Neerabup Road extension and the opening of the Mitchell Freeway is an example of another local project in my electorate. The Australian government has also committed to funding key upgrades within the Perth metropolitan area to develop an efficient and safe freight network.
The time for the debate has concluded.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present the committee's report entitled Human rights scrutiny report: report 9 of 2017.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—The scrutiny report seeks to provide parliament with a credible technical examination of the human rights implications of legislation. This is pursuant to the committee's mandate under section 7(a) of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011, to examine the compatibility of recent bills and legislative instruments with Australia's obligations under international human rights law. In undertaking this examination, the committee receives legal advice in relation to the human rights compatibility of legislation, in which it is supported by an external legal adviser and secretariat staff.
Like all parliamentarians, scrutiny committee members may, and often do, have different views in relation to the policy merits of legislation. The report does not assess the broader merits or policy objectives of particular measures. Committee members performing a scrutiny function are not, and have never been, bound by the contents or conclusions of scrutiny committee reports.
The majority of new bills considered in this report, 14, were assessed as either promoting human rights, permissibly limiting human rights or not engaging human rights.
As outlined in chapter 1 of the report, the committee is also seeking further information in relation to nine bills and instruments. The committee requests additional information where a statement of compatibility has not adequately addressed human rights matters or the committee otherwise requires further information to complete its examination. The committee has also provided one advice-only comment to a legislation proponent.
As set out in chapter 2 of the report, the committee has also concluded its examination of a number of Federal Financial Relations (National Partnership payments) determinations following correspondence with the relevant minister. The examination provides a positive example of constructive engagement with the committee's dialogue process. The response received from the assistant minister to the committee's initial requests allowed the committee to conclude that payments to the states and territories through these determinations were likely to promote a range of economic, social and cultural rights. The committee has requested inclusion of this additional information in statements of compatibility accompanying such determinations going forward. In this respect, I welcome the assistant minister's commitment to include this kind of information in statements of compatibility from September 2017 onwards.
I encourage my fellow members and others to examine the report to enhance their understanding of the committee' s work.
With these comments, I commend the committee's report 9 of 2017 to the chamber.
I move:
That the amendments be agreed to.
I rise to support the amendments moved in the Senate to the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017, and I do so because they strengthen what was a weak bill—though it still is a bill that's far too weak. Labor did support the amended version in the Senate and we successfully sought to make changes to the bill because we were concerned that there was not sufficient protection and there wasn't sufficient capacity for employers to be prosecuted when they've intentionally systemically underpaid their workforce.
For that reason we moved two amendments. Firstly, we moved an amendment which would reverse the onus of proof in claims for unpaid wages where the employer has not produced wage slips or employment records. Of course, it's a legal requirement to maintain employment records and wage slips, and we do not want a situation where the defence against exploitation was that there was no evidence to suggest that there was an underpayment. There is an obligation for an employer to do the right thing here, and the amendment successfully moved and supported by the majority of crossbenchers will do just that.
Secondly, we also successfully tightened the coercive questioning powers of the Fair Work Ombudsman, confining them to investigations of underpayment and exploitation of vulnerable workers and only with proper oversight; that is, the oversight of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal—so safeguards in place but narrowing the use of this power to investigate exploitation of workers, not to allow that power to be used to interrogate workers on other matters. That's a very important safeguard that we successfully amended in the Senate last night, and I think this bill is better for it.
I also have to note that the government did seek to water down its own bill. No doubt the lobbying capacities of the Franchising Council of Australia and their chair, the former member for Dunkley, a former small business minister, Mr Bruce Billson, had an effect because the government sought to water down the legislation to reduce the culpability of franchisors. The government sought to accept the amendment moved by Senators Leyonhjelm and Bernardi, which would have reduced the capability of the Fair Work Ombudsman—indeed, the courts—to prosecute franchisors. It would have reduced the bill in such a way as to deprive workers of their livelihood, if it had been taken or had not been provided to them lawfully. So we're very happy that the crossbenchers, in the main—the Greens Party, Senator Xenophon, Senator Hinch, Senator Lambie—supported Labor's position in relation to our amendments that I just mentioned and, indeed, supported our position in relation to not amending the bill to limit the culpability of franchisors in those circumstances. The bill is better for these amendments.
I want to pay tribute, in particular, to Senator Doug Cameron, who represents me in the Senate. He did a remarkable job last fortnight's sitting when this matter was being debated in the Senate and here. Also, he did a remarkable effort on behalf of federal Labor yesterday and all through last night in engaging with the crossbench, and I do thank him. I also thank the crossbenchers that listened to reason, engaged with the opposition and understood that if we were going to have a piece of legislation that was about protecting workers in this country then surely we had to give the Fair Work Ombudsman sufficient powers and, indeed, make sure that the construction of the bill would lead to prosecution of employers who are intentionally and systemically underpaying their workforce. We think there's more chance of that happening now as a result of these amendments.
We're also happy that we have limited the coercive powers for the purpose they were always intended—that is, to be used by the Fair Work Ombudsman, with safeguards, to, if necessary, interrogate employers who do the wrong thing and deliberately underpay their workforce.
The question is that the amendments be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.
This bill, the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017, seeks to further erode Australian's right to strike by amending laws that are presently in the competition and consumer law but are, inherently, industrial in character. We have a serious problem in this country. Working people are becoming less powerful. This is reflected in increased profit share of national income at the expense of the labour share and in persistently low wages growth. This year, we saw a situation where the wage price index was less than CPI. Wages grew more slowly than consumer prices did. This meant that Australians took a real pay cut. Far from the wages explosion that the coalition warned of when they were first elected, Australia has the opposite problem.
For working people to be able to fairly share in this nation's prosperity, they need power. It's not power for the sake of power but the ability to influence what sorts of workplaces we have and what sort of society we have. Most people on salary or wages don't have much in the way of wealth. Some own a home—or, more likely, have a mortgage. For many, house prices put home ownership just out of reach. So their power cannot and does not come from money. It comes from the value that they provide through working. It comes from the laws passed by governments that those workers contribute to electing and that the institutions created. That makes the right to strike important. It also makes our system of conciliation and arbitration important—to avoid situations where people actually exercise their right to strike by empowering them in other ways.
Conciliation and arbitration of industrial disputes is an idiosyncratically Australian approach to settling disputes. Writing in 1916, the then president of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, HB Higgins, said:
… the process of conciliation with arbitration in the background is substituted for the rude and barbarous processes of strike and lockout. Reason is to displace force; the might of the State is to enforce peace between industrial combatants as well as between other combatants; and all in the interests of the public.
But, in recent times, and particularly since WorkChoices, access to conciliation and arbitration has been limited. Without access to conciliation and arbitration, then of course the right to strike becomes more important. I don't say this to imply there is no role for collective bargaining. On the contrary, we've had informal collective bargaining in this country throughout the history of the Federation—albeit, it was largely unregulated and informal until the 1993 Brereton reforms.
In the same article that I just mentioned, HB Higgins said—pretty dryly, actually—it was surprising how often the possibility of arbitration led participants to make friendly collective agreements rather than press for an award. Even after collective bargaining became central to wage setting in Australia after 1993, conciliation and arbitration remained important features of our system, but, as I said, access became more limited under the conservatives' WorkChoices. The erosion of access to conciliation and arbitration of industrial disputes in this country has contributed to the erosion of working people's power.
With less access to conciliation, the thing that was there to avoid people having to use their right to strike is not there anymore—or it's not there to the same extent—so of course people have less recourse to public institutions when they're not getting a fair go than they had when conciliation and arbitration were more readily available. That arguably makes the right to strike more important than it has been since Federation. In a 2008 paper for the Parliamentary Library, Jane Romeyn wrote:
Strikes and other forms of industrial action represent the further expression of collective voice by employees and may help to balance their bargaining power vis a vis the employer. Indeed, strike action has been recognised as playing such an indispensable role in resolving deadlocks in collective bargaining relationships as to be regarded as an essential ingredient of free collective bargaining …
She notes that Paul Weiler has argued that 'banning strikes would effectively end collective bargaining'. She also notes that another academic, Professor Antoine Jacobs, has argued that 'in the absence of a right to strike collective bargaining would amount to collective begging'.
Of course, WorkChoices also saw a range of substantial impediments being introduced in relation to the right to strike. It wasn't just conciliation and arbitration that were substantially eroded under WorkChoices; the right to strike also came under substantial attack, as it also had in the preceding Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005, which had outright prohibited almost all industrial action in the building and construction industries. In her paper, Jane Romeyn wrote:
Academic commentators have agreed that the Work Choices amendments, while stopping just short of an outright ban on protected industrial action substantially restricted the availability of protected industrial action.
This bill, which seeks to further curtail the right to strike in Australia, continues the conservatives' history of undermining the right to strike.
It is worth noting the history of the secondary boycott provisions in trade practices law in Australia. As you'd be aware, it was the Whitlam government that introduced the modern Trade Practices Act in 1974, a landmark piece of legislation that introduced genuine competition policy into this nation. Just that piece of legislation alone made a massive contribution to improvements in our gross domestic product. Shortly thereafter, in 1977, the year I was born, the Fraser government introduced section 45D, the secondary boycotts provision, into the Trade Practices Act. They did that to directly impact on unions' ability to strike; that was the purpose of the introduction of section 45D.
It was the then member of the Fraser government, John Howard, who introduced section 45D and, later, 45E, which explicitly referred to unions, into the Trade Practices Act. They were targeted. The provision which referred to agreements with unions, section 45E, was introduced in 1980. Then, in 1984, once they had been elected, the Hawke government attempted to repeal those provisions—sections 45D and 45E—but they were defeated in the Senate. The attempt to repeal was based on the, I think, quite clear fact that these are provisions that are, as I said earlier, inherently industrial in nature. They don't belong in competition laws; they belong in industrial relations laws.
Further attempts to repeal were not successful, but, in 1993, you'll remember that the then minister, Laurie Brereton, introduced a suite of reforms into workplace relations laws in this country. There had been criticism by the ILO in relation to our industrial laws and in relation to the secondary boycott provisions in the then Trade Practices Act. You saw, through the 1993 reforms, for the first time a positive right to strike in Australia. There had been strikes in Australia but there was, for the first time, what was called protected action in the industrial relations legislation.
But, relevantly for this bill, that was the year in which the Keating government was able to repeal the secondary boycott provisions from the Trade Practices Act through modifying section 45D and deleting section 45E. The amendment was to ensure that the Trade Practices Act provision was aimed at the purpose of the Trade Practices Act, which was to deal with competition and to promote competition. That provision dealt with situations where there had been a substantial lessening of competition, and there was a limitation of the provision so that it effectively applied only to non-industrial secondary boycotts. But of course in 1996, when we had a change of government again, the Howard government moved the secondary boycotts provisions from the industrial relations laws back into the trade practices legislation. Why? So that a more onerous obligation could be imposed, to better prevent secondary boycotts, or, in other words, to better erode Australians' right to strike.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I have a range of concerns about this attempt to erode Australians' right to strike, as I'm sure you appreciate from the comments that I've made. One of the particular ways in which this legislation will seek to make it harder for people to engage in their right to strike is by imposing massive penalties on secondary boycotts. The legislation already proscribes secondary boycotts. This will introduce massive penalties. It will take the penalties from $750,000 to $10 million, or, if the amount that's three times the total value of the benefits obtained from the secondary boycott is greater than that, then that greater amount, or, if the court cannot determine the total value of these benefits, 10 per cent of the annual turnover of the corporation for the 12 months leading up to when the secondary boycott occurred. It's an attempt to crack down on sympathy strikes. It's an attempt to proscribe sympathy strikes, or to make it even harder to exercise your right to strike in Australia.
We have a right to strike. We're a signatory to and we've ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which expressly recognises the right to strike, at article 8. That's been in force in Australia since 1976. As the former president of the Industrial Relations Commission Justice Giudice has acknowledged, the High Court found, in the Victoria v the Commonwealth case, following the 1993 legislation, that does give rise to an obligation for there to be a right to strike provided for in Australia.
We're also party to two International Labour Organization conventions that give rise to a right to strike. They are the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948, No. 87, and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949, No. 98. The Committee on Freedom of Association and the committee of experts from the ILO have repeatedly found that these instruments give rise to a right to strike. As I said earlier, the ILO has been critical, over and over again, of Australian restrictions on the right to strike included in the Workplace Relations Act, in the building and construction legislation and in the trade practices legislation. It has been specifically and expressly quite concerned about our secondary boycott prohibitions in this country. The committee of experts has expressed concern that those provisions rendered unlawful a wide range of boycott activity and most, if not all, sympathy action.
Mr Wallace interjecting—
I hear the member for Fisher saying that it's a good thing too. It's really indicative of the view of members opposite, who don't support the right to strike and are happy with the low-wage paradigm that we're now living in. I think it is worth acknowledging that we've had an international body, which is the body that oversees conventions to which we are a signatory, criticising us repeatedly from 1989 right through until at least 2014, for this failure to protect the right to strike, criticising us for this specific provision, the secondary boycott provision. And members opposite say, 'A good thing too!' They're happy for people to be deprived of their power, but I'm not happy for that. I think that it is very, very disappointing, and, quite frankly, flouting our international obligations, that this government is now seeking to impose $10 million in penalties on sympathy strikes in a further blatant and naked attempt to attack unionism in this country.
This bill, to the extent that it seeks to increase the practical impediments to Australians exercising their right to strike, is not just disappointing; it's dangerous. The ultimate consequence of reducing working people's power is the reduction in pay and conditions that we're already experiencing. I'm sure you remember that I quoted earlier the idea that, without your rights, without your empowerment, without institutions, without regulation and without rights to withdraw your labour, it's not collective bargaining but collective begging. There is a real problem with bargaining in this country when people don't get wage rises for years and when wages go backwards compared to consumer prices. We have to come to terms with this. It's not just a problem for the households; it's a problem for the economy. It hits consumption, which slows down GDP growth, and—possibly more saliently for this place—it affects the income tax take and therefore the revenue that the Treasurer has to deal with when it comes to seeking to balance the budget.
So slow wages growth is a problem, and dealing with that problem needs to come to terms with the fact that collective bargaining needs to work. It needs to work, and wage fixing in this country clearly needs improvement. So instead of doing what it should be doing and focusing on that, it's regrettable that the government is trying to crack down on strikes and to reduce working people's power. Of course when that happens, when you reduce working people's power and slow down wages growth or even have wages going backwards, that increases the inequality that we face in this country. It feeds into greater economic inequality. More importantly, it feeds into the sense that the system is rigged against you. When you can't get a fair go at work, when you don't have any power in the workplace, it feeds into the sense that the system is rigged against you, and that's not just bad for our workplaces, our economic rights, our wages and our salaries; it's bad for our democracy and civic engagement. Because if people think the whole show is rigged, then they're at risk of giving up, and we shouldn't allow that to happen.
by leave—I just want to sum up in the few minutes left. Schedule 8 of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017 allows a corporation or a person to notify the ACCC of a resale price maintenance agreement as an alternative to seeking authorisation from the commission. It is clear that in today's marketplace this is an appropriate change, because the notification available for resale price maintenance conduct in many circumstances is actually procompetitive and the notification process is a much quicker and less expensive means of obtaining an exemption for the authorisation. This is a very welcome step—another step that this coalition government is taking to support small business.
Also in schedule 6 are increased penalties for secondary boycotts. Secondary boycotts clearly have nothing to do with the right to strike. Secondary boycotts by themselves are harmful to trading freedom, they are harmful to competition and they warrant a very significant penalty. If we want to drive up wage growth in this country, it's about becoming more productive. We need to become a more productive nation. If groups are able to engage in secondary boycotts, that will dampen the productivity of this nation.
As I said, this is not about stopping someone's right to strike. A secondary boycott is where someone coerces and threatens a third party, which is often an employer, and puts pressure on them to cease trading with a fourth person—and that is often a small business. This damages the economy. It is absolutely correct that we increase penalties for that activity if we want to have a productive economy where people will put their money on the line—put their capital on the line—take business risks and employ people without fear that they are going to be victim of a secondary boycott. So I commend that section of this bill to the House.
However, I would note we still have some more work to do. We still have no effective provisions to prevent anticompetitive price discrimination in this nation. The US has had the Robinson-Patman Act for many, many years, which gives small business an opportunity. The US Federal Trade Commission said of that Robinson-Patman Act:
… unfair business practices, price discrimination most directly denies to small business an equal opportunity to live and grow on the basis of efficiency. Such opportunity is the very essence of the competitive economic system which our antitrust laws—
(Time expired)
I rise today to speak to the amendment as moved by the member for Fenner to the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017 that would have the effect that, whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, condemns the government for pushing ahead with its agenda that will worsen inequality, including increasing penalties for sympathy strikes to hundreds of times the size of other unprotected industrial action penalties.
At the heart of it, the difficulty I find with this legislation—as other members have mentioned—is the extraordinary attack it makes on the right to strike and impedes the right of workers to strike and withhold their labour. Though I support the general nature of the legislation, I cannot support schedule 6, a measure which will increase the maximum penalty for breaches of secondary boycott provisions. This government's proposal, specifically schedule 6 of the bill, seeks to increase the penalty for breaching these provisions from the current value of $750,000 to:
… the greatest of:
Despite the wordy definition, in essence, this means unions will be punished for sympathy strikes—for standing in solidarity with their fellow Australians and their fellow workers. This legislation will disallow collective action by unions and employee associations across sectors and further constrain their ability to organise. If we can break that down for a moment: if a union downs tools in a sympathy strike, despite being an industrial action, they are not protected by industrial law. This government—like right wing, antiworker Liberal governments before it—is seeking to play politics with consumer and industrial law, weaken the union movement and disenfranchise workers.
I'm very glad the member for Fisher is here today. Often, he and others on the government side of the chamber like to assume that many of us on this side were union officials in a past life. I have not been. I've worked in the university sector, worked as a commercial lawyer and also ran an international think tank, but I am very proud to stand with my union officials and sisters and brothers in the union movement. They do a great deal of great work for workers across this country. I will always take the time to remind the member for Fisher of that fact.
If I could return to the bill, this government is inconsistent. This increase to the maximum penalty for a secondary boycott is out of step with similar legislation concerning unprotected industrial relations activity. In fact, comparing this proposal with the maximum penalty as stipulated in the Fair Work Act 2009, it's 800 times higher. As I previously stated, I support the crux of the bill. I support 11 of the 12 schedules to it, and that's because I believe in competition.
Labor has always been the party of competition. It was Labor who floated the dollar and deregulated the banks when the conservatives on the other side could not muster up the courage. They didn't have the mettle. Labor believes in competition, meaning strong wages, low prices and high-quality production for Australians. We believe in an innovative and fair economy with a high standard of living and a focus on jobs. In order for the economy to be competitive, vested interest and rent-seeking monopolists must be defeated and consumers must be protected and encouraged to engage with the market. Legislation that's worked toward this end promotes fairness and equity—in my opinion, two cornerstones of our Australian way of life.
Labor has always valued competition because it values fairness. It was the Labor Party that introduced the Trade Practices Act in 1974. Before this, there was nothing. There was no act of parliament whatsoever dedicated to competition matters. This Labor brainchild—the act which we now know as the Competition and Consumer Act—remains the backbone of Australian competition law. It was also Labor which in 2009 criminalised cartels. Labor supports equity in business and backs in any measures which will cut unnecessary red tape and improve the ease of business, as long as such measures are sensible and fair to the consumer. I understand that you can't have upward social mobility without a strong economy and without innovation and business. Labor has always understood this.
In Labor, we continue to stand against monopolies and cartels, as those who primarily lose out to cartels are the everyday Australian consumers and small and family businesses. We don't want local business to lose out at the hands of these cartels who seek to violate competition law and the integrity of the Australian market. Our team has consulted widely. I commend the members for Fenner and Gorton on their extensive work in this process. We have ensured this bill does not water down cartel provisions. At the same time, we have seen that the bill seeks to continue to encourage legitimate joint ventures by making sure they aren't affected unintentionally by the cartel provisions. This bill broadens exemptions so that they cover both contracts and agreements and understandings. This bill extends the joint venture exemption, including provisions for the purposes of, and reasonably necessary for, undertaking the joint venture, and also extends the exemption to the acquisition of goods and services in addition to the production of goods and services.
Our Labor team has also consulted widely as to the reasonable search defence this bill seeks to introduce. We have found, thankfully, that the measure will not allow companies and individuals under investigation to use this defence in refusing or failing to comply with a compulsory information request by the ACCC under section 155 of their act. Section 155 of the act is integral. It is the foundation of the ACCC's ability to investigate any perceived breaches of the act. At the last election Labor, which nearly won government, of course, sought to strengthen section 155 with a suite of policies. We committed to increase the penalties for anticompetitive or anticonsumer conduct and to use some of the revenues to increase the ACCC's litigation budget from $24.5 million to a maximum of twice that level. At the last election we also committed to give the ACCC a market studies function—a measure that it's been in dire need of for years—to help the body identify competition challenges before they become systemic.
Labor will always support measures that boost competition because Labor is the party of competition. It was Keating who commissioned Professor Fred Hilmer to chair a comprehensive review of competition policy. The Hilmer report set the agenda for competition policy in Australia. The Productivity Commission found that reforms implemented as a result of the report led to a significant and permanent increase in the Australian economy's productive capacity. Similarly, the Grattan Institute found that National Competition Policy was one of the 10 big reforms which led to 24 years of uninterrupted economic growth in Australia. The Rudd and Gillard governments furthered important changes to competition and consumer policy settings. In 2011 Labor introduced the Australian Consumer Law, a cooperative reform between the states, territories and Commonwealth governments that created a consistent national approach across a range of consumer issues, such as unfair contract terms, product safety and consumer rights.
The white-collar crime of cartel conduct, where businesses come together to fix prices and rip off consumers, was just a civil offence before Labor's intervention in 2009. This was inconsistent with international best practice. It meant that the appropriate disincentives were not in place to deter such crimes. Under Labor, cartel conduct was criminalised. It brought Australia into line internationally and meant that offenders could now face imprisonment if caught fixing prices with their competitors.
The Labor team has long understood that effective competition policy is at the heart of a productive, innovative and well-functioning economy. At the same time, it is fair. Competition policy is integral in a fair society. It protects the interests of consumers over rent seekers and monopolists. On this, our record could not be stronger. We understand that well-functioning, strong economies are a means to an end. For Labor, the development of competition policy will always be seen through this prism. For Labor, competition remains a vessel not just delivering lower prices to Australian consumers and families but spreading equality of opportunity throughout the community. We believe that, in certain circumstances, there is a need for government intervention where markets fail. We believe in creating and maintaining consumer protections to ensure markets work for all Australian consumers. Lower barriers to entry lead to more competition and therefore greater participation. In light of this we oppose any measures that will hinder genuine economic competition in Australia, such as the government's dangerous effects test legislation.
However, Labor welcome the government's announcement to align Australian consumer law penalties with the rest of the act, but we urge it to adopt Labor's other policies which are in line with international best practice. Sympathy strikes or secondary boycotts, proposed to be outlawed in schedule 6 of this bill, are permissible under international law. As per convention 87 of the International Labour Organization, such strikes are permitted providing the original strike is lawful. Thus, the prohibition of secondary boycotts in Australian law is not permissible. Therefore, this increase in maximum penalties is inconsistent with Labor's push for higher penalties for anticompetitive or anticonsumer conduct, in line with international best practice. Australia is already internationally out of step with best practice, and any increase would push us even further away from that goal.
Competition policy should never be used as an excuse for blind, ideological and prejudiced cuts and privatisations; yet this government is blinded in its dogmatic anti-union agenda. This is the same rabble that dropped $46 million on a political witch-hunt into the unions in the last parliament in the form of a royal commission—but, then, they don't really care about how much money they drop on a ridiculous thing like a $122 million survey. This measure is just another brick in the wall of the Liberal Party's rich history of abusing the powers of government in order to attack the union movement and their ability to organise. When labour is involved—and when I say 'labour' I mean people's right to work—sometimes all they have in the end is the right to withdraw that labour and they should be able to do that.
Someone needs to tell the Prime Minister that these attacks on unions have been done before. The Fraser government tried to remove secondary boycotts from the accountability of industrial relations law in the 1970s. The Hawke government then sought to repeal the measures in the belief that secondary boycott provisions were best mediated through industrial courts and tribunals, not through the competition regulator—but the Senate blocked this. Though the Keating government managed to get some secondary boycott measures through the Industrial Relations Act in 1988, Howard then removed them, of course, from the scope of industrial relations in the 1990s. As evidence, this measure, this schedule 6, is pure dogma. It is a symbolic, ideological rehashing of the same argument that has been spewed out in this chamber for over 40 years. It, like so many Liberal Party nonsenses, is a wedge, a delaying tactic, designed to mask the fact that they have no agenda and that, since limping into government last year, they've achieved barely anything.
The union movement has built up over years of fighting for workers' rights many of the institutions we take for granted today—the fight for the eight-hour working day; rest breaks; award rates; penalty rates, which this government won't protect; superannuation; equal pay for women; workers compensation; annual leave; sick leave; long service leave; maternity leave; hopefully soon domestic violence leave; redundancy pay; and unfair dismissal protections. They are just some of the battles our union representatives have fought for for us and for workers across the country.
I'd personally like to note in this House the work of the progressive Labor union branches in Western Australia and their tireless secretaries: Tim Dawson of the Transport Workers Union; Peter O'Keefe of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees' Association—or, as the Prime Minister likes to call them, 'shoppos', though we call them the 'shoppies'; Mike Zoetbrood of the AWU; Christy Cain from the Maritime Union of Australia; Mick Buchan from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union; and Philip Woodcock of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union. They always act in the interests of their members, in the interests of the workers and in the interests of Western Australia, and they will continue to do so. I also acknowledge the tireless work of the union officials of United Voice in Western Australia.
Despite all the hard work of unions, the Liberal Party continues to attack the union movement. The national income of employees is going to 50-year lows. The IMF found that one of the significant reasons that workers are getting less overall out of the economic pie is a drop in union membership. In fact, union membership is low. It is at around 15 per cent. It's at its lowest level in 110 years. Inequality is increasing, with earnings over the past generation rising three times as fast for the top 10th of income earners than for those at the bottom. The IMF has stated that declining union membership is responsible for 19 per cent of the fall in workers' income. The government do not want the workers united. They do not want to see your unions strong. They're happy to corroborate with the bosses while your unions are kept in silos and treated like criminals for showing solidarity with their colleagues.
The government is content with cutting penalty rates for up to 700,000 for people in the retail, hospitality, fast-food and pharmacy sectors. Ten thousand workers in my electorate have had their penalty rates cut, and the government is more than happy to push ahead with its budget for millionaires and multinationals, including a $65 billion tax cut for banks and multinationals. They don't have the political courage to allow a free vote and legislate on marriage equality, but they have plenty of time for union bashing and tax concessions for the wealthiest. I ask you: who exactly in this place is playing class warfare?
I am delighted to rise in support of the position put by the shadow assistant Treasurer and just as delighted to support the very eloquent speech made by my good friend and colleague, the member for Brand, who, as usual, was centimetre perfect in her remarks, both in the substance and content of her analysis, as well as her true Labor passion for a great labour movement that involves not only the parliamentary wing of this great party but also the industrial wing and the trade union movement.
I must say what I find really curious about this faux endearment that the conservatives have for the trade union movement is that they love to preface their remarks with: 'Look, I think the trade union movement is great, but.. .' Then they insert a defamatory phrase about a particular militant union here: 'I think trade unionism is fine, but you're all bikies.' Or 'I think the trade union movement is fine, but you're all corrupt.' It's a bit like saying, 'I'm not racist, but…' and then we inevitably know what's going to happen next—a blatantly racist remark uttered from the mouth of the aforementioned racist. It's the same here. What you find when you hear 'I think trade unionism is fine, but…' is that you never actually hear anyone on the conservative side in this place go any further as to why the trade union movement has made so many valuable contributions to our community.
It goes so much further than simply protecting the rights and entitlements of workers all over the country and has done so for hundreds and hundreds of years. It goes so much further than paying homage to the fact that the trade union movement helped create the eight-hour day—eight hours' sleep, eight hours' recreation and family time. It goes so much further than that. The reason we are quite right to be celebrating the role of the trade union movement in this country is that the trade union movement speaks to the values that come from collective action done well in protecting fundamental workplace rights and entitlements of Australians. And you often hear these remarks again by ill-informed conservatives to say, 'Well, how much can it really be reflective of either (a) the Labor Party or (b) the community at large if we see the numbers of those who join the trade union movement shrinking? How much say—
Order! I remind the member for Perth to concentrate on the substance of the legislation. You've had three minutes of entry. That's why we have members' statements.
I'd be delighted to. The subject matter of the trade union movement goes hand in glove with the substance of this legislation as to why the Labor Party opposes schedule 6 of this legislation in relation to secondary boycotts. At its heart it talks about how the trade union movement espouses values of collective action, collective strength and a fearless fight for rights and obligations and entitlements for working Australians. Just as this government loves to try and dress up their faux defence of the ideals of the trade union movement, what we see in this legislation is a veiled attempt by this government to try and espouse a phoney notion by introducing these incredibly onerous penalties under the secondary boycott provision—schedule 6 of the act—on the basis of fairness. Well, it's not fairness at all. We all know what it is, and it's appropriate that we call it out for what it is. It's a subversive attempt, through backdoor means, to subvert the aims of the trade union movement when it comes to notions of sympathy strikes. That's why I am delighted to stand up here and support the shadow Assistant Treasurer and those who speak so eloquently, like the member for Brand, in relation to the amendment, which, at a substance, makes clear that the House ought to condemn the government for pushing ahead with its agenda, which will worsen inequality, including increasing penalties for sympathy strikes to hundreds of times the size of other industrial action penalties.
The devil is in the detail here. This is not in any way, shape or form legislation that is designed to do what they propose it does, which is actually serve as a deterrent to all corporations or third persons from trading with a fourth person—that is, secondary boycott. It is increased from $750,000 to $10 million. All we need to do is go to comparisons for similar activity under the Fair Work Act. This is really where the rubber hits the road in relation to why this provision in schedule 6 is so rightly opposed by the Labor Party. It's because in the Fair Work Act at least we see penalties for what they are. Equivalent provisions under the Fair Work Act are subject to far less severe penalties, with a maximum of 60 penalty units—that is, about $12,600.
What we see here, in this veiled attempt at nobbling the trade union movement through the secondary boycott provision increase in penalty, is that the maximum penalty for a secondary boycott is almost 800 times higher than the maximum penalty for unprotected industrial action. So why don't we just call this for what it is—an attempt to take out from under the feet of the trade union movement an approach which is simply about exercising an industrial right that has existed for decades. These laws are typically used against unions that are engaged in sympathy strikes. The numbers speak for themselves in relation to the results as published by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
We are not opposing for opposing's sake. We are supporting 11 of 12 schedules to the bill, but what we do not do, will not do and will not let pass in this place is any policy that moves Australia further away from not only international law and best practice but fundamentally something that looks at protecting rights and entitlements of working men and women in this country. We have taken significant steps, which this government have adopted somewhat belatedly, in relation to bringing into parity with international best practice appropriate penalties for breaches of consumer law and anticompetition law. We've made it very clear that we think that the penalties imposed for misleading and deceptive conduct under the Australian Consumer Law ought be in line with the other provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act and be increased to $10 million.
We are also, quite proudly, the party of competition, because competition fundamentally means better outcomes for Australian families. It means lower prices, higher wages and better quality products for Australian families. It means a more productive, more innovative and job-rich economy. But we will not stand here and take any part in endorsing legislation which has the practical effect of hindering genuine economic competition in this country, including the secondary boycott provisions and the government's dangerous effects test legislation.
I'd like to come back to the secondary boycotts because I really am of the view that this is where the proposed legislation is at its most insidious. As we know, a secondary boycott involves a person in concert with another person engaging in conduct that hinders or prevents a third person from supplying or acquiring goods and services to or from that fourth person. The schedule that is the subject of contention increases that penalty to an enormous amount—$10 million, which is three times the total value of the benefits obtained. And the International Labour Organization permitting sympathy strikes means that this change is entirely inconsistent with our party's policies to have high penalties for anticompetitive and anticonsumer conduct in line with international best practice.
Again, I just can't help but see a most consistent pattern of egregious behaviour by this government in the many and varied ways it seeks to dud Australian workers. Not only does it seek to usurp a fundamental international legal right in relation to sympathy strikes or secondary boycotts through this schedule, but also we know well that this government will not move an inch—out of ignorance, out of obstinacy or by just plain being completely off the Richter scale when it comes to anything remotely like an ethical compass—in relation to penalty rates. This government stands here and pretends to back in this legislation on the basis of levelling the playing field, when we know perfectly well that that's not the case. It is designed to try to subvert the rights of the trade union movement at the same time that it is perfectly content to cut penalty rates for up to 700,000 Australians in the retail, hospitality, fast-food and pharmacy sector. That is, at last count, over 120,000 to 150,000 Western Australians and something in the range of about 15,000 workers in my federal electorate of Perth.
So, get this: at the same time that we're seeing the rug pulled out from under the feet of Australian workers we see this government being completely consistent in its hypocrisy in relation to deciding its okay to find the money in the budget to dole out $65 billion worth of tax cuts, of which we know that at least $7 billion—probably closer to $10 billion—goes to the big four banks. We see a government entirely content to prop up its current cabinet in a manner that is inconsistent with the way it has treated former ministers of this cabinet. We see a government that is entirely content to back in the big end of town in relation to these tax cuts and at the same time jeopardise the rights and entitlements of working Australians.
The great shame in relation to this proposed legislation is that it does a complete disservice to an otherwise noble aim of this great party, the Australian Labor Party, in relation to measures that have consistently boosted competition since the Whitlam government was elected back in 1974. We see from the Labor Party a genuine and honest attempt, every single step of the way, to introduce measures into legislation that actually promote competition. We saw it in the Trade Practices Act. We saw it under Prime Minister Keating, with Professor Fred Hilmer's comprehensive review of competition policy, known of course as the Hilmer review. Under the Rudd and Gillard governments there were further important changes to competition and consumer settings and an enormously significant change in the replacement of the Trade Practices Act, which had served us tremendously well for over 35 years, with the Australian Consumer Law. The Australian Consumer Law is not only a groundbreaking piece of legislation in this place but also something achieved by way of cooperative reform between the states and territories, creating a consistent national approach across a range of consumer issues such as unfair contract terms, consumer rights and product safety. So, we have long recognised that effective competition policy lies at the heart of not only a well-functioning economy but also, fundamentally, a playing field and safety net that protects Australian families.
We have always understood that a well-functioning economy is the best vehicle for ensuring that we lift the living standards and lift the prosperity levels of everyday working Australians. We know this government has it wrong every single step of the way, as demonstrated daily by its almost breathtaking levels of hypocrisy. Schedule 6 to this bill is no better than that and no better than a sneaky backdoor subversive attempt to detract from the rights and entitlements of everyday working Australians.
I thank the member and thank him for briefly touching on the legislation.
I rise to support the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017 and the amendment moved by the shadow Assistant Treasurer. The member for Perth is right. The government always find a way—whatever they do, in whatever area of public policy—to target workers and organised labour in this country. They cannot help themselves. The fact is that we support overwhelmingly the recommendations of the Harper review. I might add that the review was handed down 2½ years ago, in March 2015. The speed with which the government move is remarkable!
Glacial!
Yes, glacier-like, as the member for Perth reminds me. And yet we could have agreed to this bill in its entirety if 13 of the 14 schedules of the bill had been introduced into this House. But, of course, the government wanted to move on to secondary boycotts and change fundamentally the way they operate in this country. That's interesting, given that the incidence of secondary boycotts is very, very low in this country and by comparison internationally.
Secondary boycotts have a long history in this place. It was the Fraser government who sought to amend the Trade Practices Act 40 years ago this year, in 1977, to introduce significant penalties for unions who engage in any form of sympathy strikes and really move the laws away from the industrial relations regime and into commercial and corporate law, in order to make it harder for unions to organise. If there had been a prevalence of secondary boycott conduct that needed to be reviewed, if wages were going through the roof—oh, if only they were rising, but we have a situation where wages are falling in real terms—
Mr Howarth interjecting—
In your electorate and in mine, Honourable Member, wages have been falling now over a two-year period, and they are at a lower rate of growth than they have been for 20 years. As a result, people are feeling the pinch. Cost-of-living pressures are acute. Of course, it's always difficult to make ends meet for families that struggle on medium and low incomes, but it's always more difficult when wages are falling in real terms, and that hadn't happened for a very long time, until this government took the reins. It hadn't happened for at least 20 years, arguably longer.
So the idea that the government has to use this piece of legislation to recommend increasing penalties on unions for secondary boycotts by—as the shadow Assistant Treasurer reminds me—800 times the current penalty does smack of some excessiveness on behalf of even this government. We just recently had the amendments to the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017 back from the Senate, where it was passed last night. We made that bill better. It's not a perfect bill. It's not even a good bill. It's just a better bill. But there was even an effort in that legislation that was being proposed by the government to ensure that we would see coercive powers used against workers rather than used against employers who were intentionally underpaying those workers or other workers in the labour market. We limited those coercive powers, I'm happy to say—not with any help from the government, because the government voted against the amendment to limit the coercive powers, which was ostensibly the intended purpose of the bill.
In relation to this bill there are no questions whatsoever with 13 of the 14 schedules of the Harper review. I must say, it is very tardy on behalf of the government and the Treasurer to take this long to actually bring this matter to the parliament. My main concern—and the concern that's reflected in the amendment moved by the shadow Assistant Treasurer, Dr Leigh—is that there is an excessive and extreme approach to secondary boycotts; the idea that you would, for example, propose an increase to the maximum penalty for breaches of secondary boycott provisions from $750,000 to $10 million. For comparison, under the Fair Work Act, penalties related to unprotected industrial relations activity are subject to far less severe penalties of a maximum of 60 penalty units—that is, $12,600. If enacted, the maximum penalty for a secondary boycott would be nearly 800 times higher than the maximum penalty for unprotected industrial action. That is extreme, and 'extreme' is exactly the word we must apply to the way in which this government goes about dealing with workers and unions in this country.
It is relentless in its pursuit of undermining the capacity of working people in the country to organise in workplaces, whether there's a union presence or not. At every turn, in every area of public policy, if it suits them, the government will find a way to attack unions and workers because that is in their DNA. In fact, the only things that seem to unify this government are their attacks on unions and their enmity towards working people generally. It's reflected in one of the schedules of this bill, where they've gone very extreme in increasing penalties for a particular type of industrial action that is, in fact, consistent with International Labour Organization conventions that this country's ratified and extreme insofar as the penalty is concerned—and there is no evidence. Even if you were to agree with the contention that there was a problem and we should deal with this matter in this particular way, there is no evidence of a prevalence of secondary boycotts in the first place to justify—even in the conservative government's mind—that it should take this route. But, indeed, it has chosen to do so, and that's why I rise to support the amendment moved by the opposition in this place.
This has a very long history. This area of public policy is not new. Indeed, as I've mentioned, 40 years ago, the Fraser government introduced secondary boycott provisions into the Trade Practices Act and then again further provisions in 1980. The Hawke government sought to remove those provisions and failed at the time. Finally, the Keating government removed most of the provisions from the Trade Practices Act and referred these matters to where they should be placed—that is, in industrial relations legislation, if they're to be contained at all.
It is Labor's view that, yes, we need to have regulations around industrial action and, yes, we need to have limits and have requirements of employers, unions and workers to be governed within a particular regime. But we need to make sure that people have the democratic right to withdraw their labour pursuant to rules so they're consistent with International Labour Organization principles. Indeed, that includes employers, who have similar rights. We shouldn't be looking to criminalise matters that should be dealt with in the civil jurisdiction. We shouldn't be seeking to refer matters that should be within industrial legislation into the area of corporate law. That is not the view of Labor. It has never led to fewer disputes; in fact, it's led to the escalation of disputes. This sort of thinking goes right back to the HR Nicholls Society and the Institute of Public Affairs, which have a world view that unions should not exist or should be strangled to the extent that they cannot operate effectively in workplaces in this country. They do not believe there's a role for unions in workplaces in this country, and it's reflected in this one provision.
Having said that, and having emphasised that particular problem—and I wanted to do that, if you like, as the shadow employment minister—I want to finish by saying how long overdue these matters are. The review was handed down in March 2015, and 2½ years later the government is responding to its own review. It's very tardy at the very least. We will be voting against the schedule that refers to secondary boycotts and we will do our very best to make sure that this particular part of the bill before us is not enacted into law. It is not fair on working people and it's not fair on unions. For that reason we moved our amendment, and I'll be supporting that amendment when the vote comes up.
Firstly, I would like to thank those members who have contributed to this debate. The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017 contains a significant package of reforms to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. These reforms are designed to simplify the law and better deal with anticompetitive conduct while supporting pro-competitive behaviour. These reforms will strengthen Australia's competition law to ultimately improve the long-term welfare of consumers, businesses and the economy. This bill implements a significant number of the competition law reforms recommended by the independent Harper Competition policy review, initiated by this government, and agreed to by the government in its response. It also implements the recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in its 2013 inquiry into the National Access Regime, which the government accepted in its response to the Harper review.
The reforms in this bill are sensible and should not be controversial. Unfortunately, however, the Labor Party, at the last minute, have chosen, cynically, to oppose schedule 6 of this bill. Schedule 6 simply does this: it proposes to align the penalties for the breaches of secondary boycott provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act to the same level as other breaches of competition law—that's all—as recommended by the Harper review and the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. What the Labor Party are seeking to do is maintain a special deal for secondary boycotts in competition law. We're used to the Labor Party wanting special deals for unions. They voted against ending corrupt payments to unions, in this chamber and in the other, and now they're looking for another special deal. They want to lock in secondary boycott penalties at a lower level than that which applies to any other breaches of competition law, and they want to do so against the recommendations of the Harper review and against the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. They're happy to protect unions that want to go down this path at the expense of small businesses, workers, consumers and the wider economy.
Workers are customers. Workers benefit from strong competition laws that make our markets work well for all customers, and they should be protected against the sorts of practices that unions engage in to frustrate small business, large business and their customers in getting the best deal possible in competitive markets. I remain hopeful that the rest of the parliament will support these sensible reforms to align the penalties for illegal secondary boycotts with other breaches of the act. No special deals for the unions will come from this side of the chamber. But for the Labor Party it is core business to continue to enshrine the sorts of protections that they seek to simply pursue their own agendas.
I note that the commencement of this bill is linked to the commencement of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2016, which enacts significant reforms to section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010—the misuse of market power provision, as it is known. I look forward to this bill passing the parliament, allowing that new section 46 to come into effect as soon as possible. The new section 46 will ensure that our laws promote strong competition in our markets and a level playing field for businesses, including over two million small businesses, to the ultimate benefit of Australian consumers. It will better target anticompetitive conduct, better support pro-competitive conduct and facilitate more-reliable enforcement. Overall, the new section 46 will benefit customers and the economy by giving all businesses a better opportunity to compete on their merits.
Once again, I am disappointed that the Labor Party chose not to side with small business when it came to this matter and chose to work against competition reforms that have been a generation in coming and are being delivered by this government. Once again, the Labor Party are standing in the way of strong competition laws that protect Australian customers, because they like a big, cosy deal between big unions and big business. That's the big deal: big unions, big business and big Labor. That's what it means, and that's what they're going to want to vote for in this place, as they always do. But the Turnbull government will get on with the job of delivering these sensible reforms, ploughing on with these sensible reforms and looking forward to the support of the other place to ensure that this new change to section 46 becomes law.
As recommended by the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee, I take this opportunity to table an addendum to the explanatory memorandum of the bill, which includes additional information relating to schedule 11 of the bill. I present a copy of the addendum for the information of members. With that, I commend this bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Fenner has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.
Question negatived.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Labor supports the Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment Bill 2017. It was Labor that introduced the Tuition Protection Service in response to some of the poor behaviour by providers in the international education market in 2009. Labor acted swiftly in government to introduce more-effective national regulation of Australia's tertiary education sector. The Tuition Protection Service has been well managed and has responded appropriately where required. We're pleased that the levies have remained low despite a significant increase in international students coming to Australia to study, which could have put pressure on the scheme.
International education is one of the great success stories in Australia. International education is good for the economy, good for our society, and is good for soft diplomacy across the world. In fact, last year, international education contributed more than $21 billion to the Australian economy. The Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 was groundbreaking when it was introduced, as it was one of the first pieces of legislation designed to address the needs of foreign students anywhere in the world.
Labor are proud that we have a strong and supportive regulatory system for the nearly 600,000 international students in this country. We believe the measures in this bill are sensible and should be supported. We caution the government on ensuring that it does more to protect the rights and financial situation of Australian students. We know that far too many students took on bad VET FEE-HELP debt and the government took far too long to respond. Labor reminds this government to get on with the job of addressing some of the terrible bad debt of those students.
A high-quality, well-regulated tertiary education system is an important tool in our nation's future economic success. It is important to note there has been substantial growth in international student enrolment in Australia in recent years. In June 2017, our total international student enrolments reached 583,243—as I say, almost 600,000 students. This is the highest number of international student enrolments that we've seen in this country so far. It is a 13 per cent increase on the same time in 2016. This is a continuation of the recovery seen following the downturn in international education, and it's a very positive thing. Consistent with previous years, a majority of students are in higher education, but we also have substantial numbers in vocational education and training and English language intensive courses for overseas students, and smaller numbers in non-award studies such as foundation courses and also in schools.
It is important to remember that when we talk about the importance of the international student market and reaching out to people from other countries we're not only talking about higher education but also talking about the importance of vocational education and training to our international education exports. That is important because when we talk about what's happened to quality in this country in the vocational education and training sector that has an impact not only on domestic students but also on our international exports. Of course, it has a potential to impact education exports as well. It is an imperative not only for our domestic students, for those undertaking vocational training who are born and raised here in Australia or who become citizens here in Australia; also if we want to have competitive industry, if we want to be able to sell our vocational education and training system to the world, we must overcome some of the challenges in relation to quality in the vocational education and training sector.
I'm pleased to say I recently spoke at the conference for ACPET, the peak body in relation to vocational education private providers, which had its conference in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago. When I spoke to the private providers I made a couple of points. The first one was Labor's commitment to publicly funded TAFE, which may seem like an odd thing to say to private providers, but they acknowledge and accept themselves the importance of publicly funded TAFE. So they were quite interested to hear about the commitments that Labor had made in the budget reply in relation to supporting public TAFE. I also encouraged them to continue the work that they were doing to improve the reputation and quality of private vocational education in this country. It's absolutely crucial that that happens, and I am also pleased to say that the providers there were very receptive to that message. In fact, the chair and the CEO themselves acknowledged to me that they saw it as a very high priority for ACPET and for its members to restore confidence in private vocational education in this country. So I want to commend them for the work that they are doing in relation to restoring confidence in the Australian vocational education brand, for the work they're doing to engage with all of their members to seek to restore confidence, and for the work that they are doing to seek to ensure both quality and reputation are restored. As I say, that is important for our international exports when it comes to education.
Focusing on international education exports is important in the context of this bill but that's not to in any way undermine the significance of vocational education for domestic students. Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz, you'd be aware that the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training at the moment is inquiring into the school to work transition, and one of the key focuses for that inquiry will be the role of vocational education both in school and after school.
I had a call out of the blue this afternoon from an industry association that was raising concerns about how to make sure that school leavers are ready for vocational education in the same way that we're seeking to ensure that school leavers are ready for higher education. Most people would agree and acknowledge that neither higher education nor vocational education has any higher status than the other. Both are important for the development of skills competencies, knowledge and character traits that people will need in order to do the jobs of the future, but, probably more importantly, to be able to be full participants in Australian society. I acknowledge that I spoke at the conference for ACPET recently and say thank you to them for the work that they're doing to restore that confidence.
I also want to say a little about international students in higher education. As you'd be aware, the government has a bill before the parliament that seeks to radically change the way that higher education works in this country by significantly cutting funding, increasing student fees, lowering payment thresholds for HECS, cutting funding loadings for enabling courses, and taking a range of other steps that will make it very difficult for universities to maintain the same level of funding and therefore maintain the same levels of quality and service that they provide to our community and to the international education export market.
I've spoken out against the legislation proposed by the government on a number of occasions, but let me do so again to explain why I'm concerned that measures like the one that we're talking about in this bill, to protect international education and protect higher education, should be seen in the context of the broader approach to higher education policy in this nation. If we fundamentally undermine the ability of universities to provide quality higher education, then protective measures like this one—though they'll remain important, of course—will be less effective. If you don't have a quality higher education system in the first place, because universities are under pressure as a consequence of funding cuts, it makes it very difficult to compete against universities, particularly universities in our region.
Universities in Japan and China have seen increasing public investment. They're increasingly improving in their rankings. At the same time, what are we doing as a nation? We're considering cutting funding to public universities. It doesn't really make any sense. It is a cut. We're not just talking about a shift in the way that universities are funded. We're considering a bill that seeks to cut funding to higher education. The bill will impose a fee increase for students of 7.5 per cent and will also impose a commensurate reduction in the amount of public funding to universities, which will rebalance the contribution between students and the public purse, in the event the government gets its way. On top of that rebalancing, it's the government's intention to impose a 2.5 per cent so-called efficiency dividend over two years.
Universities are indicating that they see this as a significant cut. In fact, the government's own budget papers refer to this as a $3.8 billion cut in fiscal terms over five years. That is a significant reduction in funding for Australia's universities and will mean universities in my state of Queensland will lose around $50 million in funding per university. The sandstone universities, the more established universities and the metropolitan based universities which are able to attract higher numbers and higher proportions of international students, may look at further increasing their international student numbers to try to deal with some of the fallout of these significant funding cuts that will be imposed in the event the government bill passes. Spare a thought for the universities that can't attract international students in those numbers. Spare a thought for the campuses in regional or rural areas that find it incredibly difficult to attract international students.
I visited a campus in a regional Victorian town recently. I won't say which university; it's a major university. Even that major university has been having some difficulty attracting international students for that particular campus because it was in a regional Victorian town, not in a capital city. I've certainly spoken to a number of universities who are concerned about how they're going to manage these cuts to revenue and who just don't have the option of increasing the proportion of international students across their whole enrolment. There are certainly questions, I think, to be asked in terms of the desirability of continuing to undermine public support for universities and what they might have to do in order to try to make up for that reduction of public support.
The head of the Regional Universities Network appeared in a public hearing yesterday, Monday—it's been a long couple of days—at the Committee on Employment, Education and Training, and they made this exact point: that members of the Regional Universities Network, which as you can appreciate from the name are regional universities, don't think that they're going to have the option of being able to increase international student numbers rapidly in order to defray some of the funding cuts that the government seeks to introduce in respect of Australian universities. So I think we should all be very careful before we take the opposite approach to funding universities compared with universities in our region, particularly universities in China and universities in Japan. In fact, it's interesting to have a look at an article that Ken Henry wrote last year or the year before, reflecting on the fact that there'd been wholesale ignoring of the Australia in the Asian Century white paper, which called for more engagement with our region and more investment in education. Ken Henry raised concerns in the article about Australia's failure to really look to what we can do to invest in education and to use that as a way of engaging. Mr Deputy Speaker, that's absolutely right; isn't it?
International education is not just about the money, the dollars, that we get from the export market, although those dollars are very important. The value last year alone was $21 billion—that was the value of the export market for international education. But it's not just those dollars that matter; is it? I talked about soft diplomacy. Whenever you get the chance to talk to people who have gone to Australian universities but who are not from Australia, they talk about the people-to-people links that are built through coming to our universities. And, of course, it also feeds into another important export for us, which is international tourism. Because if a student comes here from India or from China, they're just as likely to look around the place and encourage family and friends to come over as well, or they're just as likely to come back later in life to have a look and see what's happening in Australia. That's really important for us culturally, and it's really important for us, as I said, in terms of soft diplomacy—building those people-to-people links, building those connections between Australians and people from other countries who benefit from international education.
For all of those reasons I am very concerned about the funding cuts. I'm concerned about the funding cuts for a range of reasons. I'm concerned about the impact that the funding cuts are going to have on the quality of higher education. I'm also concerned about the impact that they will have on the incentives around universities seeking to increase the proportion of international students and whether all universities will be able to do so equally. As I said and as representatives of the universities of themselves said, they won't.
Although this bill is very sensible and commendable and we support it, it needs to be acknowledged that this is a bill that's being brought before this parliament at the same time as the Turnbull government is seeking to substantially cut public support for universities, which will result in a net funding cut for universities. In other words, even after you hike up the student fees—which, frankly, we don't support either—universities are still facing a cut as a consequence of what this government is trying to do to higher education funding. Although the opposition supports this bill, we do raise serious concerns about what the Turnbull government is doing in relation to higher education generally.
I thank the member for Griffith and acknowledge her contribution and, in particular, her interest in this area—a good contribution. Before I call the minister, I just want to for the record thank the clerks for the work that they did in the procedural stuff in guiding me in that last bit.
Debate adjourned.
by leave—I move:
That the Education for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment Bill and the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment Bill 2017 be referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration.
Question agreed to.
The opposition is pleased to support this legislation, which supports the International Monetary Fund in its vital functions, particularly in times of economic and financial difficulty and distress, in particular, for member countries of the IMF and when those difficulties are widespread in a particular region and require strong and robust intervention. The International Monetary Agreements Amendment (New Arrangements to Borrow) Bill 2017 gives effect to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund to provide a standing appropriation and authority to borrow payments to meet drawings made by the IMF under the decision to renew the new arrangements to borrow, or NAB arrangements, made by the IMF executive board in November 2016. The previous five-year arrangement will expire on 16 November, 2017. The new arrangement will go from 17 November 2017 to 16 November 2022. So this is a timely piece of legislation; it is a pressing matter. The opposition will therefore facilitate and support its expeditious passage through both chambers.
Under this agreement the maximum amount of Australia's lending commitment to the IMF is special drawing rights, SDR, 2.22 billion, around A$4.05 billion. The SDR is an international reserve asset which can be allocated to member countries in proportion to their IMF quotas. The agreement, of course, is only activated when additional funds are required to be lent to member countries. As I said at the outset, that is at a time of some fiscal distress for a particular country, which is often associated with regional distress that can take hold at a time of economic dislocation. This requires the agreement of the participant countries that make up 85 per cent of the total credit committed under NAB and the agreement of the IMF executive board where the quota of resources available to the IMF for lending is not sufficient for its lending needs. That is a particularly important point. This does not come into play in normal circumstances; it only comes into play when 85 per cent of the total credit is committed and the IMF executive board is in agreement.
The bill, it's important to note, has no direct impact on the budget bottom line. That has been the case under governments of both persuasions, although there is occasionally a suggestion otherwise or some scare campaign otherwise made by opponents of these sorts of measures—it is unusual, but it does happen, though it is not the case. However, if the agreement is activated and funds are provided, there is an indirect impact due to the government's lending to the IMF, which increases our borrowing requirement, and the interest payable on any money borrowed by Australia to meet an IMF drawdown exceeds the interest paid to the IMF in regard to that drawdown.
This agreement will be included in the budget papers as a quantifiable contingent liability in keeping with normal budgetary practice. The NAB became operative in November 1998 and arose out of concerns first raised in 1995 that more resources might be required for the IMF to respond to future financial crises. Of course, that coincided with the Asian Financial Crisis. Australia has been a participant in all of these new arrangements since their commencement.
These updates, an arrangement that we made in government, arose out of an IMF quota and governance reform in 2010. That legislation passed the parliament in September 2012 for the same special drawing rights, an amount of $2.22 billion, which at that time was worth around A$3.2 billion. This represents an important aspect of our international obligations as a member of the International Monetary Fund. Australia's been a proud member of the IMF since the IMF's inception in the postwar years. It was a matter of some debate in Australia as to whether we should join or not, but the Chifley government did join the IMF, as they joined the World Bank, as they should have at the time. It has received bipartisan support by governments of both persuasions in all those decades since. We have supported the IMF and the World Bank as important members of the global financial architecture. That architecture comes under some pressure from some other places in the international debate, but Australia stands firmly as good members of the IMF.
I support the Treasurer in his role as executive director of the IMF and the World Bank, as he should as Treasurer of the day and as would remain the case under a Labor government. This legislation continues that bipartisan tradition of support for the IMF, particularly since 1998, as it is resourced to undertake its important stabilising role in the event of a financial or economic crisis in any particular member or region of the world. I commend the legislation to the House.
Firstly, I would like to thank those members who have contributed to the debate on the International Monetary Agreements Amendment (New Arrangements to Borrow) Bill 2017.
That'd be me!
Indeed, thank you. The renewal of the International Monetary Fund's new arrangements to borrow forms part of a broader global effort to ensure that the global financial safety net remains strong and resilient in the face of economic crises. The IMF's mandate to support global economic and financial stability is of critical importance, given continuing risks to the global economic outlook. As an open economy that is exposed to global economic conditions, Australia has a strong interest in doing all it can to ensure that the IMF has the resources it needs to fulfil this role. I commend this bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
It's a great pleasure to speak on this product emissions standards legislation. In doing so, I also do so on behalf of Labor's shadow environment spokesperson, the member for Watson. I can indicate that the opposition supports the second reading of this legislation and the legislation more broadly, though I also foreshadow that I will be moving a second reading amendment to deal with the otherwise complete absence of energy and emissions reduction policy from this government.
But, before moving to that, if I can be supportive of the government's actions here and make some remarks about the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017 particularly, but also the related legislation that we're dealing with concurrently. This bill is directed at allowing the minister to prescribe national emissions standards for what are described as 'emissions-controlled products', which, particularly for laypersons like you and me, Acting Deputy Speaker, are small petrol engines, like lawnmowers, leaf blowers, generators and outboards. This flows from the decision by the Commonwealth and states and territories, through the National Clean Air Agreement, to adopt these standards through Commonwealth legislation. That was an agreement reached in December 2015 by the different levels of government. It's important to point out that these standards have the support of industry, are going to be introduced in a way that does not impact current stock or inventories and also, because of some strategic phase-in periods over the next couple of years, are not expected to cause consumer backlash. Also, given that Australia does not manufacture the products that are captured by these regulations, the so-called emissions-controlled products, manufacturing jobs in Australia will not be impacted one way or the other by these standards being introduced.
It's important to say that similar standards covering these products are already in place in some 26 of the 35 OECD countries, including the US, Japan, the UK and Europe, and, notably, they exist also in China. The absence of those standards in Australia, until this legislation was presented to the parliament, has resulted in Australia, according to the government, becoming a dumping ground for high-polluting product that is being manufactured overseas. In some remarks I make in relation to the second reading amendment I propose to move I'll talk about the way in which that is also happening in the vehicle sector—the light passenger vehicle sector—as well, as a result of Australia's lack of mandatory emissions standards there.
The proposed standards will be equivalent to current standards operating in the United States. As I will outline in relation to vehicle emissions standards, or light passenger vehicle emissions standards, a debate has happened about whether we should try to match our standards to markets like the European Union or the UK, and a decision has been taken by government, which we support, that it is appropriate to match our standards to those of the United States. That is certainly a position supported by industry. It will allow the most seamless introduction of these standards, given the significant place that the United States and its companies play in this market.
The first products that will be prescribed under this legislation are expected to be what are called non-road spark ignition engines and equipment, NRSIEE, which are essentially lawnmowers and leaf blowers, which are very substantial features of most of our electorates and suburban Australia generally and very popular products among Australian households, but these products contribute as much as 10 per cent of the air pollutants in Australia's urban environment. So a reduction in pollution output by these very popular products in Australian households will be a substantial contribution to pollution reduction in Australia.
As I indicated, the government is able to advise that these standards are supported by major industry stakeholders in this market, including the Outdoor Power Equipment Association, which imports about half of the 1.8 million small petrol engines into Australia each year that are sold in the Australian market. We understand, or are advised by government, that the outboard motor industry, which imports around 45,000 engines each year, is also supportive of the standards. As I foreshadowed, phase-in periods were announced in December 2016 to ensure that the industry—wholesalers and retailers—would have proper notice of this and be able to run down their inventories and stocks so the standards would be introduced seamlessly on the basis that no imports of non-compliant products would be possible after July next year, July 2018, and there would be no sale of non-compliant products permitted after July 2019. I can indicate that the government supports that phase-in approach.
In relation to this bill but also in light of some comments I'll make in relation to other sectors of the economy, particularly light passenger vehicles, it's important to point out that there will, we're advised by government, be a modest up-front cost involved in the transition to these more efficient, low-polluting versions of popular lawnmowers and leaf blowers and such like in Australia. But the through-life cost of these things, because of better fuel efficiency, will compensate for that up-front cost. As we understand, it will more than compensate for the up-front cost, even over and above the health impacts, the health benefits, that will flow from making a substantial dent in the air pollution footprint from this sector of the engines market, particularly lawnmowers, leaf blowers, outboard motors and such like.
So I can indicate that the opposition will support this bill. But the relatively modest impact of this bill on our overall carbon pollution footprint, in particular, just reminds this parliament and the community what a gaping vacuum this government has left in climate and energy policy, particularly in emissions reduction policy. This is a positive piece of legislation, and we support it. But let's be clear: it is a modest piece of legislation. It is a small oasis in a vast desert of disappointment that this government has presided over during the last four years.
There is no more obvious contrast than between this legislation on leaf blowers and lawnmowers on the one hand and then this government's manifest inability to deliver anything around emissions standards on the light passenger vehicle fleet. Australians produce, on average, about four tonnes of carbon pollution per year per person through transport. That is more than the average Mexican person produces through every bit of activity that either they undertake directly or is undertaken on behalf of them indirectly, such as energy production and such like. Our transport emissions are a very substantial part of our overall national footprint. And they are growing very fast. They're growing very fast because we have strong population growth in this country. They had been growing very fast because of the mining and construction boom. This is a very substantial part of Australia's overall national challenge of driving down our carbon pollution levels. This government has done absolutely nothing to deal with the emissions footprint from our transport sector.
It's well known—and the government admits this—that now 80 per cent of the global light vehicles market is covered by mandatory emissions standards. You will now buy versions of the global platforms—made by the big global car companies like Toyota, General Motors, Ford and such like—in Australian car showrooms that you are not legally able to sell in the United States, Canada, the UK, Europe and many other countries besides. It is so far beyond time that this country dealt with the challenge of mandatory emissions standards that it simply isn't funny.
In June 2014—well over three years ago now—this government, under a different Prime Minister, of course, received the clearest possible blueprint for introducing mandatory emissions standards for light passenger vehicles. There was a thorough inquiry process undertaken by the Climate Change Authority that, essentially, dealt with two competing propositions. The first was that Australia should reflect the mandatory emissions standards framework adopted in Europe. The second—and, ultimately, the preferred option—was that we should reflect the American mandatory emission standards. These were standards that were developed after a very fierce political fight in California and then replicated nationally through President Obama's administration. They are standards that are in the process of being introduced as we speak and that have been assumed to be the operating framework for one of the most important countries in the global vehicles industry: the United States.
The reason why the Climate Change Authority decided upon the American model rather than the more stringent European model was an assessment they made, which Labor shares, that the Australian light passenger fleet is far more comparable to the American light passenger fleet than it is to the European version. They recommended in June 2014 that there be a substantial phase-in period. The recommendation made in 2014 was that these standards commence to be introduced in 2018 and be phased in over seven years, so up to the middle of the next decade into 2025.
The Climate Change Authority also made an assessment that, although there would be a modest up-front increase in the cost of an average vehicle in Australia, there would be a very substantial through-life saving. The overall saving for an average vehicle in Australia, if these standards were introduced, would be in the order of $7,000 per vehicle, netting out the up-front cost of about $1,500 added to the price tag of the average vehicle, against an $8,500 fuel bill saving to Australian motorists. That is a very substantial saving to Australian motorists over the course of the average vehicle's life in Australia. Importantly, also, though, there would be on average a 45 per cent reduction in the carbon dioxide pollution level per kilometre travelled of an average vehicle. That is a very substantial cut in carbon pollution levels from the fastest-growing polluting sector of the economy—namely, the transport sector.
So this was a very clear blueprint after a thorough process with a draft report released to the community and the industry, finally resulting in a clear recommendation in June 2014—more than three years ago now—for Australia to replicate the American standards. And there was deafening silence—perhaps not surprisingly—from the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah. It is hard to think of more low-hanging fruit in the nation's challenge to reduce our carbon footprint than introducing mandatory vehicle emission standards that operate in 80 per cent of the world's car market already. Nothing was heard from this government for nigh on 2½ years, until the end of 2016, the week before Christmas, when the government appeared to have been spooked into releasing yet another discussion paper by persistent media inquiries about whether this report was ever going to be responded to. It was another discussion paper about whether Australia should introduce vehicle emission standards that are now completely de rigueur in the vast bulk of countries around the world. It was another discussion paper where the government, in December 2016, promised a decision would be made by the middle of 2017.
When the Prime Minister came to give his beginning-of-the-year National Press Club address in January, there was fevered speculation in the media—encouraged by unnamed comments from government sources—that the Prime Minister would be making a big announcement about vehicle emission standards. It would be part of his introduction—the turning of a new leaf for a new year—that he would actually be making a decision on vehicle emission standards. But when it came to the address: nothing. There was deafening silence on vehicle emission standards that have been adopted in 80 per cent of the global car market. Instead, what we got was the first statement by a leader of this country in more years than anyone could remember that maybe we should get back in the business of building new coal-fired power stations.
Beyond the remit of this bill and even beyond the remit of my second reading amendment, it would be fascinating to know what happened between those comments in the media that the Prime Minister was going to make a forward-leaning, progressive announcement on vehicle emission standards on one day and, a couple of days later, be back in the business of building new coal-fired power stations. We all remember what the response of the business community to that announcement was: deafening silence yet again. Every electricity company said, 'We're not interested in partnering with government. Even if there's money on the table, we're not interested in partnering with government to build new coal fired power stations.' Whose was the only business to indicate interest? Clive Palmer, whose last great idea was building Titanic II. So that's where the January National Press Club address went, in spite of the fact that there had, as I indicated, been a promise to deliver this by the middle of 2017.
The next thing that we heard of was a front page—with typically underdone rhetoric from The Daily Telegraphreading 'Carbon carnage—exclusive—emissions tax to increase car costs by thousands', suggesting that the Turnbull government was about to introduce a carbon tax on cars that could push up the price of Australia's most popular vehicles by more than $5,000. Frankly, what that was all about is still an utter mystery to anyone not at The Daily Telegraph or in the Turnbull government, because none of that has been released; none of that is in the public remit, and it clearly doesn't reflect, in any way, the blueprint that the government was delivered by the Climate Change Authority. Whatever was at the bottom of that, the result of it was crystal clear: the government ran away at a million miles an hour from any suggestion that they were going to do anything soon about vehicle emission standards. To his credit, at least, the minister was very honest about this. He was quite upfront about them folding their tent for another day, yet to be determined.
The minister loves writing op-eds and he wrote one a few weeks after being scared off by The Daily Telegraph. He wrote an op-ed in TheAustralian, admitting that:
… European versions of the top selling Toyota Corolla, Mazda 3 and Mazda CX5 [are] all more efficient than the models sold in Australia …
He went on to say:
Our friends in Canada, Europe, the United States and Asia have already moved forward, delivering for their community better health, environmental and economic outcomes.
This is three years and one month after receiving a clear blueprint about how we could simply replicate the American standards. This is the United States of America, not Greenpeace. This is the USA standards that have been adopted by the biggest car companies in the world in some of the biggest manufacturing operations in the world. The minister admits we've got a problem. He admits that we're having dirtier cars dumped in Australian car showrooms than are legally permitted to be sold in car showrooms in Europe, Asia, the United States, Canada, the UK and elsewhere.
But what did he say the government was going to do about it? Nothing. He said they continue to engage but that they weren't in a position yet to even talk about a time line for introducing these standards that are so basic in the rest of the world. That says so much about the lack of courage and the lack of ambition of the Prime Minister and the government generally when it comes to the very serious responsibility we have to start to manage the transition of these sectors of the economy that are responsible for so much of our current carbon pollution output, particularly when we have low-hanging fruit like adopting emission standards that are now pretty basic fare around the rest of the world. It's a particularly stark contrast to the legislation we have in front of us, where we're apparently able to introduce emission standards for leaf blowers and lawnmowers, just not for cars and light trucks. Leaf blowers and lawnmowers apparently don't get a scary front page story in The Daily Telegraph that puts the government off taking action, but cars and light trucks do.
I wish it were only in the transport sector, though, that this government is doing so little to deal with the challenge of industry transformation and carbon pollution reduction. But we've seen exactly the same thing happen in the energy sector. It was an extraordinary contribution by the Prime Minister at question time this afternoon. Let's be clear about it—the Prime Minister effectively verballed the CEO of our largest power company in question time this afternoon. Let's be clear about what he said this afternoon. He said, 'The energy minister and I are already in discussions with the owners of Liddell—AGL—about how we can ensure that power station stays in operation for at least another five years after 2022.' Interestingly, Andy Vesey, the CEO of AGL, tweeted Tony Abbott, and not to the actual Prime Minister, a couple of hours later: 'We're getting out of coal. We're committed to the closure of the Liddell power station in 2022, the end of its operating life.' So what are the discussions?
And then Matt Canavan told him.
Then Senator Canavan piled in and the member for Warringah piled in to back him, Senator Canavan, and the CEO of AGL said: 'Wait a sec, there are no discussions. We've made a commercial decision to get out of coal and we've made a decision to close the Liddell power station at the end of its 50-year operating life in 2022.'
This Prime Minister might think he can breezily wave a finger and wave away the commercial realities that AGL and other companies have to operate under, but it doesn't work that way. He's got to do the hard work of taking a clean energy target proposition through his coalition party room and coming to the negotiating table with Labor to do what every single business stakeholder has asked this national parliament to do, and that is to finally develop a bipartisan energy policy investment framework—the type of which has bedevilled this country for too many years. This is only one example of the contrast between a very small and modest piece of legislation that we support and we think is laudable and the rest of the economy—those parts of the economy that aren't simply focused on lawnmowers and leaf blowers. Nothing is being done by this government—nothing is being done to deal with the investment transition and the job opportunities that come from decarbonising this economy.
With those words, I move:
That all words after "that" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give this bill and related bills a second reading, the House:
(1) notes that:
(a) in addition to the products in these bills, there is a large range of products and activities that contribute the vast majority of emissions to Australia's total emissions;
(b) the Government has failed to act to limit these emissions including from land clearing, the industrial sector, the transport sector and from electricity generation, which has led to emissions rising by 1.4 per cent in the last quarter alone; and
(c) the Government has failed to act on climate change and is threatening our economy and precious environment for current and future generations; and
(2) calls on the Government to take the advice it commissioned itself, and implement the central Finkel review recommendation of a Clean Energy Target for the electricity sector."
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
Debate adjourned.
by leave—I move:
That the Product Emissions Standards Bill 2017, the Product Emissions Standards (Excise) Charges Bill 2017, the Product Emissions Standards (Customs) Charges Bill 2017 and the Product Emissions Standards (Consequential Provisions) Bill be referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration.
Question agreed to.
I rise to briefly address the Electoral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. In doing so, I acknowledge the great work of my colleague in the other place, Senator Farrell, who has carried this legislation for the Labor Party. He has spent a lot of time with his counterparts in the government over the last few weeks and months to get to this outcome that we hope to support today, subject to the amendments that I understand will be moved by the government shortly.
Subject to the government's moving those amendments that have been agreed between the major parties, we will be supporting this electoral legislation. It's a response to the issues canvassed and discussed by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, the JSCEM, in the committee's interim report on the authorisation of voter communication. We've got some terrific colleagues from all sides of the House on that committee, but we've got the member for Scullin and the member for Oxley here, who, along with Senator Ketter from our side, have done an extraordinary amount of good, considered work on the matters before us which have become this bill. I wanted to acknowledge the work of those three, and also Senator Brown, for the work that they've done collectively with colleagues from the other parties.
I recognise that since this bill was originally proposed a lot of work has gone into explaining the intentions of the bill, the practical implementation of various parts of the bill. I acknowledge the work of the Special Minister of State, Senator Ryan. I know from my colleagues across the table and from around the place that Senator Ryan is unwell. We wish him a speedy recovery from his illness. We also acknowledge that he has been available to us, despite his illness, as we worked through some of the issues to get to the resolution that I hope we reach by the time the government moves its amendments and we support the amended bill.
We have a pretty simple objective with this electoral legislation: we want to ensure that the rules and regulations surrounding political communication are clear, but also that they don't hinder genuine political communication—that they don't overreach and get in the way of genuine, legitimate, important conversations in our democracy. That's really where we've come from as we've worked through these issues and as the JSCEM colleagues have worked through these issues. That committee recommended that any new requirements for electoral authorisation be clear, concise and easy to navigate, and we agree. The JSCEM also recommended that, as far as was practical, the authorisation requirements shouldn't interfere with the primary and obvious purpose of that communication with electors.
The opposition through discussions with the government have queried, over the past few weeks and months, many of the provisions that were put before the House to ensure that we are achieving those pretty simple objectives for political communication. I think it is fair to say that one key point of contention has been the bill's application to modern communication techniques, in particular digital communication. We don't want to see an authorisation regime which places onerous burdens on otherwise timely digital communication. That's neither a desirable nor an acceptable outcome from our point of view. Through correspondence with the minister, the opposition, via Senator Farrell, have sought and subsequently received assurances that the practical implementation of the legislation that remains and that will be amended will not cut across those well-considered recommendations arrived at by the JSCEM. On top of that, I acknowledge that the Electoral Commission has provided some further information which relates to the practical application of any new regime. The opposition are grateful for their assistance as well.
The main reason that we can support the amended legislation before us is that the government has removed the purely and quite ridiculously political measures in schedule 2, which were in the original proposal, which were contrary to the recommendations of the JSCEM and were dealt with elsewhere in the relevant electoral legislation. We do understand—it's not our choice—that, unfortunately, the government will continue to pursue those, which is not entirely surprising. Anyone who saw the Prime Minister's dummy spit on election night, 14 months ago, would not be entirely surprised to hear that, having whinged and whined his way around the country for 14 months—
Tantrum!
with that big tantrum, as the member for Oxley rightly points out. No-one would be surprised that they want to continue with this ridiculous tantrum, which wouldn't be fitting for the under 11s at Rochedale Rovers losing a grand final, let alone for the Prime Minister of a great nation like ours. So it is disappointing but not entirely surprising to hear that they will continue to pursue this pretty ridiculous campaign, which flies in the face of the considered work of the committee and which isn't consistent with the attitude of the minister, who has been, as I said, accommodating. A bit of free advice for the Prime Minister: it's not really a good look to run around the country for 14 months whingeing and whining about an election result. He kept the country waiting long enough on election night. To drag it out more than a year after the election is a pretty disturbing and disappointing outcome.
The core underlying issue is not even the electoral laws. It is ideological. It is that this government can't be trusted with Medicare. They haven't believed in it since day one, since the days of Howard and before, and they look for any opportunity to strangle it. When that was called out during the election campaign, the Australian people reacted as they should, and they said, 'Take your hands off Medicare.' We shouldn't pretend it was some kind of aspect of the campaign that led Australians to believe that. It is a core belief of the Australian people that we should have the best health system in the world, we should have Medicare, we should have universal health care and your access to health care should be determined by your Medicare card and not your credit card. So the Australian people reacted as we expected they would. That wasn't an electoral issue. It wasn't about the regime around the electoral rules; it was about a fundamental belief.
We maintain that fundamental belief in Medicare. It is disappointing that those opposite do not. They are even dragging out the unfreezing of the rebates, which just shows again that they didn't learn the lesson of that election last year, 14 months ago. The Prime Minister did infamously call the police in when he nearly lost that election. They told him there was absolutely no case to answer, so he has tried to change the rules. He should spend less time reprosecuting last year's election and more time rectifying his cuts to Medicare. It's all part of the circus on that side of the House, unfortunately—this whole fracas about Medicare and the election and the electoral rules. We are always in the cart for a proper conversation about good electoral rules which keep pace with the times, but we won't indulge the Prime Minister's dummy spit.
The opposition, through the shadow special minister of state, my colleague Senator Farrell, will continue to work with the government to ensure our laws function as intended and that legitimate political communication is not hindered or interfered with. We won't, as I said before, indulge that dummy spit from the Prime Minister, but we will support the bills when they're amended, after some discussion, some consultation, some negotiation and a lot of good work from people on all sides of this House.
I thank the members opposite for supporting the Electoral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. It does not surprise me that they will not be supporting other measures that will be pursued from a trigger in the last federal election, which, of course, was Labor's 'Mediscare' campaign. It was a campaign that was corrupt. It was deceitful. It was deliberate. Sadly, as we heard from the member for Rankin, they still to this day are proud of their deceitfulness, of their deliberate communicative corruption. If you heard the member's speech, there was a threat. Lessons have not been learnt, apparently. They have every intention to do such things again.
One million counterfeit Medicare cards that looked absolutely like the real thing in terms of size, colour, graphic design and even the Medicare logo were printed, and they carried this message:
1. SAVE BULK BILLING
2. STOP MEDICARE PRIVATISATION
3. KEEP TESTS AND MEDICINES AFFORDABLE
PUT THE LIBERALS LAST
That was all there was on the face of the fake cards that very deliberately looked just like the real thing, and the key word was 'privatisation', something that was not, never has been and never will be contemplated by coalition.
On the opposite side of the card, on the mock card that it was, was the authorisation that was behind other dishonest messaging, including 'Vote to save Medicare'. The authorisation read: 'Authorised by Dave Oliver, ACTU Secretary, 365 Queen Street, Melbourne. Printed by Kosdown Printing, 10 Rocklea Drive, Port Melbourne, Victoria.' This fake card, purported to carry a Medicare backed message, became the centrepiece of a highly coordinated, highly orchestrated, totally dishonest and deceitful campaign by the Australian Labor Party. They were trying to do nothing less than steal the 2016 election, based on palpable untruths.
The ACTU handed out one million of these cards, mostly at polling booths in the final two weeks of the campaign. Its members often heavied their way into poll position at pre-poll booths. They also dominated, where they could organise it, with corflutes that carried similar messages. The very local message at these booths that was barked at everybody who went through the door was 'Save Medicare'. GetUp!—the left-wing activist organisation that was partly formed by Labor— (Quorum formed)Isn't itinteresting that we had a member of the opposition calling for quorum because he wanted to hold back debate? He wanted to ensure I had less time to speak. Do you know why he wanted to do that? Because I mentioned those terrible words they don't want to hear: the GetUp! organisation. They understand that their leader was instrumental in funding this left-wing political activist group that helped them purport dishonesties and a disgraceful Mediscare campaign in the 2016 election, and they will do whatever it takes to take GetUp! off the political agenda. But we will not take it off the political agenda, and that is why, despite the member for Rankin's previous protestations, we will ensure that the subsequent measures associated with this bill will, indeed, be pursued. The member for Rankin made it very clear that the Labor Party intends to do it all over again in 2019, or whenever the next federal election is held.
The very high degree of thought that Labor put into this deliberate effort to hoodwink the country and sidestep the law as it exists, pending reforms proposed by this and other bills, is apparent on a couple of levels. One giveaway concerns Labor's sidestepping of the constraints on impersonation that exists in current legislation or just too glib—too obvious. It is illegal under the Criminal Code to impersonate a Commonwealth official. The act is silent, however, on the impersonation of an agency of the Commonwealth, a situation that will soon be remedied under a supplementary bill to the amendment being considered today.
So when the ACTU printed those one million fake Mediscare cards, as if they were generated by Medicare itself, they were technically within the law. Even though it is obvious that if Medicare was, indeed, behind the card, then someone at Medicare, an official at Medicare, would have to enable the cards to be printed. Obviously, there was no such involvement by anyone at Medicare. And Labor, and its mates at the ACTU, knew that what they were doing by mimicking the Medicare logo and precise card format wasn't actionable under current law due to that technicality, just as the ACTU knew that the current law around authorisation for electoral material had a loophole large enough for them to drive their dishonest intent through.
Under the current law, requirements relating to authorisation on electoral material are designed to ensure that people know just who is presenting them with election information. That has been the case through various iterations of the electoral laws since their first form in 1902. Obviously, just who it is that is presenting information aimed at influencing your vote is important, relevant information to have on a range of levels. If an extraordinary proposition is being put, such as a suggestion that one party in a political contest intends to privatise an agency as critical as Medicare, then the impact of that message on people and potentially on their voting intention is going to be significantly downgraded if the authorisation makes clear that the suggestion is being made by a direct opponent.
At another level, the authorisation gives the recipient and, indeed, electoral authorities, an avenue of contacting whoever produced the material. That is important if there are questions about the information or, indeed, there is an intention to launch legal action. There are quite specific requirements in relation to these authorisations across a range of methods of transmission of electoral material, but Labor obviously went looking for and found the loopholes in order to engage in what they hoped would be election-winning corruption. If the electoral information is, for example, a how-to-vote card, then there must be an authorisation on both sides of the card because it is clearly possible, indeed it is even likely, that someone who looks at a how-to-vote card only looks at that side of the card that has the relevant information on it for them to cast their vote. If there is no need to turn it over, often they don't. It is because of this danger—and only recently has it become so apparent—that the parliament instructed that the name of the person authorising how-to-vote cards, along with their address, had to be printed on both sides to overcome just that possibility, even that probability. That is why the how-to-vote cards ended up being authorised on both sides.
What was missed, however, by the parliament, when that decision was made, was that some forms of other published material were left with the requirement, as had previously been the case, whereby authorisation was only required at the end of the information—at the end of the document. Arguably, at least in the legal sense, therefore, the authorisation that Dave Oliver of the ACTU put on the flip side of the card, which he self-evidently wanted everybody to think was a real Medicare card with Medicare-endorsed messages, was right at the end of the information, even though the dangers in relation to missing it were no doubt crystal clear, indeed central, to Mr Oliver's purpose and intent.
His punt, his belief, was that people wouldn't turn the card over. His hope was that people would think the card was actually from Medicare, endorsed by Medicare. Because he was impersonating a Commonwealth agency and not a Commonwealth official, he and his intended beneficiary, the Labor Party, would be in the clear. Indeed, that is what the Australian Electoral Commission found when it considered whether it ought to take action over this fake card. It couldn't. The authorisation information was there, however deliberate the effort was to cover it up. The Australian Federal Police also realised that they could not take action because the impersonation was of the agency itself and not of the official.
So Labor and its patsies, in perpetrating 'Mediscare', took full advantage of the letter of the law and totally ignored the spirit of the law governing electoral material to try and steal the 2016 federal election. This bill, as presented before the House today, seeks to close a loophole that will not be open to Labor, the unions or even their best mates GetUp! at the next election. A range of changes to the authorisation regime will be put in place by the Australian Electoral Commission, which will gain broad new powers. It will have new injunctive powers and information-gathering powers to support enforcement. The AEC will also be able to issue legislative instruments to explain how communications in various media should be authorised as they emerge.
As much as the Labor Party celebrate the corrupt activity of the 'Mediscare' campaign, change is required. That change needs to be legislative change. It is the only way we can close these loopholes for the Australian vote of the Australian people.
What an extraordinary diatribe! Although, perhaps, we should not be so surprised that government members prefer to go back to the past and seek to refight the last election rather than concentrate on the challenges before their government and, indeed, the challenges before Australia today. The contribution we just witnessed from the member for Fairfax was extraordinary in many respects, but perhaps two deserve particular comment. His remarks did not address the Electoral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017, which is before the House. In fact, he spoke about a presently imaginary bill. I look forward to having the opportunity to debating it.
You don't want to talk about 'Mediscare'. That's the problem.
I am very keen, along with the member for Rankin, the member for Oxley, the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Ballarat and all of our colleagues—we will continue to stand up for universal health care. The thing that the member for Fairfax should reflect upon is the distinction between process and substance—a matter that I will turn to when I discuss the bill that is, in fact, before the House. Members of this government, although it won't be the government for very much longer the way it is travelling, should reflect on the issue and not continue their crazed obsession and their pathetic homage to the Prime Minister's election night tantrum when it comes to this. We had 15 minutes of contribution from the member for Fairfax—15 wasted minutes when we consider this significant bill before us and what it represents.
I'll make one last remark on the contribution from the member for Fairfax, and I hope that we will not see similar contributions from other government members. If they want to trawl over the authorisation details—which have been examined in forensic detail already—we welcome that debate. Let's have it again. We welcome the concessions you've made in the course of your contribution—concessions that you are bound to make—but you must not confuse these issues of process with the issue of substance that are of such great concern to so many Australians. They were at the last election; they will continue to be at the next election.
Mr Ted O'Brien interjecting—
We welcome any opportunity, Member for Fairfax, to carry on this debate. I will turn myself now to the Electoral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017, which is before the House. I, like the member for Rankin, am pleased to rise in support of this bill, subject to the caveat set out by the member for Rankin, which reflect a constructive process between the parties and the House—a process entirely at odds with the previous contribution. I have been very pleased to be a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and be part of its important program of work.
Hear, hear!
I acknowledge my friend the member for Oxley, whose past experience and insight have been invaluable to the work of the committee. I acknowledge also my Labor colleagues on the committee, Senators Brown and Ketter, and the work of the chair, Senator Reynolds—I'll touch upon her contribution in a moment—as well as the contribution of the representative of the Greens, Senator Rhiannon. The hallmark of this committee, in this parliament and in previous parliaments, has been its critical role in setting the ground rules for elections. It ensures that the Australian public see a contest of ideas—a contest of competing visions between the parties and others seeking to take their place in this place and in the other place—and makes sure that those rules are fit for purpose and that we can have that contest of ideas.
I think we must touch upon the wider context here. There is a declining sense of trust in this institution and, indeed, of the political process more broadly amongst Australians—in particular, amongst young Australians. If any of the ideas we come in this place to espouse are to matter, we must do more to ensure that the ground rules under which the political contest is played out are fit for purpose and are seen to be fit for purpose. This bill takes some significant steps in that regard. I welcome those steps in modernising, appropriately, the authorisation regime.
I do note, as the member for Rankin did on behalf of the opposition, that the bill as introduced did not reflect the process of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and did not reflect the evidence that was adduced before this significant committee. This point is worth making and remaking because how we deal with these pieces of legislation is particularly important. They don't go to policy debates upon which we will have legitimate differences; they go to setting up appropriate regimes that all of us should be able to agree with and operate within so that we can have fair and free elections and robust debate, and continue to debate the future of Medicare and other matters of importance to all Australians. I believe this bill reflects the work of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. It reflects the input of experts. I acknowledge the secretariat and our AEC secondees for the input they have had to the process which led to the preparation of the bill that is before us.
I also join the member for Rankin in acknowledging the Special Minister of State and extend my sympathies and best wishes to Senator Ryan. I hope that he is back soon to continue on with his important work—and can continue to play a role, along with the Shadow Special Minister of State, Senator Farrell—in progressing these matters in a bipartisan fashion, in good time, over the life of this parliament so that we can contest the next election under a regime that is fit for purpose.
In terms of authorisations and more broadly, this is a critical task, and it is critical that we are able to rely on the processes of this parliament—in particular, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. So I was a little troubled by the contribution of the previous speaker, because it goes so far from the ongoing attempts to maintain and achieve consensus, to accept that regaining trust in the political process is a challenge that we must all share in overcoming. It's a challenge that will not be reached, that will not be attained, through contributions the like of which we have just been a party to.
I had intended to make some very brief remarks and I will conclude them here by saying that this bill is a small but significant step in the process of modernising our electoral regimes and achieving a greater degree of consistency when it comes to authorisation. It is my hope that we can continue, through the work of all of us in this parliament, to ensure that a similar process of updating goes to other critical aspects of our electoral law, including fundraising and donations. I note that of course there is a bill before this parliament, introduced by the Leader of the Opposition, that would go quite some way towards advancing these objectives. I hope that we can either progress that bill or something similar, or, at the very least, hear some objections from government members as to the substantive matters that are contained within it.
Again, subject to the caveats set out by my friend the member for Rankin, I am pleased to support this bill.
I rise to support the Electoral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 and welcome the contributions of the previous member and other members in this debate so far. I think we can all agree that the principles of this legislation are to modernise and update Australian electoral law to reflect reality—the challenges we face in a society where electronic communications have become all pervasive as an effective means of communicating directly with the electorate. It will make sure that we have standard and consistent rules that operate across election material. This will make sure that people understand the credibility and quality of information that is being provided but, more importantly, it will stop deception.
That is the critical point: to stop deception. I know there's a lot of calls for bipartisanship. I would hope that would start with the bipartisanship of our political opponents, who did wrong—and acknowledged their wrong—in one of the things that we saw during the last election, where they tried to misinform the public or to misrepresent political campaigns as coming from a Commonwealth entity, particularly Medicare. This bill seeks to require an onus or burden that Commonwealth agencies, entities or services cannot be misrepresented for political purposes to try to scare or deliberately intimidate Australian voters into taking a particular course of action.
We know they tried to do that during what we have now dubbed the 'Mediscare' of the 2016 election. Information material was deliberately circulated to voters, whether it was electronically or in little things handed out at polling booths. I saw them at polling booths in the Goldstein electorate, particularly at the Sandringham College booth. Information was deliberately presented to voters: a misrepresentation of the issues around health care. I am somebody who cares passionately about health care and delivering the healthcare system that we need for the 21st century. I saw Labor Party people or Labor Party acolytes or allies choosing to misrepresent the position of Medicare in the hope that it would convince people to vote against the government. That was based on a deception; it was based on a lie and based on misinformation designed to scare the public, and that needs to end. We should not allow people to misrepresent Commonwealth entities, particularly service providers that might be the basis of people's livelihoods, health care or support. What any political party can do in that—and it may not just be the Labor Party and their behaviour; it might be other political parties as well who seek to promote the idea that they are acting on behalf of a Commonwealth agency—can threaten the livelihoods, the safety and the security of voters.
We see that sort of behaviour in other countries in much more violent forms, but when you seek to do it to somebody's livelihood it can have exactly the same effect of intimidating them into a course of action which may not be not just in their best interests but may also deceive them in the actions of their own free will. That's why this piece of legislation is so important. It controls the behaviour of others, to make sure that they do the honest thing and the decent thing. And it also makes sure they're held accountable for it.
I am somebody who believes very strongly in freedom of speech, and part of the credibility of any content—as a critical condition for freedom of speech—is that people be held to account for their conduct. Nobody ever needs to defend themselves from the excessive use of please and thank you. That is not how freedom of speech works. It is when people cross the lines of social acceptability or say something challenging or difficult. Equally, it applies to making sure that we hold people accountable when they deceive the public.
That's what we saw consistently from the opposition during the last election. And, let's face it: it did work partly for their own electoral gain. I'm quite sure that there were people who were very nervous about the circumstances that they faced. There were people—not necessarily in my electorate but outside of my electorate who contacted people within my electorate who raised the issue with me—who were particularly concerned about the pushing and the messaging that came from the Australian Labor Party and their acolytes and allies to deceive the public to vote for them. We see now that that behaviour continues to perpetuate itself, and our hope is that the measures in this piece of legislation will end that practice, in the public good, in the interests of making sure that we have a democracy built on integrity rather than being built on deception, as so often the opposition would like it to be.
There are lots of things in the authorisation framework that are allies to this piece of legislation. (Quorum formed)It's good to be back. We started this speech on the basis of the deception of the modern Australian Labor Party, and at the heart of the quorum call that they just did is the deception of thinking that anything that they have to say is relevant in this discussion—and we know that's not the case.
But let's get back to the substantive provisions of the bill. We know that this bill includes an authorisation regime—see, I can get excited about anything! The bill’s authorisation regime exempts the need to authorise clothing or any other item intended to be worn by a person; the reporting of news, presentation of current affairs or editorial content in news media; communication solely for genuine satirical, academic or artistic purposes, or solely for the purpose of announcing a meeting; opinion polling and research relating to voting intentions—which is going to be good for those opposite, because when we get to the next federal election, you're going to be sorry about the data that's coming out—communication for personal purposes; communication intended to remain within a disclosure entity; and real-time communications, where the speaker and any disclosure entity on whose behalf the speaker is communicating are, or could reasonably be, identified.
So the authorisation framework, as the previous speaker said, modernises the system for the 21st century. That's a fundamentally good thing which deals with lots of different amendments to other acts, as it reflects the full panoply of electronic media that we use these days for communication. The hope is that we'll be able to continue the legislative change to make sure those opposite can't use those channels for deception and are held accountable for their conduct, as well as making sure the Australian people see the fraudulence of the arguments that are often put out by the modern Australian Labor Party. Critical to that is accountability. That's what we are seeing them do.
The only other point I'd like to make in my remaining five minutes and 19 seconds is on polling booths. I know it isn't covered by the bill, but I think it's something we should all aspire to at future elections and in future legislation. One of the great frustrations that we have in the wonderful Goldstein electorate is that we have our main divisional office in Goldstein, which is in Bay Road, Sandringham. It's a lovely part of the world, though I can't believe the divisional office has a view pretty much towards the beach, but that's for another day. Because of its relatively limited size, the office doesn't have the capacity to absorb the number of people in the Goldstein electorate who opt to vote early—they know what they're going to do and we encourage that behaviour. One of my favourite moments during the last election was when a woman came in and said to me, 'Tim, I've always voted Labor, but on this occasion I'm going to vote Liberal.' The reason had to do with the behaviour of the CFA, the behaviour of the modern Labor Party and their policy around the CFA and the deception of Andrews government—we're back to deception again in how they conduct themselves in industrial relations and want to destroy volunteering. She couldn't vote at the divisional office because it's too modest. So there needed to be a facility rented nearby, which was literally within 200 metres of the divisional office at the Uniting Church in Trentham Street. If you get out Google maps, it's the next street; you can walk there. It doesn't dismiss the fact that there are some challenges in doing so for some people who are less physically able. I'm being charitable to those opposite because the good people of the Goldstein electorate are prepared to turn out and hand out how-to-vote cards in the early voting stage for their candidates, but it's placed a disproportionate burden on everybody being able to put a position forward.
Order! The member for Goldstein will take his seat. He should be confining his remarks to the bill which is before the House.
I am, and in the end it comes back to information that's advertised and making sure that people have accessible information about where they can go to vote. The issue we raise is a question of where people can vote and whether it's appropriate to have two sites in close proximity and the consequences of that—including the how-to-vote material that's released and provided and the potential for future material to be released on mobile telephones and other technology and where people can use those to vote. I simply make the point that, when you have divisional offices in such close proximity, everybody has to produced more material which has to be authorised as required under the Electoral Act. Perhaps it would be better, where there is such close proximity, if we could focus on one place rather than two to reduce the amount of content that then needs to be authorised—consistent with the principles and objectives of this piece of legislation and the legislation it seeks to amend. That's how we can sensibly continue to reform electoral laws so that they reflect the needs of the 21st century and deliver the content and material people need in a way that's accessible, transparent—and so that candidates and political parties can be held to account for their conduct.
One of the great things about the coalition, and the Liberal Party in particular, is we are prepared to stand up for who we are and what we stand for and what we believe in. That's the foundation of any political campaign; it isn't the basis of trying to pump out content to deceive people into voting for us. That, Deputy Speaker, is the modern Labor Party.
It's unfortunate that no-one else from the other side is speaking on the Electoral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. I note there have been some great contributions from this side of the House.
Not on the bill!
On the bill. I noted that the member for Scullin tried to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear in his speech. But, really, this bill is all about transparency. It's all about accountability. We all remember that cold winter campaign. I remember being on the pre-poll for three weeks.
You were in Queensland. It wasn't cold up there. You should have been in Tasmania.
It was cold in Queensland. It was as cold as a mother-in-law's kiss in Queensland! For three weeks—
I'll tell her you said that!
Those dedicated souls, including my volunteers, stood on the pre-poll for three long weeks. I think the temperature got below 20 degrees one day. I had this little old lady come up to me one day. She was almost frostbitten. She said: 'Andrew, are you going to take Medicare away? I had a phone call that you guys are going to take Medicare away.' I didn't know this lady but I reassured her that what was being pedalled by the Labor Party were lies. They were, in fact, lies. I assured her that we would not be selling Medicare or privatising Medicare and that we were staunch defenders of Medicare. And she said: 'That's fine. That's all I need to know. I'm going to vote for you.'
There were many, many stories that came out of the 2016 general election of the lies and the fabrications that were perpetrated by the Labor Party. And the Labor Party, unfortunately, wear it as a badge of honour. It is a great sadness that those opposite would think that it is smart, clever and almost funny to perpetrate a myth that the government was ever intending to privatise or to scrap Medicare. Fundamentally, it was wrong. They knew it. And it was nothing other than a cheap political stunt—and a cheap political stunt that, very sadly, almost worked. We have to ensure, in this place, that those sorts of games, perpetrated by the Labor Party and by GetUp!, never have an opportunity to succeed again.
So this bill is all about ensuring democracy. That's what I thought we were here for. I know I've only been here for 14 months but I thought that this place was all about democracy—not about trying to pull the wool over the eyes of some of our most disadvantaged people. Making robocalls to, in particular, the elderly at night, trying to tell them that they were going to lose Medicare—that is absolutely unforgivable. Those opposite that were involved in that decision-making should hang their heads in shame. It is an absolute disgrace. So we are taking steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
The Commonwealth Electoral Act, like many pieces of legislation, with time does not keep pace with modern-day technology. As time goes on, we're living in a world where technology is continuously growing and getting faster and faster. The sort of technology that the member for Scullin is on right now wasn't even thought conceivable 10 years ago. Now they are used as tools for good—sometimes good and sometimes bad. In the 2016 election, they were used for, in part, bad. These reforms that are encapsulated in this bill will ensure the integrity, accountability and transparency of who is actually making these representations. Who is actually behind the messaging will be made clear to the receiver, whether it's by email, by mobile phone or by who knows what the technology will be tomorrow.
Fundamentally, it is a tenet of our democracy that, particularly at election time, if someone makes a political statement, the rest of the country ought to know who has made that statement. When you look at any political advertising—whether it be a billboard or an ad on television or radio—you've always got that, 'Written, spoken and authorised by Joe Bloggs on behalf of the LNP,' for instance. But what we saw in the 2016 election was modern-day technology being used by the Labor Party for no other reason than to hoodwink, fool and misrepresent to parts of our community—our most vulnerable community—so that they thought that Medicare was being privatised. This bill will put a stop to it. As I said, there is nothing more important than that the identification of a representation be made clear. (Quorum formed.)
I encourage all my colleagues to stay and listen to the rest of this speech. It's very interesting that those opposite continue to gag both me and my colleagues when we speak about this bill because they are embarrassed. They are highly embarrassed, and so they should be. I know that some in the House weren't part of the leadership team that made this decision to obfuscate and misrepresent our position in relation to Medicare. I'm hoping that those opposite, as they grow through the ranks in the Labor Party, would staunchly defend the next time something like this comes up in a future campaign and do the right thing—that both lawyers on the other side of the room would do the right thing and not try and misrepresent the facts. As a colleague, I'm sure that they wouldn't do that in their own professional lives. In our democracy, we want to always ensure that we're open, we're accountable and we're transparent.
When those decisions were made by the Labor Party in the 2016 election, they sought to cover up. They sought to manufacture this whole story. It's all coming down to the importance of authorising this distributed material, whether it be in print or whether it be in electronic format. This bill will also have similar provisions. It doesn't matter whether it's a referendum or whether it is a general election, the same things will apply—that's equally important. It will harmonise authorisation requirements across broadcasting electoral and referendum legislation. It'll retain current requirements in relation to specified printed materials.
There are certain exemptions such as clothing. You won't have to have an authorisation on clothing—that's common sense. If you're reporting news or the presentation of current affairs or editorial content in news media, that will also be exempt. Communications solely for genuine satirical, academic or artistic purposes—if those on the other side have anything to do with it, they won't have anything to do with academic purposes, I'm sure—or solely for the purpose of announcing a meeting are exempt. Opinion polling and research related to voting intentions are exempt. Communication for personal purposes is exempt. Communication intended to remain within a disclosure entity is exempt. Real-time communications where the speaker and any disclosure entity on whose behalf the speaker is communicating are, or could reasonably be, identified are also exempt. If someone is standing on a street corner or in a town hall making some representations, whatever it might be, clearly we know who that person is or we can make certain investigations to find out who they are.
Interestingly, it has been decided that schedule 2 is to be removed from this bill, but make no mistake, we will be back. We will be back and we will reintroduce—
Matthias says it so much better.
I'll be back! We will be back to reintroduce schedule 2. I think it's important although, strictly speaking, I understand it's not part of this bill, but schedule 2 will make it a criminal offence for people who misrepresent and pretend to be representing a government department or authority. Clearly, those people on the other side from GetUp! and the ALP misrepresented the situation at the 2016 election. We will be back. We will introduce criminal provisions that will see that those people, should they do it again, end up in court and suffer the sanctions of criminal penalties.
Debate interrupted.
I had the opportunity recently to visit some of my fabulous local primary schools that are part of the broader Community Hubs Network in my electorate. I was accompanied on that visit by the member for Scullin in his capacity as the shadow assistant minister for education, and I want to thank him for spending that time with me. Community hubs deliver local information around education, health, community and settlement to families that are in need of those services, and they do so in a familiar space—usually a primary school, because schools, by their very nature, are already attached to the everyday life of parents and children in our local community.
Calwell has the highest intake of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Victoria, as part of the Special Humanitarian Program. That's why I guess 70 per cent of the school hubs in Victoria are found in my electorate, responding to the needs of our newly arrived constituents and, in doing so, giving them a chance to live a full life here in Australia. I want to thank the CEO of Community Hubs Australia, Dr Sonja Hood, for organising the visit to two of our local school hubs—St Dominic's Primary School and the Meadow Heights Primary School.
The St Dominic's Primary School community hub is led by hub leader Caroline Menassa, who does an outstanding job in supporting the families of the school community, especially the mums. While we were there, the member for Scullin and I got the opportunity to call in on an English class, and we saw firsthand the enthusiasm and the commitment of both the mature-age female students as well as their very, very committed teacher. I want to commend St Dominic's Primary School Principal Gayle Connor, who is so incredibly hands on with the school's hub program. In fact, Gayle is often known to take time out of her very busy schedule to provide the women with art classes—about which she says, 'The art created is secondary; it's about the conversation and getting to know the women. That comes first.'
In addition, every Tuesday, the community hub provides an oral translation of the school newsletter. It does so in Arabic, Vietnamese and Chinese. This initiative enables the families to immerse themselves fully into their child's learning and growth by creating a dialogue between the school and the parents. This also gives the school an opportunity to talk to the parents on other issues in addition to their children's education.
The other hub that we visited was at Meadow Heights Primary School, a great public school where hub leader Salwa Salem does a fantastic job in creating a safe and harmonious space that promotes building strong and meaningful relationships with the school community and their families. This hub is very busy and very proactive. The weekly timetable is filled with activities, including Arabic playgroups for pre-schoolers as well as culturally nuanced in-house childcare services to assist the mums. This hub has a strong emphasis on health care, teaching mums how to be healthy and how to keep their families healthy through proper nutrition and exercise. The hub also employs a speech pathologist to assist the refugee families with any issues they may have with speaking and learning a new language. I want to thank Meadow Heights Primary School Principal Margaret Leach and assistant principals Yasher Duyal and Domenica De Fillippis for the love and dedication they put into the hub to make sure it works well for their community.
On our visit we also took the opportunity to visit Sirius College, which is in my electorate. It's always a great pleasure to visit Sirius College. It's one of the most successful academically-oriented schools in my electorate, with a very high success rate at VCE each year for at least the last 20 years—certainly in all the time that I have been the member for Calwell. On this occasion, the member for Scullin and I got the opportunity to meet with some of the VCE girls at the school.
As our visit was held directly after the last parliamentary sitting week in August, Senator Hanson's burqa stunt was an issue that the girls were very keen to talk about. These confident, intelligent young women could not comprehend how the dignity of our Australian Senate could be so publicly disgraced by the opportunistic actions of Senator Hanson. These young Australian girls of Muslim faith were very unimpressed that their faith, as they put it to me, was mocked in this undignified and uncalled for way. I reassured them, of course, that Senator Hanson would be but a passing phase, and the future of this country lay in the intelligence, resilience and dignity of its young people—young people such as these young women, who aspire to go on to make a positive contribution to the future of Australia as others have before them. (Time expired)
This week is Women's Health Week, an annual national campaign to raise awareness of the importance of women's health and wellbeing in Australia. Women's Health Week is led by the not-for-profit Jean Hailes foundation, which has partnered with the Australian government since 1997 to provide evidence-based information on the prevention, early detection and management of chronic disease for all women throughout all stages of life. The Turnbull government is contributing $8.25 million to Jean Hailes over three years from 2016 to support them in this important work.
Imagine these symptoms: a sudden and severe gripping pain in the chest, a pain that radiates down the arm, and shortness of breath. If you described these symptoms to the average Australian, they would assume and describe them as the symptoms of a heart attack, for which urgent medical attention would be sought. This would be a correct assumption; it is generally well known and there is high awareness of this. What is lesser known, but an undeniable fact, is that the symptoms of a heart attack for a woman are often very, very different. Typically, for women, the symptoms start with a feeling of general tiredness, feeling unwell, a heaviness in the chest going up through the jaw, or an ache in the arm that radiates through to the back and shoulder blades. They can also feel shortness of breath and nauseousness, and women often describe themselves as not feeling quite right.
I've had the pleasure of meeting with Dr Linda Worrall-Carter, who's the founder and CEO of Her Heart, a not-for-profit organisation that combines expert advice and information to increase awareness of the risk of heart disease in women. Dr Worrall-Carter has carried out research in this area for over 15 years. According to Dr Worrall-Carter's research, the following points are made in relation to heart attack in women. Of course, we can't change our family history, but there are other elements that we can, such as stopping smoking, controlling blood pressure and diabetes, and managing our weight and stress. If women smoke and are on a contraceptive pill, they are 10 times more likely to have a heart attack. Women are three times more likely to die of heart disease than cancer. In fact, heart disease kills more women than all cancers combined. Australia loses one woman every hour to heart disease. Eighty per cent of deaths are preventable and can be managed through simple lifestyle changes.
Heart disease is still considered a man's disease and is often assessed using men's symptoms, which has often proven fatal for women. Forty-two per cent of women who have suffered a heart attack die within the first year, compared with 24 per cent of men. Upon diagnosis, women are often referred for fewer tests and treatments. In postdiagnostics, the statistics of recovery are worse. During recovery, women have more depression and are less likely to be referred to cardiac rehabilitation. The biggest increase in heart disease is in the 25-to-40-year age group, and this is due to the obesity epidemic and the rise in chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Traditionally, women are not good at prioritising themselves, which is especially so for women who are members of what is commonly known as the sandwich generation—that is, women who are more often the primary carers of children as well as ageing parents. Furthermore, women often delay seeking treatment, as there is poor awareness that this is a major health issue for women.
I applaud Dr Worrall-Carter's work and passion to raise awareness of heart disease so that women's lives across Australia can be saved. The vision of Her Health, her not-for-profit organisation, is to work with women to raise awareness of heart disease, the biggest killer of Australian women, and exponentially increase women's chances of avoiding and/or surviving this silent killer. By 2025 we aim to decrease the deaths from this disease by 50 per cent.
A healthy lifestyle, including diet and exercise, is also a critical component in preventable heart disease in women. Women's risk of heart attack is cut in half by vigorously exercising for at least 20 to 30 minutes every day, and we all know that education is best started in the community at a young age. To this point, the Turnbull government's commitment to improve the health and wellbeing of Australian women included a commitment of $17 million over 2015 to 2017 to encourage improved participation in physical activities of girls between 12 and 17, through the Girls Make Your Move campaign, to help reduce the risk of chronic disease. I'm so proud of the Turnbull government's commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of all women in Australia.
I start by commending the member for Chisholm for raising the important issue of women's health. We are, of course, in Women's Health Week. We have just been at the launch with a number of colleagues in this place of the Jean Howells Foundation, an organisation that does terrific work. I commend them for raising a number of issues, including heart health and reproductive health, which I have a great passion for as well—along with women's proper access to medical and surgical terminations in this country. We still have a long way to go with that.
Tonight I want to speak about marriage equality and its relationship to health. Right now, across Australia, we are having a discussion about marriage equality and, frankly, it's an unnecessary discussion, brought on by a Prime Minister who has been too weak to do the right thing and who has denied us the opportunity to have a vote in this place and get the matter sorted once and for all. As shadow minister for health and Medicare, it is incumbent upon me to talk about the impacts of this debate, and of marriage equality in general, on the health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ communities around the country—because marriage equality is undeniably a health matter.
According to Beyondblue, the mental health of LGBTIQ people is among the poorest in Australia. Same-sex-attracted Australians are up to 14 times likelier to attempt suicide. Young same-sex-attracted Australians are six times likelier to attempt suicide than their peers. Let me be clear: the reason for these statistics is not due to sexuality, but to persistent and reinforced exclusion. Failing to implement marriage equality is a form of social exclusion, a discriminatory environment that has been documented to foster feelings of rejection, low self-esteem and a lack of acceptance. And, sadly, the postal survey has provided a platform for harmful views that reinforce this discrimination, views that will promote prejudicial, stigmatising and harmful views about LGBTIQ people, their relationships and their families.
Tonight I'd like to share a story of one of those families. Last Friday, Amy Coopes, a journalist, medical student and, along with her same-sex partner, the mother to a young son, wrote a letter about the experience of the marriage equality postal survey. This is an extract of what she wrote to her son:
I never truly believed that it would happen, in 2017. That our government would actually bring this down upon us, invite 16 million people to debate our lives and our love for a bit of sport. And that they would unleash this without any kind of protections on what could and couldn't be said. There are no limits to what lies are being peddled, nor to the terms in which we are permitted to be discussed.
This was always going to be about everything other than the simple question — should two consenting adults be allowed to wed — because every poll across the political spectrum shows this is a foregone conclusion: the answer for many is yes, of course, yes. The naysayers are desperate to dehumanise us, to imply that we are a radical and remote minority because it's so demonstrably untrue.
Amy says that she is comforted by the fact that her son is so young that he won't remember people campaigning about the right of her family to exist.
This family is not alone—their experiences are replicated across the country by LGBTIQ people and their families. And there will be many children and young people who are of an age that they won't forget. They will see the advertisements, they will hear the hurtful messages and they will absorb them.
Tonight, I want to send a very strong message of support to all those people who are watching this debate unfold. To those who are seeing their lives attacked by opponents of equality, I want to assure you that there are people fighting for your equality and standing alongside you in this fight. It is a fight of inclusion and it is a fight we will win. This isn't a debate we should be having, but now that the government has brought our country to this place, it is a debate we are determined to win.
As opposition health spokesperson, I will always fight for and protect the health of every single Australian, whether they are LGBTIQ or they do not identify as such. This means, of course, fighting for marriage equality.
I would like to talk about the role of inquiries in this place and the role of political debate. When we commit in standing committees—bipartisan committees—to undertake an inquiry, we do so because we believe there is an issue that needs to be investigated. As chair of the Economics Committee, I shared a concern with many, particularly young people, that housing affordability was a thing of the past. We all had anecdotal stories of how high the cost of housing was and how out of reach it is for the next generation. So, to move past anecdotal information and to address the concerns of affordability and rising concern about the volatility of the market, we undertook an inquiry to gather the facts. We set about gathering evidence.
We knew that we had gone from a rate of home ownership of under 40 per cent after the Second World War to over 70 per cent in the early seventies. It was a golden era of housing affordability. It was an era in which we judged our national wealth by the percentage of home ownership—by how many people owned their home. It was the creation of wealth for many families. We discovered, during evidence, that home ownership is now at a 60-year low. We understood that volatility was driven by investors, armed with the lowest interest rates in our history, who could buy properties that were neutrally geared, relieved of negative gearing when interest rates were higher than rental returns and losses had therefore to be funded. With neutral gearing and positive gearing, there was no limit to how many properties investors could buy. Borrowing 100 per cent, having the renter pay for the property and with prices going up—these were all of the components of a Ponzi scheme. The investor had moved from the point of providing affordable housing for those who couldn't afford to buy it to creating a greater division of wealth. We were comforted sometimes with the knowledge that 84 per cent of investors only own one property, but that means 16 per cent own the rest.
The trajectory is such that within 10 years we will have less than 50 per cent of Australians owning their own home. We are moving away from what it was—a commonwealth of Australia—to a country that is owned and controlled more and more by fewer and fewer, a land of lords: landlords. These findings were alarming. When we went to the last budget, we understood that there would be measures in the budget to address this volatile situation and to try to give new home owners the opportunity of getting into the market. After that budget, the three ratings agencies cited the exposure of Australia to the housing bubble as the biggest threat to our economy.
We play politics with this, as we do with many things in this place. One party says, 'We're not going to touch negative gearing,' so the other one says, 'We're going to get rid of it.' These policies entrench and the development of policy ceases. It was very interesting in this room a few weeks ago when the issue of terrorism was addressed between our two leaders. The Leader of the Opposition met with the Prime Minister and, in a short period of time, they came to resolution. They spoke beautifully about each other and congratulated each other on their good work. Mr Shorten made the comment that this was too important an issue to play politics with. I would like to put forward that housing—the spreading of wealth and the stabilisation of families through the ownership of homes and communities—is too important an issue to play politics with. It is the opportunity for young people to buy homes, to be more stable in themselves or their families and to have the opportunity of creating wealth. I would ask our leaders to set aside politics and entrenched positions and work together in a positive way to develop policies that will spread wealth and give every Australian the opportunity of having a stake in Australia and owning their own home.
I rise tonight to speak about the Afghan-Australian community. On Tuesday, 22 August, I was delighted to attend the Afghan Independence Day celebrations at the Springvale Town Hall. On the night, over 300 local Afghan-Australians attended the celebrations. I wish to thank Dor Aschna, President of the Afghan Australian Philanthropic Association, for organising the wonderful event that had a great spirit of unity and purpose. I also wish to thank Alande Mustafa Safi from the Paragon Business Group for sponsoring this event. The Afghan Australian Philanthropic Association was formed in 1999. It specialises in providing Afghan refugees with settlement assistance and establishment in everyday life in Australia. Each year, the Afghan Australian Philanthropic Association organises Afghan Independence Day celebrations to bring local Afghans living in the city of Casey and the city of Greater Dandenong together for a joyful celebration. Afghan Independence Day is celebrated in Afghanistan on 19 August to commemorate the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919 and it also marks the date that Afghanistan regained full independence.
Since migrating to Australia, Afghan Australians have made a wonderful contribution to our nation. According to the 2016 census, we now have 53,082 Australians of Afghan ancestry residing in this country, with 18,116 living in Victoria, mainly in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. In Australia, the first Afghan people came to this country during the 1860s as cameleers. I don't think many Australians would know that, for a period of time from the 1860s to the early 1900s, the Afghani cameleers and their ships of the desert became the backbone of the Australian economy. Afghani cameleers transported the supplies and equipment needed to construct some of Australia's earliest and greatest infrastructure projects, such as the Overland Telegraph and the Trans-Australian Railway. It's estimated that, from 1870 to 1900 alone, more than 2,000 cameleers came to Australia.
It's worthy to note that the famous Ghan train service from Adelaide to Darwin has an emblem which is an Afghan on a camel, in recognition of the efforts of the Afghanis who opened up the inhospitable interior of our country. They also assisted many explorers like Burke and Wills, even on that ill-fated expedition. Without them, we would not have discovered significant portions of the interior of our country. In debates about the contribution of our Afghan community in Australia, I certainly would draw to the attention of the Australian community their significant contribution to the development of our country. The second group of Afghani immigrants arrived in Australia following the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, which increased the Afghan-born population to about 1,000 people during the early 1990s. A severe drought in 2000, as well as ongoing war in Afghanistan, which has continued, led to a new influx of Afghan refugees and migrants fleeing persecution who now call Australia home.
Last week, I had the opportunity to meet one of the recent members of the Afghan-Australian community, Dr Iftikhar Ahmad. He is the new imam at the Omar Farooq Mosque in Doveton. At times, I thought this meeting would never take place. It was a long and drawn-out process for Dr Ahmad and his family to come to Australia—a three-year process to be exact. In those three years, the mosque was left without a permanent imam, a source of much anguish to the local Afghan community.
At this point, I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the immigration minister, Minister Dutton, and his staff with regard to this matter—specifically, their assistance in providing updates, where possible and appropriate, on the progression of Dr Ahmad's visa application. It's no surprise, therefore, that Dr Ahmad's arrival has been met with much excitement and enthusiasm from the community, as well as a healthy level of expectation. Dr Ahmad has big shoes to fill. The former imam, the late Noorullah Noori, whom I've spoken about previously in this place, was highly respected and was, in fact, a revered and esteemed leader whose lasting legacy of compassion and support for the community is still prominent in the memories of all who knew him. In meeting Dr Ahmad, I'm confident that we have someone who can follow in Mr Noori's substantial footsteps. Dr Ahmad is imminently qualified for his position. He holds two masters degrees, as well as a PhD in Islamic studies, and speaks five languages. These are qualifications and skills that will stand him in good stead when he engages with the community. The Afghan community has made, as I have just outlined, a great contribution to our country and will continue to do so in the future.
One day a lady came to see me in my office in Swan Hill. She told me she wanted to see me about child care. Instead, when the door was shut, she explained that she was having to flee an abusive husband and was the victim of family violence, and that is where my involvement in the issue of family violence became very relevant to the people of Mallee. I want to talk about two high-profile cases that have recently taken place in Mallee and outline how the Australian judiciary is drastically letting our women down.
One of those cases involved Nick Stevens, a former AFL champion, who was appointed as a senior coach in a town. I took a stance against this. At the time he was appealing an eight-month jail sentence for beating up his former partner. He rang me on my mobile phone and explained to me who his lawyers were and that I shouldn't say anything—but I have the beauty of parliamentary privilege in this place. He largely threatened me and then he proceeded to tell me how it was all her fault and how nothing actually happened. He was appealing an eight-month jail sentence. At the very last minute he pleaded guilty and was given a three-month jail sentence. He served 12 weeks and is now back in our community. Our community is upset about that.
Recently, this last week, we had the handing down of a sentence in the case of a young 31-year-old lady who worked for the Mildura council. Her partner purchased a handgun for $3,000. He was a person prohibited from owning a handgun, so he clearly broke the law. In the house, her house, he loaded the handgun and then the handgun was discharged by him holding the handgun to her head. She was killed. Our community is astounded that he was able to get a manslaughter charge, and, as a result of that, he will get six years jail—six years jail!
So here we have a situation where a football star can make a plea bargain as an offender and get out of it with three months and we have a situation where an upstanding woman in our community, who was actually a white ribbon advocate, can get shot in her own home by an illegal handgun that was purchased several weeks earlier and the guy will be out in five years. The judge made the comment that it was extremely reckless, dangerous and profoundly stupid to place the loaded handgun against her forehead and that cocking it and pulling the trigger were acts of violence. Well, no shit, Sherlock!
The member for Mallee will withdraw.
I withdraw that comment, but I express frustration at the inadequacy of the judge's comments. At some point our community has to say that our judiciary needs to get out of the 1970s and into 2017. Our police forces are putting their lives at risk all the time in apprehending these rogues in our community who are threatening women in their own homes. They take them to the court, but the court lets them do a plea bargain. The court let this guy go from murder to manslaughter and then, instead of giving him the maximum sentence, which should have seen him in jail for 15 years and possibly another three years for purchasing an illegal handgun as a prohibited person, he got out with a minimum sentence of six years. And, having already served 189 days, he will be out in five.
I want to send a message through this parliament that the Australian members of parliament will not take a back step when it comes to defending women in their own homes and when it comes to saying that family violence will not be tolerated. Ultimately, in time, that message will make its way through to the judiciary. But, at this point, the judiciary still has a lot to learn when it comes to realising that community attitudes have changed. No more can this continue. No more. The people in our community have to feel safe. The women in our community have to feel that when they go to a police officer and seek refuge and when they seek to take their case through the court system, justice will be served. In the two instances I have just outlined tonight justice was not served in my community. I look to a future when ultimately our judiciary catches up to the rest of Australian society.
House adjourned at 20 : 00
One of the major concerns in my electorate of Richmond is the ever-increasing and disturbingly long delays in the processing of age pension claims. The delays are a major concern affecting age pensioners and their families and really highlight how out of touch and uncaring the Turnbull government is. Labor is deeply concerned about the extremely long periods that many are waiting for very simple claims to be processed. Every week, I'm approached by many locals and my office receives so many calls from people who are extremely distressed and bewildered about this situation. Their inquiries relate to why they're waiting five, six, seven and sometimes eight months for the age pension application to go through. The waiting time is not just weeks anymore but months. The waiting time has blown out to epic proportions.
Those accessing the age pension are people who have contributed to our community for their entire working lives and now, instead of receiving acknowledgement and recognition for their efforts, they're being forced to wait months for the support they're entitled to, support they deserve for their years of hard work and dedication to our country. They should reasonably be able to expect that when they reach retirement they will get that support.
In addition, we've heard many stories of long delays in the processing of routine Centrelink functions such as appeals, the lodgement of forms and changes to information. We do not believe that this is acceptable. Labor believes that hardworking Australians deserve a system of income support that is efficient, transparent and accessible, and Labor will continue to oppose the poor treatment of those who receive income support. We're all familiar with the long wait on the phone to get through to Centrelink just to make an inquiry. Many constituents report having to wait in Centrelink offices for long periods of time to speak to someone face to face when making further inquiries. The fact is that ongoing cuts to Centrelink staff and the increasing casualisation of the workforce in the Department of Human Services have aggravated the problem. These demonstrate the lack of investment the government is willing to make and show the contempt that the Prime Minister and his counterparts have for those who are most in need of assistance.
We know that this government has a very poor track record when it comes to looking out for and looking after the most vulnerable in our communities. There is now further proof that the government have turned their backs on age pensioners in their cutting back on frontline services. They're dooming these people to months of anguish and uncertainty, and that is how my constituents feel. Our pensioners deserve so much more than this. I thank them for their contribution to our community and I'll keep fighting in my electorate for them to get access to their well-deserved pensions after a lifetime of working and a lifetime of commitment to their communities.
We on this side will continue to advocate for higher standards and more transparent reporting procedures and for a reduction in the length of time individuals have to wait to access outcomes regarding their payments. We do that because Labor is absolutely committed to standing up for a better service for all Australians and we'll fight for those who need our help. The situation, particularly with pensioners, is exasperating in my seat. I have many retirees in my area sometimes waiting months and months for their age pension. It's just not fair. I'll keep holding this government to account.
The people who live in the Wimmera Mallee are very fair minded, decent people. I always say it is not unreasonable for them to able to drive on a decent road, make a mobile phone call, have good education opportunities for their children and know that when they're unwell they'll be able to go to a doctor. It is about doctors that I want to talk this afternoon. For reasons of circumstance, we have lost nine doctors in Horsham since February. We've seen a lot of doctors leave our town, and we're having difficulty securing general practitioners. The district of workforce shortage mechanism, which assesses whether there is a shortage of doctors, is only reset in February every year. So we lost these doctors after the mechanism was reset. At this point in time we are limited in our ability to access overseas trained doctors, foreign graduates from Australian medical schools and Australian trained bonded doctors with return-of-service obligations.
I want to outline that there are some things that we need to do if we're going to attract more doctors to regional areas. There is not a shortage of doctors; that is the irony. We are overserviced in some areas yet in other areas we can't get doctors. Horsham, for example, is not the back blocks of anywhere. There's an indoor, heated swimming pool and a population of 20,000 people. We're three hours from Melbourne. We've got private schools and jobs for partners. It's a great place to live. If we're not able to attract doctors into Horsham, we've obviously got some of the settings wrong.
Certainly, at the moment, a rural GP will receive $3 more on a bulk-billing than a doctor practising in the city. But I think that there does need to be an overlay where we work out what the population base and service of doctors to that population is, as opposed to what it is in another area, and try to move those to become more equal. Currently, we work on a doctor being able to service a population of about 980 people, and in some areas we've got doctors who are servicing substantially more. We're overservicing in some areas—I suppose that is the best way to put it.
I would argue that we have to look at the rebate that we pay and perhaps pay more to areas where they are having trouble attracting doctors and less to areas where they are overserviced so that we can start to incentivise in a greater sense to ensure we get doctors into those country towns and into those regions. People who live in the regions are Australians too, and they deserve the same level of care. If we are going to use our taxpayers' dollars to rebate health, we need to make sure that that rebate is being equally shared across areas so that we can attract more doctors.
If you're a doctor looking at this, come to the electorate of Mallee. We've got the best people, the best foods and the best place to live. We'd love to have you. We need you, and we will support you.
I rise today to speak about Australian seafarers in my electorate of Bass. Tasmania has a proud history of merchant seamen servicing our island coastline and is home to many fly-in fly-out seafaring workers—seafarers like Andrew Halliday, who worked on the CSL Brisbane and was made redundant by his foreign employer, Canada Steamship Lines.
When it comes to our maritime workers in Australia, this government simply doesn't care. There are at least 1,000 unemployed Australian seafarers—that's 1,000—who have been replaced by international workers, and this government is actively trying to assist the companies sacking our workers. If it wasn't actually happening, it would be unbelievable. Imagine, if you would, governments sacking teachers or nurses and replacing them with foreign workers.
When the then Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Senator Michaelia Cash, attempted to introduce the maritime crew visa to assist companies in replacing workers, I was appalled. It took a unanimous decision of five judges of the High Court to stop that tragedy from occurring. Modern seafarers have a number of duties which require reasonably generic qualifications, but this government is allowing companies to create job descriptions that don't line up with Australian qualifications, simply to circumvent Australian law. The 400 visa category is meant to be used for work that encapsulates highly specialised skills: skills or knowledge or experience that can assist Australian business and cannot reasonably be found in the Australian labour market. Despite this requirement, the visa is being used to fill semiskilled positions for which, apparently, qualified Australian workers were not available.
This is occurring at a time when the national security of Australia is being used by this government as political fodder, and yet it continues to erode one of our most vital security assets—that is, our merchant seamen. In World War II, it was the bravery of our merchant seamen carrying valuable cargo to Australia, despite the threat posed by the Japanese navy, that kept our country operating. It is estimated that 386 members of the Seamen's Union of Australia lost their lives during World War II.
Lastly, I'd like to draw your attention to Australia's pre-eminent institute for maritime education, training and research, the Australian Maritime College, in Launceston. AMC is globally recognised as a centre for excellence. The observation was recently made to me by the Secretary of the Tasmanian Branch of the MUA, Jason Campbell, that, when he trained at the AMC at the beginning of his career, there were hundreds of seafarers learning their trade at the AMC. This is something that has declined in recent years, no doubt due to the current ideology of the government to undermine qualified Australian seafarers on our coastline.
Labor have announced that we'll establish the Australian Skills Authority, an independent labour-market-testing body, to determine genuine skills needs and restrict temporary work visas.
Last week I had the pleasure of having the Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Craig Laundy, the member for Reid, in my electorate of Swan. It was a big day for the assistant minister, checking out some of the exciting projects that are happening in Swan. To begin with, we attended an event that was held by the West Coast Eagles within the Town of Victoria Park to celebrate the turning of the sod at the Eagles' new $65 million home in the area of Lathlain Park, in my electorate of Swan. It was a great opportunity for the assistant minister to see how big this project was and how the world-class facilities will be coming to Lathlain Park in my electorate of Swan. And I must say that, even though the assistant minister is a dyed-in-the-wool GWS fan, it was great to see him getting snaps with some of the legend West Coast Eagles players like Nic Naitanui and also with the eagle.
Next up on the assistant minister's tour of Swan was the Fero Group for a tour of their expansive premises and, of course, their new galvanising plant, which received $4.9 million through the coalition government's Manufacturing Transition Program grant. The total cost of the project was $25 million, and the new plant has the capacity to treat some 100,000 tonnes of steel products, double the capacity of the plant it has replaced. The Fero Group was started locally, in Swan, back in the 1970s. Mario Franco has worked tirelessly to build his company from the ground up, and now his two sons, Michael and Robert, are the managing director and finance director of Fero and have continued to drive the Fero Group forward. The new environmentally sound galvanising plant is Australia's largest, most modern hot-dip galvanising plant, and is located in Kewdale. The investment in the new galvanising plant and other modern manufacturing facilities has ensured it can successfully compete worldwide for manufactured products. Exports account for some 15 per cent of the volume of the manufactured products.
Whilst we were at the Fero Group, Assistant Minister Laundy was able to listen to the concerns of Mario and his sons regarding the threat from overseas imported products. Fero recently participated in a tender to supply some underground support products to an existing client providing Australian-made steel products from Bluescope and from a zinc mine in Townsville. Unfortunately, the contract was lost to a competitor because the products were being imported fully furnished from China. It was a great opportunity for the assistant minister to hear firsthand the impact this is having on Australian companies and their industries.
I'd like to thank the team at Fero for hosting us and showing us around the premises. The work you're doing serves as a great example to Australian companies. I'd also like to thank Assistant Minister Laundy for the work he's doing to ensure our government continues to support industry and innovation not only in my electorate of Swan but across this country. Again, congratulations to the Fero Group on the number of people that they employ in my electorate of Swan.
This afternoon I'd just like to place on the record some of the important sectors in my electorate of Darwin and Palmerston in the Top End of Australia, the northern capital of our country; some of the industries; some of the recent discussions that have been had; and, indeed, some of the visits to the north by both government and shadow ministers. I will also make some observations. Before doing that, I want to invite all members of the House to our Facing North event. This is an event to promote Darwin and the Top End—in fact, to promote the Northern Territory—down here in Canberra. It will be held next Wednesday, 13 September. We're going to have a range of Territorians at the event, from Matthew Wright, the Outback Wrangler, to captains of industry in the Top End of Australia, to talk about our important role in the life of our country, the capacity of our industries and the potential for growth into the future.
Like our Western Australian colleagues—and we've heard some of their contributions in the other chamber—we punch above our weight when it comes to the national economy. We are a small population with a large land mass and we look to the Commonwealth not to forget about us, not to disregard us; invest in us and we will produce for the country as we have been.
But there's more potential there. I just want to talk about the devastation that is caused by a loss of population in our northern capital. When we lose Australian Public Service jobs—and we've lost 450 of those since Tony Abbott, the member for Warringah, was the Prime Minister—that really damages our community's economy. We've just found that Charles Darwin University, which is very important to our economy, is going to be slashed by $15 million over the next four years. That means jobs will be lost as well. So we say to ministers when they come up, and we say to the Prime Minister, who, I understand, will be visiting Darwin this weekend: GST is very important for our ability to provide services to Territorians across that vast space, so we do not want to see any changes to the GST distribution or to the horizontal fiscal equalisation, which is so important in making sure that we get a fair go, because, when we get a fair go, we will develop for the good of our country.
When the Shoalwater Bay military upgrade was announced, I promised our business community that I would be fighting to make sure that local industry would benefit. Just last week, the Minister for Defence announced the Local Industry Capability Plan pilot. Under this program, local industry will have more opportunities to participate in major defence infrastructure projects as part of a pilot program. I'm extremely pleased that one of these pilot projects will be the $135 million Shoalwater Bay training area redevelopment. Under this program, our government will be delivering on that promise, and I thank Minister Payne for her efforts in releasing this pilot program.
Upcoming defence investment will be a game-changer for our region, but local businesses want to know that they will see a direct benefit and will receive priority consideration. This announcement has been extremely well received in my electorate, and I thank the Minister for Defence for recognising that we can and should do more to maximise these opportunities.
A broad range of products and services are required, but working with Defence can be complex. I am encouraging local businesses wanting to tender to start preparing and understanding how the tender process for Defence contracts works. I would particularly like to thank Capricorn Enterprise, the Capricornia Business Advisory Alliance and the Centre for Defence Industry Capability for all the work they are doing to support these businesses.
Already, the announcement is being well received. Chairman of the Capricornia Business Advisory Alliance, Grant Cassidy, said, 'Minister Payne is to be congratulated and fully supported for her strong position for local regional businesses and their collective capabilities being recognised in this pilot program. I am sure our local Central Queensland businesses will stand united behind Minister Payne and local member Michelle Landry in applauding and fully supporting this trial to ensure it is successful, so that it can be rolled out permanently in all future defence projects.' Economic Development Manager with Capricorn Enterprise, Neil Lethlean, has welcomed the new direction being taken to engage local capability and future upgrade works at Shoalwater Bay military training area, committing the resources of Capricorn Enterprise to ensure that regional businesses are well qualified to engage in future ADF work packages. I wish the pilot program success, and I look forward to seeing this evolve into the defence industry participation policy in the first half of 2018.
The hallmark of the Turnbull government is letting large multinational corporations take advantage of hardworking Australians, cutting wages and putting employees at risk—all in the name of profit. Last time this parliament sat, I met with members from the AWU, the ETU and the Australian metalworkers union who told me about the abhorrent practices of Esso Australia, who, like too many large corporations, are cutting costs at the expense of workers and their safety.
Esso has nearly doubled its profits since the first half of 2016—up from $1.7 billion to $3.4 billion this year—and boasts one of the biggest gas finds in Bass Strait. Despite these booming profits, Esso recently let go 110 loyal WA catering staff and replaced them with interstate and international workers. To make matters worse, the new staff wages have been reduced by some $45,000 per year, letting international companies take their profits overseas without paying a fair share of tax.
Esso also wants to play games with rosters outside of the current system. This will mean that workers are at risk of more incidents because of appalling cutbacks putting maintenance into the hands of inexperienced, underskilled staff working under duress and fatigued on extended rosters. This isn't just some conspiracy theory. Esso have been explicitly told several times that they are not doing enough to address their fatigue management risks. Dr Adam Fletcher, who was commissioned to study the roster changes, said, 'There is catastrophic potential risk exposure.' That really says it all.
One should not have to tell their children that greed is what may tear their family apart, but Troy had to have this very conversation with his son recently. When Troy's son asked him why his boss had taken money from him, he scrambled to think of an answer. He thought about how some UGL-K contractors worked for Esso and put their lives on the line during the successful attempt to extinguish a major battery fire on minimal sleep. He thought about how he worked and lived in conditions that are well below the global standard for oil and gas platform facilities. Troy thought about being given a 'take it or leave it' contract that would mean losing more pay and working in worse conditions—all while his employer forecast a fourfold rise in revenue over the next five years. Troy was brought to tears when his four-year-old son ran back to the kitchen, poured out his piggybank and said, 'Don't worry, Dad, I've got all the money we need.'
It is heartbreaking and it is wrong to see good people like Troy being exploited for their diligent work. When will this government reward Australians for this rather than see them as expendable dollar signs? I am disgusted at the lack of action by this government and I will not stop holding the Prime Minister accountable for each and every worker like Troy. I congratulate the unions for continuing to fight back against these unfair practices. Labor will always stand up for workers, while that lot opposite will stand on them.
We in Queensland continue to work very hard on better elucidating the progress that schools are achieving. This is a very important metric that is currently submerged in very basic My School data which is available but which for many Australians is quite hard to read and digest. More importantly, within the state education system it does not really promote a great deal of information apart from very coarse data around the proportion of OPs of a particular rank, which does not help much if you are constantly changing the denominator—that is, the number of students who complete year 12 with an OP qualification.
In Queensland, around half of all students are getting an OP. In fact, more than half of them do not. More than half of them now get a vocational qualification or a certificate of education and take a vocational pathway. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but we do not want to be advantaging schools who put through small numbers of OP students but can crow about those OP students doing very well if it is a far smaller proportion than you would expect from a school of that socioeconomic background.
With the help of a number of people in my electorate, such as Kari Stuart, and with the help of others such as Chris Giuliano from the Parliamentary Library—we are grateful for his assistance—we are now starting to be able to produce high-quality graphics, with more of them released today. Well beyond my electorate now, I am glad to say that any part of Queensland can now be the only part of Australia that can really get a clear picture of the progress that students are achieving between years 9 and 12. This is the great black hole of progress between the last NAPLAN test and graduation from senior school.
Other states do have ATAR data. Of course, this itself is not a full picture of how students are progressing. But ATAR data is becoming increasingly difficult to access for research purposes. There is no real privacy concern there. So we should be able to see the ATAR data as a school mean figure and the distribution around that mean, just as a basic measure of how the student journey has gone through to year 12. We have four NAPLAN tests—in years 3, 5, 7 and 9—but we cannot really track the movement except with fairly small selections of students who sat both tests, and only between two NAPLAN tests, not the third and fourth ones. In K-12 schools you have a great opportunity to watch that journey students embark upon over time.
We should increasingly be recognising the schools that are doing this well. The message from my research is that public schools do this absolutely, as well as independent and GPS schools. But the great reluctance by educators to support this kind of data, for fear of embarrassing those who are not performing, actually punishes those who are performing. Those who are doing an extraordinary job on taking children on these journeys through to senior need to be recognised. Increasingly, this data will become publicly available and those educators and principals will be recognised.
I rise to speak for the over 15,000 Australians who have signed a petition urging crossbench senators to reject the moves to undermine the ABC and SBS as part of negotiations with the Turnbull government on its flawed cross-media ownership changes which are now before the Senate. The Australia Institute and ABC Friends have presented me with this petition, which asks the coalition and the Senate crossbench to:
Please reject all moves to trade away ABC and SBS funding, tamper with their charters and independence, or hobble their ability to engage in the new media environment.
The reason the ABC and SBS are facing this fresh attack is that the Turnbull government is desperate, unable to get its media ownership changes through the Senate on merit, and has resorted to using our national broadcasters as a bargaining chip in a side deal with Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. When the parliament last sat, the Turnbull government welcomed what it called 'constructive engagement' with One Nation, only too happy to support a package of measures directed at undermining the independence of the ABC and SBS. This pact between the Turnbull government and One Nation includes a rewrite of the ABC Act and charter, to give One Nation a few hooks to meddle with the ABC's independence. These include a requirement that the ABC be 'fair and balanced', which One Nation explained would absolutely include giving equal weight to anti-vaxxers. What's next? Equal time for Holocaust deniers and white supremacists? What is more, Senator Hanson has stated in no uncertain terms that she'll be taking the matter of ABC funding up with the Treasurer to 'whack off quite a bit of money' from the ABC's budget next year. It begs the question: is there a secret side agreement between One Nation and the Turnbull government to cut ABC funding next year?
Unless the Senate crossbench, including the Xenophon political party, rejects this deal with the Turnbull government on its flawed media ownership proposals, an unprecedented attack on the ABC and SBS will be unleashed. The government's deal with One Nation proves that the Liberals and Nationals can't be trusted with our public broadcasters. The night before the 2013 election, then opposition leader Abbott promised there would be no cuts to the ABC or SBS. Yet, at the earliest opportunity, he, along with Minister Turnbull, then Minister for Communications, made savage budget cuts. This government, under two successive prime ministers, has shown that it cannot be trusted with our public broadcasters. It beggars belief that the Turnbull government slashes ABC funding and then turns around and complains the national broadcaster isn't doing enough for rural and regional Australia.
Labor condemns the Turnbull government for using our broadcasters as a political football and as a bargaining chip in its backdoor dealings with One Nation. The vast majority of Australians value and trust their national broadcasters. Labor stands with the over 15,000 Australians who have put their names to this petition, and we will table this as a document in the Senate and carry their message forward: hands off our ABC and SBS.
The member for Greenway doesn't wish to table a petition?
No, that's fine.
This month marks 28 years since one of the great but little known turning points of world history. It happened in September 1989, when Boris Yeltsin, the then newly elected member of the Soviet parliament and Supreme Soviet, was visiting Houston in the USA as part of the US and Russia's planned joint International Space Station. After he made his visit to the space station facilities, he made an unplanned stop at a small grocery store called Randall's. The rumour goes that he was there because he wanted to buy a bottle of vodka. It being an unplanned stop, he knew that this couldn't be a set-up—he knew that he would be walking into a typical American supermarket. What he saw, as someone who was used to the breadlines and queues of the Soviet Union, changed his perspective on life.
In his autobiography, he wrote about the experience, which shattered his views of socialism. He wrote:
When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people. That such a potentially super-rich country as ours—
that being Russia—
has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.
One of Yeltsin's aides later said that at that grocery store the last vestiges of bolshevism collapsed inside his boss. Leon Aron, quoting a Yeltsin associate, said of Yeltsin after his visit:
For a long time, on the plane to Miami, he sat motionless, his head in his hands. 'What have they done to our poor people?' he said after a long silence … On his return to Moscow, Yeltsin would confess the pain he had felt after the Houston excursion: the 'pain for all of us, for our country so rich, so talented and so exhausted by incessant experiments.'
Yeltsin later wrote:
I think we have committed a crime against our people by making their standard of living so incomparably lower than that of the Americans.
It was two years later that Yeltsin famously climbed on top of a Red Army tank and faced down reactionary forces that were threatening to overthrow Mr Gorbachev. No-one knows what would have happened to history if Boris Yeltsin hadn't had the bravery that was obviously installed by his visit to that US supermarket where he realised both the collapse of the Soviet system and the differences between a capitalist system and a socialist system in their effects on the lives of people. This is a historic day that we should remember. I am holding the actual photograph of that event. It is a very historic photograph that should be known and taught in our schools.
If no member present objects, three-minute constituency statements may continue for a total of 60 minutes.
For far too long, conservatives have suggested that Australia's young people simply aren't politically engaged, that they are apathetic and that they don't care about politics. We're told that they can't set a stamp and they don't know how to post a letter. This suggestion was reinforced by the fact that around 400,000 of Australia's 18- to 25-year-olds weren't enrolled to vote at the 2013 election. And around 130,000, or half of all 18-year-olds, were not enrolled to vote at the last election in 2016. This means that they couldn't have had their say even if they'd wanted to.
Two weeks ago, I spoke at Northcote High School, a prominent school in my electorate, about the importance of political participation. I spoke to 16- and 17-year-old high-school students, who are on the cusp of adulthood and on the cusp of being entitled to vote. Many of them were frustrated with the democratic process, but I discovered that they were very interested in enrolling and in shaping the democracy and society in which they live. Here I must pay tribute to the coalition, because the coalition are great mobilisers of our young. The coalition's policies have brought young people into the enrolment in unprecedented numbers. The coalition, in recent days, have proven to be a more powerful volunteer mobilisation organisation for Labor than even some of our own efforts. From the numerous conversations I have had with youth leaders over the last few years, I know that the conservative government's attacks on their rights, their ability to go to university, their penalty rates and their work, or simply its ignoring of climate change, are regarded as the biggest threat to their generation and have played a remarkable role in bringing them on to the electoral roll in unprecedented numbers. Instead of giving in to a feeling of powerlessness, young Australians are fighting back. They are fighting back in a traditional and old-fashioned way: they are enrolling and getting ready to vote. They are getting ready to vote for a change of government.
The result of the upcoming postal survey on marriage equality will be shaped by young Australians. We know that an extra 90,000 of them have added their names to the electoral roll, a remarkable 90,000 from a younger generation who have the potential not only to choose a future government but to make policy right now. Participating in the democratic process is their way of translating their ideas and values into outcomes. They are enrolling to support marriage equality. They are enrolling because they want to vote yes. Tribute has to be paid to Malcolm Turnbull for his capacity to mobilise these extra tens of thousands onto the roll to make sure there is a change of government.
Too many people don't get the recognition they deserve. Even today, despite the wonders of modern medicine, too many people are cut down in their prime. Today I rise to pay tribute to Anna McPhee, a former Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency head; a former chief of staff to New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell; a business-group head; a constituent; and a friend, who has just lost her battle with cancer aged only 46.
Her family were solid Liberals. Her grandfather led the party in the New South Wales parliament and served as a minister in the Askin government. Her father was a Warringah campaign director. Her great-great-grandmother had eight sons, three of whom became members of parliament. So Anna was part of a wonderful tradition of public service, and it was her decency and humanity that made her a concerned and active citizen. She respectfully disagreed with her local MP on the subject of same-sex marriage, but we were on a unity ticket on the need for more women in parliament representing the conservative side of politics through targets, not quotas, and on the need for more democracy in the New South Wales Liberal Party.
Probably Anna's final contribution to public life was a wonderful speech that she made to a women's seminar at the recent Liberal Party people's convention at Rosehill, and I wish to quote what she said on that occasion. She said:
Liberals … should be spoiled for choice at pre-selection, attracting the best and brightest to public service, we must have selectors who think for themselves and who select the best candidate on … merit … not gendered or factional, candidates men and women who know what they believe in … who can prosecute Liberal policy and debate [and attract] a majority of voters. Without that we will be condemned to a structural deficit of talent that will ultimately deprive the women and men of Australia what they need to get ahead—[that is to say] more Liberal governments.
This is a sad moment for me, but I want to say here in our nation's capital we will remember you, Anna. We will try to heed your advice and we will try to live up to your ideals.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
It is a great pleasure to rise again in this chamber. Tackling inequality is central to the work of Labor. It sits at the very core of our being and is a focus of all our policy pursuits in this parliament. As chair of Labor's status of women caucus committee, that focus is always at the centre of my mind as I travel across Australia as part of our national conversations on gender equality. We've called this consultation process 'Setting the Agenda' because Australian women, whatever state or territory they might reside in, are very keen to see a political party put forward a suite of serious policies to address gender inequality in Australia. There are some members I know who might say, 'Look, things aren't so bad', and, 'We have certainly made very significant gains in Australia', but the point is that those gains can be very readily lost. You can go backwards quickly, and that is why our recent slide backwards in the gender equality rankings for Australia is such a worrying trend.
Labor has been holding national conversations around gender inequality. We've had conversations with women in Docker River, Uluru, Hermannsburg, and in the seats of Cowper, Sydney, Melbourne, Longman and Brisbane—inner and outer metropolitan and remote and regional communities across most states and territories. We will head back to WA soon, and then Tasmania. The thing that unites women in all these states and territories is a real thirst to address the root causes of inequality in Australia. They are thirsty to talk to people, to policymakers who bother to ask their opinion and ask them to map out the problems and possible solutions.
I was enormously proud to host one such conversation in my electorate of Newcastle. Tanya Plibersek, Labor's deputy leader and shadow minister for women, accompanied me. She came on invitation to Newcastle back in July to talk with an extraordinary group of women in Newcastle, who were delighted to be asked for their opinions and to be taken seriously in the development of policy for Labor. I look forward to working with Tanya Plibersek to bring these policies to fruition.
Every year, thousands of dance academies around the world send audition tapes to Disneyland and Universal Studios in Hollywood in the hope of becoming one of the select few who are invited to perform there. The Clarence River Dance Academy were one of the select few to be accepted. Next month 18 young girls will fly to the United States for the experience of a lifetime. Aged between five and 18, the young dancing troupe will perform at Disneyland and Universal Studios and at Madame Tussauds wax museum on the legendary Hollywood Boulevard. Not only that; the girls will also take part in a backstage workshop with Disney show directors and choreographers. The workshop is part of the Disney Performing Arts group, which includes academy dance, dance masterclasses, show choir and musical theatre workshops.
I would like to congratulate the young dancers: Tyarn Clark, Madeleine Vidler, Meggie Ryder, Lucy Hackett, Lily Johnson, Madeline Aspinal, Jacqueline Samms, Molly Deakin, Inneka Crispin, Amy Shipman, Charlese Yuke, Robyn Cahill, Lily Leven, Ella Liquete, Hayley Liquete, Izabella Wilson, Sumira Mahoney and Lily Van Vyfeyken. They will be accompanied on the trip by the academy's principal, Nicole Shipman, and teacher Adele Lewis.
The girls will also have the opportunity to learn from some of the best dance teachers in Los Angeles, attending a dance workshop with the Abby Lee Dance Company, which has been made famous by the reality TV series Dance Moms. I would like to congratulate the Clarence River Dance Academy on this wonderful achievement.
On Saturday, 23 September, Wyrallah Public School is celebrating 150 years of providing quality educations to students in their community. Principal Lisa Fahy worked with P&C president Nathan Rose; 150th celebrations chair James Quinn; and members Megan Putsey, Johanna Kemp, Sue and Peter Graham and Fred Hoskins. Fred himself is a walking history of the school. He's been part of the school since he was a student and, having recently celebrated his 80th birthday, he is still involved and teaches scripture to the students. They were supported by the great staff at the school—Rebecca Dicinoski, Brian Grey and Annie Lieshman—and the entire P&C executive: Johanna Clift, Angela Knapen, Sue Graham and Charlotte Walker. Congratulations to all. I look forward to celebrating the day.
Next month Wardell Public School is celebrating its 150th birthday. I would like to thank the organising committee—Brian Moonie, Prue Gray, David Owen, Fiona Cremin and Kirsty Shepherd—and the school's P&C: Prue Gray, Jasyen Phang and Jodi Wilcox. I would also like to acknowledge the school's current staff: David, Wendy, Paul, Charlotte, Yvonne, Maureen, Sally, Jan and Joanne. I'm looking forward to the day.
More than 25 years ago the Paris Peace Accords brought to an end some of the most awful periods of genocide and warfare in modern history, particularly in Cambodia. The Paris Peace Accords, in which Australia played such a central role in assistance and support on negotiation, promised three things to the Cambodian people: first and most obviously at the time, peace, but also economic development and, finally, free and fair elections. The Cambodian people are still waiting on the promise of democracy.
I was concerned—indeed, I was distressed—to hear of the arrest over the weekend of the opposition CNRP leader, Mr Kem Sokha, and also the closure of a number of media outlets, particularly The Cambodia Daily, a longstanding English-language newspaper in Cambodia, only 24 or 36 hours later. Mr Sokha took up the leadership of the CNRP only earlier this year after the longstanding opposition leader in Cambodia, Mr Sam Rainsy, took the courageous and honourable decision to resign from the leadership because of the possibility of his party being dissolved or deregistered because of a longstanding defamation conviction over Mr Rainsy that had been thought by many to be politically motivated. I met Mr Sokha when he visited the Khmer temple in Paralowie in my electorate in April this year. He met with a number of Cambodian Australian members of the Adelaide community and spoke passionately about the future of his country.
It is obviously a matter for the Cambodian people to decide whether they choose the CPP, Hun Sen's party, which has ruled Cambodia for the last three decades, or the CNRP to rule Cambodia into the future. But the Cambodian people deserve a free choice. Concern has been expressed very broadly across the world about the conduct of the elections in 2013, the last national elections in Cambodia. The local commune elections that were held in June this year, only a couple of months ago, again had a number of concerns hanging over them, particularly about the ability of opposition parties to engage in political campaigning and political activity. It is critically important that the national elections that are due in the middle of next year deliver on that third promise of democracy to the Cambodian people.
I've been very pleased to see the Australian government express their concern at the arrest of Mr Sokha in the last 24 hours and to see this quote from the Australian government:
We urge Cambodian authorities to handle the matter in an open and transparent manner, and to take all necessary steps to maintain an open democratic space in which all voices can be heard.
These are comments that have been echoed by Labor's foreign affairs spokesperson, Senator Penny Wong. The eyes of the world will be on Cambodia to ensure that this matter is dealt with openly, transparently and with due process.
I was privileged to welcome to my electorate His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, on his first visit to Australia, to open a new Coptic church, the church of St Mary and Sts Cosman and Demian, in Kellyville in north-west Sydney, a few streets away from my house. It was a great privilege to welcome the Pope and, obviously, the great Coptic community, who have formed a great part of the settlement that has happened in Sydney and Melbourne, which the Turnbull government has strongly supported, with our announcement that we will offer temporary and permanent visa solutions to those Copts who are unable to return to Egypt during the state of emergency declared by President el-Sisi in response to IS targeting of Coptic churches and Coptic parishioners. I want to record my support for the Coptic Church and Coptic Egyptians who've come to Australia and made a fantastic migrant community in all of north-west Sydney, as well as elsewhere in Sydney and Melbourne. I was well supported by Philip Ruddock and David Elliott, our state member, and by Mr Edmond Atalla, the Labor Party member for Mount Druitt, who is the first Coptic member elected to an Australian parliament.
The Coptic diaspora is spread across many countries, but in Australia it's about 100,000 people. They are followers of St Mark the Apostle and his gospel and of that passage in Isaiah talking about the Coptic faith. The Sydney diocese currently has about 41 churches, 70 priests and 70,000 people. The Pope praised and spoke about Australia's tolerance and our willingness to live together in harmony. In Australia, we are such a richly diverse nation of over 300 ancestries, but of course the fabric here is not defined by race, religion or culture, and we reject practices that undermine these values.
It's our government's approach that we'll continue to defend the right to religious freedom of all faiths and the right to practice those religious freedoms in our country. We are a beacon of that freedom for other countries to follow. We have been unwavering in our support of the Coptic Egyptians here in Australia and the Coptic Christians whose have come here seeking refuge. We are in support of them while IS deliberately and horrifically targets those parishioners with those awful bombings we saw earlier in the year. The government expresses its firm solidarity with President el-Sisi and the Egyptian government in their efforts to stop IS, to protect their Egyptian Coptic population and, of course, to last through the state of emergency that they have declared to deal with the terrorist group IS.
I'd like to thank Pope Tawadros for his visit to Australia. I know he's going to Melbourne as well to open a new Coptic centre. He's coming here to Canberra to meet with Minister Dutton and the government and members here of all sides. I think his visit was well received by the Mitchell and north-west community, and his blessing on the new church in Kellyville, I think, will be remembered by the parishioners of our community for many years to come.
Last Monday was a very sad day for my electorate. On that day we lost two wonderful people—one who'd grown up as a young man and then left our region to go onto the national stage, and the other who came to our region as a young man and then stayed for his lifetime, contributing to our local community. Both were extremely important to the surf lifesaving movement of the Illawarra.
The first, of course, is Dean Mercer. Early on the day it was quite tragic to hear the news of the accident and his death, and I want to extend my own—and I know that people in the local area very much want to extend their—love and support to his family, to his wife, Reen, and their four boys, Brayden, Rory, Lachlan and Joshua. He was only 47, and we remember epic performances by Dean, often racing against his older brother Darren and other greats such as Trevor Hendy and Guy Leech. Dean started his career in the Austinmer-Thirroul area, and, as I've said, then went on to compete and to live across the country. He represented both New South Wales and Queensland and, of course, wore the green and gold for Australia. A fond memory for many locals is the 1995 Australian Ironman final when he beat Trevor Hendy, and of course he added other major achievements to the story of his competition. Beyond that, he also continued, after retiring, to be very heavily involved in the sport, coaching Nippers at the Gold Coast Kurrawa club and being inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2014. So Dean's loss was sad news.
And then, in a doubly tragic occurrence, later that day we lost a wonderful local man, Bill Seay. Bill was 88 years old. I want to extend my sympathies—and I attended his funeral on Friday, and I know a huge number of the local community were there to extend their sympathies—to his daughters, Louise and Carolyn, and their families. He was a life member of the Port Kembla surf life saving club, a life member of Surf Life Saving Illawarra, and a life member of Surf Life Saving New South Wales, having come to our area and joined the Port Kembla club in 1949, where he had followed his lovely wife, Sylvia, who, sadly, passed away some time ago. He held executive positions for 38 years, as president, secretary and treasurer. He was also a founding member of the Wollongong Whales Winter Swimming Club, which shows you his resilience. He was awarded an OAM in 2002. He was a true gentleman of that generation and will be sadly missed in our community, too.
It is a great pleasure to be able to get up and celebrate the wonderful activities in the Goldstein electorate as the blossoms come out and the trees in the sun show the wonder of spring. It's sports time, in the Goldstein electorate. And what are we seeing? The opening of the lawn bowls season. In fact, I have been at three lawn bowls occasions for the opening of the season in my electorate.
On 26 August we had two openings. The first was the Hampton Bowls Club opening of the green, and, in particular, I want to pay acknowledgement to the club president, Rob Coulson, the club manager, Frank van der Kraan, and the bowls champions who joined me, Nellie Kosta and Peter Murray. I was also very fortunate to be joined by the deputy mayor of the city of Bayside, James Long. It was a great opportunity to bring people together. I rolled that first jack. I have got to say: I was very straight in my direction, but I lacked the power to do so, so we had to move it along a little bit. But it was a great honour to be able to fill that time-honoured tradition. The Hampton Bowls Club does lots of very good things. The following weekend, in fact, they had a competition with Australia and New Zealand—international bowlers—and they have one of the most extensive lawn bowls programs, working with community organisations, particularly schools, and the Bayside U3A, as well as Seniors Week events.
The same day we had the opening of the Sandringham Bowls Club summer season, with their president, Steve Choat, the vice president, Nick Owen, and the secretary, Alan Watson, all of whom were part of it and celebrating the use of their new green down in Sandringham on Tulip Street. So well done to them!
Last weekend, on 2 September, we had the Bentleigh Bowling Club's opening of the green, with President Ron Gleeson, Vice President Steve Brady and Club Secretary Stephen Elmer. They are looking at avenues for a new scoreboard for their club. On Thursday nights they have barefoot bowls. But let's face it: one of their great boasts is that they do make a mean cup of tea, which I have enjoyed myself as part of a pleasant visit down there on a Saturday afternoon.
But it isn't just bowls clubs. We also have the Sandringham Croquet Club, which had its opening on 2 September as well. I'd like to give particular recognition to its president, Jennie Bowles; its secretary, Margaret Barnes; and its treasurer, Harley Johnstone; and also to Matthew Gallop, from the local Sandringham Bendigo Bank, which has been instrumenting in providing significant support and assistance to the Sandy Croquet Club. We were also joined by the Deputy Mayor of Bayside, James Long, and the local state member, Murray Thompson. They did raise with me some issues they had around a local tree, an overhanging tree, which I will be raising with the mayor and the CEO of the local council. But, on each occasion, these sports bring people together and make sure they promote healthy living at all stages of life, and we congratulate them.
I wish to speak of my deep concern over the dissolution of democracy and human rights we are witnessing in Turkey today. Turkey has been, throughout most of the 20th century, a beacon of modernity in a very difficult and dangerous region. We as Australians are bound to Turkey by our shared history. Of course, the eternal words of Kemal Ataturk still ring true today, I think, as they did almost a century ago, when he said of the fallen Anzacs:
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours … You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
Of course, many Turks migrated to this country to begin a life on the soil of our very friendly country. These Turkish Australians have made an enormous contribution to Australia in all fields, but they still retain a great pride in their ancestral homeland. That is why so many of them are so concerned, as am I, by the more than 80,000 people who have been arbitrarily detained by the government. About half of those detained are still in prison. Among those detained are 13 members from Turkey's third-largest political party, the HDP, who gained 59 seats with over five million votes in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. In addition to the arrests of MPs, there are over 30 elected ethnic Kurdish mayors now in prison and another 70 mayors who have been dismissed by the central government.
The free Turkish media have also been a target of the Erdogan government. In July 2016 alone, 16 television stations, 23 radio stations, 45 newspapers, 15 magazines and 29 publishers were ordered to shut down. Many journalists have lost their jobs or have been arrested. In December 2016 the Committee to Protect Journalists released its annual report of journalists imprisoned worldwide. The report listed Turkey first, with more journalists imprisoned than in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Russia combined.
There has also been a purge of over 150,000 public servants, mostly in the education sector. In March this year, Professor Nuriye Gulmen and schoolteacher Semih Ozakca, both victims of the purge, started protesting by going on a hunger strike. On 22 May, the 76th day of their hunger strike, with their health deteriorating rapidly, the Turkish police arrested and detained them.
The crackdown on politicians, journalists and academics in Turkey is a deeply alarming situation. The Turkish government's crackdown on civil rights, freedom and democracy cannot be ignored. I call on the Australian government to make direct representation to the Turkish government, imploring them to ensure that democracy and democratic principles within Turkey are upheld and protected and to release all politicians, journalists and academics who have been arbitrarily detained without proper trial.
Today I want to talk about the Queensland black coal industry. Queensland has a rich and enviable history when it comes to black coal. Blair Athol, probably one of the oldest coalmines in central Queensland, announced only this week that it would reopen in Blair Athol, near Clermont, after it closed in 2012 because of the low prices. I have to report today that the demand is up and of course the prices are up, making that coalmine viable again.
Central Queensland has some of the largest coal deposits in the world. They are low-ash, high-quality coking and thermal coal. Coking coal, of course, is used in the manufacture of steel, while thermal coal is used in power production. The Galilee Basin, the Bowen Basin and the Surat Basin employ tens of thousands of Queenslanders and support many other jobs, direct and indirect.
The Queensland government, with its reckless energy policy, has put the coal industry under pressure, forcing electricity prices up, and of course jobs are at risk. The Queensland Labor government wants to place this history as an international leader in supply and production of coal at risk. When you have a government that wants to achieve 50 per cent renewables by 2030, when at the moment it only has renewable energy representing four per cent of the market, you know that a task is well and truly ahead of it. What happens if they do happen to achieve this 50 per cent renewable energy? How will they supply the other 50 per cent? This is the question. We've got eight coal-fired power stations in Queensland. Their lifetime ambitions will only last about another 10 or 12 years, so we need to start planning now for more HELE coal-fired power stations in Central Queensland.
Mining jobs, whether they be above ground or underground, support jobs in the freight industry at the ports of Gladstone, Mackay and Hay Point, as well as jobs in rail, maintenance, service industries, IT and electronics. They supply well-paying jobs to Central Queensland. So it's very important that the coal industry survives and thrives into the future. The Labor government needs to focus on this as part of an ongoing plan and for cheap, good energy.
There being no further constituency statements by honourable members, the next item of business will be called on.
I speak today on a condolence motion for Dr Douglas Nixon Everingham, who was born on 25 June 1923 and died on 24 August 2017. I didn't know Dr Everingham personally, but he had a significant influence on my career. The Whitlam government was inextricably enmeshed with my career as a doctor and with my political views. A medical student, I witnessed the difficulties people without medical insurance had accessing to medical care. I also saw in places like Callan Park and Broughton Hall in Sydney the way people with severe mental illness and disability were chronically institutionalised. I heard on many occasions in the 1970s the call for a universal healthcare insurance system. Dr Everingham was at the forefront of a medical and social revolution that shaped my career and shaped my life.
The Labor Party had long had the view that some form of universal scheme to cover medical costs was necessary. A plan which was put forward by two health bureaucrats, Scotton and Deeble, was adopted by Gough Whitlam and Bill Hayden and put forward as Labor policy. At that time, the parliamentary Labor Party had more medical practitioners than it had ever had: Dick Klugman, Harry Jenkins Sr, Moss Cass and Doug Everingham. They were all doctors who had worked with a variety of people, many of them disadvantaged. Doug Everingham had worked in the mental health system for some years.
With the advent of the Whitlam government, the Medibank legislation was introduced and rejected by conservative forces in the Senate. I well remember visits to the Sydney Medical School by Bruce Shepherd, as head of the AMA, to encourage us medical students to donate to the fighting fund against the evil of Medibank. The Medibank bills had to be taken eventually to a double dissolution. I remember, as a delegate for the Australian Medical Students' Association in Adelaide, hearing Doug Everingham as the Whitlam health minister talking about the benefits of a universal healthcare system. It seemed to me to be the most rational response to what was then a crisis in medical costs. Doug Everingham was the health minister and helped Bill Hayden, the social security minister, introduce the new universal health insurance system called Medibank after the double dissolution election. Medibank commenced on 1 July 1975. Within nine months, health insurance cards were issued to over 90 per cent of Australians, completely revolutionising access to medical care. It's my personal view that, because there were a number of medical practitioners in the government who understood the importance of health care for all Australians, there was the urgency required to introduce the Medibank legislation and push it through, to make sure that Australians got the medical care they deserved. Foremost of these was Doug Everingham. He's now sometimes remembered for his eccentricities, such as his liking for Esperanto, the phonetic language that is consigned to history now, but he was really a seminal figure in health care in Australia.
Amongst the many things that Doug Everingham pioneered was the development of comprehensive community healthcare centres. The community healthcare centres now throughout Australia are a tribute to Doug Everingham. He pioneered the move to get people with psychiatric illness and disabilities out of institutional care and into the community. He presaged the Richmond report in New South Wales, which led to community involvement and community participation for many people with mental illness and disabilities. He introduced the school dental scheme and wanted to extend the scheme to cover all Australians but faced an uphill battle with a strong campaign against this from the Australian Dental Association. Doug Everingham also led the anti-smoking fight and introduced the gradual implementation of the ban on tobacco advertising on TV and radio. He wanted to introduce anti-smoking ads but was stopped from doing this by the government.
Doug Everingham was a doctor ahead of his time. He leaves a lasting legacy that all those in medicine reap the rewards of. He leaves a legacy not just in parliament but in the wider Australian community, and we should be very grateful for this. I'm certainly grateful for his influence and I extend my condolences to his family. He was a great Australian and, by any account, he was a great Australian physician and deserves our commendation.
I also want to rise to acknowledge the work, career and life of the Hon. Douglas Everingham. As the current incumbent in the role, I understand and recognise the challenges which come with managing a national health system and remembering that it's always about the patients and their access to doctors and nurses and to medicines, and then, when necessary, to the hospitals, to mental health support and to the medical research which makes so much possible and available. Doug Everingham started his working life as a doctor. He lived a long life of 94 years—he obviously practised his own medicine, as it were! When he graduated from the University of Sydney in 1946, he spent the best part of 20 years in practice before entering parliament in 1967 and running through to 1984, with a two-year break between 1975 and 1977.
Of course, his principal work was as health minister, and, as health minister, there are perhaps four things for which he can and should be best remembered. Firstly, he was one of the early pioneers in recognition of mental health as an important public medical issue. It had been buried for so long, over so many decades, and it began to emerge in the 1970s, and his work in the public health space as a health minister who wanted to acknowledge it is an important part of Australia's medical history. It is critical that we acknowledge all those who have taken the steps forward on that front.
Secondly, he was one of the early instigators and architects of a comprehensive national medical insurance scheme—what was originally Medibank; it's now Medicare. It's something to which I'm committed and the Prime Minister's committed and on which there's now very clear bipartisan support.
Thirdly, of course, in many ways what might be the single thing of greatest personal pride was that he was one of the founders of Westmead Hospital. His contribution to establishing Westmead and the seed grants is critical. Westmead is, I think, now one of the great not just Australian but international hospitals. I've had the privilege to visit Westmead in my current role, and to see this hospital in action is to see something which began 40 years ago but which has grown and manifested itself into being a centre for children's health, mental health, chronic disease and extraordinary medical research and surgical capability.
Lastly, I want to acknowledge his work in what was really an early advocacy and an unfashionable advocacy in the fight against tobacco and what was a critical moment in Australian history. The fight against lung cancer has been going on for decades. It took people of courage in positions of authority to do that, and Doug Everingham was one of those people. I acknowledge him, I acknowledge his family and I'm happy to speak on a truly bipartisan basis.
I rise today to commemorate the life of former Capricornia MP Dr Douglas Everingham. While Dr Everingham and I didn't share the same political ideologies, we did share the same dedication for the electorate of Capricornia, and I have the utmost respect for the achievements he made. Born in Wauchope, New South Wales, Everingham graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Sydney in 1946. He spent time in New South Wales psychiatric hospitals before relocating back to Rockhampton, Queensland, where, like many medical students, he had completed his internship. Dr Everingham died last Thursday aged 94 in an aged-care home in Brisbane. He was a respected politician, a loved family man and a successful advocate for health reforms.
Dr Everingham beat Evan Schwarten for Labor Party preselection in 1967 at a time when party leader Gough Whitlam wanted to add more tertiary-educated politicians to the ranks. He remained the member for Capricornia until his retirement at the 1984 election. He was somebody with vision and one of the few doctors at that time that were in government. The first of a stream of academic leaders under Whitlam, Dr Everingham worked in public and private hospitals as well as as a general practitioner in Rockhampton after his graduation from the University of Sydney. After he won Capricornia, he became health minister and was responsible for introducing community health centres and establishing the Hospitals and Health Services Commission. He opened new hospitals, established new agreements with the states and also focused on Indigenous health programs. It's important to recall that this was in the 1970s, a time when such reforms were considered radical.
Although it was not delivered during his tenure as health minister, Dr Everingham was instrumental in the creation of Medicare. Dr Everingham knew that all Australians would benefit from universal health care and was committed to seeing services delivered through general practitioners under a system paid for through taxation.
In many ways Dr Everingham was ahead of his time, but that did not stop him from succeeding in driving his agenda forward and realising many remarkable achievements. He urged restrictions on cigarette and alcohol advertising, going to the extent of sticking antismoking signs on the cigarette vending machines that were once commonplace at Parliament House.
Not only was he a man of high intelligence, but he had a sense of humour to boot. Dr Everingham was a proponent of the proposed SR1 set of spelling reforms. Spelling reform 1 is an English spelling reform proposal advocated by British-Australian linguist Harry Lindgren. It calls for the short 'E' sound to be always spelt with 'E'. In a sign of his cheeky character, the proposal resulted in him renaming his department the 'Department of Helth', prompting Prime Minister Whitlam to send correspondence to Dr Everingham beginning with 'Dear Dug' and signed 'Yurs, Gof'.
The spelling reforms were a reflection of his unerring belief in international peace. As his former state member for Rockhampton said:
His absolute commitment to the introduction of the international language, Esperanto underpinned his world peace objective as he reasoned that if people could communicate in a universal language there it would bring nations together. I think he must have had some influence at Rocky High where his children went to school because there were lunchtime instructions available for those I treated in Esperanto, I tried and failed.
He worked tirelessly for peace and had a profound influence on many people at many levels.
At the time of his death last week, Everingham was one of four remaining original Whitlam government ministers, one of the last remaining stalwarts of a very political era. Today, we remember the contributions of this honourable man and thank him and his family for his commitment to our nation. To Jo-Anne, Sue and Rick, thank you for the contribution your father made to my electorate of Capricornia and the sacrifices I'm sure you made as a family. Please know that they will not be forgotten.
I understand that it is the wish of honourable members to signify at this stage their respect and sympathy by rising in their places, and I ask all present to do so.
Honourable members having stood in their places—
I thank the Federation Chamber.
by leave—I move:
That further proceedings be conducted in the House.
Question agreed to.
I want to make a contribution on the important issue of regional development and economic development and make some observations about the policy and the discussion of decentralisation.
Before I do that, I want to make an observation about this: there are twice as many jobless families in regional Australia as there are in Malcolm Turnbull's electorate. The average income gap between somebody who is working in regional Australia and somebody who is working in the inner-city electorate that the Prime Minister represents is $27,000 a year. If you're deriving your income from investments, the average gap between somebody who resides in the Prime Minister's inner-city electorate of Wentworth and somebody who represents regional Australia is about 3½ times. It's 3½ times the investment income if you're living in regional Australia versus in Malcolm Turnbull's electorate.
Now, it's not socialism to point out these stark gaps. It's not socialism to acknowledge that we have a problem with inequality within Australia. It's not socialism, but it is Australian. It is Australian to make these observations. It is Australian to say that the further you get from a capital city, the more you see an increase in inequality, drops in income, fewer opportunities for our children and poorer health outcomes.
Decentralisation and regional development are not ends in themselves. They are nothing more than empty slogans unless we address these issues. The purpose of this inquiry and the purpose of the issues paper is to find answers to some of the problems that I've identified. We've heard a lot of talk about decentralisation over the last few months. I've been a little bit cynical and I've made some comments, perhaps unkind, Deputy Speaker, to the government that you're a part of. I've made the observation that a lot of it is more pub talk than reality. We keenly await the outcomes of the Minister for Regional Development's cabinet process where she has asked that each of the agency heads identify those agencies, parts of agencies or functions which can be transferred to regional Australia. We keenly await the outcome of that analysis.
Labor has a proud history when it comes to decentralisation. It was during the Whitlam government, after all, in November 1973 that the Growth Centres (Financial Assistance) Act 1973 was passed through the House and the Albury-Wodonga Development Act 1973 was passed by the Australian parliament. That initiated probably some of the most successful rounds of decentralisation in this country. What we have been critical of is the piecemeal, ad hoc approach that the Turnbull government is taking to this issue. We can identify one textbook example of how you don't go about it.
I'd like to talk about the APVMA. It was announced during the election campaign that it would move to Armidale. The cost of this move is about $130,000 per employee, about $26 million to the taxpayer. I'm very certain indeed that there would be many people in Armidale who could say, 'If we were given the choice of what to do with that $26 million, we could think of a lot better ways to spend that money.' We understand that the agency is still in disarray because of these haphazard decisions that have been made, which don't appear to be a part of a broader program but are more about a knee-jerk reaction in the midst of an election campaign, more focused on a press release than a policy.
I've insisted that when the committee turns its mind to these decentralisation issues, and particularly decentralisation initiatives of the Commonwealth government, we look at the ons and offs. If a bank came to us as representatives of our electorates and said that it had just established a new call centre in a regional centre and was going to employ 100 people, and that it deserved a pat on the back for doing a great thing for regional Australia, but at the very same time was willy-nilly closing down branches employing over 300 people throughout the rest of regional Australia, we'd be entitled to say to that bank, 'Well, thanks for the call centre, but look at the jobs and the work that you are closing down in other regional areas and the services which have been withdrawn.' If we are going to be critical of the finance industry and the banking sector in particular for giving a little bit with one hand and taking a hell of a lot with the other then we should apply the very same principle to the Commonwealth government, which is willy-nilly attempting to pat itself on the back for the transfer of a small agency, or a part of it, to the Deputy Prime Minister's own electorate while at the same time it has presided over massive job cuts in the Australian Public Service and in regional Australia.
I use the Department of Human Services as an example. I'm very pleased to see the member for Canberra in the chamber at the moment. She is somebody who is keenly focused on this issue. Over 18,000 jobs have been stripped from the Department of Human Services. You could not find a more decentralised agency in the Australian Public Service than the Department of Human Services, because this is the agency that provides services through Medicare, through the Child Support Agency and through Centrelink. We know that hundreds and hundreds of those jobs have been pulled out of regional areas.
I'm very pleased to see the member for Herbert here as well, because she would know and she's advocated very strenuously on this issue. The Australian Taxation Office cut over 200 jobs from the Townsville office. The member for Herbert will jump up and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is an area suffering with unemployment in excess of 10 per cent. And what is the Commonwealth government's response to this? It rips 200 jobs out of the town.
So I simply make this point: in the work of this committee, if decentralisation of Commonwealth government functions is to be such a central focus, we have to look at the ons and offs. If they are transferring functions out of Canberra, that makes sense—where it makes sense and if it makes sense. They can't be running around the regional towns or anywhere else while, at the very same time, ripping jobs out of those agencies, ripping permanent jobs out of the towns and replacing them with labour hire employees or part-time or casual employees at half the head count. So these are the issues that we must focus on.
I'm also very pleased that the member for Dobell is in the House at the moment as well. Being a member from a regional electorate, she knows how important fast, reliable broadband is to business, economic growth and households in those regions. I had the benefit of accompanying her around her electorate a few weeks ago, where we heard stories of businesses who are losing thousands of dollars because of the unreliability of the National Broadband Network. There are constant service dropouts. And it's not just businesses. We visited the Central Coast Steiner school, which is immediately adjacent to a graveyard. The graveyard has access to the National Broadband Network but the school doesn't. That will be very handy for those businesspeople in the afterlife, but it is no good for the people who are trying to get an education! This is the sort of madness we have to focus our attention on as we turn our minds to the sorts of things that are going to make a difference to economic growth and a real program for the decentralisation of opportunity and wealth in this country. These are the things that we have to focus on. As I said in my opening, if we're going to do anything about inequality in this country, we have to firstly acknowledge that it is a problem. It's not socialism to say we have a problem and have to do something about it; it's Australian.
It's great to stand in the parliament and talk about the inquiry that is currently underway in relation to decentralisation, and it's great to see members of the committee here today contributing to the debate on this motion. The contribution that we've just heard from Labor is quite typical. It's one of those situations where they have a lot to say but not much is actually said. To find a decent decentralisation policy from Labor the member had to go back to Gough Whitlam, back to the mid-seventies. That says a lot.
Regardless of whether you agree with our decentralisation policies and our actions, it can at least be said that they're happening today and at a pace that's never been seen in the federal parliament before. A commitment and a conviction from the Leader of the National Party, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, is making this policy a reality. I would also like to acknowledge the member for Indi, who is here. She had a role to play in the formation of the committee. I will read from the terms of reference so that we fully understand where we're heading. They talk about 'a best-practice approach to regional development considering Australian and international examples', and 'the benefits of economic growth and opportunity being shared right across Australia'. This point goes to the very heart of National Party philosophy: why should the wealth that comes from hundreds of jobs within the government sector be cordoned off for the capital cities of Melbourne, Sydney and, potentially, Canberra? To us in the National Party, it would seem fair to share that wealth around Australia. Another of the terms of reference talks about 'growing and diversifying of the regional economic and employment base'.
These terms of reference will give us an opportunity to also identify the characteristics of the various entities across both the private and the public sector that would be best suited to decentralisation without impacting on their ability to perform their functions. The motion we are debating here today talks about the issues paper, so we have a great opportunity to talk a bit about this body of work that has been put together by the committee to help us with our inquiry.
In relation to the best-practice approach to regional development, the issues paper talks about a key finding of the Regional Australia Institute, which was:
Government has diminishing control over the factors that shape Australia's regions. Such factors include the global economy, technological change, the environment and population.
But it goes on to say:
… they continue to have a role in providing the right political and policy settings for fostering regional growth.
I think it puts us into a position where, yes, we do not have total control; however, we have this ability to set the policies and get the right political framework.
It also goes on to say:
The report highlights that successful adaptive and development strategies for Australia's regions need to be:
This can best be done by a place based approach.
The 'place-based' approach is important because it recognises that regions are different, that one-size-fits-all approaches are often inappropriate, and that local communities must be central to development efforts.
It's also an opportunity to talk about some of the examples of successful regional development, which are also listed. The state revenue office has moved out of Melbourne into Ballarat. The Rural Bank has been located for the last 15 or 20 years in Bendigo, TAC has moved to Geelong, and the NDIS, as a government entity, is going to be set up in the regional city of Geelong.
There are some other state-level examples of decentralisation where the government has as a whole picked up its various government departments and moved them out to the regions. The New South Wales department of agriculture moved to Orange in 1992. The New South Wales Labor government moved at least seven agencies from Sydney to regional centres between 2000 and 2005. As I said earlier, the TAC has moved to Geelong, and WorkSafe has also previously moved from Melbourne to Geelong. The New South Wales Office of Local Government has moved to Nowra, the New South Wales department of mineral resources has moved from Sydney to Maitland and the Western Australian Department of Water has moved from Perth to Mandurah.
Some of the Commonwealth entities that have been moved include RIRDC, which moved an office out to Wagga, and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, which has established an office in Adelaide. Pesticides has moved to Armidale, the head office of the NDIS has moved to Geelong, as I mentioned earlier, and the CSIRO will establish an agricultural research facility near Berowra in New South Wales.
With all of those actions actually happening, that's the space within which decentralisation fits. It is often easy to confuse decentralisation with regional development, but what we are about in this instance is growing the state by decentralisation. We also understand work that has been done by the department of planning and regional development in Victoria has revealed that, when you put 50,000 new people into either Melbourne or Sydney, that's going to come at a cost to government of around $4 billion for infrastructure and improvements. Those same 50,000 people, when relocated to live in a regional city, would cost in the vicinity of $1 billion. It's a saving of $3 billion, and these costs need to be acknowledged.
Our job as a government is to provide the environment for the private sector across the whole spectrum, from small family businesses, farms, agribusinesses and manufacturers right through to larger corporate enterprises that can thrive and flourish. Any effort at regional development must be focused on regional communities where there is demonstrated evidence that the local economy provides the basis for a sustained demand for workers. This is something about which the National Party are very proud that we're in a position to drive this investment throughout regional Australia. The Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, has said
The Nationals believe in decentralisation which is spreading job opportunities across Australia.
We know there are significant savings in moving to regional areas …
Careful and targeted infrastructure development is needed. One of these great infrastructure needs centres around connectivity. We need to be well connected to our regions and our regions need to be well connected to the capital cities both by road and by rail. We need to be connected by internet and wi-fi coverage. We need to be well and truly connected by mobile phone towers. We are very proud of our effort. In this term of government, over 760 towers either have been built or are currently being built, giving coverage to 32,000 homes. It's impossible for this regional development or decentralisation to take place unless we actually have a properly connected regional Australia. We are proud of what we're doing in relation to roads and of our Inland Rail project, which is in the vicinity of $10 billion, to make sure that we have the opportunity to get our goods to the correct port.
It is a fantastic opportunity to work with Dr John McVeigh on this committee. We will, in fact, make sure this committee gets out to regional Australia to look at some of the examples where regional development has worked well. What are some of the formulas that sit in behind successful decentralisation and being able to move private sector businesses out to the regions to take advantage of what the regions have to offer? Hopefully, we will be able to put recommendations that will lead to further decentralisation.
If a good decentralisation plan includes a well planned and executed proposal, with the benefits outweighing the cost, then the Turnbull government has clearly failed. The number of times this Turnbull government needs to be told that its decentralisation policy is an absolute mess shows its breathtaking arrogance. As we heard from the member for Whitlam, this is being done in a piecemeal way without strategic vision, without a holistic plan, without any agenda. The only agenda is basically for those opposite to secure their seats. That is the only agenda we have operating here.
The Deputy Prime Minister, when asked last year about ignoring the cost-benefit analysis of a classic case of what not to do when it comes to decentralisation—the proposed move of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority from Canberra to Armidale—said, 'If you're going to premise it on the cost-benefit analysis, we wouldn't do it.' Okay. So if the cost-benefit analysis is not there for moving 250 Canberrans, APVMA staff who are experts in their field and who have been working in this area for decades, and making their families go through that huge and wrenching change of moving to a new city, then why are we actually doing this?
I will just run through what the cost-benefit analysis showed about the APVMA. The cost-benefit analysis itself cost $272,000 and it showed that the relocation will cost at least $23 million, excluding, as it does, any potential cost to industry arising from the risks to the agricultural sector, the chemical industry or Australia's trading reputation. The cash cost to the government could be significantly higher than the estimated economic cost of $23.19 million with relocation, construction, facilities and incentives. Already this figure has risen up to $25.6 million, as we heard in Senate estimates, and it will continue to climb.
So we've got a decision that's been made to potentially relocate the APVMA up from Canberra to Armidale on a cost-benefit analysis that essentially has shown that it is all cost and no benefit, not just to those families who are being relocated but to the agricultural industry, because, since the Deputy Prime Minister made this outrageous decision to relocate APVMA, the approvals have plummeted. So it is not only affecting those families and the Canberra economy, it is affecting the agriculture industry. And this is from a Deputy Prime Minister who is also the minister for agriculture. It's breathtaking in its incompetence.
A range of reviews have been done into the pork barrel that is the relocation of the APVMA from Canberra to Armidale. In 2016, there was a warning to the Deputy Prime Minister that his proposed move would have severe consequences, yet his reckless and selfish decision to relocate the APVMA is damaging the industry he purports to represent. As I said, the figures on approvals have plummeted. Earlier this year, the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee handed down its report into the order that gave the power to relocate the APVMA from Canberra to Armidale. A key recommendation in that report was that the order be revoked. The committee confirmed that the APVMA's proposed move was a blatant and shameless pork barrel. The report said:
The lack of clarity regarding the decision-making process and the absence of a transparent selection process leads the committee to conclude that there is only one obvious driver for the decision, and that is political self-interest.
What is driving this huge wrench for these families, this fall in approval processes in the agriculture industry and the loss of 20 per cent of the expertise in the regulation of agricultural pesticides and veterinary medicines that took decades and decades of time to build up is political self-interest. Political self-interest is the one reason for making this relocation. It is the one reason for making this change.
The government has a plan for more decentralisation. I am really concerned about how it is going to go about it. If the APVMA relocation is anything to go by, the decentralisation plan is going to be a complete dog's breakfast. It has no clear agenda, no clear mission and no clear vision and it is without a well-executed plan for what it is trying to realise. What, apart from political self-interest, is the government trying to achieve with this? Political self-interest is the driver, as it was with the APVMA relocation.
To add insult to injury, the Deputy Prime Minister not only moved people from Canberra to Armidale to go and work, he didn't offer them office accommodation. They were working from McDonald's because there was nowhere for them to work. Once again I underscore the fact that if you're going to have a plan for decentralisation make sure it is well executed. Make sure that you have office space for the staff you are relocating so that they don't have to link into the wi-fi at the McCafe. It is basic stuff, people: make sure it is not driven by political self-interest.
Ms Ryan interjecting—
Yes, it is breathtaking. I encourage Canberrans and those who have an interest in decentralisation to make submissions to this decentralisation inquiry to remind the Turnbull government why Canberra was established and remind the Turnbull government that 60 per cent of government staff are not located here in Canberra but are located right around the country. So the notion that all public servants are based in Canberra is a complete and utter nonsense. It is a complete furphy, a complete lie, that is being peddled by the Turnbull government. Canberra: please make submissions to this inquiry. Please remind the government that Canberra was actually set up to be the nation's capital.
Canberra draws a thread through this nation, and this House is the centre—the knot where that thread joins. Canberra was created to bring our nation together. It is, in a way, the epitome of Canberra. Canberra was nurtured and loved by the founder of the Liberal Party, Sir Robert Menzies. The founder of the modern Liberal Party invested significant sums in building up Canberra so Australians could be proud of their nation's capital. What do those opposite do? They just tear it all down. They are unpicking Sir Robert Menzies's legacy. They are unpicking it! It begins with APVMA. Where is it going to end? This place will be completely denuded if they have their way with their crazy decentralisation plans driven by political self-interest.
I encourage Canberrans to make submissions to this inquiry. It is vitally important to the preservation of our nation. It is vitally important to the protection of Sir Robert Menzies's vision that we actually have the Canberra view in this space. Sir Robert Menzies's daughter, Heather Henderson, has been highly critical of these nutty, ill-thought-out decentralisation plans. The government should be ashamed. They should be ashamed that they are basically unpicking Sir Robert Menzies's vision. He would be turning in his grave.
When I make a submission to the inquiry I will be asking the committee to show—like we haven't had for the APVMA—that any decentralisation has to have a demonstrated net benefit to our nation and does not come at the expense of Canberra, our community, our economy or effective and efficient governance.
Spoken like a true member for Canberra! Let me say to the member for Canberra: it's not all about Canberra. There are other people in this nation—I represent quite a sizable slice of them—that actually don't see Canberra as the answer to everything. Every now and then they actually even tell me it might be the cause of half of our problems. In effect, it is not all about Canberra, and this is not an attack on Canberra, as the member well knows. It is not an attack on Canberra; it is making sure that we've got efficient use of our resources in Australia and trying to look after all Australians by trying to make sure that all of our communities thrive.
I often say that Australian agriculture is still the most important industry for rural and regional Australia. It is without a doubt. Each year Australian farmers continue to grow more food and more fibre in a more environmentally friendly fashion and with better quality. All of those things. It's good for the farmer, it's good for the state and it's good for the nation. But they do it with fewer people. Every year we do it with fewer people. Along with the member for Indi, I sat on a committee in the last parliament where we looked at technological changes and advances in agriculture. Very exciting things are happening. Agriculture is an exciting and good place to be in Australia at the at the moment. But we do know that all of these advances almost always mean we don't need the same size of workforce as we needed last week, last year, 10 years ago or 50 years ago. That's why the community I come from is now around 60 per cent of the size it was in 1980. We've gone from around 1,850 residents to just over a thousand. It isn't that we produce less and it isn't that we're not important to Australia. Our farmers are more efficient than ever. We grow more, but we grow it with fewer people.
The reason for this inquiry is to try and find out in what way we can revitalise regional Australia. We need to explore every opportunity, and if that means shifting parts of or whole government departments to rural and regional areas, I say bring it on! Bring it on, because we really do need to find the answer. We need stewards for inland Australia. We don't want towns that are gutted out, where the doors are swinging in the wind. We want vibrant communities. We need to invest some energy and intellect into finding a way forward for these communities. I'm quite pleased with this issues paper. I think the main thing with an issues paper is that it provides enough scope for the committee to actually draw together the people in Australia who we need to consult in order to come up with the best possible answers.
Firstly, we're looking for examples of best practice around Australia. That's an obvious thing to do, but one thing you can be sure of when we're looking for best practice is that there is no silver bullet. There's not one best practice that's going to fit all of Australia. These will be things that are almost idiosyncratic to particular communities. From my collective experience of living in rural and regional Australia, those new industries, those new employers and the expansions that do happen are normally driven by local enthusiasm and expertise. That is normally the thing that really kicks these things along. If we're talking about the tourism industry, for instance, it is local tourism operators—people that have skin in the game and really want to promote their product—who make it happen. In many ways, perhaps the best practice is seeing what we can do to assist them. We don't want to reinvent the wheel; we want to use the expertise and skills that we have in place already. That's what we will do while we're looking at best practice.
I'll tell you a story about my home community. I think this is quite interesting; it's about how we need to be challenged by ideas sometimes. Kimba is a dryland farming community. We're on the northern edge of wheat belt on the Eyre Peninsula. My family's been farming there for close on 90 years, as have many other families in the district. We largely grow wheat, barley and peas for bulk export, so we're not in that differentiated market and we're a long way from the livestock industries that could consume our grain. Freight's the killer, so it goes out to sea and to another nation. We've always looked at the possibility of growing export hay as an opportunity, but it's too far away from us, because freight kills us on export hay and the cost of freight is the particular issue.
We had a family move into the community, and they had a lot of expertise in hay. They started producing hay. They bought first-class hay-making equipment and drop-deck semitrailers, and they knew how to produce hay for the export market. They then managed to engineer a $25 premium per tonne for that particular line of hay, because it was grown in a drier, tougher environment. That was moving very well, and then along came the newest range of hay balers: superhigh-density hay balers. With that advent, the family were able to fully load their semitrailers, for the first time. Once again, that is what made the freight competitive. So they decided to offer this service to the rest of the community. Now my friend Peter is offering agronomic services to the rest of the community and contracting hay. They built a 10,000-tonne hay shed, and last year I think they took nearly 20,000 tonne. They supply agronomic service, markets and expertise and they supply the equipment. They have produced a new industry in a community where none existed before. That's best practice. That's entrepreneurialism and it's local community leading. That's what I hope to find in this inquiry—more examples like that.
The devolution of government services into rural areas—obviously that's one of the things we've been looking at—was one of the things that the member for Canberra was speaking about, and she was scathing about the Deputy Prime Minister and the movement of the APVMA to Armidale. But, in fact, why not? That is the question we need to ask ourselves about every government department: not why but why not? Why cannot this service be delivered in another place just as well and possibly even better? In fact, in a lot of rural Australia, the overheads are much lower. Certainly the real estate is at a lower price. I think that's the way we should address that particular issue: why not? Let's find that out.
The final area that this issues paper outlines that we should be looking at is corporate decentralisation. Now, of course, this is where we try to convince those that invest somewhere else already that there is an equal or better opportunity in the country. Gee, there is on so many fronts. There must be things that we can produce in the country at lower cost, simply because we are facing lower overheads. There are the issues we are facing at the moment around electricity and energy. All those costs are Australia-wide. Certainly there's a hotspot in South Australia, but we've heard plenty about that before. But there is no difference between the city and the country.
We have skilled workforces and we have towns where real estate is relatively cheap. If you think a home in Sydney at $1.4 million is too much, why not investigate a home in Parkes for $350,000? It is probably the same type of home. It is probably cheaper than that. And I can repeat those kinds of figures in my own community, comparing Adelaide, for instance, to Wudinna or wherever it might be. There are certainly really good opportunities, and there are great living opportunities for Australians. We often say that, if we can only get people into the country in the first place, they will realise what a great life we lead. Those that do come there often stay much, much longer than they had first intended.
Living in rural and regional Australia is a great privilege, Mr Deputy Speaker Hogan—one that I know you know about, having come from that mighty metropolis of Port Augusta in my electorate. It is something of which I'm immensely proud. In fact, I can even say—and I have spoken about this before, but I love the opportunity of regional and rural Australia being productive—that the electorate of Grey produced five sitting members of the last parliament, the 44th Parliament. I had a photo of us all out the front, including you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It shows that there is no great disadvantage in living in the country. I think the opposite. There is an advantage. So we need to promote that, tell people it is a great place to live and find out what it is we need to do to grow more jobs, and that comes back to this inquiry. That's what I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into.
I thank the member for Grey—and a wonderful electorate you represent!
I would like to acknowledge the work of the member for Grey and support the comments that he's made about how important this particular inquiry is. I also acknowledge the work of our chair, the member for Groom, Dr McVeigh, and the deputy chair, the member for Paterson, Ms Swanson. I would also like to put on record the support of the Prime Minister for this particular inquiry and acknowledge his support for it.
As a committee we have a really important task: to look at a best-practice approach to regional development and to look at the decentralisation of Commonwealth agencies and the action that the Commonwealth can take to encourage greater corporate decentralisation. Before I get underway with my speech, I would just like to acknowledge to the Deputy Speaker my constituents in the Speaker's gallery, particularly Phil and Sam—thank you for coming—and also Claudia and Merran, whom I'm going to refer to in my speech. I'm really glad to have my constituents here, so thank you for coming.
In my speech today, I want to talk a little bit about the terms of reference of the inquiry. I want to talk about one particular case study in the issues paper, which we're addressing. I want to particularly stress that there are only 10 more days for submissions to come in, so it's a call to action to the people in my community and all around Australia—I welcome the member for Durack—to get your skates on, because we need your input. If you want to appear before the inquiry as we travel around Australia, you have to put a submission in. I just need to say 'submission' is a fancy word for a letter, and the letter has to have three things in it: it has to describe what your issue is, it has to be addressed to the right people—so you have to get those details right—and, importantly, it has to have a recommendation telling us what you think needs to be done.
If I could begin with a bit of the problem, why do we need this? For too long, I believe, regional Australia has been governed by policy silos that are disjointed and not connected. We've already been hearing today in this place about this 'one size fits everybody'. I know it's really hard for people in the city to actually understand that the country is different and that we're not all homogeneous and not all the same. If we're going to do good policy implementation, we have to recognise regional and social differences, and that's been hard for government to do. There is this whole problem we've faced of trying to say to a government that has to look after two-thirds of the land mass of Australia, 'You have to pay attention to the people who live there, because they understand.' We call this place based planning. I know it's really hard for the people in the cities to understand, but we in the country get it and we know how to do it and we know what's good for our community. So you've got to engage with people, and particularly local knowledge.
The member for Grey talked about connectivity and connectedness. It's not only about physical connectivity—mobile phone coverage, the NBN and public transport that works; it's about how you bring people together at the micro level in a community, at a local government level, at a regional level, at a state level and then at a Commonwealth level. That is quite an art because you've got to break out of your silos, which are often issues based, and come together around a region. That's been a challenge and I don't think we've done it really well in the past, and I'm optimistic that with this inquiry we'll do it better.
As my colleagues in the House know, regional Australia contributes one-third of our national output and it's home to something like 8.8 million Australians. It provides major jobs for people. It's a formidable contributor to the national economy. What I'm hoping with this inquiry is not only that we take what we know works but that we actually do the planning, position ourselves and ask: where does regional Australia exist in the future? It's a really important inquiry and we need to do it well.
I mentioned putting a submission in. To the people in my electorate and regional Australia, we're basically looking for three things: what's working, what could work better and what role can the Commonwealth play to bring it together? The terms of reference are in the issues paper. We talk about best practice. How do you grow the population base? How can you share opportunity? How can we develop the capacity of regional Australia? What's the role for leadership? What's the role for education? How do we grow and diversify our economic base? How do we have vibrant, cohesive and engaged regional communities? It's not just about infrastructure. It's not just about decentralising departments. We're looking at vibrant, cohesive and engaged communities. How do we get people to know that they've got a real stake in the future?
The other area of the terms of reference that I'd like to speak about, given my background in business and my absolute love for small business in regional Australia, is section c, which talks about the role that the Commonwealth has in supporting corporate decentralisation. I want to pick up on a couple of the terms because I'm really going to be advocating hard in my community to get submissions on this but also in the committee. What do we have to do to encourage early-stage equity or debt finance to support start-ups and establish businesses in the region? We need to examine access to capital for regional businesses, including agribusiness, manufacturing and technology, and we need to consider the adequacy of businesses' access to early-stage accelerators or incubators, including access to business mentors, business networks and capital. So it's not just about decentralisation of government departments; it's how we grow the capacity. How do we retain skilled labour and how do we leverage strong transport and communication connectivity? It's a great issues paper and I'd like to acknowledge the work of the secretariat in putting it together—good job, team.
I'd like to spend some time talking about best-case practice in the context of a really personal experience of mine. I grew up in the area of Albury-Wodonga, which, as we've been talking about today, was a focus during the Whitlam years. Albury-Wodonga is a regional capital, but it supports an area of 180,000 people, so it's a really important part of the Australian regional sector. Albury-Wodonga is one of the largest, fastest-growing regional inland communities. It's got about 8,000 local businesses and the gross regional product is valued at about $5.9 billion—at a local level, it is really significant. The major income streams in Albury-Wodonga are rental, hiring and real estate services, at 14.4 per cent; public administration and safety is at 13.4 per cent; and I'm really proud to say that 13.1 per cent is manufacturing—and manufacturing is growing, unlike in other areas of regional Australia, where it is falling off. In Albury-Wodonga we've got a really strong manufacturing base and it does a terrific job.
One of the reasons why Albury-Wodonga is going so well is the Whitlam era, but it wasn't only Whitlam. That was really good, but we had bipartisan support. So, when Mr Whitlam's period of government ended, we had Malcolm Fraser come in. He picked it up and he absolutely supported what we were doing in regional development. We need that. If we're going to have long-term sustainable development, we've got to have bipartisan support. We can't have both sides of parliament bickering. So it's really important that in this committee we come up with a bipartisan report, because we've got to then go to government and say, 'Here's the collective agreement and the best knowledge.'
There are a few things that I just want to point out about Albury-Wodonga that absolutely work—welcome, Deputy Chair; it's good to have you here. We've got TAFEs. We've got universities. So we grow our own workforce, which is really important. We've got really good health services. We have fantastic local businesses, and I've referred to manufacturing. We're surrounded by really careful planning around our environment, so we've got superbly treed and landscaped hillscapes. We've got parks. We've got bikeways that loop around our creek areas. It's because the community was designed, and it was really well created, by people who cared. So we know how to do it. Forty years ago, we began doing it really well.
So the task for you guys, and particularly for my constituents here today, is to say: in the next 40 years, what do you want in Albury-Wodonga, and how can you contribute to this inquiry? I want to particularly call out to the young people of north-east Victoria: get your thinking caps on and make a submission through the NESAY competition that's going on. Put your ideas together, because we can do this for the future, but we really need your young creative minds and your creativity if we're going to do it well. I really want my community to get hold of this issues paper and to pay attention to it. You've only got 10 days. I'm keen for you to present to the committee, but you need to put in a submission if you're going to have your opportunity in song or dance or art or video or music and some wonderful ways of talking about how we want the future to be.
The question is that the House take note of the report. I call the member for—
An honourable member: Maranoa.
I call the member for Maranoa—unforgettable!
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It's great that you get to acknowledge the great electorate of Maranoa, one that takes up 10 per cent of the Australian land mass, one that is proudly rural and regional. When you talk about the great investment that this government is making in rural and regional Australia, you are talking about the electorate of Maranoa, one of the big five electorates in land size and in output to this economy. It's great that you're able to finally acknowledge the great electorate of Maranoa and its people. I'm very grateful for that, Mr Deputy Speaker!
But I am proud to be part of a federal government that is acknowledging that rural and regional Australia is the economic engine room of this nation. The reality is that the government, for the first time, are taking real steps to decentralise our government but also then taking the first steps to encourage business to follow us as the leaders in moving out into rural and regional Australia. It is a good move to take those services that we, as a government, are meant to deliver to the people of people of rural and regional Australia. What a crazy idea to put it out where the people that you're meant to be serving are! What a crazy idea that would be! The Labor Party seem to think that that's a bizarre concept—that you would finally put resources and services that are there to service the people of rural and regional Australia in rural and regional Australia. That's what governments are here to do.
And I'm proud to say that Minister Nash has also taken to this in such a fervent way in making sure that she's now held all cabinet ministers to account in asking them to review their departments, to look at them in an intrinsic way for how they could better be decentralised, to put them and their services out into rural and regional Australia in a pragmatic and sensible way. We've also seen it from the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, with the APVMA, moving it to Armidale.
An honourable member interjecting—
That's a sensational move that Barnaby Joyce has undertaken—again, delivering services where they should be delivered. What a crazy idea! We hear those opposite interjecting because they don't understand what government is here to do. It's here to deliver services—and a crazy idea to put them where those services should be delivered! But those opposite, because they have no concept of rural and regional Australia, have no understanding. The latte-sipping left of the Labor Party sit over there with all the sanctimony of the Labor Party, but they don't care about rural and regional Australia. They don't understand and they don't care.
The reality is that we understand rural and regional Australia because we come from rural and regional Australia, quite proudly. I've been able to have a career. I've been able to start a business. I've been able to travel the world. But, more importantly, I've been able to raise a family in rural and regional Australia because the opportunities are there, because our government has put the environment and the infrastructure around people in rural and regional Australia to let them prosper, and that's what this report will be able to finally define. We are going to go to a part where we will be able to give real definition, to be able to come back in and let those in the Labor Party really understand what rural and regional Australia does and the importance of decentralisation. We will be able to quantify it once and for all so that the latte-sipping Left of the Labor Party can no longer scoff at those in rural and regional Australia, because we are the economic engine room of this nation.
In my electorate alone, just to give you an example, we contribute more to the GDP per capita than Townsville, Toowoomba or the Gold Coast, and in fact it doesn't take into account the three coal-fired power stations that produce more than 50 per cent of Queensland's total energy. Nor does it take into account the hundreds of millions of dollars that are taken out of the Surat Basin and put through Curtis Island—all of which, I might add while we've got those opposite sitting here, was the failure of the former federal Labor government in terms of setting up the Surat Basin, not looking at a domestic supply and now driving up electricity prices that are impacting rural and regional Australia. All of this was an admission by the former Labor government that they failed along with the state government.
And then we talk about Adani and the developments happening there. It's great to see that we've got conjecture about Adani. I would have thought those from Townsville would be out there prosecuting a case for Adani and bringing jobs to rural and regional Australia, yet all we get is interjection about the investment in rural and regional Australia and the incentives that we put in place to bring development to those parts of the world. But we've also done it around environment and free trade agreements. The free trade agreements that we've created for people in rural and regional Australia are putting real wealth into the pockets of people in my electorate right now. We are seeing that from the agreements with Japan, South Korea and China. Real dollars are being put in. That's what an environment allowing people to go and create wealth looks like. The story of Maranoa is 'just add rain', and it's because of the free trade agreements that we are seeing real wealth put in there. We are driving those small towns.
But we're also doing that through the infrastructure we've put in connecting us to the world and the global economy, because those free trade agreements mean that we need the tools of the 21st century. That is the $220 million that this government has proudly put into a mobile phone blackspot program. Never before have we had a regional development and regional telecommunications minister in cabinet. That's how important we see the development of rural and regional Australia to be. Never before has a government put money into the advancement and expansion of a mobile phone network, because we need the tools of the 21st century to be able to take advantage of the free trade agreements that we put in place. Proudly, we'll be able to deliver the NBN to my electorate long before many in metropolitan areas—and rightly so, because those are the tools of the 21st century that we need. We are delivering it now in towns like Roma, Chinchilla, Goondiwindi and Longreach—proudly delivering to those people in rural and regional Australia. We are delivering real outcomes—connecting them.
Furth to connectivity—not only in a telecommunications sense but in a physical sense with the roads and the inland railway—we are proudly investing $1.6 billion in the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing or, as I like to call it, the Toowoomba bypass, because the real beneficiaries of the second range crossing will be the people of Maranoa because our product will get around the world even quicker. Plus, more than $500 million has been put into the Warrego Highway, which connects us to the global economy even quicker. We are the real beneficiaries of that investment—coupled with inland rail. Only in this last budget did we announce a further $8.4 billion to ensure that Inland Rail—a corridor of commerce from Melbourne to Brisbane—is created. This is transformational for the people of rural and regional Australia. This is thinking about the future of all those communities along that corridor. But it's also benefitting those in the eastern seaboard, because we're going to take traffic off the Pacific Highway. This is real visionary stuff that shows that this government takes rural and regional Australia for what it is worth. It is the real economic engine room of this nation.
But let me give you another, more granular example: the Building Better Regions Fund. Only in the last couple of months was Minister Nash able to announce my electorate of Maranoa would get just under $5 million for a cold-storage facility in Warwick. I live in Warwick. It has a population of somewhere in between 12,000 and 14,000 people. With this $5 million investment we will create 143 new jobs, 136 indirect jobs and 80 jobs during construction. More than 200 new families will come to Warwick. That's a significant increase in the population of that community. That is real economic development. That is showing confidence in rural and regional Australia. That is showing that we understand that they are the engine room of this nation, and that we are the ones that create the wealth. This report will show that, when we finally get through and allow the people of rural and regional Australia to put their voices forward and say what is needed to continue to develop as a community and as an economy, with strong regions we will have a strong nation, because we are the engine room of this nation, and this government has made that investment.
I'm proud to say that this government understands that, through the environment and infrastructure we are putting around those in rural and regional Australia, we are the ones showing the confidence in rural and regional Australia. Now is the time to define that and to clearly articulate that we can come back and show the benefits of what we have done as a government. That will then prosecute the case for further investment in rural and regional Australia. When governments lead the way, we are seeing that private enterprise will follow. That is what we need to ensure we do as a government: lead the way in the investment in rural and regional Australia.
I'm proud to be part of a government that has started this inquiry. I'm proud to be part of a government that is already delivering. But how do we define it even better, to make it better for the lives of people in rural and regional Australia—I've proudly lived all of my life in rural and regional Australia—for each and every one and for generations to come?
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate as the shadow minister for regional development, and to be able to outline what four years of neglect and failure mean in our regions when it comes, particularly, to energy, to the National Broadband Network, to infrastructure investment and to water policy. Energy is what I will begin with.
When it comes to energy, there's a bit of a debate as to whether there should be a new coal-fired power station in Northern Queensland, or whether, indeed, renewable energy is the future. Last fortnight, I visited Hughenden, Kidston and the Kennedy Project in north-west Queensland with the member for Kennedy, Bob Katter. There we looked at the reality of what is happening on the ground, not because of the coalition government, but in spite of the federal government. There we looked at exciting projects which are taking place.
The Kidston Solar Project is about 280 kilometres north-west of Townsville. It sits on the side of the abandoned gold mine, which ceased production around the turn of the century. The developer, Genex, came up with the quite ingenious idea of redeveloping the site as a solar and pumped hydro facility, taking advantage of the existing mine infrastructure. The company is installing 537,000 photovoltaic cells mounted on a tracking system that will follow the sun across the sky. Once fully commissioned early next year, this facility will generate enough electricity to power more than 26,000 homes, with its second stage set to add more capacity, making it the largest solar farm in Australia.
As part of stage 2, the company will utilise the old mine's tailings dam to create a 250-megawatt pumped storage hydro project. Some of the power produced by the sun by day will be used to pump water up to the dam, and at night the water will be used to drive turbines. This integration of solar and pumped storage will provide stability to the grid and a pathway to the 24/7 supply of renewable energy.
I also visited what will soon become the site of the Kennedy Energy Park located outside of Hughenden. This project will combine solar, wind and battery storage to create renewable energy on a scale comparable to Queensland's large coal-fired power plants like Tarong and Stanwell—enough electricity to power up to a million homes. Both projects have been strongly backed by the Palaszczuk Queensland Labor government, but they might have withered on the vine without the mitigation of risk through the support of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, both of which were set up by the former federal Labor government and which are agencies that the current government tried to abolish when it came to office.
The current government is also continuing to resist Professor Finkel's recommendation of a clean energy target to provide the certainty for investment that's required. Regional Australia will particularly benefit from certainty in investment and job creation. On the ground, the ideological conflict between the Abbott forces and the Turnbull forces in this coalition government are completely irrelevant to the people of Hughenden, to the people who are creating jobs and to the people who are developing north-west Queensland.
Moving to other opportunities for decentralisation when it comes to infrastructure, we hear a lot of rhetoric from this government about infrastructure investment. What we don't actually see is dollars. When it comes to the Bruce Highway and the Pacific Highway, the major routes up the east coast of Australia, we haven't seen new investment from the coalition government. What we've seen is the government relying upon the investment that was put in place by the former Labor government. Projects which the member for Maranoa mentioned, such as the Warrego Highway, were already in the budget. We haven't seen any additional investment there. The Parliamentary Budget Office has advised that over the coming decade infrastructure investment as a proportion of GDP will fall from 0.4 per cent to 0.2 per cent—a halving of investment. Over the forward estimates, from an estimate of over $9 billion that was supposed to be spent last year, investment declines to $4.2 billion in 2021—it falls off a cliff—and it is regional Australia that will suffer as a result. There will be not only fewer short-term jobs and less activity in the construction sector but also, in the long-run, much less economic activity.
There is one powerhouse project that the government could support to support regional economic development and decentralisation, and that is high-speed rail from Brisbane to Melbourne through Sydney and Canberra. High-speed rail would provide an economic stimulus to towns along the route such as Lismore, Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, Taree, Newcastle, the Central Coast, the Southern Highlands, down through to this great inland city, the bush capital of Canberra, then through Wagga Wagga, Albury and Shepparton. Yet this government has withdrawn the funds that were there to establish a high-speed rail authority when it came to office.
The next issue that the government could address is the National Broadband Network. The National Broadband Network is vital for creating the same business and economic opportunities for people, whether they live in the CBD of our capital cities or whether they live in a regional centre. In terms of the competitive advantage that the NBN would bring to regional Australia where it has been turned on properly in places with fibre to the home and with fibre to the business, it has certainly done that. It would enable a business in Coffs Harbour to compete on the same basis for international contracts and international business opportunities as one based in George Street in Sydney. Yet this government has this so-called hybrid model, which is essentially that if you can afford to have fibre connected to your home, you can pay for it. But for everyone else it is a matter of privilege. And sometimes it is just a matter of accident. Depending upon where in a regional town you live, you might have fibre on one side of the street and copper—second-rate delivery—on the other side of the street. That will impact the economic value of those homes. It is quite extraordinary that the National Broadband Network has had to concede that its development of fibre technology is such that it can be rolled out more cheaply than the millions of metres of copper wire that have been purchased by the current government—it is quite extraordinary that that would happen—in 2017.
Lastly, when it comes to the proper management of our water resources, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin, we have seen a failure by this government to manage those issues properly. We have referrals to various corruption agencies as a result of that, but it is a complete failure of government leadership. Whether it is high-speed rail, water management, energy, the National Broadband Network, rail or road infrastructure, this government is failing regional Australia and that is why it is suffering a decline of support in regional Australia. The huge gap between the rhetoric and the reality of this government means it stands condemned.
I rise today to speak on the issues paper presented to the House by my friend Dr McVeigh on behalf of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation, of which I am a proud member. The resources and hard work of our regional towns and cities are fundamental to the nation's economy. I think my electorate of Durack epitomises that statement given it is the home of iron ore and has significant gas projects, significant agricultural projects and much more. The select committee has been asked to inquire into and report on best-practice approaches to regional development, the decentralisation of Commonwealth entities and processes by which corporate decentralisation can be supported as well.
People wanting to contribute to this inquiry have only 10 days left in which to lodge their submissions. Please tell us what is good about regional development, what is bad and what is happening in your area that we need to know about. We would also like to hear from those areas that think they have a good case to be home to a decentralised government department. The purpose of this issues paper is twofold: it aims to provide more information about matters outlined in the terms of reference of the inquiry and to provide a summary of recent research and inquiries into decentralisation. From this, the committee can better focus its attention on areas not covered by previous research.
Decentralisation of both the public and private sector is something I am particularly passionate about as I can see that the relocation of a government department could provide enormous benefit to a regional centre as well as enhancing the lives of those being relocated. With the recent election of a Labor state government in Western Australia, we have seen the Royalties for Regions program canned to pay for their city-centric spending promises. Let us hope that their federal counterparts have a higher regard for regional Western Australia—but, given their comments during the matter of public importance today, I doubt that is the case. Ministers are being tasked to report on the suitability of departments or functions under their jurisdiction for decentralisation. We expect substantial business cases from them by December 2017, and I look forward to assessing these as part of the committee. Obviously, not all rural and regional areas are suitable to host a relocated government department. The destination should appeal to public servants and their families in order to retain those employees. The appropriate infrastructure must be in place to receive both the personnel and the equipment. That includes office space, housing, transport and day-to-day services. Labour availability should also be taken into account.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Geraldton, in my electorate, as being a suitable place for a decentralised government department to park itself in. It has close proximity to Perth. It has a fabulous beach lifestyle, which suits families. And it is also a regional centre that services an area of approximately 300,000 square kilometres. It also has plenty of office space and a variety of other industries. It is a perfect case that should be considered. I'm quite sure the committee will take its place. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this issues paper.
It being 6.30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192B. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I rise to speak on an issue of grave concern. Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, RDVSA, which has been providing trauma counselling to 1800RESPECT clients since its inception by the Labor government in 2012, has decided to withdraw from the 1800RESPECT trauma counselling service. The original contract was tendered and by agreement given to Medibank Health Solutions telehealth, MHS, as the lead agency, with the requirement that they subcontract the counselling services to RDVSA. The service is internationally recognised as setting the benchmark in this particularly difficult area of work, and has been recognised by the United Nations for its groundbreaking work and excellence. 1800RESPECT provides specialist domestic violence and sexual assault counselling through telephone and online counselling. Due to national awareness campaigns, calls to 1800RESPECT have increased exponentially. Unfortunately, there has never been a similar increase in funds to RDVSA, which provides the specialist counsellors at 1800RESPECT, that would allow it to employ international counsellors or purchase the infrastructure necessary to ensure that all calls are answered immediately. It is a tragic indicator of the growing inequality and desperation of Australians under this government that unfortunately all DV and other crisis services have the same problem: the number of people needing their services is always increasing while their funding never keeps pace.
Between 2015 and 2016, RDVSA wrote to the Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter, five or six times setting out evidence of the exponential increase in calls and online contacts and providing a range of alternative models for improving the rate of call response. They also asked for additional funding that would allow for the employment and training of additional specialist sexual assault and domestic violence counsellors. While it is true that more funds were provided to RDVSA, it was only ever catch-up money. It was never sufficient to respond to the calls and online contacts that the service was currently receiving.
Late in 2015, the federal government commissioned a report on the proposed so-called triage service to respond to 1800RESPECT as a means to more adequately respond to all of the calls coming in. The report offered three suggested models for improving the response rate for calls to 1800RESPECT but raised serious concerns about the so-called triage service. RDVSA also raised concerns, and proposed several alternatives to what the government was proposing—to no avail. Instead of funding specialist counsellors at RDVSA to answer calls from every person who tries to contact 1800RESPECT, from 1 August 2016 the federal government chose to provide public funds to a private multinational health insurer, MHS, to provide the triage service, to answer calls from women, children and men living with sexual and family violence. RDVSA, a not-for-profit specialist service, asked for around $2 million in additional funding to answer all calls. MHS, the multinational health insurance fund, was given $3.5 million of public funds to operate their call centre. The MHS call centre also answers calls from several other crisis lines. Its annual report celebrates that its profits have increased by more than 500 per cent to these services and it now plans to double these profits. RDVSA reports that calls to 1800RESPECT have increased by around 300 per cent since the line was established, and the MHS claims that there has been a 410 per cent increase in calls in recent months.
But while MHS is celebrating its new profits, traumatised callers to 1800RESPECT are now required to repeat their story several times, which often traumatises already fragile and desperately frightened people. The tragic irony is that as well as being more expensive under the MHS model, calls from desperate women and children to 1800RESPECT are now put on hold and, yes, there is still an abandonment rate. Calls still go unanswered to the MHS call centre model. The triage centre is a virtual call centre. The workers who answer the calls from the triage call centre work from their own homes using their own home phones and laptops. They are themselves becoming traumatised and they are not receiving appropriate support or counselling. So what we have is a much worse service which costs more and potentially damages the very people it's meant to support as well as the counsellors who are providing the service.
The problems for women, children and men who call 1800RESPECT are now going to get worse. In February this year MHS announced that it would put the specialist counselling service provided by RDVSA out to tender. This is interesting because although it is true that when it was established the contract to provide counselling services was due to expire in June 2017, so was the contract for MHS, yet there's been no retendering of the MHS contract; it has been simply rolled over by the cabinet. RDVSA tendered to continue to provide the specialist training service that it has been delivering since 2010. Three weeks ago it was offered a contract that provided just 25 per cent of its previous funding and imposed a number of conditions that led to the board of RDVSA voting to reject that contract.
Whilst there is a range of problems with the proposed MHS contract, I want to focus now on what I believe to be a particularly dangerous aspect of this new arrangement. In order to comply with the MHS contract, RDVSA is required to hand over all of its clients' files for the past six years. All calls to RDVSA, as well as all other organisations that have been offered MHS contracts to provide counselling, will be recorded. The RDVSA counsellors are required to sign a waiver of their right not to record. There is a range of issues here. RDVSA has never recorded calls from clients because it recognises that this is a threat to the safety of their clients. It regularly receives requests from perpetrators of violence and from those perpetrators' lawyers demanding copies of client records. RDVSA has never handed over its files. However, the same cannot be said for MHS, which has said that it will comply with the law if asked for records and files.
I do not need to spell out the problem here for members in this chamber. No-one needed to spell out the problem for the counsellors or the board at RDVSA. There was unanimous agreement among the workers and the board that this was absolutely a deal breaker. There is no way that the professional counsellors of RDVSA or their board would ever agree to hand over those files, even at the cost of their jobs and, ultimately, their organisation. The RDVSA board and the union representing counsellors wrote to MHS and to Minister Porter asking for meetings on the issue. Nothing changed. MHS insists that it has a right to the files. It has never explained why it needs those files or what it intends to do with them; just that it wants them.
Alarmingly, MHS has form in this area of dealing with confidential files. Two years ago, MHS, which operates Garrison Health from the same telehealth service as the 1800RESPECT line, admitted to the biggest data breach in the history of the armed services when, inadvertently, the files of all Australian personnel serving in the Gulf were leaked to the Chinese government. This is the same service that is asking for the files and records of all of the people who have called 1800RESPECT for the past six years. In addition to the recording of calls, because there will now be not one but five organisations taking calls from clients, each of these organisations will have access to the central filing system. This means that people across five organisations will be writing and reading those files. There's not much chance of seeing something going wrong here!
There are so many issues that we really need to tease out. The problems are absolutely evident, but, in the limited time here, I think the call to government is that this service, RDVSA, must be reinstated and it must have the funds it needs into the future so that it can continue to assist the vulnerable people who call on this service every day. (Time expired)
I'd like to speak about my recent experiences in Palestine. I will say from the outset that I have always been a strong fan and very impressed with the story of Israel, from what I've seen, and the struggle that the Jewish people had to find a home and start the state in Israel. In recent times, I have been made aware of the struggle of the Palestinian people and the effect that 50 years of occupation, since the 1967 war, has had on the Palestinian people.
Recently, in April, I was privileged to lead an unofficial delegation from this parliament to Palestine. It was a bipartisan delegation, and it included my good friend and colleague here the member for Flynn, Mr O'Dowd. Spending eight days in Palestine—staying in Ramallah and living with the Palestinian people with none of the special privileges of being part of an official delegation—gave me a small insight into the daily struggles of the Palestinian people. The reason I'm speaking here tonight is that I am concerned that the Palestinian issue might become a political one in this country. The Greens have a strong position on that. I know the Labor Party is struggling at the moment with a position on Palestine, with strong views on either side. As a member of the National Party, with my colleague here, the member for Flynn, I don't believe the people of Palestine will be served if this becomes a party political issue in Australia.
I have heard speeches here in support of Israel, but I think it's important to note that until you actually go and live and stay with these people and understand the deprivation of liberty that goes with being a Palestinian on the West Bank, it's very hard to comprehend. On a daily basis we not only witnessed but experienced the indignity of going through checkpoints at random at gunpoint. We witnessed people being held up from going to work and from going about their daily activities. We witnessed farmers who didn't have access to some of their fields because there happened to have been a 700-kilometre dividing wall between their home and their farm. On some days the access was only for a very short period of time, morning and night, and for days at a time, because of various reasons, the access was denied completely. As someone with a farming background, I understand the frustrations and the difficulties a farmer would have in not having control of and access to your lands in a timely manner.
Not only that but we also witnessed the effect of 600,000 illegal settlers living on Palestinian land. There was the demolition of Palestinian houses to allow these settlements to go through. There are roads connecting these settlements back to Israel that can only be driven on by Israeli citizens. There is the indignity of going on a journey that would take 20 minutes by a direct route but having to take two hours because the Palestinian hosts that we had did not have access to those roads that were only for the Jewish settlers.
This is not an anti-Israel speech. I'm reflecting on what I have witnessed and my concern for the future of this area. I believe it's in the interest of the Israeli people to have a resolution for this. We've seen, in other parts of the world where an entire section of the society is repressed and has no hope for the future, how that can lead to a disaster. This is not something that is just coming from me and a few supporters of Palestine in this country. There are two United Nations resolutions that have been passed, criticising and condemning these illegal settlements and demanding that they be removed, which have just been ignored.
This morning, as a matter of fact, I saw on social media a YouTube clip with the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr Netanyahu, asking the rhetorical question: 'Why are Palestinian children taught to hate?' And that's probably something that I think we saw on both sides: that the level of distrust and hatred on both sides, if a resolution cannot be reached soon, will nearly be irrevocable.
The figures are that, in that area, basically 50 per cent of the population are Israelis and 50 per cent are Palestinians. Australia supports a two-state solution and, indeed, from our conversations with the Palestinian Authority, that is what they're aiming for. I personally am wondering how a two-state solution will possibly work. There is the incursion of the Israeli settlements into those areas, but not only that. In certain areas of the West Bank that are categorised as area C, which is a sort of joint ownership, all the prime farming land and indeed all the water supply is controlled by Israel. We saw the Palestinian farmers removed to the inferior countryside and being starved economically because of that dislocation from their area. We saw in the city of Hebron that settlers have just taken over the centre of the town and now, with the support of the Israeli army, at gunpoint have taken over several city blocks in that area.
So what we have at the moment is basically one state. The West Bank and Israel have all been run by Israel, with an apartheid rule. We've seen the outrage of the world, and we saw the downfall of that system in South Africa. We need to make sure that that's not repeated in this area.
One of the most chilling conversations that I had was with a member of the Palestinian Authority. He said something that I'd actually been thinking, and that is: the young people who have been removed from opportunity, some of them quite well educated, would be vulnerable for radicalisation from outside forces. If that happens, if the Palestinian youth graduate from throwing rocks at the Israeli army and end up being armed and trained by some terrorist force, we are going to see a level of destruction that we could possibly not tolerate.
So my request is that Australia lends its strong support to a resolution of the issue with the occupation of Palestine and the West Bank. I know this is not a simple issue. I know it's in the interests of Israel to have a resolution to this. I can't imagine that Israel would want to be ruling that area from the point of a gun for another 50 years. If that happens, I shudder to think what the outcome of that will be. There are many Palestinians who have migrated to Australia. I have some in my electorate. They have great connections back to that area. My strong wish is that as a country, in a bipartisan way, we can put pressure on Israel and we can lend support to the peace process so that we can avert what inevitably will be a large amount of bloodshed if nothing happens.
In Parramatta we have a theatre known as the Riverside Theatres. There are three theatres in all: the main theatre, Lennox and Rafferty's. It serves our community well. It's about 30 years old. It needs updating—there's no doubt about that. It's not big enough for large musicals, but it has an extraordinary program—thanks to its director, Robert Love—of national and international performances, as well as an extraordinary range of local performances across the full diversity of Parramatta's community.
Recently, as part of the planned move of the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta, the state government announced that they will pay $140 million for one of our car park sites for the Powerhouse Museum, and that $100 million of that would go towards the redevelopment of the Riverside Theatres, of which the state government would keep a 50 per cent interest. Given the track record of the state government during the hiatus of the council amalgamations—we've had an administrator in the Parramatta council since May last year, and many of the decisions that had been made during that time were not ones that would have been made if we'd had a democratically elected council—I'm a little sceptical about whether or not this decision will turn out to be a good thing for Parramatta, or a pretty bad one. It depends very much on what the state government has in mind.
But, I would like to say this: all the people in the inner city and the eastern suburbs who think they know that Parramatta needs fixing, and who come out to 'fix' us, really should ask us first. They don't know us, they don't know who we are, they don't consult with us, they don't know what we want and they are potentially getting a lot of things very wrong. I do say 'potentially' because, try as I might, I can't see the clear plans. I can see announcements, but not plans. I can't see any real consultation on any of their projects. We have a history of having had decisions imposed on us in recent years, which we simply did not want and would never have approved of through a democratically elected council. It is an absolutely bad track record.
We deserve a little more respect. I just want to talk a bit about who we actually are, to define what my concerns are. Not long after I moved to Parramatta, I was walking along the street and I saw a street sign for an artist called Sivan Perwer. He's a Kurdish artist. I knew about him because, when I was working for the Australia Council, I funded him to come to Australia. I was part of the funding process for him to come to Australia twice. He is a Kurdish artist who has been banned in Turkey for essentially singing in Kurdish and who has moved to Europe. He's an extraordinary traditional artist. There were street signs, so I went along to this performance. There were 2,000 people in the room—just from following street signs—listening to this traditional Kurdish artist. All the young boys were out dancing and all the women were trying to rush the stage and the security guards were pushing them back. I sat there and I was at one of the most extraordinary performances I've ever been to. He's an extraordinary Kurdish artist called Sivan Perwer—go and look him up; he's amazing.
A couple of weeks later, I saw another street sign for a Carnatic classical saxophone player, an Indian musician called Dr Kadri Gopalnath. I went along to that one too, based on the street signs. There were 2,500 people, all in their saris, listening to what is extremely contemporary Carnatic music. It was the kind of crowd you wouldn't get at the Opera House, but you get it from a street sign in Western Sydney. I have been to the Swara-Laya music festival, which now goes for three days at the Riverside. It fills up; it is totally packed out. There are some of the most extraordinary musicians you'll ever see there.
Dr Balamuralikrishna did a 45-minute performance on five notes with just a few instruments on the stage. It's mesmerising stuff. We have the most extraordinary music. We have Sufi music. We have the Sydney Sacred Music Festival, which brings Sufi music. You float for the next week if you have heard a Sufi band. They are extraordinary, and we have them in Western Sydney. We have Koranic singers. We have Turkish music. We have Afghani throat singing. We have the National Theatre of Parramatta now—a great national theatre—and FORM Dance Projects. We have Bhangra, music from the Punjab. Even little kids do that. We have Lebanese drums. We have a growing African presence and we have the Sydney artist studio. We are an incredibly diverse community.
As a person who went to six concerts a week for seven years when I worked at the Australia Council, I actually do know when I'm hearing good music, and this is exceptional stuff. What concerns me about the decision that the state government has made is that we need an arts precinct in Parramatta that allows our art to grow. We've had stories in the past about the building of a 400-seat theatre in Parramatta so the big musicals could come to town, and that's really important. But, when you're growing the next big city—the next great city, as the state government keeps talking about—you don't grow into a great city because you build a venue where big companies can come in and treat you like an audience. You build a great city by building arts venues which can grow local art as well. You build it by making sure that you have a really healthy local art scene, which promoters of the big events will tell you actually grows an audience as well. It grows an audience for a more diverse range of work, which is what you need if you start building big theatres. We need the depth of facilities, and we will complain loudly if we lose the diversity of the Riverside in order to build a large-scale theatre, if that's all we get for it.
We have a right to complain and we have a right to be suspicious, because the history of funding of arts in Western Sydney is actually very poor. Western Sydney has never received its fair share of funding. Last year Deloitte found Western Sydney received one per cent of federal government arts funding and 5.5 per cent of state government cultural heritage and events funding even though we were 10 per cent of the population. In 2015 the gap between arts funding in eastern and western suburbs was 550 per cent—not in western suburbs' favour. In the eastern suburbs, the government poured $300 million into operating costs for five city arts and culture centres and another $244 million into expansion. One in 10 Australians live in Western Sydney, but there was 5.5 per cent of state government funding and one per cent of federal. The region does not have a single genuinely metropolitan facility. Four of our primary institutions are more than three decades old. We have only had one built since 1990, and that's the Blacktown Arts Centre. So we have a lot to complain about.
Again, I'm not complaining about the level of funding that goes to our big venues; that's wonderful. They are wonderful things. But, given that half the population lives west of Rydalmere, we are seriously undersupported. You'd think that on that basis I would be entirely delighted to have $140 million. It is of course the money that comes from the sale of a block of land, so it's not additional money; it's actually sale of land, not a grant as such. But I'm particularly concerned when the state government keeps 50 per cent of the interest. We're not sure whether that means 50 per cent of the loss or 50 per cent of the profit. We're not sure what that means for old plans to renovate the Riverside theatre and build a high-rise residential tower above it or to the side. We're just not sure what that means. But we have a right to be sceptical.
The arts in Western Sydney are incredibly important to who we are. We are an incredibly diverse community. We speak every language. We have music, art, dance, theatre and film within us from all around the world. We have independent filmmakers who work with companies around the world. If you go to the Riverside on any day, you will see extraordinary dance performances from any culture in the world, and we need to make sure that we are able to develop those art forms in the community in which we live. The benefits are extraordinary if you do that well. We will not be turned into a dormitory where we have residential and nothing else and we will not be turned into simply an audience. We expect to be treated as producers of art and we expect to be resourced for that.
The economy is incredibly important, and a large-scale venue would, of course, bring in money from time to time. But the economy is supposed to serve us, and we can also build our economy not by becoming an audience but by being the strongest producers of content that we can. Content is a key driver of prosperity as the world goes more and more online. You can sell to the entire world from your lounge room now, and this is not the time in any way for the state government, while our council has been abolished, to lessen our capacity to support our Indigenous arts community.
I'm sad to announce that I don't really have a great grievance! I'm more happy than anything this evening. That's because, last Thursday, the Minister for Social Services, Alan Tudge, tabled the final report on the Ceduna and East Kimberley cashless debit card. Wow, what great results! This is really life-transforming policy at work. I've got a long list of people to thank for getting us where we are, but congratulations to the Ceduna community. They have led the nation.
The report is on those two centres, as I said. There were 2,141 participants in total, with 794 of those in Ceduna. The trial was being assessed on three major criteria: reducing the use of alcohol, reducing the use of drugs and reducing gambling. The trial, on those accounts, has been a resounding success. There have been two surveys, the first one six months after the trial began and the second one at the 15-month mark, or nine months later. The first survey was good. The second is better, showing that the change of behaviour is sustained and broadened. It's a very interesting point for all the nay-sayers—and there have been plenty of them—who predicted that, once this cashless debit card became established, we would see sophisticated circumvention of it, that there would be easy and widespread avoidance of the card.
The 15-month report destroys this argument. Forty-one per cent of the participants reported drinking less. That is an outstanding outcome. Only 38 per cent of the participants reported they drink alcohol weekly or more often, which is down from the 63 per cent reported at the six-month survey, which was almost certainly down from the period before the trial began. This is a very large and significant improvement. Forty-eight per cent of the participants reported they use illegal drugs less often than they did previously. I think we need to dwell just a little bit on the impact of both alcohol and drugs on households and what it means for children and what it means normally for women—but it's not a one-way street when it comes to violence and dereliction of duty. But this is the acid that destroys families, quite frankly. I have, as I often say, all the remote Indigenous communities in South Australia on my patch, and, where these things are out of control, they are very, very bad.
It's also very important to note that this cashless debit card is not just about Indigenous disadvantage. It is about the whole community. Failures happen in the white community, the wider community, as well as they do in the Indigenous community. That is why Ceduna as a town has such an important role to play in this trial, because it's not an Indigenous town. Probably about 20 per cent of the population in Ceduna is Indigenous, yes, but the other 80 per cent is not. So it's important that people right across Australia realise this is not just about Indigenous issues; it is about the whole of Australia and this group of people whose lives are out of control and need to be reordered and they need a little bit of help.
Similarly, 48 per cent reported that they are gambling less often. Poker machine revenues are down by 12 per cent across the area, but it comes with a large caveat because only 40 of the 143 poker machines reported on were in the trial area. That information was provided by the South Australian government. Why we can't get better figures, I don't really understand. There is one venue in Ceduna that has 40 poker machines and then the other machines are actually anything up to 200 kilometres away. So if we've got a 12 per cent reduction with only 30 per cent of the poker machines in the trial area, it doesn't take a huge amount of extravagant maths to extrapolate that the impact is probably far higher in the target area—more like a 40 or 50 per cent reduction—so that is a very big change and, for those families who are trapped in that gambling vortex, it changes their lives. Really importantly, 54 per cent of participants spend more than $50 a day on gambling less often than previously. I can't tell you how damaging gambling is, as I have already said. But the problem is, for low-income families, once the money is in the slot, it's gone. It's not available for food, it's not available for clothing and it's not available for rent or electricity. Anything that winds back this unnecessary family expense should be applauded.
There is a more ambiguous message on crime statistics. Apart from drunk driving and public intoxication, general crime has not much changed, but that's a great result anyhow if public intoxication and drunk driving are down. This is a quite important point because the nay-sayers' predictions were that crime would go up because, of course, these people would be deprived of alcohol and drugs and so they'd go on a crime spree to feed their appetite. In fact, that type of serious crime hasn't risen at all so I think that's quite an achievement in itself for those that predicted doom. We haven't had doom. There is no upswing on that side of crime and there is a downswing on those other issues.
There have been lower levels of alcohol-related hospital presentations. Alcohol-related counselling provided by Drug and Alcohol Services SA is presenting a very clear picture of the vastly changed circumstances in the Ceduna area and in the surrounding small communities in the trial area. The qualitative research shows that almost 40 per cent of parents and carers reported they spent more time helping their kids with school and homework. I mean, that just has to be good. That's the kind of thing that really does warm the cockles of my heart, quite frankly, because I know the best path to success for these young children is to get a good education and to be able to interact with the wider world. And where parents are involved, as with many households, it becomes second nature for parents to help their kids.
Unfortunately, there is a group in our society, not just in the Indigenous community, where parents are once again failing in that duty because they're down at the poker machines or in the pub or they are taking drugs. If we take that away from them and they're back engaging with their kids, that's a great result. There's been greater use of public facilities such as BBQs and parks. People are out with their families. The community perception is that violent and antisocial behaviour has fallen significantly. Forty-five per cent say they're now saving money. When you've dealt with this disadvantage—Mr Deputy Speaker Coulton, I know you have a similar cohort in some of your communities—it's quite outstanding that people on welfare are able to save money for when the fridge breaks down or for when the car gets a couple of flat tyres or whatever it might be. This is a very important move forward. Forty per cent report they're better able to care for their children.
A few resisters remain and it's no surprise. They claim to be discriminated against, but I think it's important to focus back on the objectives. Safe homes, particularly for children, are such an important thing. Functional families are such an important thing. I'm reminded of a very powerful message the Prime Minister delivered to us in the joint party room this morning. He said he was in Kalgoorlie last week and met with a community leader, a lady, who said to him, 'Those who oppose this card are wrong. They should look into the eyes of a young child who has been abused and into the eyes of one who lives in a house where drugs, alcohol and violence are the normal course of events.' I think that's a life-changing experience. If you look into their eyes, it will tell you something that the work thus far tells us: this is better than anything we have done before to help these people.
I would like to thank again the community leaders in Ceduna: people like Mick Haynes from the Ceduna Aboriginal Corporation, Corey McLennan from Koonibba Community Aboriginal Corporation, Sharon Yendall from Oak Valley, Wayne Miller, Bobby Larking from Scotdesco, Keith Peters, Mimi Smart, Desley Culpin from Yalata and, especially, the mayor of Ceduna, Allan Suter, who has been instrumental in bringing all parties together. Collectively, they have made this possible and their strength and leadership have produced this result. I said to them at the time, 'We will look back on this day in history and see this as a turning point for Australia.'
Tonight, I rise in the parliament to brief the parliament, but also on behalf of the residents in the Centenary Suburbs of Brisbane, which I proudly represent here, to raise their concerns about the continual problems they face with the NBN rollout. You'd have to be living on the moon to not realise that the NBN rollout in this country is in crisis. This was made abundantly clear to me by residents in my own community last Tuesday night when almost 300 people from the Centenary Suburbs packed out the Jindalee Bowls Club for the second of my NBN crisis meetings.
Local residents are angry. They are frustrated, and they are fed up with this government's second-rate, second-class, failed NBN rollout. They've simply had enough. They want answers and they want problems fixed. They're sick and tired of the blame game. They're sick and tired of the ping-pong between Telstra, the service provider and NBN. They're sick and tired of no-one taking their issues seriously. As their representative in this parliament, I take their concerns very, very seriously. I only wish that NBN Co and this government would also take their concerns very seriously.
As I said, the crisis meeting was held because local residents, who I represent, are at breaking point. I was really pleased to be joined by the shadow minister for regional communications, the Hon. Stephen Jones, and the local Labor candidate for the state seat of Mount Ommaney, Jess Pugh. We were able to hear from dozens of residents about their NBN horror stories. I did invite Telstra and Optus to attend. Sadly, they declined to meet with their customers. I invited NBN Co, and I pay tribute to the officers who attended and heard the responses from a large, angry crowd. We heard from a resident who has been forced to buy and install their own cabling just to get a connection. We heard from a resident who has had 18 missed appointments with NBN technicians to install a connection. These missed connections are part of the 82,000 appointments missed by NBN technicians in the last year alone—in one year gone by, 82,000 missed appointments by NBN Co. We heard from a resident whose access to the internet and phone services has simply been cut off.
The NBN is in crisis. Anyone who doesn't think so and any of those members opposite in the government who continually get up and say, 'There's no problems with the NBN; it's fine,' needs to fly to Brisbane. And the minister needs to get out of Canberra, come to my electorate, talk to businesses and look them in the eye. Some are looking at closure and moving jobs offshore, out of Australia, because of the blame game between NBN Co and the retail service providers to provide a reliable internet connection.
I was on site last week with a business in the Sumner Park estate in my electorate. I met with the owners, their staff and the manager for the body corporate who owns the building. They are at a point where, I'm advised today, their head office is looking at moving the company overseas. We should not be losing businesses. Forget my electorate—we need to keep them in Australia. They are so frustrated with not being able to connect to the NBN that they are now at the point where they are going to lose jobs. Surely the government has to take this seriously. The NBN issue is not just about Netflix; it is not just about Facebook. This is about Australia's economic credibility, and we are failing. We are falling further and further behind the rest of the world. The latest data shows that, on internet speeds, Australia is ranked 50th in the world—behind Kenya, Sri Lanka and the Deputy Prime Minister's friends across the ditch in New Zealand, whose average speed increased by 40 per cent in the first quarter of this year to rank 27th in the world.
Residents are sick and tired of the blame game. That is why I wrote to the Prime Minister seeking a meeting to find a resolution to this mess. I know that the Prime Minister has a lot on his plate, so I then wrote to the communications minister. Both of them have refused to meet with me as one of the representatives in this place. The Prime Minister does not want to talk; he wants to bury his head in the sand. But let me be very clear: the government will pay a huge price if it does not start engaging with the community on this issue. My residents will not accept it and I will not accept it. That is why I want to get on with the job of fixing this mess.
I have written to the CEOs of Telstra and Optus and to the CEO of NBN Co, Bill Morrow. Through the media, he has said he wants to improve service times and look at customer satisfaction. I have invited Mr Morrow to come to Brisbane to meet with stakeholders—a round table that we have set up with residents who have come out to the crisis meetings—to sit with businesses and residents and to hear from them firsthand. I do not think NBN Co is doing enough outreach into the community. I have not heard back from Mr Morrow, but I will be following that up. If he doesn't want to come out and meet with residents, he can Skype in. We can use telecommunications to bring him in—as long as the NBN is okay in the area where we do the meeting. I need NBN Co to hear that message.
I gave a commitment to residents that I would be raising this in the parliament this week. I met residents at a mobile office last week, at a street meeting in a Springfield, who have no internet, no phone line and no explanation for months at a time. They are not even on the rollout map at the moment. And we certainly cannot have businesses moving offshore. We cannot have residents in Westlake, Jindalee, Mount Ommaney, Sumner and Sinnamon Park suffering because of this government's failed NBN rollout. I again call on the government to put a stop to this mess and start working with residents to address this unacceptable situation. Coverage of this issue in my local papers goes on and on: 'Dropouts, delays spur follow-up NBN crisis meeting', 'Meeting to air NBN fail concerns', 'Vital meeting to address NBN crisis' and 'Residents raging over NBN'. A front-page story on the Southwest News back in May says it all. It has a couple at Springfield and the headline 'Stranded'. This is a couple who are trying to run a business from home, and someone in that family is trying to do a master's degree online. They are at breaking point. They have had so many issues with the NBN that they have now resorted to using the wi-fi at McDonald's at night to complete their studies and do the basic paperwork for their business. No-one in this parliament would see that as acceptable. No-one would think that in a country like Australia we would treat residents like that.
The feedback was very clear from the residents I met with last week. It was a very respectful meeting but very constructive. I was interviewed about the meeting on the ABC next morning and it was really clear to the residents across Brisbane that local residents in south-west Brisbane do not expect favourable treatment; they just want a fair go from a $49 billion piece of taxpayer infrastructure that is being rolled out across Australia. Let's remember that this is taxpayers' money. The residents I represent, who faithfully and loyally pay their taxes to the government, expect a better deal from NBN Co. They also expect a much better deal from the telecommunications companies.
We need to have a serious discussion, and I will be working alongside the shadow minister for communications, Michelle Rowland, the shadow regional communications minister, Stephen Jones, and, of course, our leadership team, to look at a new way of putting pressure on the telcos to make sure they're doing their bit to honour their customer service obligations and to make sure that, when a customer turns to them for help, they receive the help and we don't see examples like that of a customer from Westlake in my electorate who had to wait eight times for someone to turn up. That person's got to take time off work. They may miss a shift at work. They may miss study time. There's no compensation for that person who has to give up a day's wages or a week's wages simply because they want access to the National Broadband Network.
Once again, I'll continue to speak out for my residents and make sure that their voices are heard, but, more importantly, I'll keep working with the NBN Co and with these telecommunications companies to lift the access to broadband for the south-west of Brisbane and, indeed, for every resident in this country.
I rise to reflect not just on the tragedy of the deaths at the Gold Coast theme park Dreamworld but also on the challenges the industry has had moving forward, growing and getting back on its feet, and reflect on some of the challenges that local businesses are feeling and experiencing. As we know, quite a number of months ago, four people were tragically killed at Dreamworld on one of the rides. It was a freak accident, an accident that has not been able to be replicated, on a ride that had had over 30 million people go through it. But it was a tragic accident, nonetheless. It was the darkest day for Dreamworld in its 30-year history and it cost the lives of Canberra visitors Kate Goodchild, 32, her brother, Luke Dorsett, 35, his partner, Ruzbeh Aragi, 38, and Sydney's Cindy Low, 42.
The theme parks are struggling to move on from that. Substantial safety audits have occurred right across the Gold Coast theme parks, at Dreamworld, Wet'n'Wild, Movie World, Sea World, Paradise Country—and the list goes on. What we've seen from all of those safety audits is that we have some of the safest theme parks now in the world. But, unfortunately, tragedies like that remain strong in people's minds. Visitor numbers are down 36.7 per cent on the corresponding period in the last little while at Dreamworld alone. Unaudited revenue is down 34.3 per cent. For the theme park Movie World, a $43.9 million profit in 2014-15 dropped to a $15.7 million profit in 2015-16. In the financial year just passed, it was a staggering $67 million loss—not at Dreamworld but at Movie World. These are challenging times for the biggest employers on the Gold Coast.
The Gold Coast is an incredible place, an extraordinary place. People like to give us a hard time, talking about white shoes and the like—those who've come from Sydney! But remember that in the 1954 census the Gold Coast had 19,000 people. Today it has over 600,000. It is the fastest-growing city in the nation. My electorate, on the northern Gold Coast, is the fastest-growing electorate in the country. I'm just about to mail out to 3,000 new voters to say, 'Hey, welcome,' because of the growth in Coomera, Pimpama and the northern areas. It's a city that's built on the beach, it's built on tourism, it's built on theme parks and it's built on fun. The Gold Coast is a place to come for fun. The theme parks are the biggest employers. There is no corporate industry. There are no government departments. There's no heavy manufacturing. When Dreamworld and Movie World employ over 1,000 people, it puts them in the top 5 employers. You need to go to the Queensland state department of health to find a bigger employer. Tourism is a lifeblood of the coast and the tragedy we saw happen at Dreamworld has affected it.
My great plea to our nation is: continue to turn up to the Gold Coast as the place of fun. Spring is upon us and we're moving into summer. We've had a glorious winter on the Gold Coast. I dreaded coming to Canberra with its temperatures of below 10 degrees when on the Gold Coast you can hang out at the beach at the beginning of July in temperatures of 20 degrees plus. The Gold Coast is a glorious part of the world to come to.
Part of the growth coming through in the Gold Coast has to be from inbound tourists. I took this up with the Speaker in China recently. We sat down in the Great Hall of the People and had a very straight dialogue with Zhang Dejiang, who is the head of the National People's Congress, and No. 3 in the Politburo Standing Committee, and I made the point to him and his senior Chinese government officials that there are 154 flights coming from China into Australia each week; that needs to double. We need greater inbound tourism numbers. Last year, 1.2 million Chinese came and visited Australia, but 455,000 Australians visited China. If we took population on par and looked at visitor numbers per capita, the Chinese would need to have 18 million visitors coming to Australia per annum to match, on a per capita basis, our 455,000 Australian visitors going to China. We need to double the number of Chinese tourists coming to Australia, especially to the Gold Coast.
There are 157,000 Chinese students studying in Australia. Education is one of our great export earners. Again, we need to look to double that, to bring that source of wealth into Australia. We are a great nation that can educate and train young people, especially young Chinese people.
Currently Chinese visitors to Movie World account for eight per cent of those going through the turnstiles. We need to double that.
Tourism is the lifeblood of the Gold Coast. The Gold Coast also happens to be the small business capital of the nation, per capita, because lots of people come to the Gold Coast to retire, for a change of life, a sea change, and get involved to some degree in some type of small business. It is an extraordinarily eclectic city. But we need to build those tourism numbers coming through, especially when it comes to inbound tourists from overseas, especially from Asia.
Can I say publicly: I back the mayor's push for a cruise ship terminal on the Gold Coast. I am agnostic as to where it should go. There are people better qualified than anyone here to determine where one should build a cruise ship terminal. But the idea that the Gold Coast doesn't have a cruise ship terminal is unacceptable. We need to get one. We need to get an anchor tenant—a great cruise ship company that can come and anchor itself at the Gold Coast. Shanghai can now home-port four vessels. Sure, it's a city with a population of 25 million people, but it's not a city with a prowess when it comes to cruising. So surely the Gold Coast can do this.
It's this sort of vision that the mayor is driving now that we need to embrace and grow. We need to look at the next series of projects for the Gold Coast, post the Commonwealth Games. The next major sporting event globally will be the Commonwealth Games. All eyes will be on the Gold Coast, and it's a great Australian city for all eyes to be on. But vision is about looking five and 10 years forward and developing our city, making it livable, making it as high-tech as it can possibly be, and growing its source of economic life, of which tourism is a big part.
So can I reach out across our country and talk up the merits of my great city on the Gold Coast, the theme-park capital of the nation. New rides are coming in. Next month, Movie World will open the HyperCoaster—over $30 million worth of investment; a ride of over a kilometre in length; the only HyperCoaster of this size in the Southern Hemisphere. These companies—Ardent Leisure, through Dreamworld; Village Roadshow, through Movie World, Sea World and Wet'n'Wild—are investing. Wet'n'Wild is something like the seventh or eighth largest water-park in the world. They are investing in terms of fun. The Gold Coast is the capital of fun.
Can I encourage everyone holidaying to come along and get involved at some of the safest theme parks, now, in the world. We don't hide from tragedy. We acknowledge it. But we build on it, develop from it and ensure that the great places of fun can continue to be that, not just for Australian citizens but for the world's tourists.
The time for the grievance debate has expired. The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192B. The debate is adjourned and resumption of the debate will be made an order for the next day of sitting.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 19: 30