I rise to speak in response to an order passed by the Senate yesterday in relation to the production of documents and information related to the business case supporting the federal investment into the very important Perth Freight Link project. As Senator McGrath pointed out to the Senate yesterday, the Senate has previously passed orders for the production of documents related to the Perth Freight Link business case and the cost-benefit analysis, which is part of the business case, on five occasions. The Senate also passed an order on 12 November 2015 seeking the modelling and forecasting of freight figures, as well as peer reviews undertaken of freight figures. That motion also implicitly related to material relevant to the business case.
In response to those orders the government has provided all the information and all the documents that it could provide without harm to the public interest. The information and documents not provided in response to all these Senate orders in relation to the Perth Freight Link documents were either cabinet-in-confidence documents for the WA state government or contained information that is commercial and sensitive in nature. If they were released in a full and unredacted form they would prejudice commercial negotiations and/or would potentially damage the relations between the Commonwealth and a state government, namely the Western Australian state government.
On each occasion and as required under the Senate standing orders, other orders and conventions of the Senate, the government pointed to the public harm which would be caused by the release of relevant information and pointed to the public interest immunity grant that was claimed. Importantly, Senator McGrath yesterday tabled all of the information and all of the documents that the government has previously provided, which is the full extent of the information that the government can provide in relation to these matters. Importantly, the public interest immunity grant that the government relies on here has long been recognised by the Senate to justify the refusal to publicly release certain information and documents. In particular in this context, it is important to note that the release of the documents sought in an unredacted fashion could prejudice the settlement of the contract for section 2 of the Perth Freight Link project—or Roe 9 as it is described by the WA state government—which is not yet contracted.
We have, of course, previously released the summary of the business case in relation to the Perth Freight Link project, which was publicly released all the way back in December 2014, and further information on the project has been subsequently released by the WA government. The business case summary contains a substantial portion of key information from the business case, which was also tabled by Senator McGrath yesterday.
The reason we are having this conversation in the Senate today is because the Greens do not like roads. The Greens do not like the Perth Freight Link project—we get it. The Greens do not like Western Australia going forward. The Greens do not like the Western Australian economy being enhanced through productivity enhancing infrastructure to ensure we can reduce the cost of moving freight across Western Australia—a key trading state for our nation—reduce congestion on key arterial roads across the south metropolitan area of Perth, improve safety and generally improve the amenity for communities across the south metropolitan area of Perth. I do not have any problem with the fact that the Greens do not like roads and want to stand in the way of important investment in better roads and better infrastructure that can continue to grow a stronger and more prosperous economy where families across Australia, and in particular in Western Australia, can get ahead. They are entitled to do that in a democracy, but they are out of step with public opinion. Of course the Greens know this, which is why they are using every procedural and other trick in the book to stand in the way of this very important project, which has been independently identified by none other than Infrastructure Australia—which was established by the Labor Party in government—as one of the highest infrastructure project priorities in the country. It is an incredibly important project. It is a project that is supported by the overwhelming majority of Western Australians. Senator Ludlam knows this. He does not like it and he ignores it, but the truth is that Western Australians support the Perth Freight Link project. I point you to an article in The Sunday Times by their state political editor Joe Spagnolo in October last year when he reported this very important information. In his article he wrote:
THE vast majority of West Australians support the State Government’s … Roe 8 project, the WA Speaks survey reveals.
This was not just a survey of a couple of hundred people; this was a survey of 9,000 people. Nine thousand Western Australians have spoken and the Greens again are refusing to listen because of their ideological hatred of investment in road infrastructure.
What did this survey of 9,000 Western Australians find? If found that 60 per cent of Western Australians support the Roe Highway extension through Beeliar Wetlands and the Perth Freight Link to Fremantle. Let me not exaggerate—59.8 per cent, so just under 60 per cent, of Western Australians support this very important project and the $1.2 billion federal investment in this very important project. You might wonder if nearly 60 per cent of Western Australians support it how many are opposed to it. How many do you think? Just over 10 per cent. Thirty per cent were unsure. So 60 per cent are in favour, 30 per cent are unsure and 10 per cent are opposed—these are of course the people that the Greens are holding the Senate up for because of their ideological hatred of important investment in road infrastructure.
The Turnbull government are very proud of our record investment nationally in productivity-enhancing, economy-growing infrastructure. We are very proud of the most significant infrastructure investment in the history of Western Australia that any Commonwealth government has ever made in a single infrastructure project—namely, $1.2 billion in the Perth Freight Link project.
Senator Sterle, sadly, has left. Senator Sterle back when he used to be a supporter of the WA trucking industry actually used to be a very strong supporter of the Roe 8 and Roe 9 highway extensions to Fremantle because he could see the benefits to the trucking industry when it came to moving freight at a lower cost and more safely. The Perth Freight Link project literally will save lives. Senator Sterle used to know this. He used to get stuck into the then infrastructure minister in WA, Alannah MacTiernan. He used to come into the Senate and cry blue murder and call her all sorts of names for not supporting this critically important project.
Of course there has been a lot of misinformation spread, particularly across Fremantle and the south metropolitan area, by the Greens, particularly by Senator Ludlam, when it comes to this important project. So in order to restore the balance on this, having been given this opportunity to talk about this critically important project of national significance in Western Australia, I want to inform the Senate of some facts about the Roe 8 and 9 extensions, which are part of the Perth Freight Link.
My good friend and valued colleague the member for Tangney, Ben Morton, has provided a lot of very good information to communities across the south metropolitan region by essentially providing some facts that were circulated by the Fremantle Herald, the Melville City Herald and the Examiner. I will take you through some of the key information that is highly relevant to the debate that we are having here today. Firstly, Roe 8 and 9 are recognised by Infrastructure Australia as being part of one of the highest transport priorities in the nation.
Building Roe 8 and 9 will create up to 10,000 direct and indirect jobs. When we talked to the state government in Western Australia back in 2014 about this important project we knew we had to deal with the transition in the economy, that we had to deal with the wind down of the mining construction boom, that there would be a need to fill the gap with some other activity and that there would be an opportunity, because of the wind down in the mining construction boom with lower prices of construction, to invest in this sort of long-overdue, generational road infrastructure because we would be able to deliver it at a much lower cost than we otherwise would be able to. That is why back in 2014 we said to the state government: 'We are prepared to partner with you. We are prepared to fund 80 per cent of the government's contribution in relation to this very important project of national significance in Western Australia. We want to take advantage of the window of opportunity where construction activity across Western Australia is less than what it was, where the cost of construction is less than what it was, where we can invest in our future economic prosperity and where we can invest in our future capacity as a trading nation to get our product to market and get products from other markets moved around the Perth metropolitan area in the most efficient way possible.'
Of course the majority of traffic on Roe 8 and 9 will be cars as it provides freeway access east and west across our city to places like Perth Airport, Fiona Stanley Hospital, St John of God Hospital and Murdoch University. Previous Labor state governments in Western Australia never had any plans on how to deal with all of the traffic volume on and off the Kwinana Freeway into the Fiona Stanley Hospital. It was a complete and blatant oversight that needs to be addressed and will be addressed through this project. Roe 8 and 9 will be a free-flowing highway saving 12½ minutes in travel time between the Kwinana Freeway and Fremantle. Roe 8 and 9, importantly, will bypass 14 sets of traffic lights on Leach Highway and Stock Road, creating a safer road environment for all road users.
The last two points I have mentioned are the precise reasons why the trucking industry in Western Australia is so supportive of this project, despite the project being part financed by a freight charge. So the trucking industry in Western Australia has agreed to contribute to the cost of this project by essentially paying a toll which would apply only to trucks, not to private cars. It would apply only to trucks, because they will not have to do the stop-start that is happening at the moment with heavy loads—stop-start, which of course is very inefficient and expensive in terms of the use of the brakes and other aspects of the trucks. They will be able to have a clearer run, they will be able to cut their time, they will be able to get the products to market faster, and at a lower cost, more safely and with less wear and tear on their most important asset: their truck.
There was a second very important piece of factual information that the member for Tangney, Ben Morton, provided to communities in my home state of Western Australia, and that is the fact that the Roe 8 project is leading the way in environmental design and construction—
How can you keep a straight face?
leading the way in environmental design and construction. We have Senator Ludlam here wanting to hold up this $1.2 billion project of national significance in our home state of Western Australia because he hates roads and because, he tells us, he is so passionate about the Beeliar Wetlands. But here are the facts. How much of the Beeliar Wetlands do you think is impacted by the Roe highway extension? It is 0.49 per cent—0.49 per cent of the Beeliar Wetlands is impacted by the construction of the Roe 8 extension. Of course, this is not about facts! For the Labor Party, it is about a religious hatred of roads. I get that; we just have to agree to disagree. But do not come into this chamber and hold up the business of the nation for your ideological little vendettas. Just because you are not getting your way, just because the people of Western Australia have rejected your outdated and ideological views, is not a good enough reason for you to come into the Senate and hold up the business of the nation.
Let me continue. Over 1,000 hectares of high-quality conservation land has been acquired as offsets. So, No. 1, just 0.49 per cent of the entire Beeliar Wetlands is impacted by the Roe 8 highway extension. Over 1,000 hectares of high-quality conservation land has been acquired as offsets. And listen to this. The Labor party and the Greens kept telling us that they are interested in emissions reductions, in policies to reduce emissions. Guess what? When you stop forcing trucks to stop and start at 14 traffic lights, do you know what the effect of that is? Do you know what the effect of smoother traffic with freight, going to Fremantle port, is? It leads to a reduction in carbon emissions. In fact, this has been quantified. Roe 8 and Roe 9 are expected to save—to save—450,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2031. Now, I would have thought that the Greens would be marching in the streets for us to put that money into—
Senator Pratt interjecting—
I would have thought the Greens would be marching in the streets to urge the government to get on with it, to get the Perth Freight Link built, to get the tunnel built, to get the Perth Freight Link finalised as quickly as possible so we can start reducing carbon emissions.
Let me continue. More than $45 million has been invested in Roe 8 to specifically accommodate environmental sensitivities and to provide better recreational access. We have bent over backwards, both the federal government and the state government, to ensure that this is a world-leading project when it comes to environmental design and construction. The construction is on land already partly cleared for overhead power lines, to minimise the environmental footprint. The state government in Western Australia is pursuing a restoration program at North Lake and Horse Paddock Swamp, including revegetation of degraded areas and weed control. Grass trees, zamia palms, melaleuca, Western Australian Christmas trees and native animals have been relocated. Wetlands bridges over Roe Swamp and Horse Paddock Swamp will maintain ecological connections for native animals. Top-down construction will minimise the clearing footprint.
These are all pieces of information that of course the Greens do not care about. Senator Ludlam comes into the Senate, holds up the business of the Senate, saying, 'I want to see the full, unredacted business case,' even though he knows it would do commercial harm—
It is the Senate that has made that request, not Senator Ludlam.
to the people of Western Australia—not because he is actually interested in information. That business case could reveal that this would lead to 10 per cent economic growth in Australia, and Senator Ludlam which still be opposed. There is no amount of economic benefit that would convince Senator Ludlam that this is a good project. But what shocks me is that the Labor Party, who used to be much more sensible than this, yet again in pursuit of Greens preferences in the inner-city seats of Western Australia and around Australia, is absolutely selling out the workers and selling out communities in suburbs of Perth in the pursuit of Green preferences. I expect this sort of garbage from the Greens, but I did not expect it from the Labor Party. And, back when Senator Sterle used to stand up for truckies in Western Australia, he was a strong advocate for this project.
Let me just finalise by making this point again: building Roe 8 and 9, the Perth Freight Link project, will mean fewer trucks and cars and fewer accidents on local roads, including Leach Highway, Farrington Road, South Street, Stock Road, North Lake Road, Beeliar Drive. Building Roe 8 and 9, the Perth Freight Link will mean free-flowing highway access east and west across our city to places including Perth Airport, Fiona Stanley Hospital, Murdoch University and Fremantle port.
Do you know what else it will do, Madam Deputy President? It will improve the value of residential properties across that whole south metropolitan area because, by removing the trucks from these arterial roads, by removing the congestion, by improving the amenity across the south metropolitan region through this record $1.2 billion federal investment in the great state of Western Australia, we actually will be contributing to a general lift across the area which will also be reflected in the property prices in this area. That is something that was confirmed by work commissioned by the state government of Western Australia which has been publicly released in full.
I will finish where I started. Senator Ludlam can come into this Senate and get the Labor Party to agree to 20 more audits. It will not change the fact that governments of both political persuasions, including the Labor government—
And you won't comply with an order of the Senate.
Senator Pratt, I used to be on your side. Do you know what? We are providing much more information than your government ever did. We are providing explanations. When we do not provide information because it is not in the public interest to do so, we explain the public harm that would be caused by the release of that information and we point to a specific public interest immunity ground as to why we are not releasing certain information. The then Treasurer Wayne Swan never did us that courtesy, ever. He never did us that courtesy, ever. I could give you a conga line of Labor ministers in the Rudd and Gillard governments, supported and backed up by the Greens, who always folded when it came to a head, who always folded in the face of Labor ministers, on things like the mining tax and the carbon tax. The Greens would be side by side with us in opposition, saying, 'We need more information.' When it came to the crux, when it came to the pointy end, when it came to putting something behind it, when it came to a proposal that I put to Senator Brown, who was the leader of the Greens at the time, that as a Senate we should refuse to deal with the mining tax legislation until such time as the government complied with providing relevant information, he went to water. Of course, everything that we predicted in relation to that particular tax in the lead-up to it being legislated, with the support of the Greens, has ultimately come true.
The Greens will never like the Perth Freight Link project. It could be objectively identified with a PhD thesis going over 1,000 pages explaining why this is the best thing that has ever happened in infrastructure in Western Australia and still Senator Ludlam would not be supporting it. So this is just a complete waste of the Senate's time. We know why the Labor Party is supporting this. The Labor Party in Western Australia is quite desperate for Greens preferences in these inner city areas of Perth. They are very scared of the Greens, and that is of course why they come here, into the Senate, quite weak and support an outrageous motion like this.
It is consistent with the practice of governments of both political persuasions. We as a government have provided as much information in response to all of these orders as we can. We are not in a position to provide the additional unredacted information that was sought by the order of the Senate yesterday, and that is because it would impose commercial harm on Australia. It would also harm relations between the Commonwealth and a state government—namely, the state government of Western Australia. Some of the information that has been sought in these various orders is not information that is our information. They are WA government cabinet-in-confidence documents. I am sure that even the Labor Party would agree that it would not be appropriate for a federal government to release cabinet-in-confidence information that is actually owned by the Western Australia government.
I table the document that I quoted from in relation to the factual information circulated in Western Australia.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the explanation just attempted by Senator Cormann.
Yesterday the Senate resolved that if Senator Mathias Cormann did not lay key documents on the table relating to the $2 billion Roe Highway disaster in Perth that he would be required to attend the chamber at this time to provide an explanation for his failure to do so. It is the first time in recent memory, certainly the first time since I have been here, that the Senate has raised the stakes in this way. Anyone who has been in the chamber for more than a few weeks will know that orders for the production of documents are an essential, practical tool of transparency.
The Greens have an undertaking to our colleagues on the crossbenches and the opposition that unless there are unusual circumstances we will generally support them in requesting documents from the government, whether it is something that we are personally interested in or not. In my view, it is part of the Senate's job to do this. If you go to the Hansard you will see that we supported numerous Liberal and National Party orders when they were in opposition. You can spend a year getting snowed in the labyrinth of freedom of information obstruction or you can come in here and order that things be tabled on much shorter deadlines—obviously, within reason.
When I first showed up here in 2008, I remember it being a pretty big deal for a government to defy such an order. Governments either handed material over or they provided a compelling reason why it was not in the public interest to do so, or they copped the consequences. In the New South Wales parliament, they have had a mechanism for many years where, in the event of a stand-off between the parliament and a minister, an independent arbiter would be called on to determine if the minister's excuse was valid or not—and it works. Ministers know that if their public interest excuse is watertight they will have an independent umpire who will back them up. The parliament knows that there is an independent check and balance in the system to prevent the kind of abuse of process that we are bearing witness to today. I hope that Senator Rhiannon will go into more detail about how this worked in the New South Wales context.
In 2010 Senators Brown and Milne and the member for Melbourne Adam Bandt got agreement from Ms Julia Gillard to introduce such a mechanism into the Senate, and two years later the Labor Party formally reneged. I can remember at the time that one of my fiercest allies in the quest to hold the government to their agreement was none other than Senator Mathias Cormann. This is what he said in 2009:
I am sincerely shocked at how quickly this government have turned into a secretive government—
I am not going to try and do the accent, but these are his words—
I am shocked at the long and detailed presentation we have just had from the government, which essentially sums up one thing: they are running scared from openness, transparency and public accountability. This runs counter to everything they have said not only before the last election but also since. I will quote … a statement made by Senator John Faulkner at a recent conference. The speech, entitled ‘Open and transparent government—the way forward’, was made at Australia’s Right to Know, Freedom of Speech Conference. He said:
… the best safeguard against ill-informed public judgement is not concealment but information. As Abraham Lincoln said: ‘Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe.’
That is a bit of a Russian doll of a quote—I apologise. For Hansard's benefit, that is Senator Cormann quoting Senator Faulkner quoting Abraham Lincoln. So the Senate has no recourse to an independent umpire. There is no-one we can go to to check the validity of the kind of claims that Senator Cormann is asking us to trust him on. The reason we do not have such an umpire is that Senator Cormann's crusade for such an office mysteriously evaporated right after the Liberal-National Party won government.
In the absence of such an umpire the Senate has to figure out the consequences it believes are appropriate. To give you one example, when Senator Minchin was communications minister we supported him in sanctioning Senator Stephen Conroy over key reports relating to the NBN. After Senator Conroy had defied a number of these Senate orders to produce documents, the Senate determined by majority that it would not deal with any legislation in his portfolio until he fronted up. Months later, we got a lot more than the minister was initially willing to hand over. In other words, it was worth raising the stakes. But it is a very long time since the Senate has asserted itself in this way and in the meantime standards of transparency and accountability have fallen apart. I cannot remember a time when such casual contempt has been shown to the Senate and to its role, to the crossbench and to the opposition, who hold a majority in here and are sent here to do a job.
What happened to Senator Cormann? Where is our transparency warrior today? For the benefit of those listening on the broadcast, he has left the room. Today marks the seventh time that the minister has defied Senate order drafted in various ways demanding disclosure on this $2 billion dead dog of a project. For senators not from Western Australia you probably know what I am referring to: $1.2 billion of your taxes are going to fund an environmental obscenity. The Western Australian community have every right to believe that the minister this morning was abusing his position and the very principles of public interest that he fought so hard in favour for when he was in opposition. Release the full business case and release the cost-benefit analysis. Otherwise, we have to assume that you are hiding something.
Senator Cormann made reference to the fact that the top-line figures for this project had, in fact, been released, and he is quite right. There is a summary of the business case in the public domain. There is a summary of the cost-benefit analysis in the public domain. But we know what is actually going on here. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the 'roads are good for the environment; roads are good for mental health' Prime Minister—these are direct quotes, believe it or not—as part of his big push to be the infrastructure-concrete-through-wetlands Prime Minister, introduced three road projects, I think effectively, on the same day: WestConnex, East West Link and the Roe Highway extension.
He basically came out and said, 'No work's been done on these things, but the Commonwealth will be funding them because I am the concrete-pouring Prime Minister. I am the infrastructure Prime Minister.' Then it was basically left to the infrastructure department and the state main roads departments' planning authorities to retrospectively justify these disastrous projects. It was a complete perversion of due process, and that happened in three states at the same time. Our Victorian colleagues managed to checkmate theirs. Our New South Wales colleagues are well on their way to checkmating theirs. In fact, in Victoria that project cost the Napthine government office. In Western Australia we are 3½ weeks away from seeing an eerily similar repeat of the same debacle, where this ghost project introduced by Tony Abbott that has had its head severed but is still shambling along like a zombie—a $2 billion zombie—apparently can only be stopped by an election. That is our task in the next 3½ weeks.
What happens is we get these top-line figures that Senator Cormann dances in here with, and maybe Senator Back, who is in the chamber, will give us some information from those as well. What we are asked to do is simply trust the top-line figures. We are asked to trust the government and the analysts who rapidly and hastily did this work to justify the pre-emptive announcement by Prime Minister Abbott and Premier Colin Barnett. 'Trust us,' says Senator Cormann, 'the cost-benefit analysis stacks up. Trust us, the business case stacks up.' We know from consultants, whistleblowers and people who have worked on these things that the numbers do not stack up. That is the reason why Senator Cormann cannot release them. That is why they are not being put into the public domain, because the numbers do not stack up. Of course they do not, because Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced these projects without the due diligence having been done.
The Labor Party, to their credit, when they were in government introduced this thing called Infrastructure Australia that created the first instance of an arms-length assessment process between a proponent and consolidated revenue, so that you would not just get National Party MPs stamping around out in their electorates announcing freeway projects, bridges, tunnels and ports willy-nillly.
As one of their first acts with Tony Abbott as Prime Minister the government reversed this process. You have these prime ministerial announcements. He gets to hang out in a fluoro vest and a hard hat for the TV cameras, announcing roads that everybody else then has to go away and try and justify. That is why they are not putting this material into the public domain.
You have these black box projects where contractors are invited to submit their bids and at that point everything disappears into this shroud of commercial-in-confidence. That is what happens. That is the other justification. What we were told was, 'While this tender process is live,'—this was that excuse from a year ago—'we are not going to release any of the information. You cannot have the business case or the CBA because that will prejudice commercial negotiations.' That is commercial-in-confidence. Personally, I was of the view at the time, and we were backed up by a majority of the Senate, that that was garbage. You redact the documents and you put them into the public domain.
The fact is it is not out for tender. Leighton won. They got wonderful value for money for their $700,000 worth of donations to the Liberal-National Party. They got the gig. We have no idea why they got the gig, but they did. So you would have thought that argument of commercial confidentiality has been wiped away. There is no possibility that an independent arbiter, if we had one in the Senate to break these deadlocks, would uphold the minister's contention that because some tender process finished up six months ago they cannot put the primary information into the public domain so that people can analyse it. Yet that is effectively what Minister Cormann just did, and I presume his colleagues are going to back him in, to stand up and say, 'You just have to trust us. It is all commercial-in-confidence.'
They are going to do that to stage 2. Former state transport minister Dean Nalder, who is gone not forgotten—he is not particularly missed either—was pushing for a tunnel under Stock Road which would cost another $600 million, $700 million or $800 million. Presumably when Labor, Independent and Greens senators and our state parliamentary colleagues try to figure out where the exhaust stacks taking carcinogenic pollution from this hideously expensive tunnel and venting it into suburban areas are going to be we will be told, 'That is commercial-in-confidence,' as well. It is obscene, but that is what we are faced with.
You will be aware that there are two key arguments against this project—there are a great many more than two, but there are two key ones that I want to focus on today. Firstly, it does not have to happen. Work that was done under the Court state Liberal government in the 1990s identified that we were going at some stage to need an overflow port in Cockburn Sound. That work was picked up and run with by the state Labor government for a period of years. A whole heap of due diligence has been done that we would have thought had cross-party support by now: that the container port in Fremantle Harbour is approaching capacity—not just the laydown areas in the container yards but in fact the approach roads—and at some point you are going to need to take either container traffic or bulk freight into Cockburn Sound, into the industrial area, which has great road links and rail links with Kewdale industrial area and the airport; and that that really is where we should be starting to move our freight task to. Fremantle stays as a working port, but the overflow traffic, particularly either the container traffic or the bulk freight goes down to Cockburn Sound. All of that work had been done, which means that really that project should be moved forward for a proper environmental impact assessment. In the Senate here we, we do not get to just stand here and say that it should go ahead. What we are saying is that that is a live option that should be investigated and submitted for environmental impact assessment. But no. The government, on the zombie commitment of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, is determined to push ahead, and now it is going to cost the Barnett government office. That is a determination and a commitment that we make in here today.
The other issue, obviously, is that the project is an environmental and Aboriginal heritage obscenity. This is four lanes, or possibly six or eight lanes, of tarmac—we are not even sure how big this thing is eventually going to get—pushing through wetlands and an incredibly important Aboriginal heritage area—40,000 or 50,000 years of continuous occupation of the Swan coastal plain. I am not in here to speak for the Aboriginal mob; they have been speaking for themselves at events that we have been to and in the courts. In here we have had delegations, and we have had people who have stood up with a great deal of determination to make their case against destroying sites in this way. It is a one-two punch from the state and the Commonwealth. The Barnett government deregisters sacred sites that have been on the statute books for decades. Then the Commonwealth government writes out a billion-dollar cheque to cover them in asphalt. It is absolutely obscene.
You always know that you are going to get done over in one of these things when the proponent—in this case the main roads department—boasts of stringent conditions that the project will be subjected to. We have observed, and campaigners on the ground doing the job that should have been done by state and federal environmental compliance officers have observed, literally hundreds of breaches of environmental conditions. Fifty-three of them are recorded with photographic evidence in a letter that I have here today, which has been sent to Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg, and what I might do—because I am going to refer to it briefly, and it has been to the government and opposition whips—is seek leave to table that correspondence now, and then I can refer to it and other senators will have it.
Leave not granted.
Well, that is remarkable. I presume that that was not from the Labor side. I believe that leave was denied from the government side. Senator Fifield, you live a long way from Western Australia. I would have thought you would appreciate having the evidence to hand. That letter has gone to Minister Frydenberg, and what it does is identify an extraordinary pattern of noncompliance with the very environmental conditions that, we were promised, would lead to the kind of world's best practice that Senator Cormann was going on about a short time ago. But guess what: we have been advised that the senior compliance manager at the EPA, the state environmental watchdog, has stated that the agency does not have the power to suspend works no matter how serious the breaches of ministerial conditions may be. No matter how serious the breaches are, the state government does not have the power to stop work. So why the hell do we bother? Why do we bother with state environmental law? The reason that we bother—the reason that governments keep these fig leaves around them—is so that they can wave around these lists of stringent conditions, and they are being violated by the dozens and by the hundreds every single day on the ground. We know that this is occurring, because it is being documented.
This letter—if the government senators had done me the courtesy, after we tipped them off, to actually be faced with the evidence; I understand why you would be a bit unwilling to do that—has 18 pages of evidence. We outline 53 very clear, photographically backed up breaches of the ministerial conditions that Minister Frydenberg believes are guiding environmental conduct at this project. Endangered quendas have been trapped just 90 minutes before bulldozers rolled in, in breach of the fauna management plan that he signed off. Why bother doing a fauna management plan if you do not care whether or not it is being upheld on the ground?
There are missing surveys of nesting hollows of the iconic and endangered Carnaby's black cockatoo. We are running out of the kind of ecosystems and habitat that can support these endangered creatures. They are iconic. Anybody who has been to Western Australia—Senator Back and Senator Reynolds will know this; we have a reasonably good cross-section of Western Australian senators here—knows that these species are going to be locally extinct on the Swan Coastal Plain unless something is done. But what the Barnett government is doing, with cheques cashed by the Commonwealth government, is wiping out another 100 hectares of their habitat and saying, 'Well, if they fly 120 kilometres further south, we've changed some lines on a map and we've created some offsets.'
We do not believe that those surveys were even done, and if that is the case—and the evidence that we have in this letter makes it very clear that it is the case—then this project is proceeding illegally. This project is proceeding unlawfully, in violation of a dozen or more of the conditions that the government placed upon it. So I want to know how serious a breach has to get before Minister Frydenberg stops the clock, because, if he does not stop the clock, the clock will be stopped by the electorate of Western Australia on 11 March, when the hopeless, bitter, clapped-out talent vacuum that we have come to know as the Barnett government is thrown out of office once and for all. That is how we will stop the clock. It will not prevent the extraordinary damage that has been done, but at least it will give us the opportunity to wind some of it back.
As we speak this afternoon, I have been advised that contractors have started clearing section 5 this morning. There is some incredibly sensitive wetland habitat. People right now on the ground have described it as beautiful. There are balgas, huge majestical tuarts, thick bushland, cockatoos circling and living in the trees, and rainbow bee-eater nests. We know that they have caught quendas, endangered southern brown bandicoots, in the area as recently as yesterday morning.
I want to acknowledge, in the brief period of time that I have left, special thanks to Andrew Joske, Naomi Caceres-Seeber, and the rest of the extraordinary team of volunteers working around the clock under the incredible guidance of Phoebe Corke. They are taking up the work that EPA and Commonwealth compliance officers should have taken up to monitor compliance breaches on site every day. It is not even that we do not have eyes on the ground. If the state government and Minister Frydenberg were interested in the evidence, the evidence is there that they are in flagrant violation of the conditions that the state and the Commonwealth put on them. There are people like Rex and Felicity who have been at this campaign for 30 years. There are people like Kate Kelly and Kim Dravnieks—campaigners of incredible standing and wisdom, and they know the history of this area. But there are also everyday people—mothers, friends and people like you—out there listening who were so moved to protect this precious place that they took on the courts and they formed an alliance with more than 30 disparate groups. They have waged a very, very powerful war against this thing.
Every local council in the area is opposed to this but ignored. Friends of mine—very close friends and colleagues—have been arrested down there in very well-disciplined, non-violent direct actions where basically you say: 'I know I'm going to be breaking the law; I will take the consequences. That's how strongly I feel about protecting this extraordinary bit of bush.' We have stood shoulder to shoulder with Independents and we have stood shoulder to shoulder with Labor MPs, both state and federal, with councillors from across the political spectrum, and with residents not just from the impacted area but right across Perth metro. This campaign has gone national, and so it should because it is national Commonwealth taxpayer dollars that are paying for it. If your hospital or transport system in Western Sydney is run down or if you are in outer suburban Melbourne and you do not have cycleways or you do not have decent schools, it is partly because Tony Abbott committed a billion dollars of Commonwealth money to this project without even knowing where it was. He probably could not even have pointed to it on a map.
I also want to acknowledge my dear colleague Lynn MacLaren MLC, who has been the state member for the South Metropolitan region for eight years and hopefully many more years. The Greens, the Labor Party, the Independents and even Pauline Hanson's One Nation party have come out and condemned it. How bad does a project have to be before One Nation sits up and takes notice? I think it will be to their regret that they then proposed to preference the very same people who are driving the bulldozers. But, nonetheless, this has very strong and deep cross-party community support, and it is going to bury the Barnett government come 11 March.
I rise to speak to the motion regarding the extension of the Roe Highway Roe 8 and 9 and support the explanation given by the Minister for Finance, Minister Cormann. For those not familiar with why the words 'Roe 8 and 9' are used, this particular project is part of a very extensive project that had its origins in 1955. We are not speaking about a recent project, as some might have suggested. It was the Stephenson-Hepburn plan of 1955, Madam Acting Deputy President, as you know, and the very term 'Roe 8 and 9' suggests there have been a Roes 1 to 7, and indeed there have been. Roe 1 to 7 is a large highway extending from the eastern side of Perth, including the freight areas and the light industrial areas, heading in a westerly direction and, at the moment, stopping at the Kwinana Freeway where it intersects north-south at the end of Roe 7.
You might ask, 'Why haven't we had Roe 8 and 9 completed years ago?' Well, the decision was taken back in 2004 by the then minister Ms MacTiernan who has, most latterly, been in this parliament. Indeed, she did not last long in the federal parliament. She was a minister in the previous state Labor government, and I will acknowledge she was an effective minister. In fact, she was the only one who was an effective minister because she achieved something in that state Labor government of Mr Gallop and Mr Carpenter. Ms MacTiernan, I understand, is now being recycled in the current state election in March of 2017.
Of course, at that time, to save the political skin of the then Labor member for Fremantle, state Labor member Jim McGinty, they cancelled what should have been Roes 8 and 9, otherwise known at that time as the Fremantle Eastern Bypass, which was to be the continuation of the Stephenson plan into the port of Fremantle to link-up freight traffic from the eastern suburbs and the freight accumulation areas and logistics areas into Fremantle. But, for cheap political gain, they cancelled the Fremantle Eastern Bypass and they rezoned it as residential so it could never be done. The interesting thing is, for those who are taxpayers of Australia, at that time, had it been completed, the best estimates were some $220 million to $250 million. Instead of that, to complete it today, we have to spend $1.2 billion.
I do want to draw attention to a quote from a gentleman well versed in road transport in Western Australia—so much so that he was a representative of the Transport Workers Union at that time. This is a quote from him in 2004, when this gentleman said, on the idea of removing the Fremantle Eastern Bypass: 'This will create a frightening congestion problem of mammoth proportions in the very near future on all highways and major roads leading to the docks.' That person, of course, was so influential and so knowledgeable in road transport in Western Australia that he now sits opposite me here as Senator Glenn Sterle, from the Western Australian division of the Labor Party.
Senator Sterle's knowledge of the industry was so valid that, in fact, what we come to see in 2016-17 is exactly—through you, Madam Acting Deputy President, to another old transport broken-down shearer in Senator Williams—what Glenn Sterle said: a frightening congestion problem of mammoth proportions in the very near future on all highways and major roads leading to the docks. It is exactly what the now Senator Sterle said would happen. It did happen. For those of you who do not know Western Australia, I will attempt to explain it: we have, for example, a very, very high instance of rear-end collisions on what is now the major traffic arterial road, or car park, called the Leach Highway. About 70-odd per cent of all accidents on the Leach Highway are due to rear-end accidents, simply because in the McGinty-MacTiernan era stopped doing what they should have done at that time, and that was to complete the Roe Highway through to the port of Fremantle.
To give you an understanding, Fremantle is the major southern port. It is by no means the largest tonnage port. The highest tonnage port in the world is that of Port Hedland, in the north of Western Australia, which exports about 400 million tonnes of iron ore a year. Imagine that! More than a million tonnes a day goes out of that port. But Fremantle, of course in the metropolitan area, is the most significant port. For those aware of these areas, we tend to measure the capacity of a port and its activities by the number of 20-foot sea containers or their equivalent that are moved. Currently the port of Fremantle is moving about 700,000 boxes a day and has the capacity to move up to about 1.2 million a day.
I concur with Senator Ludlam: I have long been a believer in the fact that we should be looking towards the designing and eventual construction of a container port in the outer harbour towards Cockburn Sound, Kwinana. I will go through a little bit of history. We all remember Charles Yelverton O'Connor, the great builder of the metropolitan-to-Kalgoorlie water pipeline in the early part of the last century. He was first brought to Fremantle by the then premier, John Forrest, with the objective of a project to build a port in Fremantle. History records the fact that O'Connor in fact wanted to build it where probably eventually a sea container port will go in the outer harbour. But the point is that, whether or not or when that port is eventually built, we will always need Roe 8 to take us from the Kwinana Freeway through to Stock Road. Whether or not vehicles go south towards what could become that open port area in Cockburn Sound or north into Fremantle, Roe 8 is essential.
Madam Acting Deputy President Reynolds, you might not recall the 2008 election as clearly as I do, because I was a candidate for the state seat of Alfred Cove, an area incidentally very much affected by what will be eased by Roe 8 and Roe 9. Roads such as Canning Highway, Leach Highway, Farrington Road, Stock Road, Carrington Street et cetera were all affected by the failure of the then Labor state government to give effect to the 1955 Stephenson plan. Electorates such as Cockburn, Southern River, Fremantle and Bateman have all been affected by the failure of the then state Labor government. I make this point because you will often hear people saying, 'This is something that the Liberal Party have recently rushed in.' On the front page of the newspaper leading up to the state election in 2008 was the statement 'Libs to proceed with Roe Highway'. I can recall that well because down in the bottom right-hand corner, despite my very limited funds at that time while campaigning in Alfred Cove, was my own little ad. So I remember that particularly well.
It is the case that in a democracy it is the right of all citizens to proceed legally with whatever they want to undertake by way of protest. But there is also an obligation in a democracy when the court rules in a certain direction. Then it is the right of all citizens to expect that the opinion and judgement of the court will be honoured. It is the case that those opposed to Roe 8 and Roe 9 took this case to the Supreme Court of Western Australia. It was then taken on to the appeal court. The decision of the supreme appeal court of Western Australia was that the project should proceed. As was the right of those opposed to the project, the case was also taken to the Federal Court of Australia. The appeal to the Federal Court was dismissed and thrown out. On that basis, the project has proceeded and is proceeding. It is the case now that we are looking at about a $1.2 billion project when it should have been completed back in 2004, some 14 years ago, for only $250-odd million. Nevertheless, there are significant benefits to the project.
The point has been made that some councils in the area are opposed to the project. I go to the Cockburn City Council. My electorate office is in Cockburn, and I communicate very well and often with the officials of the Cockburn City Council. Cockburn issued its own report as to what the impact might be on road and other traffic should Roe 8 and Roe 9 not be built. Because it did not suit most of the councillors of the city of Cockburn, the report was initially buried until such time as one councillor said: 'No, that is not a correct spending of ratepayers' money. Whatever the outcome of a report is, even if it is not favourable to the majority of the council, if the ratepayers have paid for it then it should be made public.' And, indeed, it was. What do you think the outcome of that report showed? It showed that if Roe 8 and Roe 9 are not constructed it is going to continue to cause mayhem on the roads in that area. In recent times we have had the Fiona Stanley Hospital and the St John of God Murdoch Hospital established in that precinct. The ability of people to get to those locations will be enhanced greatly by Roe 8 and Roe 9.
In addition to the Cockburn City Council, there is an excellent joining of various councils. They call themselves the South West Group of Local Authorities. They include Fremantle, East Fremantle, Melville, Cockburn, Kwinana and Rockingham. They commissioned a report into what the impact would be on residents, the community and transport should Roe 8 and Roe 9 not be built. Once again, as you would predict, there were those in the south west group who wanted that report buried. Why did they want it buried? It is because it did not conform to what they wanted to see in relation to the future of this area. But the Melville City Council—and here again I declare very, very proudly that I am a ratepayer of the city of Melville—said, 'No, the results of this report should be made public so the wider community can see what is going on and what the impacts might be.' Needless to say, the report strongly supported the continuation of Roe 8 and Roe 9. That is the simple fact.
As the finance minister has indicated here today, there will be dramatically increased safety as a result of Roe 8 and Roe 9 being built. The trucking industry will in fact pay a toll—not domestic vehicles, but the heavy haulage trucking industry will pay a toll. Normally, of course, you would think they would be vehemently opposed to that. For those of you not from WA, you might not know that we do not have toll roads in Western Australia; we simply do not have the population base and so we do not have them. The trucking industry is strongly in favour of a tollway for the obvious reason that they know the travelling time on the logistics trails from the large warehouses to the port and back will be significantly reduced—reduction in travelling time, reduction in costs. The trucking industry have put up their hands and said, 'We will pay a toll as a part contribution from what we will be saving.'
As we have heard this morning, the then Labor government originally developed Infrastructure Australia, and I applaud them for having done so. I have always indicated my tremendous confidence in the then director, Mr Michael Deegan; I have always considered him to be a very sound person, though he is no longer in that role. Infrastructure Australia have looked at this project, can see its benefits and strongly support the construction of Roe 8 and Roe 9. We have heard different commentary on the environmental impacts, and I respect Senator Ludlam's view on this—I do not agree with it, but I respect it. Nevertheless, the minister has outlined what will be savings attendant upon the project. Again I defer to Senator Williams because he, far more than I, has the experience of driving a truck stop-start in heavy traffic, traffic lights et cetera. We all know the impact on engine performance when you are slowing down at lights, stopping and accelerating again. All of those matters have been dealt with.
It is a project that had its origins in the 1950s. It is a project that would have gone ahead in 2004, had it not been for the cheap political opportunism of the then state member for Fremantle, Mr McGinty, and the then minister, Ms MacTiernan. It is a project that since 2008, some nine years ago, the Liberal Party has said, 'We will proceed with this project. Let there be no doubt, we will proceed with the project.' And so for the past two elections in WA the people of WA have voted for the Barnett-led Liberal government in the full knowledge that this project would proceed. That is a critically important point.
It is the case, as the minister has said, that surveys have indicated a strong support for the project—60 per cent in favour, 10 per cent against and 30 per cent could not make up their minds. That, however, was before the recent information, appearing in the local newspapers which service these communities—and tabled in this place today—which at long last are giving the facts attendant upon this project. And there will be more of it leading up to the state election. Madam Acting Deputy President, you and I attended a Senate inquiry at the Esplanade Hotel in Perth and it is a fair criticism to say that not nearly enough information had been made available to the wider community at that time. You and I had been briefed and we were able to share a lot of information which had not previously been known at that inquiry.
Since then, of course, the decision has been taken for a tunnel to be built. Earlier there had been a fear, because of an alternative route, that real estate values might be decimated and houses repossessed along some of the routes, but now we know that the exact opposite has occurred—the value of real estate has gone up and will continue to do so in those areas. You only have to think back to what is known as the Graham Farmer tunnel. Those in the public gallery might not know that there was a very great Aboriginal footballer from Western Australia called Graham Farmer and his nickname was Polly—and the day it was announced that it would be called the Graham Farmer tunnel, it was immediately renamed the 'Polly Pipe'. I draw it to the attention of the chamber simply because in the lead-up to the decision to build that tunnel by the then Court government, you would not believe the opposition to it. The world as we knew it was going to fall in; real estate prices were going to dive for the entire area of Perth. Today, of course, people go through the Graham Farmer tunnel and say, 'Where was the problem? Look at the ease, look at the speed, look at the efficiency.' We do not have all that carbon dioxide accumulating in the tunnel. In answer to an earlier question, it is being addressed environmentally; and, more importantly, the value of real estate in that area has skyrocketed, as indeed it will upon the completion of Roe 8 and Roe 9.
In the lead-up to the election on 11 March, it is necessary for the community to have the facts. It is my view that for too long there has been a set of adverse facts which have been presented but which have now been corrected with informative and useful progressions of information week after week, leading up to the state election. I concur again with Senator Ludlam that it will be up to the people of Western Australia voting in those electorates to determine whether or not they want to return the Barnett government. I, for one, will respect the opinion of the voters of WA, as I respect the courts—the Supreme Court and the Federal Court—and in my view in a democracy that is what we must honour, that is what we must respect: if a majority of people are in favour, they will vote accordingly.
In the explanation he gave to the Senate this morning, Senator Cormann failed in his obligation and in his duty to this place. His explanation did not go to his failure to table documents and that demonstrates the spurious nature of the business case that the government continues to hide. Senator Cormann, because he is a minister, can use his ministerial capacity to table whatever he likes. But instead of tabling the facts that might have outlined a business case for this parliament to see, what he instead tabled and spoke to was government advertising. He spoke to government advertising, not to the business case that he was asked for. That is the nature of the information that Senator Cormann tabled in this place.
The business case has been hidden from this place and from public view under cabinet in confidence and by, I would argue, falsely using cabinet processes to channel documents through cabinet. So what we have here is Senator Cormann speaking not to the facts but to taxpayer funded advertising as a way of trying to mount a facts based argument about this project. It is an appalling abuse of his place in this chamber.
There is only one way to stop the Roe 8 project and that is for a Labor government to be elected in Western Australia on 11 March. Again, what we see here is the state government trying to counter what is a very legitimate expression of concern from the Western Australian community about this project. The government knows it is on the back foot when it comes to this project. The Western Australian community is very concerned about the wetlands, very concerned about the sustainability of this project and very concerned about the environmental abuses that are occurring. So we have Minister Cormann tabling advertising in place of a business case while at the same time the government denying Senator Cormann leave to table his very much more fact based documents that actually outline the evidence of the environmental abuses that are taking place. I think that is an appalling act of the government.
What we saw in his contribution today was Senator Back confirming the fact that this is indeed a road to nowhere. He talked about the building of Roe 8 and what was, in his view, the wrong decision to cancel the Stephenson project. We saw the cancellation of the Stephenson project bring back a range of areas that are now firmly residential. The government is not revisiting that issue, as Senator Back confirmed. What, in effect, this means is that this project is indeed a road to nowhere, as confirmed by Senator Back today.
Again, instead of tabling any business case or cost-benefit analysis, what we had was reference to government advertising by Senator Cormann, which indeed makes a complete mockery, I think, of his obligations to this place. Instead, what he spoke to was a bunch of government advertising—what a joke; that is an absolute joke.
I would like to thank Senator Ludlam for bringing this question before the chamber today and for asking for these documents. What we have though from the government is a complete failure in its responsibility, and a complete failure of Minister Frydenberg to investigate these breaches of environmental law. So, sadly, the only way forward on this project is really to get the message out to voters that the only way to stop this project is to have people vote Labor on 11March.
We have had from the Hanson party a rejection of this project. But, sadly, if we are going to see a preference deal between the Western Australian Liberals and Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a vote for the Hanson party will be a vote for this project, contrary to their own policy. It is really important that we take the time to explain this to voters because I know that Western Australian voters are against this. We have strong environmental sentiments in Western Australia where we see these wetlands as precious environmental assets. The irony of Senator Back's comments when he talked about these road projects having been proposed for many decades was that some of our best environmental assets—and this is true of all of our cities—are the bits of land that were proposed for roads and therefore no other construction or development took place on them. It is only in hindsight that we have seen that these environmental assets should not be roads but they should be protected and maintained as environmental assets, and Roe 8 very much falls into this category.
I would really like to commend my colleague Anthony Albanese for the approach that he takes to these issues, which, as Senator Ludlam highlighted, is transparent. It is about Infrastructure Australia having a proper analysis of these kinds of projects and through that in Western Australia we have seen Perth Citylink, NorthLink, Great Eastern Highway, NorthLink and the Great Northern Highway upgrades. What we also see is support for the state Labor plan for Metronet, where we should be taking funds from Roe 8 and delivering it to our public transport system in Western Australia to make it better. In thanking Senator Ludlam for bringing this motion before the Senate, I really want to highlight the contempt that Senator Cormann is showing this place. The only way to resolve this issue is to vote Labor on 11 March.
I also want to thank my colleague Senator Ludlam for his dogged determination on this issue because this is about transparency and accountability. It is providing information that the community needs, that we as senators need to make decisions on what major infrastructure projects should go ahead and are in the interests of the community. Without this information we cannot make that judgement. I listened to Senator Cormann's response this afternoon as to why the government is claiming this information is not available. He said that there was harm to public interest, that they were cabinet-in-confidence decisions and that it was commercial and sensitive information. Frankly, these excuses do not hold water at all. The bulk of Senator Cormann's very longwinded contribution today was basically flights of fancy, overblown rhetoric and far-fetched opinions that have no relationship whatsoever to the truth of what this major road would mean to Perth.
In summary, I think Senator Cormann was influenced by the fact that it was Valentine's Day, and the government and he were doing their best to show their undying love for toll roads:
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
We love toll roads
And so should you.
That really was the substance of what we heard from Senator Cormann. What we know is if there were transparency, if we had had this information before us, if the business case were available—as it should be for all Australians to be able to interrogate—it would become very clear that these projects, these massive toll roads, just do not add up.
Without that information, and with the excuses being proffered by the government that 'No, we can't have this information because it's cabinet-in-confidence, because it's commercial and sensitive,' what that means is that every major project like this across the country cannot be subject to public scrutiny. Every one of them is seen to be commercial-in-confidence or cabinet-in-confidence—'No, we cannot share that information with you.' That means that these projects get to proceed without the spotlight of public scrutiny and without the justification to try to say why this is a good project and why it adds up. We know why that is the case. We know why there is secrecy. It is because these projects do not add up. If you had that scrutiny and shone a spotlight on why this road is being proposed, it would be very clear that it does not add up economically or environmentally. The major reason these roads are being proposed is to try to tackle congestion; it is very clear, when you look at information—where it is available—that it just does not work. These projects are just not effective in that fundamental aim that they have of tackling congestion. The evidence around the world shows that trying to tackle congestion in big cities just by building new roads is like trying to tackle obesity by loosening your belt. Those roads just fill up with cars and trucks, and you end up exactly where you were a few years down the track, but you have wasted billions of dollars along the way.
But we know that we have state and federal Liberal governments—and, sadly, many state Labor governments as well—who are in the thrall of the toll road companies and are continuing to do their bidding. It is not just in Perth with Roe 8; we have seen it in Victoria with the East West Link, where when we finally managed to get the information out because of people within the bureaucracy whistleblowing and saying this information needs to be in the public domain, we saw that the cost-benefit analysis meant that for every dollar you spent you got only 50c back in economic benefit. That was the reality of what came out when we put the East West Link under the sort of scrutiny that Roe 8 needs to be put under. We have the Auditor-General's report on WestConnex coming out today, and I am pretty confident that it is not going to give it a clean bill of health. Then we have the state Labor government in Victoria that similarly is refusing to release the business case for the deal that they are doing with Transurban on the Western Distributor, because they know that if a spotlight could be shone on these roads, it would be pretty clear that they are not the answer.
We have a solution. Transport planners across the country and around the world know that what we need to do to create liveable and healthy cities that people really want to live in is to shift the balance. We need to have much more investment in public transport, much more investment in freight rail and much more investment in cycling and walking facilities so that people have a choice to get out of their cars. We do not need to be moving all this freight on toll roads; we could be getting it onto rail. What we as a parliament need to do, and what governments need to do, is to redress that balance, changing and shifting away from the failures of the last 50 years. Not releasing this information and continuing down the road of Roe 8 is a continuation of our policy failure.
In conclusion, I think we need to keep the pressure up to get this information out so that we can see for ourselves that the supposed benefits of this road just are not worth the costs. When all that information is out on the table, it will be very clear that the right direction is not building massive polluting tollways; it is investing in public transport, in walking and cycling and in healthy, more sustainable and more liveable cities.
I too rise to speak about Senator Ludlam's take note motion around Roe 8. I too listened really carefully to Minister Cormann, a Western Australian senator who presumably has an interest in this road, which has managed to divide the Western Australian community, and I did not hear any assurances from him today that indeed the development of Roe 8 was based on any kind of sound principle at all. The Western Australian public does not often get upset about things. There are two recent issues, both a product of the failed Barnett government that looks like it will be swept out of office on 11 March, that have really united Western Australia. There is the whole shark net proposal where we had sharks being culled quite needlessly, and we saw Western Australians from across the metropolitan area coming together and constantly protesting against that, and Roe 8 is the other issue. Really, what should happen now, before there is further destruction and death to native species, is that this project should be held over until 11 March. The Barnett government's continuation of this project is an absolute demonstration of their arrogance. This is a state Liberal government in Western Australia that is arrogant and out of touch, because most Western Australians, regardless of whether they think Roe 8 is a good idea or not, firmly believe that this project should now be held over.
This search for documents, this search for the business case, this search for the truth, has been going on for years now—years. Alannah MacTiernan, the former federal member for Perth, started looking for these documents, and roadblocks were put in her way at every point. And she will continue to look for those documents. Ms MacTiernan first lodged a complaint with the Commonwealth Ombudsman after the department said it would not hand over details about the $1.6 billion Perth freight link, because—wait for it—the minister's job had been abolished. So, we are hearing different excuses every time. Ms MacTiernan submitted two requests under freedom of information laws to the office of the Assistant Minister for Regional Development in 2015, asking for details about the project. In October 2015 Ms MacTiernan received a short message explaining that because the portfolio had been abolished in Mr Turnbull's new frontbench the documents would not be handed over.
Again, the AAT, the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal, ordered the federal Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development to release the documents in 2015 and again in 2016, but the government appealed to the Federal Court. And now it would seem that we are not going to get any more information through the courts about this proposal until after 11 March, after the state election—when, hopefully, the Barnett government will be swept from power.
And of course the sorts of things we heard from Minister Cormann this morning—public harm, 'commercial and sensitive in nature', harm to the public interest—well, the public harm being done right now in Western Australia is the continued destruction of the beautiful Beeliar wetlands and the death of native species. And I have to say, I was somewhat stuck for words a couple of weeks ago when the local WA environment minister said that actually more Western Australians will be able to see the Beeliar wetlands once the road is constructed, because they will drive across them. The man was serious! He was serious when he made that statement. That is just a slap in the face to Western Australians who care deeply about the Beeliar wetlands, and there are protests down there every single day; ordinary folk are down there protesting.
Senator Cormann talked about an improved amenity. It will not be an improved amenity. The Beeliar wetlands have sat there for generations, and now it will be the legacy of the Barnett government that it destroyed them. As I said, most Western Australians want this matter held over until after the state election. And of course what Minister Cormann did not say—and that is more our commentary today—is that tens of thousands of the Commonwealth moneys have been spent keeping those documents secret. It would be good to get to the true cost, but it is tens of thousands of dollars that have been spent keeping the documents away from the public. What is in the documents that the Liberal government both here and in Western Australia do not want the public to see?
It has also been, as Senator Pratt said, a road to nowhere. The state Liberal ministers have been publicly disagreeing with one another about where the road should come up, and most recently Mr Barnett has said that there will be a tunnel under the harbour, but we are yet to see any details, any costings and so on. Mark McGowan, the leader of the Labor Party in Western Australia, has been absolutely firm and clear that a Labor government will not continue with Roe 8. Again, the federal Liberal government has tried to say, 'That's not your decision to make and you can't put public funds into other roads and the public transport that Western Australians so desperately need.'
So, again, we do not know how Roe 8 was planned. It appears that there was never a business case; it was a whim of former Prime Minister Abbott. He handed this money to Western Australia. And why did he do that? Because he knew then that the Barnett government was in deep trouble. This is the most unpopular state government in Western Australia for a very long time. It has incurred massive debts. It has shown itself to be a government that absolutely cannot complete projects on time. We have seen the debacle of the Fiona Stanley Hospital that has cost millions and millions of taxpayer dollars. We have seen the debacle of the stadium. We have seen the debacle of the children's hospital. And now we are seeing the debacle of the destruction of really sensitive native wetlands in Beeliar. And it should stop. It is tragic, what is going on there.
This matter is not going to go away. Ms MacTiernan is not going to stop in her quest to get to the truth of this through the court documents. The best the minister, Senator Cormann, could have done today would have been to not quote documents—quote from paid political advertising in the local community newspaper from the member for Tangney. It was paid political advertising that he tried to dress up as facts. They were not facts. That was a paid political ad in the local freely distributed community newspaper. And, once again, the minister hides behind trumped up political statements instead of the truth.
Again, we do not get any further to the truth about Roe 8 today, and it is really interesting, when you see the media in Western Australia, how the federal Liberal Party distances itself from the absolutely on-the-nose Barnett government, where announcements are made without their state colleagues standing next to them. One lot is going in the east and one in the west. The Barnett government is doomed. It is a government that will be voted out of office come 11 March, and then we will get to the truth of what is in these documents, because a Labor government—
Debate interrupted.
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. I refer to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Mr Ciobo, who says that One Nation has demonstrated an approach:
… reflective of what it is … to govern Australia in a fiscally responsible way.
Is it the government's position that One Nation's policy of a flat tax of two per cent on every Australian is fiscally responsible?
Thank you, Senator Ketter; that is a very good question, as I would expect from a fellow Villanova man. I have not seen Mr Ciobo's remarks, but, because I know you are an honest and trustworthy person, I will take them at face value; I would not do that from everyone on your side, but I will from you, Senator Ketter. I find Mr Ciobo to be a very, very wise person. He is a good friend of mine, and I would not disagree at all with anything Mr Ciobo had to say. I dare say that what Mr Ciobo was referring to was the fact that One Nation, in this chamber, has consistently, as Senator Sinodinos pointed out earlier in the week, voted for the government's legislation—the government's legislation to try, in particular, to repair the wreckage wrought to the budget by the previous Labor government and the previous Labor finance minister, Senator Penny Wong. That, I dare say, is what Mr Ciobo was referring to. But I would be a bit wary about opening that question up, Senator Ketter, because you probably were not in the chamber yesterday afternoon during taking note of answers when it was revealed by Senator Hanson, quoting from documents, that One Nation had received an approach from the Queensland branch of the Labor Party.
An opposition senator: That is a lie!
Senator, you can bawl that it is a lie, but Senator Anthony Chisholm was in the chamber throughout that debate, and time and time again he was called upon to deny it—he being the state secretary at the relevant time—and he was silent. Not a word did he utter. His silence was his consent to that allegation.
Opposition senators interjecting—
Order on my left! You have a colleague on his feet waiting to ask a question. Senator Ketter, a supplementary question?
Does the minister agree with former Treasurer Mr Costello, who, in 2003, said that One Nation's two per cent flat tax policy 'would have destroyed the Australian economy'?
I agree; I think it was a very foolish policy. I do not know if it is their policy now, but it was a very foolish policy then. I do not know if it is still their policy, but, if it is, it is a very foolish policy. I think you would agree with me about that.
Coming back to the question of One Nation preferences, when Senator Hanson made those remarks in the Senate yesterday afternoon, Senator Chisholm was sitting in his seat and, time and time again, he was given the opportunity to deny it, and he was eloquent by his silence. Senator Ketter, as a well-educated man, you know that they describe Sir Thomas More's refusal to endorse the divorce of Henry VIII as the silence that was heard all through Europe. Senator Chisholm's silence—
Order! Pause the clock.
Mr President, a point of order on relevance: Senator Chisholm was not even the party's secretary at that time, a point that was made by the One Nation senator herself.
Senator Dastyari, resume your seat. That is a debating point.
So, Senator Chisholm just sat there for 20 minutes. Time and again he was invited to deny it, and he was eloquent by his silence. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Ketter, a final supplementary question.
I note the minister's answer to my first supplementary question, but I am compelled to ask: does the minister think that One Nation is more fiscally responsible than former Treasurer Peter Costello?
Senator Ketter, Mr Costello's remarks, with which I wholeheartedly agree, were made many years ago.
What has changed?
I will take your interjection, Senator Wong, and I will tell you what has changed. What has changed is that since One Nation has been represented in this chamber, since the middle of last year, they have shown a willingness to vote for responsible government legislation. Senator Ketter, you and your colleagues in the Labor Party ought to get over the fact that the Australian people elected four One Nation senators. You do not have to agree with them. You are perfectly at liberty to disagree with them, as I do on many issues, but, at the same time, you ought to respect the decision of the Australian people.
Opposition senators interjecting—
Order on my left!
In particular, you ought to respect the decision of your constituents and mine, the people of Queensland, who elected two One Nation senators. Treat them, as your leader is incapable of doing, with professional courtesy. (Time expired)
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order! Senators, that was very disorderly, with a lot of interjections from both sides, particularly from my left. I advise all senators to cease interjections.
My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Scullion. Will the minister advise how the government is supporting jobs for Indigenous Australians and how this contributes to the government's Closing The Gap agenda?
I would like to thank Senator Williams for his question and acknowledge his longstanding interest particularly in employment for Indigenous people in western New South Wales. I would like to also acknowledge this question on an important day, with the Prime Minister tabling the Closing the Gap statement in the other place. The Prime Minister spoke of the wonderful work we have been doing in employment programs, particularly with the 5,000 Indigenous jobseekers who have moved from welfare through the Vocational Training and Employment Centres, the VTEC program, into real jobs through that VTEC network. The most important thing to note is that these are not low-hanging fruit—75 per cent of the 5,000 people were what we refer to as stream C jobseekers, and they are the jobseekers with the greatest barriers to employment. The program was targeted not at the easy job seekers but the more difficult ones.
Take our Employment Parity Initiative. We are partnering with the largest employers—household names like Woolies, Accor, Crown Resorts, Transfield—and that new approach has seen us now employ 60 people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent today and 60 people yesterday, and it will be 60 people tomorrow. Every single day, 60 jobs will be created for our first Australians. But to close the gap we are going to need an additional 188,000 Indigenous Australians in work by 2018. Employers and Indigenous job experts are who we need to speak to, and we have been speaking to an Indigenous Employment Forum with the Minister for Employment, Michaelia Cash, and people such as Jeremy Donovan and Laura Berry—absolute experts in Indigenous engagement and employment. Those are the sorts of people that are leading our policy to ensure that we close the gap in employment.
Senator Williams, a supplementary question.
Can the minister explain how the government has supported Indigenous jobs through its Indigenous Procurement Policy?
We are pulling every lever in our control to get more Indigenous people to work. It is a fact that an Indigenous business is now 100 times more likely to employ an Indigenous person than a non-Indigenous business is. I can remember looking at Canada and the United States, when I was in opposition, and I knew that they had built a successful indigenous middle-class there, principally through the investments of government particularly around procurement. We were $6.2 million in 2012-13 and I said we wanted a simple target of three per cent, and we have now gone from $6.2 million, that those opposite were languishing on, to $284.2 million in 12 months. As I said today, Indigenous procurement is connecting Indigenous businesses, and we will be working with the states and territories on the private sector to extend these excellent policies. (Time expired)
Will the minister outline what other initiatives the government is delivering to support jobs for Indigenous Australians?
In remote Australia, where we have I think some of the biggest challenges, a community development program was developed by sitting down with communities and Indigenous leaders who told us principally that they were sick of people moving from the program to passive welfare and a lack of opportunities. Under the Remote Jobs and Communities Program 60 per cent of people left for passive welfare. We had to change that. We introduced CDP. We have had 12,400 people leave, but not to passive welfare—it has been to a real job. Between July and 31 September we placed 12,400 people into jobs, and 4,100 have now been in their job for over six months. It is not just a matter of placing them; it is making sure that they remain in those jobs. We are increasing engagement and building skills in community led activities by the community and for the community. We are working with these communities to ensure we get the very best employment outcomes. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann. I refer to the minister who yesterday said in relation to the Western Australia Liberal Party's preference deal with One Nation: 'I have seen comments from the Premier which describe the arrangement entered into by the WA Liberal Party organisation as sensible and pragmatic. I would agree with the Premier's description.' Does the minister consider One Nation's economic policies to be so fiscally responsible that they should be preferenced above his mates the National Party?
I thank Senator Sterle for his question. Of course I do agree with the Premier of the great state of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, in relation to those comments. What I would say to the Senate is what I have said publicly—unlike at the federal level, in Western Australia the Liberal and National parties operate as independent parties, not as a coalition. My personal preference always is for the Liberal and National parties to act as we do here at the national level, as a strong and united coalition where we direct preferences to each other. But in Western Australia that has not been the circumstance for a very long time. Indeed, since 2008 the Nationals under Brendon Grylls's leadership, and we respected that this was their right as a separate party, have preferenced other parties ahead of Liberal Party candidates. They have done so at every election since 2008 in the upper house, and indeed they are doing that at this election. This is nothing unusual. It has been business as usual for a long time. In fact, the WA Nationals preferenced One Nation ahead of Liberal Party candidates in the upper house back in 2008, and in this election the WA Nationals are preferencing the Greens ahead of Liberal Party candidates, believe it or not.
While my own personal preference and the experience at a national level and in all other parts of Australia is that there is a strong and united coalition, in Western Australia there is an alliance arrangement between independent parties and as such each party makes its own decisions on preference allocations. Our priority, incidentally, is to convince as many Western Australians as possible to support their Liberal Party candidates in the legislative assembly and in the upper house with their primary vote, with their first preference. If they cannot vote for our candidates with their first preference, we encourage them to give us their second, third or fourth preference—as long as it is ahead of the Labor Party and the Greens, because of course they would be disastrous for Western Australia. (Time expired)
What was the minister's involvement in setting the 'sensible and pragmatic arrangements'?
Preference arrangements for the Liberal Party of Western Australia are entirely a matter for the Liberal Party organisation in Western Australia.
Senator Sterle, is there a final supplementary question?
Minister, what discussions did you have with the Prime Minister prior to setting the 'sensible and pragmatic arrangements' preferencing One Nation above your mates the Nationals?
I struggle to appreciate how this relates to my portfolio responsibilities, but I note that you have not pulled up the senator on this, so I will acknowledge him in relation to this matter. Obviously, as I have said in my previous answers, these are entirely matters for the WA Liberal Party organisation. Of course I am a member of the Liberal Party in the great state of Western Australia—
Pause the clock. Senator Wong, on a point of order?
It is a point of order on direct relevance.
The question was out of order.
The question is in order. I am happy to have a discussion about the standing orders if you wish, but that is not what I am raising. There is only one question. It does not go to the Liberal Party branch in WA. It goes to what discussions this minister had in relation to the arrangements to which he has referred in a public statement with the Prime Minister.
I accept your point of order. Whilst it is getting very close to not being relevant, it is in relation to a discussion with the Prime Minister. It is not directly related to his portfolio, but the minister has made statements to that effect. Minister?
Let me be very explicit. Firstly, these are matters that are of course entirely within the purview of the WA Liberal organisation. Let me confirm for Senator Sterle, given his great interest in these matters, that I had absolutely no reason to discuss these matters with the Prime Minister because these are not my areas of responsibility at a national level. These are entirely matters for the WA Liberal Party organisation.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Social Services, Senator Ryan. The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Omnibus Savings and Child Care Reform) Bill was rushed into the House last week. It aims to cut over $5½ billion from our social safety net. Why did the government combine the paid parental leave and childcare measures with cuts to our social safety net that will hurt single parents, families, students, young people and pensioners? Was it to disguise the real purpose of the bill, which is to rip apart our social safety net?
I thank Senator Siewert for the question. The purposes of this bill have been widely stated and restated by the Prime Minister, the Minister for Social Services, the Treasurer and the finance minister, as well as others, on numerous occasions. There has been a significant savings challenge left to this government, not only to bring the budget back into balance but to fund the legislated spending measures left in place by the previous government. It was issue number one.
The second point is that the government made clear, and stands by, as Senator Birmingham has so effectively outlined, the view that child care in country this country needs to change to support people, primarily women, being able to get back to work. That is something that this government is exceptionally proud of. As a father—many people in this room have young children—I can say that for the people I know who are not as fortunate as me being able to change the child care system to ensure more people can get back to work is a positive for this country.
Thirdly, as was outlined yesterday, this government is committed to the delivery of the NDIS, but, unlike the previous government, we are committed to paying for it. So the savings measures that are being put in place are to leave the billions of dollars of funding gap left in place by the previous Labor government, who printed bumper stickers and named organisations but did not find a way to pay for these critical services.
Senator Siewert, is there a supplementary question?
When did the government decide to put these savings into the proposed NDIS savings fund? Isn't this a form of blackmail and pressure on the Senate?
I am tempted to give the one-word answer 'no', but it does require some explanation. I cannot speak to when a determination was made to put it all into one bill, but it is not a matter of blackmail to pay for new government measures. What is a sign of absolute irresponsibility is to make promises and have no way of paying for them or to put them onto future generations of Australians. It is a moral issue that this budget be balanced. It is a moral issue that when we come out with new spending measures we find ways to pay for them. It is not blackmail to say that when I care about something I am going to do something about it rather than just printing more bumper stickers without finding a way to pay for it.
A final supplementary question, Senator Siewert?
Will the government now admit that their attempts to rip $5.6 billion out of our social safety net are dead in the water and withdraw their omnibus legislation?
It is not up to me to make a comment on the withdrawal of the bill. That is in the province of another portfolio minister. But I emphasise again that people do not judge politicians or the political class by virtue of what we say we care about. They are going to judge us by what we do. The problem is that that people opposite never find a way to pay for anything. You just want to put it on future Australians as you run up billions and billions of dollars of debt. We spend $10 billion a year on interest. That is more than the cost of the NDIS when it is fully active. That is interest that you and your Labor mates accrued when you ran up the debt when you inherited the most stable set of financial accounts in the western world.
My question is to the Minister for Education and Training representing the Minister for Environment and Energy, Senator Birmingham. Can the minister explain the impact on South Australian households and businesses of the state's heavy reliance on intermittent sources of power generation?
I thank Senator Fawcett for his question. Of course he is interested, as am I, in energy security in our home state of South Australia. As Senator Fawcett would well know, last Wednesday at least 40,000 households and businesses in Adelaide lost power. This was at a time when South Australia had insufficient electricity generation within the state, as we were supplying only two and a half per cent of demand, due to low-wind conditions. The wholesale electricity spot price in South Australia, which had been averaging about $100 per megawatt hour, was regularly hitting the market cap of $14,000 per megawatt hour. The Australian Energy Market Operator is investigating this incident and will provide its report to the government shortly.
But of course this outage follows numerous other incidents, over months and years, of blackouts and brownouts. In particular, there was the state-wide blackout on 28 September, and there were further blackouts in December affecting some 200,000 customers, and others in recent months.
The state-wide blackout was estimated to cost South Australian businesses some $367 million. It particularly affected significant industrial operators, like BHP's Olympic Dam, Arrium at Whyalla and Nyrstar at Point Pirie. It affected manufacturers, like Michell Wool, who identified a $300,000 rise in the contract price of electricity—and, as they said last week, 'We've shut down two or three times; it was cheaper than paying the power bill'. It affected small businesses, like franchisees of a Royal Copenhagen business at Henley Square, who said, 'We're losing ice-cream hand over fist as soon as the power goes off'.
It does not matter if it is a small business, a big business, a pensioner or a student—everybody in South Australia is suffering as a result of this mismanagement of the electricity market in South Australia, the lack of generation capacity and the instability that has been created in that market.
Thank you, Minister. Senator Fawcett, a supplementary question.
Will the minister inform the Senate what the Turnbull government is doing to respond to concerns about energy security and affordability?
We are absolutely prioritising energy security—ensuring the lights stay on and the power stays on—to support households and businesses. In the wake of the state-wide blackout, we have commissioned and brought to action the Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel, who will shortly deliver his blueprint for security at the national electricity market. We have commissioned and made sure that the Australian Energy Market Operator is stabilising the system by ensuring two gas-fired units are operating at all times, to ensure that there is more stability within the system.
We are seeking to address challenges of how to integrate more distributed and intermittent energy sources, such as wind and solar, into the system. We have opened a new round of $20 million for pumped hydro and storage technologies to respond to the challenges posed by intermittent sources, which comes on top of $100 million already invested in storage technology by the CEFC and ARENA. We are also investigating the deployment of high-efficiency low-emission carbon capture and storage facilities, recognising that a technology-neutral approach is the best way to solve these issues. (Time expired)
Senator Fawcett, a final supplementary question.
Can the minister advise if there are any obstacles to a coordinated national approach to energy policy?
Sadly, we do face obstacles, in the form of state-based renewable energy targets and in the form of those opposite, with their own reckless renewable energy targets. Around 18 months ago, this Senate agreed to reform the renewable energy target. But it took only one month for the Labor Party, having agreed with the reforms that we put through at that time, to backflip, change their position and say they wanted to see a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030. They have never said what that would cost; they have never done any modelling; they have never released any details around it. But Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates it will require $48 billion in investment. That is $48 billion in costs that will flow through to electricity users right around Australia. That is $2,000 for every man, woman and child, or more than $5,000 for every household in additional electricity costs that would come about because of the policies of those opposite. They need to realise that stability and affordability are key, and that is exactly what we are working towards. (Time expired)
My question is to Senator Brandis, the Minister representing the Prime Minister. After the Abbott-Turnbull government broke its promise to match Labor's education spending dollar for dollar, and after years of delay and speculation, the Senate yesterday called on the Minister for Education and Training to finally release his plans for school funding. Schools are getting desperate. Will the Prime Minister accept yesterday's resolution of the Senate, show some leadership and make his minister finally release his plans for school funding?
Thank you very much indeed, Senator Collins. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to advise the Senate about the Australian government's commitment to school funding. You asked for information; here it is.
This government is making a record overall investment of $73.9 billion in recurrent funding for schools over the next four years, 2016-17 to 2019-20. Indeed, our funding will grow each and every year from $16.1 billion in 2016 to $20.2 billion in 2020. That is an increase of more than 25 per cent in just four years. In fact, Australian government funding for schools has been increasing for several decades. Between 1987-88 and 2011-12, total public funding for schools doubled in real terms while student enrolments increased by only 18 per cent. But I am sorry to say that, while our funding has been growing, our results have been in decline. How much funding we provide is important, but what is more important is what we do with it. Funding should go where it is needed most and should be used in ways that we know will deliver results.
We know that our friends from the Australian Labor Party, like Senator Collins and her colleagues, have this faith that the more money you throw at an issue the better off you are, but we in the coalition know that what you need is outcomes, and outcomes are not measured only by the amount of money you throw at them but by the actual outcomes in which you invest. And, in the case of education, that means in particular academic standards.
Senator Collins, a supplementary question.
Why is the government so keen to hide its plans for school funding from parents, teachers and students?
Senator Collins, I do not think you could have been listening, because I just spent the last two minutes telling you what our plans for school funding are.
You can't hide this, George!
I spent the last two minutes, so let me tell you more, Senator Collins. The budget commits $73.9 billion—I told you that before, Senator Collins—over the next four years, 2016-17 to 2019-20.
Even private schools are squawking!
It includes an additional $1.2 billion for schools, over four years, from 2017-18, which was announced in the last budget. Between 2013-14 and 2014-15, the coalition boosted per-student funding to government schools—Senator Collins, you asked me about government schools—by 7.3 per cent.
No, I didn't!
You did in your interjection. And to nongovernment schools by 5.3 per cent. (Time expired)
Senator Collins, a final supplementary question.
Thank you, Mr President. I wish the minister would actually listen to the question and the interjections, but my supplementary question is—
Government senators interjecting—
He misheard the interjection! He clearly misheard it, and the record will show it.
Senator Collins, your question?
Will the government reverse its broken promise and match Labor's school funding dollar for dollar, as it committed, instead of trying to hide the impact of their $30 billion cuts?
Senator Collins, firstly, your question is based on an entirely false premise—that there has been a broken promise—and, secondly, the answer to your question, 'Will the government follow dollar for dollar the Labor Party's policies?' is: we will not be imitating the Labor Party's policies, because they are bad policies. When we invest in education, just as when we invest in any other area of social spending, or indeed with any spending, we make sure that there is the money in the budget to pay for it. That is the big difference, Senator Collins—through you, Mr President—between your side of politics, who promise the world but never find the money to afford it, and our side of politics, who actually spend money that is accounted for in the budget. That is why we have been able to commit a record $73.9 billion in education funding, in schools funding, over the next four years. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Defence, Senator Payne. Can the minister please update the Senate on the campaign to defeat Daesh in Iraq and in Syria?
I thank Senator Reynolds, the Chair of the Defence Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, for her question. I can indicate that Daesh is under increasing pressure from Iraqi security forces, which are being supported by the international counter-Daesh coalition. Indeed, Daesh continue to lose territory, finances, fighters and battles.
The focus in Iraq remains on the liberation of Mosul, the terrorist organisation's final stronghold in that country. As we said from the outset, when this began in October, this will be a long and complex operation. In the last weeks, Iraqi Security forces have liberated east Mosul from Daesh, and operations to liberate west Mosul will commence soon. The terrain in west Mosul does make it more difficult to clear. The narrow roads and the density of the buildings will cause much of the fighting to occur at very close quarters. There will, of course, be good days and some days that involve setbacks, but, with the continued effort of the ISF and the international coalition, Daesh will be defeated in Mosul.
Tomorrow I will travel to Brussels to meet with my ministerial counterparts from the counter-Daesh coalition, at NATO and more broadly, to discuss the next steps in the plan to defeat this terrorist organisation. While in Brussels this week, I will also meet with US Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, to discuss our important shared interests and security concerns. The defense secretary and I spoke in January, and I look forward to this important bilateral meeting this week.
Senator Reynolds, a supplementary question.
Can the minister further advise the Senate of Australia's contribution to the campaign to liberate Mosul?
Australian forces in particular continue to make a significant contribution in the campaign to liberate Mosul, and I want to acknowledge the valuable contribution made by our ADF personnel in country and, of course, by their families at home on our behalf. ADF personnel deployed to the building partner capacity mission at Taji are continuing to build both the capability and the expertise of Iraqi forces to retake, to hold and to stabilise liberated areas. Our Special Operations Task Group is advising and assisting the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service units in support of the Mosul offensive, and the SOTG have in fact enabled more than 450 coalition airstrikes, which are critical to the Counter Terrorism Service's momentum. Our Air Task Group continues to make a significant contribution in the campaign against Daesh, with our F/A-18s striking more than 120 targets in support of operations around Mosul, our tanker providing air-to-air refuelling and our Wedgetail providing aircraft— (Time expired)
Senator Reynolds, a final supplementary question.
Can the minister also update the Senate on how else Australia is contributing to the global counter-Daesh coalition?
Indeed the military aspect is just one aspect of the Australian government's approach to defeating Daesh. Defence works closely with a range of other government agencies and our international counterparts to defeat this threat and to dissuade others from joining this drastically misguided cause. As well as our military effort, the government is committed to countering Daesh's narrative through the use of social media to counter Daesh propaganda, to tackling Daesh's financial and economic infrastructure to impede the funding of Daesh-inspired operations and to discouraging and preventing the flow of foreign terrorist fighters joining Daesh's ranks. We are working very closely with the military and with law enforcement agencies across our region to prevent the spread of Daesh into South-East Asia. This is an absolute imperative for the Australian government. The government also recognises the magnitude of the humanitarian challenge and remains committed to providing much-needed humanitarian support to Syria and its neighbours. We are absolutely committed to defeating this abhorrent terrorist organisation across all lines of government effort. (Time expired)
My question is to the Attorney-General. Throughout my radio and television career, my motto was and my question was: who's looking after the children? What is the government doing about fixing a child protection system that is so broken that in the past week state and federal police have been searching for a child protection worker who is wanted for possessing child pornography?
Thank you, Senator Hinch. I acknowledge that throughout your career as a broadcaster this was an issue in which you took a great deal of interest. It was very much in the public interest that you should have done so. I am delighted that you have, as one ought to have expected, carried that interest into the Senate.
Senator Hinch, the Australian government, working collaboratively with state and territory governments, is very, very concerned about this issue and has a number of different initiatives and programs which it supervises or in which it participates. There is, for example, as you would be aware, I am sure, Senator Hinch, the National Child Offender Register. That is a register of all offenders who have been convicted of offences against children—not only sexual offences, I might say, but a large proportion of them, sadly, are sexual offences. That is a database that is accessible to the relevant authorities, in particular the state and territory police and the Australian Federal Police, across Australia. The database is accessible, it is updated, it is contemporised so that wherever a child sex offender, or an offender against children in any respect, is in Australia that data is immediately accessible to the local police. That is just one initiative that the Australian government participates in.
Secondly—and, as you know, this been much in the news lately—the Australian government funds the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. In fact, it was Mr Tony Abbott, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, who initially called for the creation of that royal commission. We are delighted that the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard agreed to the view of Mr Abbott that that royal commission should be established. We have, as you know, heard a great, great—(Time expired)
Senator Hinch, a supplementary question.
Attorney-General, after what you have just told me, would you now support the setting up of a national child protection agency?
Senator Hinch, the functions of child protection are administered primarily by state governments through both various departments of state departments or territory departments—children services or family services, however so called, in the various states and territories—and also, where crime is involved, of course by the state and territory police. What matters from the Commonwealth government's point of view—the central government's point of view—is that we facilitate the maximum degree of coordination and exchange of information between those departments and agencies as we do on a wide variety of fronts. The state governments are closer to the problem. This is, in our view, a problem best dealt with at the state level with support from Canberra rather than being a problem best dealt with centrally from Canberra.
Senator Hinch, in the moments left to me—(Time expired)
Senator Hinch, a final supplementary question.
Attorney-General, why wouldn't you then go to COAG and support the creation of a national public register of convicted sex offenders?
Senator Hinch, this is a debate that has been going for some time. The register, as you know, is not a public register. The decision that it should not be a public register is a decision that has been made, among other things, on the advice of the police. One does want to ensure that the register, which exists as a tool and as an asset available to all the state and territory police, is used for the proper purposes—that is, for policing purposes. It is for prevention purposes; it is for investigatory purposes. But the concern that has been expressed to governments, Commonwealth and state, by the police and others is that were there to be a public register it might be abused and it might be used by vigilantes, who have no role in the criminal justice system.
So what we want to do is prevent child abuse, arrest the people responsible for it and bring them to justice. That is the facility that I apply to the register. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Senator Sinodinos. Minister, your department administers the Australian Industry Participation policies, which were set up to build Australian jobs by creating opportunities for Australian industry. Can you please advise the Senate how many Australian Industry Participation plans for Commonwealth projects did your department approve in 2016?
I do not have the exact figure with me. I will get it for you. I will say this: I have asked my department to look at the requirements in relation to Australian Industry Participation. The reason for that is: I am aware that conversation that has occurred in this chamber and elsewhere has concerned that we give as much of an opportunity particularly to small- and medium-sized enterprises. I have taken as an example what we are trying to do in the Defence space—that is, to use government as an exemplar in terms of using government procurement to drive greater industry capability in Australia—as something that would also, I think, apply more broadly when it comes to government procurement.
Senator Carr, a supplementary question.
I thank the minister for his answer. Having recognised the concern in this chamber, can you please advise why the number of Australian Industry Participation plans for Commonwealth projects has fallen under this government from 97 in 2012 to zero—I repeat, zero—in 2016?
What I will do is speak to my department and check what has actually occurred.
Senator Carr, a final supplementary question.
Perhaps, Minister, you could speak to your department and get an answer as to why this government has yet again walked away from Australian workers and Australian jobs.
In the last 12 months, manufacturing employment has gone up. Employment across the economy is going up. We have just had the NAB survey come out today and talk about how these are the best conditions since before the GFC in terms of business confidence and the outlook for investment. We are transitioning the economy to more non-mining investment to take account of the fall-off in mining investment, so I do not accept the premise that jobs are going backwards under this government. They are going up. By the way, we do not just rely on government to create jobs. We create an environment for the private sector to create jobs.
My question is to the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia. Minister, I note that at midday today black coal was providing 50 per cent of our total electricity generation and brown coal was providing 18 per cent. Before you get your shoes and socks off, that is 68 per cent. With the coal industry employing 44,000 people—thousands in coal-fired power stations—and paying over $5.7 billion in wages and salaries, can the minister advise the Senate how the Australian resources sector benefits our nation's energy mix?
I thank Senator O'Sullivan for his question. We have grown rich as a nation on our abundant cheap energy sources in our country, including our coal, our gas and our hydro resources down here in southern Australia. We are very lucky as a nation to have been given these resources and to be able to use them to underpin many industries that provide good, high-paying jobs for average Australians. This is because a cheap energy in this country means we can have dear wages in those industries.
Since we have cheap energy, we can have industries like an aluminium sector, which provides thousands of jobs for Australians who just want to have a good job to provide for their families—people like Tim Price, who lives down the road from me and works at the Boyne Island smelter in Gladstone. His job relies on coal. There is no other way around it. If it were not for the Gladstone Power Station just down the road from the Boyne Island smelter, there would not be a Boyne Island smelter in Gladstone. That smelter employs around 1,000 Queenslanders. It needs a cheap energy source to be able to survive, and it is only because we have that high-quality cheap resource close to Gladstone and the Bowen Basin that we can have those jobs.
This government wants to protect those jobs. We want to keep those jobs here. We want to keep those high wages for Tim and others at the Boyne Island smelter. May I say, traditionally and before, the Labor Party used to support those jobs too. They were their people; they were their jobs. But, right now, they are deserting those people at the Boyne Island smelter because they are turning their back on coal. If you do not support a coal industry—if you do not support coal-fired power—we will not make aluminium in this country and we will not have jobs for people like Tim at the Boyne Island smelter. On this side of the place, we support those jobs. We support people like Tim. He is a hard worker. We should back him, and we should back our coal industry.
The PRESIDENT: Senator O'Sullivan, a supplementary question?
I note that around the world there are 216 coal-fired power stations being built. Many of these are supercritical or higher technology. Can the minister appraise the Senate of the contribution that clean, green coal technology could make to Australia's resources sector?
The senator is absolutely right about the hundreds of coal-fired power stations that are being built around the world. There are thousands that are being planned or are in construction around the world, and many of them are using the latest technologies that produce less carbon emissions than current coal-fired power stations.
To go back to real-world examples, I will use the Boyne Island Smelter. I think what is important to note is that the Gladstone Power Station that powers that smelter is 40 years old. It has a capacity of 1,680 megawatts. It is a big power station. At some point in the future, possibly in the next decade—the Boyne Island smelter has a contract with them for the next decade, and it runs out at the end of 2020—we will need to look at refurbishing or replacing it. We would be mad not to look at the latest technologies being installed and used in our region to replace that technology. If we ignore those technologies, we most likely will not have those thousand jobs in Gladstone that I want to protect and this government wants to see survive.
The PRESIDENT: Senator O'Sullivan, a final supplementary question?
I know the minister knows the answer to my next question. Is the minister aware of any alternative energy policies?
As I said earlier, we used to have a Labor Party in this country that supported workers and supported a coal sector. Indeed, it was only as recently as the Rudd and Gillard governments, when they sought to unnecessarily, in my view, impose a carbon tax on this country. They did modelling, and they said that we would still have coal going out into the future.
Now we have a Labor Party that has subscribed to a view that we should shut down all of our coal-fired power stations in this country. We had a Senate inquiry report endorsed by Labor senators last year just before Christmas—endorsed by the shadow minister, Mark Butler—that said we should shut all our coal-fired power stations in this country. Apparently we can still export the coal to other countries, like Japan and China. They can make the aluminium for us, and we can import it back here for our planes and for our cars. We can still enjoy the resource but not have the jobs. We will not have the jobs if we do that. Well, we back jobs on this side of the chamber, and that is why we back coal-fired power and we back our aluminium sector.
My question is to the Minister for Defence, Senator Payne. On what date did the minister first advise the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Canavan, or the member for Capricornia, Michelle Landry, about the possibility of compulsory acquisitions as part of the expansion of the Shoalwater Bay training area and Townsville field training area under the military training agreement with Singapore?
I do not have that detail with me. To the best of my recollection, those discussions were held in October. If that is not correct, I will of course adjust the record.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Watt, a supplementary question?
Why did the minister deceive the voters of Capricornia by not telling them before the 2016 federal election that the expansion of the Shoalwater Bay and Townsville training areas involved compulsory land acquisitions?
I completely reject the premise of the senator's question. There are, in fact, no compulsory land acquisitions underway. I would also remind the senator that this is a very important strategic undertaking both for Australia and Singapore. It is a significant engagement between Australia and Singapore. The planning process for this, which those opposite are singularly incapable of appreciating, is extensive and lengthy and is, indeed, still underway. They appear completely oblivious to the important opportunities available for Central and North Queensland in relation to the investment, and that is hardly surprising because they have no plan for Queensland whatsoever.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Watt, a final supplementary question?
Did the minister discuss her plan to withhold the information before the election from the people of Capricornia with the Prime Minister, his office or any other member of the coalition government?
As I said yesterday, I was preliminarily advised about the potential requirements for training area expansion in June 2016. Considerable planning continued in the Department of Defence during that time. It was the subject of internal activities, not external discussions.
My question is to the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Senator Fierravanti-Wells. Can the minister update the Senate on how the Turnbull government is working to improve health outcomes in our region?
I thank Senator Back for his question. The Turnbull government is committed to helping build strong health systems in our region because, by supporting our neighbourhood, we are responding to health threats. Health security is very important to regional security. Over the next four years, Australia will contribute $250 million to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which is a public-private global health partnership. Gavi is an important partner for Australia in the fight to reduce child mortality and to enhance regional health security. Gavi supports vaccines that save lives and addresses the common causes of childhood illness and death, such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and measles by helping low-income countries procure new and underused vaccines at globally low prices.
In Asian and the Pacific, more than 230 million children have been immunised with Gavi's support. That is more than 22 million children in Indonesia, 600,000 children to our north in Papua New Guinea and 80,000 children in the Solomon Islands. Many vaccine-preventable diseases no longer affect Australian children, but they are still too common in developing countries, including in our own neighbourhood. We do not want them back in our country. Therefore, our commitment is essential. It is also excellent value for money. For every dollar that Australia has committed to Gavi, it has provided $12 to countries in Asia and the Pacific. Since 2001, Gavi has committed $3 billion to vaccine support— (Time expired)
Senator Back, a supplementary question.
The Australian community can be proud of those statistics. Can the minister outline the importance of partnering with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in health outcomes across our region?
We value our partnership with Gavi because of the work that it does with the private sector. It reduces prices and ensures supply of quality vaccines to countries that need them the most. Private sector engagement is essential as part of our successful results in increasing our aid in the region and our aid effort broadly in the Indo-Pacific.
In addition to the financial contribution that we have made to Gavi, we are also a very active member of the Gavi board where we advocate for the interests of the Indo-Pacific region to ensure that Gavi's operations are both effective and efficient. It is policies like these that help developing countries. It helps to keep their children free from vaccine-preventable diseases and, in turn, helps their self-sufficiency. So this is very important to sustained economic growth and poverty reduction— (Time expired)
Senator Back, a final supplementary question.
Can the minister explain how supporting Gavi helps to protect Australia's health standards?
Our investment in Gavi is an investment in Australia's health security and the health security and economic prosperity of our region. There is growing evidence that child immunisation can improve both the social and the economic progress of a country. Healthier children will attend school, remain in school longer and, by attending school, they will learn more and therefore assist in the economic—
Why did you cut the aid funding, then?
I will take that interjection. We were not ones the ones who cut the aid.
Do not lie!
You went and took $750 million out of the aid budget and put it into your failed border protection policy.
Do not lie!
So do not come in here and tell us that we have taken out of the aid budget. You—
Please direct your comments to the chair, Senator Fierravanti-Wells. Senator Brandis, on a point of order.
Senator Wong is simply screaming interjections across the chamber, Mr President. As you must have heard, and as I am sure everyone else in the chamber heard, she has used consistently unparliamentary language in interjecting against Senator Fierravanti-Wells. She should be required to withdraw. Indeed, she should be required to apologise.
Senator Wong, on the point of order.
Mr President, the minister is misleading the Senate—$11 billion was cut by this government—
That is a debating point, Senator Wong.
She should not be allowed to mislead—
Senator Wong, that is a debating point. There are other ways of addressing that. Senator Wong, I did not hear the comment that has been purported that you—
I withdraw.
Thank you, Senator Wong.
When Labor were in government, they diverted $750 million from the aid budget to pay for their border protection blow-out, making the Gillard government the third largest recipient of Australian foreign aid. In the 15 months prior to the 2013 election, the former government— (Time expired)
Opposition senators interjecting—
Senator Cormann, on a point of order.
I am sitting very close to Senator Fierravanti-Wells and I cannot hear what she is saying because of the disorderly interjections that are coming from the Leader of the Opposition. I would ask you to call her to order.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells's time had expired.
My question is to the minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. I refer to the Prime Minister who said:
If we had a 25 per cent business tax rate today, full-time workers on average weekly earnings would have an extra $750 in their pockets each and every year.
Minister, why should Australian workers embrace a $50 billion handout to big business on the promise of a 1.1 per cent increase in wages in 20 years' time?
Well, Senator Gallagher, I am very surprised to hear you raising the question of business tax cuts because, of course, we know that your leader, Mr Shorten, some years ago when he was a minister in the Gillard government, was the greatest advocate for business tax cuts in Australia. He was an eloquent advocate for business tax cuts was Mr Bill Shorten, but for some reason in opposition Mr Shorten, who walks both sides of the street and who says one thing to one group of people and the opposite to another group of people, all of a sudden has discovered that business tax cuts are bad. This, by the way, is the same Mr Shorten who condemns 457 visas, yet when he was minister in government—
Pause the clock. Order, minister. Senator Gallagher, a point of order?
We are almost halfway through the answer—this is a point of order on relevance. The question was very specific. Why should Australian workers embrace a $50 billion handout to big business on the promise of a 1.1 per cent increase in wages in 20 years' time? It is a question that the minister must answer.
I will remind the minister of the question.
I am merely invoking your own leader, Senator Gallagher, in the remarks he made some years ago to explain why it is that business tax cuts are a good idea. This is what Mr Shorten had to say:
Cutting the company income tax rate increases domestic productivity and domestic investment. More capital means higher productivity and economic growth and leads to more jobs and higher wages.
That is what Mr Shorten said in the other place on 23 August 2011.
Senator Cormann interjecting—
No, Senator Cormann, I could not have put it better myself, either: more leads to more growth and higher wages. That is why the coalition government wants the Enterprise Tax Plan passed through the Senate, front-end loaded in favour of small business, but in the long run favouring all businesses, because we know, as Mr Shorten used to know in 2011 before it suited him to change his tune, that business tax cuts lead to 'more jobs and higher wages'.
Senator Gallagher, a supplementary question. Order on my right!
Given single income families on $65,000 with two children in high school stand to lose $3000 as a result of the Turnbull government's cuts to family tax benefits, why should workers embrace a $50 billion tax cut on the promise of $2 a day in 20 years' time?
Because, Senator Gallagher, it means more jobs and higher wages. I am sure that workers at every level of the income scale, whether they be low-paid workers, middle-paid workers or better-paid workers, have something to gain from more jobs and higher wages. Who was it who said that business tax cuts will produce more jobs and higher wages? Well, it was the Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull—and he is right—but, before Mr Turnbull said it, it was Mr Bill Shorten when he was a minister in the government of Julia Gillard, who also said that business tax cuts would produce more jobs and higher wages. You see, Senator Gallagher, if you cut the cost of doing business, you incentivise businesses to expand to hire more workers and you give them the scope to pay higher wages. Mr Shorten knew that six years ago; it is passing strange that he has forgotten it today.
Senator Gallagher, a final supplementary question.
Given the Turnbull government's $50 billion tax cut for big business promises workers $750 in 20 years—
Senator Wong interjecting—
Senator Wong.
and at the same time is risking Australia's AAA credit rating, which could smash family budgets by putting up mortgage payments by $720 a year, isn't it clear that the Turnbull government will always put the interests of big business before the interests of working Australians?
Mr President, you will have to give me a little bit of latitude here, because I could not hear a word of the first half of the question for the screeching across the chamber by Senator Wong, the Leader of the Opposition. Nevertheless, I will try and address what I understand to be the point of the question from what I heard.
No, Senator Gallagher, that is not the case. The reason is: as Mr Shorten used to say though no longer does, a business tax cut will lead to more jobs and higher wages. Perhaps, Senator Gallagher, if you take part in the take-note debate after this question time, you might care to explain to the Senate why it is that in 2011 Mr Shorten was so committed to a business tax cut—because it would produce more jobs and higher wages—but he has walked away from that belief in 2017. Could it be because he is a rank populist? Could it be because he is a hypocrite? Could it be that he does not believe a thing he says.
I ask that further questions be put on notice.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answers to questions asked by myself and Senator Sterle to Senators Brandis and Cormann.
Question time today has once again revealed that this is a government that has forgotten what it stands for, that is led by a Prime Minister who has abandoned what it stands for and is desperately clinging to power and looking to establish links in areas where previously they have sought to distance themselves. Gone is the principled opposition to One Nation policies, which characterised the previous generation of leadership of the coalition. I am not going to go over ground that has already been traversed, but we know that former Prime Minister John Howard adopted a far more principled approach in relation to many of the One Nation policies, which some Australians have difficulty with.
And also Senator Ron Boswell from my home state of Queensland, a National Party senator, was very strong on this issue and understood that leadership was required to defeat many of the policies of One Nation, which many people find quite disturbing. We have trade minister, Mr Ciobo, who said that One Nation has demonstrated an approach, which I mentioned in my question, which is 'reflective of what it is … to govern Australia in a fiscally responsible way'. In fact Mr Ciobo said that One Nation's approach had a certain 'economic rationalism … reflective of what it is … to govern Australia in a fiscally responsible way' and that they had a 'mature approach to economic policy'. This, I think, was dealt a blow in question time today because on the flat two per cent tax on every Australian, which I asked Senator Brandis about, Senator Brandis was very quick to say—to his credit—that he considered the two per cent tax on every Australian to be a very foolish policy. So we have a senior government minister on the one hand saying that this premise of One Nation economic policy is a foolish policy but on the other hand we have the trade minister saying that they adopt a mature approach to economic policy. Both of those propositions cannot stand.
In addition to the two per cent tax on every Australian, we know that One Nation is exploring the removal of federal taxation. This may well line up with the Prime Minister's thought bubble last year to provide taxing powers to the states—although that position quickly evaporated in a matter of days but it is hard to see much in the way of commonality there with established coalition economic policy in that particular matter. One Nation also has a policy getting rid of penalty rates across the board, something which I am very strenuously opposed to. I can see the commonality of interest there between the coalition and One Nation. It does disturb me that there will be a united force there across the chamber coming after the penalty rates of vulnerable workers.
We also see in One Nation's policies opposition to globalisation, opposition to free trade economic policies and a promise to withdraw from international treaties. Now it is hard to see how those policies can line up with assessment from Minister Ciobo that this is a party that the coalition can work with. The Labor Party has certainly got issues in relation to pure free trade. Labor certainly wants to look at all trade agreements in light of how they benefit Australia's interests. But to talk about opposition to free trade and a promise to withdraw from international treaties without discrimination seems to demonstrate the absolute desperation of the coalition to cling to power and to seek friends where, in the past, the more principled leadership of the coalition has eschewed these types of policies.
I want to put on the record that the cut of penalty rates across the board, if this is something One Nation pursues, will have dramatic impacts in rural areas and would lead to loss of income in those areas so this is a very disturbing aspect of One Nation's policy.
I have to admit, I am terribly disappointed again today in the pursuit of this particular issue. We had some really good questions today in question time, so different from the end of last year. Senator Carr was talking about industry policy. Senator Collins was talking about education policy. Senator Siewert was talking about the omnibus savings bill. There were some real opportunities there for this part of the chamber's proceedings to get into the guts of actually what is going on, what makes government tick. But instead we are talking about the same issue that we spoke about yesterday, the same issue that Senator Sterle banged on about yesterday endlessly and here we are again.
I have so much respect to Senator Ketter. We work very closely together on the economics committee and I have great respect for both his opinions and his approach but this is not an issue, I believe, that he should be speaking about in this chamber. To begin with, as we established yesterday, this is an issue of the state divisions of the Liberal Party. It was a decision of the state executive and has absolutely nothing to do with any single member in this chamber. It is entirely the state division's prerogative, nothing to do with anyone in this room.
The Liberal Party and the Nationals, as I understand, will be preferencing each other in every lower house seat. It is only the upper house seats where this preferencing deal will occur. And it is not uncommon at all for the Nationals to preference One Nation. Indeed the Nationals preferencd One Nation ahead of the Liberal Party in the 2008 state election. As was well discussed and well covered yesterday in this chamber, the Western Australian situation is very unique. The Liberal Party and the Nationals are two separate parties. Yes, we work very closely in coalition and we work very closely in many states, my own state of Victoria included. But Western Australia does not have that arrangement.
Western Australia's situation is entirely unique. The Liberal Party and the Nationals are not in coalition in Western Australia. They are in an alliance for the purpose of forming government but they are not in coalition. There have been occasions in the past—and again I highlight 2008—where the Nationals in the upper house in fact preferenced One Nation ahead of the Liberal Party. These are decisions made by the state division of political parties and they depend on the political circumstances at the time. But I can assure you that the Liberal Party in Western Australia is determined to make sure that there is no Labor government in Western Australia.
I find it extraordinary the hypocrisy of this conversation in this chamber. Yesterday Senator Hanson pointed out the incredible hypocrisy of Senator Chisholm. It was poetry in motion that he, having been a previous state secretary, had also undergone preference arrangements or tried to arrange deals with One Nation. It must have been so embarrassing, I think, for those opposite to have that pointed out to them. There was nothing left to say. At the same time—again, this incredible hypocrisy—the ALP will quite happily accept Greens preferencing arrangements. The Labor Party will unquestioningly accept Greens preferences and deal with the Greens, who in fact have a view of the world that we believe is far more dangerous. They want to tear up the US-Australia alliance. They want to shut down all energy security in Australia. That is possibly the most dangerous political train of thought, yet those opposite will happily accept preference deals from the Greens.
But more importantly—and I think that this has not been discussed—the senators from One Nation have demonstrated over and over again their commitment to consistently vote with this coalition government on matters of budget repair and on matters of economic importance. Not only that, but they have behaved with decorum for the entire time that they have been here. They have behaved with basic good manners. They have behaved with respect for other senators.
I think I need a bucket.
They have behaved with professionalism and respect for this chamber. Dare I say, that is so much more than those opposite have done. This question time was merely one example of the disrespect shown to fellow senators in this chamber and to the chamber itself. (Time expired)
Well, there is five minutes of my life I will not get back.
Here's another five minutes.
I will talk as a Western Australian because, you see, we actually live and breathe WA politics in WA, unlike senators from Victoria. I am going to quote an article from today's West Australian. The light is not all that great, so forgive me, I just have to squint a little bit to have a read. It is by Mr Gary Adshead and Mr Dylan Caporn—all us West Aussies know who they are. The headline of The West Australian today says 'Deal puts Libs in bizarre position' and then there is a heading that says 'New face of One Nation.' I want to quote this, if I can, Madam Deputy President. Even One Nation need to listen to this:
One Nation has trumpeted its voter preference deal with the Liberal Party, saying it should guarantee the party the balance of power and the ability to block the part-sale of Western Power if Colin Barnett is re-elected next month.
I bet that was not part of their discussions behind closed doors when Senator Matthias Cormann and Senator Michaelia Cash were sharing a Chinese meal with Senator Hanson, or whatever they did. It goes on to say—have a listen to this:
In a bizarre consequence of the preference-swapping arrangement, the Liberals admit they have done a deal with Pauline Hanson that could result in their $11 billion plan to reduce debt and build new infrastructure being torpedoed in the Upper House of Parliament.
I bet they are not laughing down there now.
"I have to deal with the reality that there's a rejuvenated One Nation party out there," the Premier said yesterday when asked if he had been forced—
Senator Sterle, please resume your seat.
I am reading.
There is a standing order against senators—
I am quoting an article. You know that—
Senator Sterle, resume your seat.
Senator Sterle is a good guy, but there is a standing order against senators reading their speeches, and I wonder if the same standing order applies to senators who do nothing else in a five-minute speech but read someone else's speeches, albeit an article from a newspaper.
Senator Sterle is quoting.
Thank you for that protection, Madam Deputy President, because it is important that I do quote these words. I will continue quoting this. This is the cracker. Are you ready for this, Senator Macdonald and Senator Hume?
In another twist late yesterday, One Nation's WA leader Colin Tincknell said his party would have put Liberals ahead of Labor, the Greens and Nationals whether or not a deal had been done.
I cannot believe my luck today. He also goes on to say:
"We were always going to preference the Liberals before Labor and the Greens and the Nationals anyway,"
Are you still there? I am just making sure. How is that for a good old-fashioned slap in the mouth?
Quoting is fine; I think holding the newspaper up so high is not.
I am trying to read. I will hold it that way; it is just that the light is not all that good.
They did write it slowly, mate, because they knew you couldn't read it!
Put your glasses on.
I just cannot see. Can I try another angle? As I was clearly saying, there is open warfare in Western Australia between the coalition partners. Senator Hume from Victoria, do you know why we got the rabbit-proof fence in WA? It is to keep the Victorians out, I am told. I do not know if that is true, but let me help you out with what happens in Western Australia. They are best of buddies for most of the time, except the last few years really has tested the mettle of the relationship between the Liberals and the Nats. I have to tell you, this is no secret; it is a well-known fact. Senator Back, who is one of the most intelligent senators from Western Australia—I will give you that; he is top of the class—
Hear, hear.
will know that the Liberals have been seething about the behaviour of the Nationals over the years since 2008, when the leader of the Nationals dared to venture across to the other side of the chamber to see if he could form government with Labor at the time. Boy oh boy, didn't that stir up a possum's nest? Thank goodness for us, it did not happen. I am so glad it did not, because then came the Royalties for Regions program. A lot of people will say the regions need to get money that is earned in the mining areas and the agricultural areas. I have no argument with that at all. But I do not know how singing toilets in Bunbury fit in.
So what have we really found over there? I would go as far as saying—as a betting man, I would chuck a $5 bet on this one—that this is a little bit of payback coming from the Liberals to the Nats. They are actually peeved off. The most embarrassing point here is that Mr Tincknell, the leader of One Nation, owned up. They would have done the deal. Now the Liberals, when they get together and hold hands in the joint party room, have to look across and say, 'Gee whiz, you know, we really have done you over.' The preference whisperer, Glenn Druery, is quoted in an ABC article today, I think, saying that this deal between One Nation and the Liberals, which would have been done anyway without the Chinese meal or whatever, could cost six to nine seats.
Now, if I were Mr Barnett and his cracker team of strategists in the Liberal Party I would be finding every rock I could hide under, because this is not a deal that is going to cut. It is not a deal that is going to stick. And we know what is going to happen, because One Nation have proved that they will slap you in the chops over there on that side of the chamber as quick as they will slap us. What this is all about is that a vote for One Nation is a vote for Colin Barnett; a vote for One Nation is a vote for the Western Australian Liberals. You will not be able to split the pair of them. (Time expired)
Well, hypocrisy writ large was in evidence yesterday when Senator Chisholm carried on about One Nation in Queensland and Senator Hanson called him out. Senator Hanson rose to her feet and reminded him that he was the past secretary of a union of which Mr Evan Moorehead is now the secretary. Senator Hanson said:
Well he actually called up my staff on January 25th of this year and wanted to do a grubby deal with us.
Our leader, Senator Brandis, demanded that Senator Chisholm stand and deny that statement. And did he? No. He hung his head in shame for the whole time Senator Hanson spoke.
To hear Senator Ketter raise questions about One Nation in 2003 and then to draw attention in 2017—for those in the public gallery, let me remind you, since he referred to Mr Costello, the greatest Treasurer this country has ever had, that he was dealing at that time with some $96 billion of debt left to him by the then Keating government. He eventually paid it back, and he had $6 billion a year that was no longer being wasted on interest but was being paid into the Australian economy. And in 2016 what are we doing? Get your handkerchiefs out: the current Treasurer is borrowing from overseas some $15 billion of your money every year—not to repay the $300 billion debt but just to pay the interest on the debt. All of these questions this afternoon in question time about money for education, money for child care, money for child protection—do you know, if we were not wasting $15 billion a year on repaying the interest on Labor's debt we would be putting all of these dollars through the economy in exactly the same way that Peter Costello then was able to do.
Why does Senator Ketter need to be called out? Because the One Nation party, responsibly, is assisting this government in terms of economic reality and economic prudence. The best example of the opposition failing to do that was that in 2013 they announced, 'Should we win the election, there are $5 billion in savings that we will make.' Well, as it happened, the coalition said, 'Yep, we agree with that', and the leader knows—Senator Brandis knows—what happened. In government, we brought those $5 billion of savings in—not once, not twice, but three times. These were Labor's own savings. And what do you think happened, in terms of their economic irresponsibility? Each time they opposed those savings that they themselves had indicated that they would make.
In the minute and a half left to me, let me address myself to Senator Sterle's comments. Indeed, in 2008, as the minister said, the National Party—not a coalition in WA but an alliance—preferenced us last. They preferenced the Greens ahead of the Liberal Party in 2008. And in the cliffhanger, before we decided government, the now leader, Mr Grylls, actually said, within his party room, 'I would like to move a motion that we go with the Carpenter Labor Party to form government.' Contrary to what Senator Sterle just said, it was never Mr Carpenter and his mob who scotched that one; it was the other National Party members—upper house and lower, friends of mine all of them—who said: 'We could not walk down the main street of our towns if you want to do a deal with the Labor Party. So, go down that way, Brendon; go down that way, and we will go in with Mr Barnett.'
That was in 2008. Do you know what Mr Grylls was quoted as saying recently? 'Once again, I would be prepared to have a look at an alliance with Mr Mark McGowan'—from the Labor Party. So, what has he learnt since 2008? The other interesting thing, of course, is that it is in the National Party's interests for the Liberal Party to have done this arrangement with One Nation. Why? Because in 2013, when Barnett won the election in his own right, he could have ignored the National Party. He could have said: 'I'm not interested in them. We brought them into government. The best way the Nats have of getting ministers in the next parliament is for the Liberal Party to win the election.' (Time expired)
I am sure most of us in this chamber today did in fact hear or read about trade minister Steve Ciobo's claims that One Nation's approach to economics had a certain economic rationalism reflective of what it is to 'govern Australia in a fiscally responsible way'. And he went on to say, as we know, that theirs was 'a mature approach to economic policy'. Well, apparently Senator Brandis did not, in answering these questions today, hear that statement, because that is what he told us in question time. And I would encourage the minister to read the paper. He does, not infrequently, hide behind the fact that he has not read the news or the paper, to avoid answering questions in this place.
But it is of great concern that anyone in the government would agree that One Nation does indeed take a mature approach to economic policy, because if you look at their policies they are beyond all rationality. The reasoning is apparently that One Nation votes for Liberals' legislation in this place. Perhaps Senator Brandis chooses not to read the paper because he is clearly embarrassed by what is evident in some of the revelations. It does seem to me that Senator Brandis, if something embarrassing is revealed, will deny any knowledge of it and use it to skirt around the question that is being asked. I think that absolutely affirms what we on this side of the chamber were saying in this place yesterday: what we really see behind closed doors here is a vote for One Nation being a vote for the Liberals. That is certainly what is playing out in Western Australia and it is certainly what you rely on in this place to pass your more erroneous pieces of legislation. On the one hand, we have Senator Brandis saying he agrees with anything Mr Ciobo would say, but on the other hand Senator Brandis is saying that he sees One Nation's fiscal policies as absurd.
Perhaps the minister needs reminding about what some of those fiscal policies are. These fiscal policies include a flat two per cent tax on every Australian, exploring the removal of federal taxation, and getting rid of penalty rates across the board—undermining the rights of workers across this nation who are working hard to keep our country going at night and over the weekend. One Nation oppose globalisation, and they do this in general terms. Back in 2001, I was in the state parliament with two One Nation MPs who were elected when One Nation was last resurgent. Those two members of parliament, who were elected to the state upper house, did not last very long in One Nation. In fact, they split and formed parties of their own after a very short period of time. This is the kind of instability that electors in Western Australia are being asked to contemplate. I remember the rhetoric at the time coming from Paddy Embry, which clearly shows that One Nation has not changed in the last 20 years but that what has changed is the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party cannot seem to be consistent on this question—you do not even agree with one another.
I highlight the kind of chaos that we are contemplating in Western Australia at the next election, with the kind of preference arrangements that are being made. We have Treasurer Mike Nahan rejecting the National Party, saying he rejects their proposed mining tax and saying he will quit if forming government comes down to a deal with Brendon Grylls. That is what Treasurer Mike Nahan placed on the record last week. What we have heard in the chamber today also points to the chaos and dysfunction within Western Australia and, indeed, within the coalition nationally as they seek to govern with the support of One Nation to get their more erroneous policies through. (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Special Minister of State (Scott Ryan) to a question without notice asked today by Senator Siewert relating to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Omnibus Savings and Child Care Reform) Bill 2017.
The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Omnibus Savings and Child Care Reform) Bill 2017, as I pointed out in my question, seeks to make over $5.6 billion of savings. When I asked why the government combined the childcare measures, the paid parental leave measures and 15 other measures that cut our social safety net, the minister went to issues around savings. He said that the country has a savings challenge. This is the same government that rammed through this place tax cuts to more wealthy Australians. So, they chose to spend another $4 billion on tax cuts to the wealthy and then chose to try and make $5.6 billion from some of the most vulnerable members of our community. This will directly affect inequality in this country—inequality that we know is rising. The wealthier are getting wealthier and the poorer are becoming worse off.
It is very clear that the government tried to act as if these savings were needed for child care and paid parental leave, but we know that the $5.6 billion is money over and above any money that they would put into paid parental leave and child care. It just shows how much they really care about child care and paid parental leave—that they would tie them to the zombie measures that affect families, young people, older Australians and, particularly, young people who they want to kick off Newstart and onto the even lower payment of youth allowance. They also want to keep those young people off income support for five weeks before they can access any form of income.
I asked the minister when they made the decision to channel those savings—which they are making from some of the most vulnerable members of our community in the first place—into the NDIS. He could not answer that question. But he then went on to have another bash about the NDIS and how the funding was not available for it. Essentially, what the government are proposing is that they take money from one vulnerable group and condemn them to further poverty, and use that money to fund the NDIS for another vulnerable group of Australians. Given the announcement by the Treasurer yesterday that over $5.6 billion of savings from this bill will go into the NDIS, this smacks of another decision made on the run so that they could try to pressure and blackmail the Senate into supporting the savings cuts that the Senate has repeatedly said are not fair. Guess what? The Senate is going to be saying the same thing: these cuts are not fair.
One of the questions that I think the government also need to be asking is whether they have done any modelling or assessment of the impact of these cuts on families. Remember that, despite the government trying to use sleight of hand to say, 'We're giving families a little bit more money while we're taking away the supplement payments,' families will still be worse off on FTB A and FTB B. If you are on just family tax benefit A, you will lose around $7.80. If you are on family tax benefit B, you will lose about $13.80. So families will be worse off. Young people will be worse off; the government is trying to condemn them to trying to survive on income support when, as I have said in this place many times before, living in poverty is yet another barrier to finding work.
Age pensioners will be worse off because the government wants to take away portability and reduce portability for the pension from 26 weeks to six weeks and also apply that to the supplement. They want to take away the energy supplement, taking $4 off people on income support. The government knows that Newstart is way below the poverty line, that Newstart needs to be increased and that every dollar counts when you are trying to survive on income support.
The government is trying to take away the pensioner education supplement, something that is relied on extensively by single parents. So not only will single parents be hit by some of these other cuts—changes to FTBB, in particular; they also want to take away the education supplement. It is a bad bill and they should withdraw it.
Question agreed to.
Does any senator wish to have the question put on any of those proposals? There being none, we will proceed.
I seek leave to amend notice of motion No. 201, standing in my name for today, relating to the Port Augusta ash dams.
Leave granted.
I move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the long-term remediation of the ash dams adjacent to the decommissioned Port Augusta Power Station has begun,
(ii) the people of Port Augusta have health concerns due to the ash cloud and should be supported,
(iii) Port Augusta residents have had lung cancer rates double the state average and have led a passionate campaign to build a solar thermal plant to secure their energy future, and
(iv) the slow response to the closure of the Port Augusta Power Station and the resultant pollution should serve as a lesson to other power station operators in the country; and
(b) calls on the Turnbull Government to:
(i) offer support to the people of Port Augusta in regards to their health concerns and take all possible steps to avoid a repeat of the situation in Port Augusta elsewhere,
(ii) expedite the process of permanently rehabilitating the ash dam site at Port Augusta by assisting the State Government and Flinders Power, and
(iii) secure Port Augusta's future as a renewable energy leader by providing the support needed to build a solar thermal power plant.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Is leave granted? Leave is granted for one minute.
The monitoring and regulation of air pollution is a state government responsibility. The South Australian Environment Protection Authority and health department are responding to this issue and have directed Flinders Power to replace the sealant covering the ash and to step up monitoring, and it will be looking at what further action is needed. The environmental regulation and licensing of power stations, including waste storage and management from such facilities, is also managed by state governments.
The Minister for the Environment and Energy recently updated the Australian Renewable Energy Agency's statement of expectation to prioritise support for technologies such as energy storage that would support improved security and reliability of the network. Federal government agencies ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation are engaged directly with proponents of potential concentrated solar thermal projects proposed for Port Augusta.
Question agreed to.
At the request of Senator Smith, I move:
That the Senate—
(a) congratulates the 48 worthy Western Australians who were recipients of Order of Australia awards on 26 January 2017 for their outstanding achievement and service; and
(b) particularly notes the following recipients:
(i) The Very Reverend Dr John Harley Shepherd AM, for significant service to the Anglican Church of Australia through senior liturgical roles, and to the community,
(ii) Mr Graham John Cooper OAM, for service to local government, and to the community of Cunderdin,
(iii) Mr Ronald Charles de Gruchy OAM, for service to the superannuation industry, to seniors, and to the community of Joondalup,
(iv) Mr Jack Miller Fletcher OAM, for service to the primary industry sector in Western Australia,
(v) Mr Vaughan Mark Harding OAM, for service to aged care organisations,
(vi) Mr Graham Noel Lewis OAM, for service to the community through a range of volunteer roles,
(vii) Mrs Kaye Florence Lewis OAM, for service to the community of Moora,
(viii) Mr Neil Hugh MacDonald OAM, for service to the community of Vasse,
(ix) Mr Andrew John Newland OAM, for service to the Crown, and through support for charitable organisations,
(x) Mrs Alice Lillian Rule OAM, for service to the community of Albany,
(xi) The Honourable Barbara Mary Scott OAM, for service to children, and to the Parliament of Western Australia, and
(xii) Mrs Marion Frances Sewell OAM, for service to the community of Albany, and to youth.
ea60c01f-edef-43af-9035-942d031b09f2
Question agreed to.
At the request of Senator Moore, I move:
That the Senate—
(a) acknowledges female genital mutilation (FGM):
(i) comprises all procedures that involve altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons and is recognised internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women,
(ii) reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women and girls, and
(iii) violates women and girls' rights to health, security and physical integrity, their right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and their right to life when the procedure results in death;
(b) recognises that a commitment to promote the abandonment of FGM will require:
(i) a coordinated and systematic effort that will engage whole communities and focus on human rights and gender equality, and
(ii) communities to act collectively to end the practice, as well as address the sexual and reproductive health needs of women and girls who suffer from its consequences; and
(c) notes that:
(i) globally, it is estimated that at least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone some form of FGM,
(ii) FGM is mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15 and that girls 14 and younger represent 44 million of those who have been cut,
(iii) FGM can cause severe bleeding and health issues including cysts, infections, infertility, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths,
(iv) the Sustainable Development Goals calls for an end to FGM by 2030 under Goal 5 on Gender Equality, Target 5.3 Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation, and
(v) the elimination of FGM has been called for by numerous inter-governmental organisations, including the African Union, the European Union and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, as well as in three resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the Bathurst community in New South Wales is leading the way in creating an innovative and non-lethal solution to wildlife conflict management at the internationally renowned Mount Panorama car racing circuit,
(ii) Mount Panorama's car races are internationally significant in motor racing and are of important economic benefit to Bathurst,
(iii) councillors from Bathurst Regional Council recently reiterated unanimous strong support for the relocation of over 150 kangaroos from Mount Panorama and is funding basic upfront costs,
(iv) the relocation project is being delivered by donated expertise from scientists, veterinarians, darters and kangaroo rehabilitators, and has some 300 community volunteers registered to help,
(v) 17 local businesses, community clubs and non-government organisations (NGOs) are supporting the project, and
(vi) kangaroos are one of the world's iconic animals and the non-lethal management of kangaroos at Mount Panorama is of national and international interest; and
(b) calls on the Government to:
(i) congratulate Bathurst Regional Council and its achievement in leading the way in kangaroo management based on real community participation and engagement, and robust science and principles of species ecology and behaviour, and
(ii) provide the support needed for other communities to adopt similar non lethal approaches to our iconic kangaroos.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Is leave granted? Leave is granted for one minute.
The government acknowledges the Bathurst community and the way in which they responsibly manage their regional affairs. The national population of kangaroos is in the order of 50 million. Reports are that the cost to the Bathurst council to move 150 kangaroos is in excess of $50,000. The government does not agree that nonlethal approaches are best for all communities. Rural and urban communities across Australia appropriately manage kangaroo populations according to their local circumstances for crop protection, human safety on roads and meat production. The government sets robust standards for the humane and hygienic culling of kangaroos for management or processing. Local authorities must abide by these standards while ensuring the wellbeing of their communities and environment.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes, in relation to the Perth Freight Link 'Roe 8' Highway extension, significant breaches have been documented and reported to the Minister in relation to approval conditions and management plans, relating to dust suppression, asbestos management, and trapping and relocation of endangered species;
(b) orders that there be laid on the table, by no later than 12.45pm on 15 February 2017, by the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Energy, the following documents:
(i) a summary of correspondence or reports made to the Minister for the Environment and Energy or the Department of the Environment and Energy with evidence of compliance breaches with approval conditions since construction commenced, and the response to each, and
(ii) a record of the dates, times and locations where state or federal compliance officers have been on site since construction began; and
(c) calls for construction to cease until Condition 2 is met and all such breaches with approval conditions have been investigated by the Minister.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Is leave granted? Leave is granted for one minute.
The government does not support the motion as it prejudges significant breaches to have occurred in anticipation of Commonwealth and state compliance processes and calls for construction to cease based on that prejudgement. However the Minister for the Environment and Energy advises that he can provide Senator Ludlam with a summary of correspondence or reports made to the minister or the department with evidence of compliance breaches with approval conditions since construction commenced, and response to each, and information about whether federal or state compliance officers have been on site since construction began.
I seek leave to move an amendment to general business notice of motion No. 214 standing in the name of Senator Ludlam.
Leave granted.
I move:
That general business No. 214, standing in the name of Senator Ludlam, be amended by omitting para (c) from the motion.
The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Kakoschke-Moore be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The question now is that the motion moved by Senator Ludlam, as amended, be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 210 standing in my name relating to hate speech.
Leave granted.
I move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) condemns the actions of Mr Christensen MP and Senator Bernardi in attending the Q Society of Australia Inc fundraising dinner in Melbourne even after learning of the deeply homophobic and Islamophobic nature of the Sydney event;
(b) notes that Prime Minister Mr Malcolm Turnbull's failure to rein in Mr Christensen MP fails to reassure the LGBTI community and people of Islamic faith that the Prime Minister and the Coalition value diversity and equality;
(c) notes that Senator Hanson was expelled from the Liberal Party for her racist views;
(d) calls on the Prime Minister to condemn Mr Christensen MP for attending the Q Society event; and
(e) calls on all leaders of all political parties to condemn hate-speech in all forms.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
This is yet another cheap Green stunt. We are the most successful multicultural society in the world. This motion seeks to divide rather than unite.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
There was a time when views expressed by people like Mr Christensen were not welcome in this place. There was a time when there was a consensus that we as a vibrant, diverse multicultural society accepted that there was no place for racism in the Australian parliament. Indeed, it was the time when Senator Hanson herself was disendorsed from the Liberal Party for her racist and bigoted views. Now we have Mr Christensen attending an event where people boast of throwing gay people from buildings; where there is outright hostility and hatred towards people of the Islamic faith. We now have the spectacle where the Liberal Party are preferencing One Nation, really signalling the complete capitulation of the modern Liberal Party, who have endorsed, through their actions, the views of people like Senator Hanson. Racism and bigotry should have no place in the Australian parliament.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Di Natale be agreed to.
I move general business motion 215, standing in my name:
That the Senate—
(a) notes speakers at a Q Society of Australia Inc fundraiser in Sydney said "I can't stand Muslims", "The NSW Division of the Liberal Party is basically a gay club" and, in relation to ISIS, "They are not all bad, they do chuck pillow biters off buildings";
(b) notes the Government was represented at the fundraiser by the Member for Dawson;
(c) rejects these comments which have no place in modern Australia or respectful political discourse; and
(d) calls on all parliamentarians to repudiate such remarks and sentiments.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
I have been given 60 seconds to talk about the Australian far right. I do not need that long. They are a bunch of homophobic Islamophobic extremists. The only thing free in their speech is the nakedness of their hate. The multicultural Australia that we love is better than the white Australia that they desire.
Mr President, I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The government condemns the remarks quoted in the motion but opposes this motion as it is factually incorrect. It is not correct to say the government was represented at this function by the member for Dawson. We are the most successful multicultural society in the world.
Question put.
The Senate divided. [15:56]
(The President—Senator Parry)
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion 216 standing in the name of Senator Wong for today relating to outstanding answers to questions on notice, before asking that it be taken as formal.
Leave granted.
I move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) notes the failure of the Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Brandis) to:
(i) provide answers to questions on notice nos 67, 69, 70, 126, 127, 129, 138, 152, 158, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 242, 272, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306, 309, 310, 312, 313 and 324 within 30 days of the asking of those questions, and that answers to these questions are still outstanding,
(ii) provide answers to questions on notice from legislation committees following the 2016-17 supplementary Budget estimates hearings by the date set by the committees for the provision of answers, and
(iii) provide a response to the order for the production of documents agreed to by the Senate on 30 November 2016 relating to the Bell Group liquidation;
(b) calls on the Leader of the Government in the Senate to provide the answers to outstanding questions on notice and respond to the order for the production of documents to the Senate by 9.30 am on 16 February 2017;
(c) requires the Leader of the Government in the Senate to attend the Senate at 9.30 am on 16 February 2017 so that, prior to government business being called on, any senator may ask for an explanation for the failure to provide answers and responses in accordance with the timelines established by the Senate; and
(d) resolves that:
(i) in the event that the Leader of the Government in the Senate provides an explanation, any senator may, at the conclusion of the explanation, move without notice—That the Senate take note of the explanation, or
(ii) in the event that the Leader of the Government in the Senate does not provide an explanation, any senator may, without notice, move a motion with regard to the Leader of the Government in the Senate's failure to provide an explanation, and
(iii) any motion to take note under paragraphs (d) (i) or (ii) have precedence over all other government business until determined.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The government does not support this motion. This motion is plainly political, designed to waste the Senate's time and delay consideration of important government legislation. In the final year of the last Labor government, the Senate was awaiting answers to 1,399 unanswered questions asked of Labor ministers.
The question is that the motion, as amended, be agreed to.
At the request of Senator Brandis, I move:
That the provisions of paragraphs (5) to (8) of standing order 111 not apply to the following bills, allowing them to be considered during this period of sittings:
Agriculture and Water Resources Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Amendment Bill 2017
Customs and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
Customs Tariff Amendment Bill 2016
Excise Levies Legislation Amendment (Honey) Bill 2016
Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Bill 2017
Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2017
Parliamentary Entitlements Legislation Amendment Bill 2017
Superannuation Amendment (PSSAP Membership) Bill 2016
Transport Security Amendment (Serious or Organised Crime) Bill 2016
Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
Treasury Laws Amendment (2016 Measures No. 1) Bill 2016
Treasury Laws Amendment (Bourke Street Fund) Bill 2017.
I ask that the question on the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Amendment Bill 2017 be put separately.
That is fine, we will do that. The motion will be split into two parts. The first part will deal with the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Amendment Bill 2017. Once that is disposed of, I will deal with the remainder of the bills listed on that notice, which is on page 5 of today's Notice Paper.
The question is that the first part of the motion moved by Senator McGrath on behalf of Senator Brandis be agreed to.
The question now is that the second part of the motion moved by Senator McGrath on behalf of the Attorney-General be agreed to.
I will make the observation that there was a request for the division to be split, or the vote to be split, and the outcome was identical. Normally, that request would be made of the President if the outcome was going to be different. The outcome was the same. I make the observation. I make no further comment about that.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the Papua New Guinea Government has commenced the removal of detainees from the Lombrum Regional Processing Centre for the purpose of forcibly deporting them from Papua New Guinea, and
(ii) advice from Professor Jane McAdam of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales, states:
(A) "Papua New Guinea's refugee status determination process is inconsistent with international law in a number of significant respects",
(B) "As United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has noted, the Regulation [Papua New Guinea's Migration Regulation] incorrectly applies the limited exclusion provisions of the Refugee Convention to ordinary criminal matters more properly dealt with under Papua New Guinea criminal law, which could lead to wrongful denial of refugee status", and
(C) "There is a serious risk that the forcible removal of an asylum seeker from Papua New Guinea may violate international law"; and
(b) agrees that the Papua New Guinea refugee status determination process is inconsistent with international law, and opposes the forced deportation from Papua New Guinea of people who have sought asylum in Australia.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Immigration matters in Papua New Guinea are a matter for the Papua New Guinea government. We have consistently said that those who have been found not to be owed protection should return to their home country. This is in accordance with normal international practice.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.
I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am today Senators Gallagher, Hanson and Siewert each submitted a letter in accordance with standing order 75 proposing a matter of public importance. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Siewert:
Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:
The Turnbull Government's failure to acknowledge that clean coal does not exist and renewable energy and storage is already the most affordable and reliable new energy generation in Australia.
Is the proposal supported?
More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times in today's debate. I will ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly with the concurrence of the Senate.
Well, $14.1 million goes a long way in Australian politics. In fact, in this country it is enough to buy an entire political party, because, of course, $14.1 million is the amount that fossil fuel companies donated to the coalition between 2005 and 2016. That $14.1 million is enough for the Liberal Party to hand over billions of dollars every year in subsidies to the fossil fuel sector. In fact, big polluters in this country get $24 billion in every budget. That is a four-year period. That is $6 billion a year averaged over the out-years of a budget. That is one hell of a return on investment for these big fossil fuel donors.
Apparently, these donations are enough for the coalition to repeat the lies from the coal sector about coal being able to be made clean. Let's be very clear: clean coal is bulldust! It is a complete and utter myth. Not only are the Liberals swallowing that myth, they are trying to con the Australian people into believing their rubbish. But here is the truth: clean coal exists somewhere between the Easter bunny and Big Foot. It is like scientific whaling or healthy cigarettes. It is as real as a dragon, and this mob wants to use Australian money to chase this dragon until our climate is completely cooked. And on coal, it saddens me to say, the Labor Party is not much better.
Let's hear what some of Australia's biggest businesses say about clean energy and coal. AGL is arguably Australia's biggest polluter. Their CEO, Andy Vesey, has said this: 'You have to embrace where the future is going. If you know your customers are going that way, you have to move before rather than after because you want to continue to own that customer.' Mr Vesey said: 'I'd rather be out in front than trailing behind it.' AGL, of course, are embracing renewables and local generation technologies. Australia's second biggest polluter is EnergyAustralia. Their CEO, Catherine Tanna, said today: 'We listen to our customers, and our customers are very, very clear with us that clean energy is where the future is. We know what the future will look like. We own and operate coal power stations, but we want to be part of the plan to transition our energy system.' If the government actually listened to companies like AGL and to companies like EnergyAustralia and actually treated the electorates like these companies treat their customers, perhaps we would not be in the climate mess that this world currently finds itself in.
If the government were to do that, they would pull back from their poorly executed strategy and support the rapid rollout of truly clean renewable energy and technologically advanced storage options. We have a party with a 35 per cent approval rating attacking renewable energy, which has 80 per cent of public support. The Liberal strategists are absolute geniuses, are they not? Not even their voter base is buying it, because none of it is believable or based on facts. What makes this clean coal crusade even more absurd—more absurd than a senior cabinet minister wandering into the House of Representatives with a lump of coal in his pocket—is that clean energy is cheaper than coal, it creates more jobs than coal and it attracts more investment than coal ever will.
Right now, as we debate this, supercritical coal is double the price of wind or solar. The costs of wind, the costs of solar and the costs of advanced battery storage are plummeting every month. Make no mistake: no-one is going to invest in coal. It is spent technology, and investment into coal will create stranded assets into the future. In fact, just about the only people who support coal, apart from the Liberal Party and the Labor Party in this place, are the Minerals Council who, quite frankly, will never have to invest a cent in these absurd ideas.
Meanwhile, there are scores of exciting small Australian businesses leading the global race for storage technologies—like Redflow in Queensland, working on flow batteries, and 1414 Degrees working on silicon storage based on research developed by the CSIRO, whose funding has been slashed in particular recently by the coalition. We have First Graphite Resources trying to commercialise a graphene supercapacitor battery and companies such as Reposit Power, GreenSynch and Redback Technologies are all developing and selling software for a future grid where people will trade electricity.
If Malcolm Turnbull had never entered politics, he would probably be investing in these companies. In fact, he might even own a couple of them and run a couple of them, because they are Australian companies at the forefront of cutting-edge technology and the global energy business. They are exciting, they are helping the world's climate and they are empowering households and businesses and helping them drive down and control their energy bills.
Clean renewable energy is an unstoppable force, while the Liberal Party is looking more and more like an immovable object. There is no way the government is ever going to win this ridiculous pretend-war it has waged. Rather than manufacturing clean, exciting, cutting-edge technologies, all the Liberal Party is interested in doing is manufacturing fear in electorates.
'Clean coal' is nothing but a cruel, cruel hoax. We have seen recently that we have burned so much fossil fuel over the last decades and century that we are changing the climate. One of the changes is more hot days and hotter heatwaves across much of Australia. During these more common hot days and these hotter heatwaves, people turn on more air conditioners. This places more pressure on generation assets and transmission assets. Sometimes they wobble, such as we have seen recently in New South Wales and South Australia. The government's answer has been, 'Burn more coal.' But that is what created the problem in the first place! If it were not so bloody serious, it would be laughable.
Make no mistake: these troglodytes who support the coal industry have placed themselves on the wrong side of history. The unutterably sad thing is that it is our children and our grandchildren who will be the victims of this cruel hoax. It is them and their descendants who will suffer. It is them and their descendants who will not have access to the opportunities that we take for granted today. It is them and their descendants, along with billions of the world's most disadvantaged people, who will pay the price for the greed and short-sightedness we are exhibiting right now. Seriously, you people make me sick. You actually make me sick with the way you come in here and wave lumps of coal around and laugh and joke as if there is no climate crisis in the world when overwhelmingly climate scientists are telling us there is a climate crisis. We have to act. There is a moral imperative on us to act.
In the meantime, the economists are telling us the least-cost way to bring emissions down is to put a price on carbon. Yet in a shocking example of what Peta Credlin recently described as 'retail politics' we saw a campaign against a price on carbon waged by Tony Abbott. Shame on him. He makes me sick, too. Every single one of them make me sick. I say to future generations: I am so, so sorry for what our generation is doing to you today. I am so sorry for the fact that your lives are going to be compromised by our greed today. I am so, so sorry that, as a whole, our generation has completely stuffed up this issue. We collectively are still failing the future. I apologise humbly to our children, our grandchildren and the billions of disadvantaged people around the world who are going to be impacted by climate change.
I do not intend to be ridiculed in this place by this gentleman, Senator McKim. When the science suits him, he is all over it like a dirty shirt. But, when it does not suit him, he seeks to ridicule. When it suits him to be talking about Australia only, he has one attitude. When you take the worldwide circumstance—and, of course, the climate does affect the entire world—he refuses to accept the facts of the science. So I will put a few of them on the record for him.
I have figures from the Grantham Institute and the International Energy Agency on annual comparative emission savings in carbon dioxide equivalents. By China upgrading the standard of its power stations and moving to high-energy low-emission coal it is saving some 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents. All of the actions combined of the EU and their supposed emissions trading scheme have been able to achieve 25 million tonnes per annum—one-sixteenth of 400 million tonnes. Who has the greatest quantity of high-energy low-emission coal? It is Australia. If Australia did nothing else but ensure the sale of our high-energy low-emission coal to China to replace their low-energy high-emitting coal, we would be doing the world the greatest service. We only produce 1.5 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases ourselves.
Let me just contrast, for those who might be listening, the difference between those which are modern, highly efficient coal-producing power stations and those which are not. I take a new power station in Shanghai and the Yallourn power station in Victoria: the capacity of the Shanghai station is 2000 megawatts, that of Yallourn, 1450. The efficiency of production, as measured by the percentage of coal becoming electricity, in that Shanghai power station is 46.5 per cent, or just under 50; that of Yallourn, 28 or just over a quarter. The amount of carbon dioxide produced per annum by the Shanghai plant is just under 2 million tonnes; that of Yallourn 15 million tonnes. The workforce required to operate the plant in Shanghai is 265 people, as opposed to 500 at Yallourn. Face it: these are the figures. We have now in China alone 580 coal-powered stations producing electricity and their under-construction plan is for another 575.
I am a supporter of renewables: I am a supporter of wave power; I am a supporter of a re-examination of tidal power; I have always been a supporter of solar energy. I do not know the cost of storage yet, because nobody has done the figures and that is despite my pleas for our government to engage the Productivity Commission to look at this. I do not know yet about the safety of mass storage. I, for one, am very confident of the future of solar-powered energy. Everybody in this place knows what a rort industrial wind turbines are—$900,000 of taxpayer subsidy per turbine per year before it generates one unit of electricity. Don't talk to me about rorts and subsidies, Senator McKim. How long will that take? Probably 15 years of operation before an industrial wind turbine produces a positive result in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. Yes, it is a vexed question and, yes, it is the responsibility of governments to ensure reliable, affordable power. Yes, the South Australian government has failed; yes, the Victorian government will fail; yes, the Queensland government is on a trajectory to fail; and yes, Mr Shorten is on a trajectory to fail. Our responsibility is to ensure energy security.
Since Christmas the government has sought to pursue, as Senator McKim said, retail politics around energy. All it has revealed is just how terribly out of step the government is on questions of climate change and on questions of energy transformation.
The Liberal Party seems to think that this is a joke, with the Treasurer passing coal around in parliament the day before we experienced some of the most extreme weather conditions we have seen in the history of my state of New South Wales. It is more than a joke; it is in fact an insult. Their old coalition partners, the National Party, seem to think that climate change is fiction, and certainly their new coalition partners, One Nation—the new people they have got into bed with—seem to think it is fiction too. Senator Roberts takes every opportunity in this place to brandish his dossier of 'empirical evidence', which he claims, contrary to the views of scientists all around the world, proves that climate change does not exist. Just today we heard more remarks from the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Canavan, whose unqualified support for coal in any form really betrays his absolute contempt for climate change as a serious issue that we need to address.
Apart from various right-wing commentators in our newspapers, nobody else actually agrees with them. The academic, the scientific, the not-for-profit and corporate sectors all agree that we need serious action on climate change. This month the BCA and the AIG, those radical socialist organisations, indicated in a joint statement that:
Australia needs a suite of durable post 2020 climate change policies integrated with broader energy policy and capable of delivering Australia's emissions reduction targets, at lowest possible cost, while maintaining competitiveness and growing Australia's future economy.
Sadly, there is absolutely no sign that a suite of policies of this kind is on the horizon under this government. It is to Australia's great detriment that this is so. Instead of addressing climate change in a sensible and pragmatic way, the government is using it as a proxy in its culture wars. The latest victim, of course, has been sensible energy policy.
I do not particularly want to talk any further about that today; I want to spend my time talking about energy policy and setting out some of the challenges we face. It is not just the transition that we need to make to cleaner sources of energy, it is the broader systemic changes we need to make to accommodate emerging technological developments and to radically change consumer preferences. We will need a massive investment in energy infrastructure in the next couple of decades. The existing plant—the plant that was built largely by the public sector, I should add—is coming to the end of its life cycle. In fact, Senator Canavan correctly observed this a little earlier when he was talking about the smelter at Gladstone.
Within a decade about half of Australia's coal-fuelled generation fleet will be over 40 years old, with some currently operating stations approaching 60 years of age. New South Wales faced blackouts on Friday for a range of reasons, but one of them was that two out of the four generators at one of its biggest power stations, Liddell, were out of commission. That is a power station that was built in the 1950s and refurbished in the 1970s. It is an indication of the challenges that come about when you are running a very old fleet.
The lesson we ought to draw from that is that in fact we are going to need to make investments in new energy infrastructure, and it really does not matter what technology it is, because they are going to be quite expensive and they will incur costs for consumers. We need to come to grips with that and start enabling the circumstances that will allow us to make those investments in ways that are economically efficient and allow us to meet our emissions reduction objectives. In that light, there is a reason that industry is not interested in investing in clean coal: that the numbers do not add up. AIG wrote in a blog:
…new-for-old replacement of our coal fleet does not look like a good solution for price, reliability or the environment. Electricity sector investors are unlikely to finance a new coal-fired power station in Australia again.
It is a pretty unqualified position. Oliver Yates, the CEO of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation said he would not invest in ultra-supercritical coal plants because it would not be a good use of taxpayer funds.
If clean coal was truly clean or truly effective, we would back it and, indeed, in government we did. We allocated significant resources when Labor was last in government to research carbon sequestration for coal fired generation. But the problem is that right now it is not cost-effective. A new ultra-supercritical coal station comes out, it is estimated by Bloomberg, somewhere between $134 and $203 per megawatt hour. That is significantly higher than the cost of new-build wind or the cost of new-build solar by a factor of almost two.
The problem of course for supercritical coal is that it only really reduces emissions by a fraction of what our existing coal plants emit. If you really want to get coal fired generation down to being a genuine low-emission technology, you have to use carbon sequestration. And once you do that, it is certainly not the cheapest form of energy; it is one of the most expensive. One estimate from Renew Economy suggests that CCS in total comes out at about $352 per megawatt hour—that is, about three times more expensive than wind or solar. I would suggest to you that that is one of the more conservative estimates of the cost of carbon sequestration that I have seen. By contrast, renewables are expected to be cheaper than conventional coal within years, even without taking into account the cost of CCS. Over the past seven years, the cost of wind has dropped over 50 per cent and solar PV costs have dropped by over 80 per cent.
Of course we are not just talking about our generation; we also talking about our transmission infrastructure. The great myth over the last decade was that it was renewables that caused price increases in the electricity sector when in fact it was the very great investment that we needed to make in network infrastructure that caused most of the cost increases for consumers. In fact, they accounted for 43 per cent of residential electricity prices in financial year 2015. What will be needed will be a much transformed transmission system that can cope with consumer preferences and with the technological developments which will see a much more diverse generation capability in our electricity system. In particular, we need to start looking at peak demand, the thing of course that drives the big investments in transmission. Our peaks used to be in winter. We used to turn the electricity on a lot when we wanted to warm up. With the advent of affordable air conditioning—affordable for some—we now see our peaks come about in summer. Very hot days—associated of course with climate change—mean that more and more people are turning their air conditioners on to keep cool. The growth in rooftop storage has seen a further change. There is a dip in energy use in the afternoon as people generate their own power and then a surge in use in the early evening.
Storage technology—batteries at the home, on a regional scale, on an industrial scale—will drive further changes. By 2020 the cost of some battery technologies are expected to fall by another 40 to 60 per cent. So we need to start to build an energy system that can accommodate all of these technologies that can cope with the high variability that we experience in our electricity demand. This is something that is simply not happening under this government because they lack the political will to deal with it seriously. They are interested only in playing political games with this issue, throwing red meat to the base of climate deniers in the coalition party room.
What is needed of course is policy certainty. Witness after witness at the Senate Select Committee into the Resilience of Electricity Infrastructure in a Warming World hearing on Friday reinforced this perspective. The Energy Council, which represents coal and gas, wrote:
We are already experiencing the consequences of energy policy paralysis for the past decade. It’s not pretty. The 'grid' as we know it is degrading in front of our eyes.
And joint statements in recent days have been made by industry and consumer groups including the Australian Aluminium Council, the ACF, the Australian Industry Group and the cement industry calling on the government to deliver certainty. They are saying that the status quo of policy uncertainty, lack of coordination, and unreformed markets is increasing costs, undermining investment and worsening reliability risks. They went on to say we need mature, considered debate.
We on this side are ready to have that debate. This is a complex problem and we need proper policy, not three-word slogans.
The most common question that I have heard when speaking to people in recent weeks is: why? Why would the Treasurer of this country stand up in question time holding a piece of coal and laugh about it, jeering the Labor Party—the opposition—saying, 'This is coal; it cannot hurt you.' Why are we even having this debate today in this place? Why, when this country suffered record heatwaves and extreme weather events that are literally off the charts? The Antarctic ice shelf is in collapse, why? That is the question, the most important question when nearly the entire world and most of our society in Australia accept that the big challenges of our time are tackling inequality and climate change. Why is the political class in this country the only people who do not get it?
You people have been telling lies about it.
I know why you do not get it, Senator Macdonald. You are thick as two short planks and you have been here too long. That is why you do not get it. Let me tell you, you do not represent the average Australian. Why? I will tell you why. It is politics pure and simple. One of my favourite Australian authors, David Gregory Roberts, in his book Shantaram, said:
The only thing more ruthless and cynical than the business of big politics—
And we are in the business of big politics.
is the politics of big business.
And that is what this is about: the politics of big business—the donors to the Liberal Party, the coal industry.
In case you missed it, the head of Glencore Australia today piped up making comments about our energy mix. This is big coal, big dirty fossil fuel companies reaching their hands into policy. That is why the Prime Minister has gone weak at the knees. That is why he has done a complete backflip on this. That is why we are having to fight a rearguard action to protect future generations. That is why the carbon price was ruthlessly and cynically ripped up by your government, Senator Macdonald, through you, Acting Deputy President Marshall: because of politics, because of what is good for the Liberal Party. That is what this is all about. This is not about what is good for the Australian people or for future generations of Australians or the thousands of bats that died of heat stroke in the recent heatwave—those awful riveting images that we have all seen. Those animals cannot run for parliament, sign petitions or go to protests. They need us to do something about this. This is not just an anthropocentric problem; this is much bigger than that, and we should never forget that.
Senator Milne was going to leave an amazing legacy when she left this place, to be part of a leadership team that implemented the most important action against climate change of any country in the world. The day the carbon price got voted down, and there was ring-a-ring-a-roses and the Liberal Party were all giving themselves pats on the back, I saw how upset she was and followed her outside the chamber. It was a very emotional time for me, because I could see she was very upset. Her last work in parliament had just been torn up thanks to Tony Abbott's ruthless and cynical approach to getting votes. But she did say to me: 'Peter, I think we've already won. It's too late to turn back the tide of renewable energy. Too many people want it. It's too successful. I think we've already won.' What you are seeing from this weak Prime Minister and the self-interested Liberal Party is a rearguard action, but it is failing because the Australian people—in fact, the world—are turning their back on dirty energy and are trying to take action on climate change, and we have to play catch-up in this place. We have to put in place new policies that accelerate that and actually make a meaningful contribution to emissions reduction.
As someone who has just been described by the previous speaker as 'thick as two planks'—and perhaps I empathise with that—
He was being very generous.
I must say I am intimidated in this debate by a speaker of such high intellect—
Order! Senator Macdonald, if you would just resume your seat. Senator Whish-Wilson, on a point of order?
I just want to correct the record. It is thick as two short planks, not two planks.
This is not the time for correcting the record; this is the time for taking points of order, if that is what you want to do, but I assume you do not.
As someone who has just been described by the previous speaker as 'thick as two short planks' I must say I am a little intimidated to enter this debate, particularly in the face of such a speaker of high eloquence, high intellect, high sophistication—
Hear, hear.
as the idiot we have just heard from.
You've just contradicted yourself.
In case Senator Whish-Wilson was living under a rock—
Can I just ask all senators to consider the standing orders and the chamber which we are in? I know, Senator Macdonald, you have also been sorely provoked through this debate, but I just urge all senators—
Can I have another couple of minutes, please?
No, you can't.
The clock should have stopped.
It should have; it did not.
I don't have enough handkerchiefs.
I bring all senators to order. We will make a small adjustment to the clock.
Can I start again? As someone who has just been described by the previous speaker, Senator Whish-Wilson, as 'thick as two short planks' I must say I am a little intimidated to enter this debate after such a high-intellect presentation by the previous speaker, someone so sophisticated, so articulate as the person—
Go on; say it.
Well, as the idiot who just spoke. In case Senator Whish-Wilson was living under a lettuce leaf at the time of the 2013 election, it was not Tony Abbott who voted down the carbon tax; it was the people of Australia, who voted for us in record numbers. That is what they thought of the Greens and the Labor Party and their combined policy of a carbon tax and the impact on Australia. Whilst the Greens care nothing for rising unemployment in Queensland or for small-business mum-and-dad operations who make their living out of mining support industries, I do. I care for the unemployed, I care for small business and I care for Queenslanders who will be put out of business by the cost of power.
This is what the Australian people told us. It was not Tony Abbott; it was the people of Australia. We have had the Greens telling us the world is coming to an end if we have another coal-fired power station. Could I just tell you, as I always used to say to the Greens, whilst the Greens want to shut Australia down, around the world there are 216 coal-fired plants being built as we speak. In China there are 579 coal-fired power plants in operation and another 575 planned or under construction. In India, 49 high-efficiency low-emission coal-fired power stations are in operation and 395 are already planned or under construction. What do the Greens have to say to that? 'We want to shut down Australia's few coal-fired plants that deliver industry affordable power, that deliver power for Australians at a reasonable price, and that ensure that we do not have the blackouts such as we have had in South Australia in recent days.'
I am delighted that the Greens have again brought this debate before the chamber to highlight their absolute inability to understand what is right for Australia and what impact high-quality, accessible, affordable coal reserves have on Australia, on the Australian economy and on our ability to get cheaper power. With the latest generation or next generation of high-efficiency low-emissions technology and advanced ultra-supercritical generation, emissions from Australia can be reduced by up to 34 per cent. Isn't that a goal we should be aiming for at the same time as providing jobs for Queenslanders and cheap power for Queenslanders and Australians?
I urge Adani to continue with its coal proposition in Central Queensland. I am very much looking forward to the jobs that would create—which the Greens have no interest in. The Greens have not one bit of interest in the unemployed or in the small businesses that will benefit out of this. And I certainly look forward to it, and I encourage Adani at every stage to proceed with this wonderful project for Australia. (Time expired)
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I am relishing the debate on this matter of public importance on renewable energy. We have been in the Senate for just three months and already we have changed the tone of this debate. I must acknowledge the contribution by Senator Macdonald at the end of last year, when he said that we have never had a debate on climate in this parliament and that thanks to me we have started that debate. He has shown integrity and honesty in doing so, and now we will continue the debate.
Let me break this down as scientifically and as clearly as I can. Let's have some education for these people. Carbon dioxide is a gas—a colourless, odourless, tasteless trace gas that is essential to all life on this planet. Carbon is a solid. It is a usually black solid, but it is also the solid in a diamond ring. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is colourless, odourless, tasteless. Yet the greens are obsessed with carbon. Hydrogen and carbon atoms make up hydrocarbons. We burn them and the hydrogen combines with the oxygen to form H20—water, which is essential, for life on this planet. The carbon in hydrocarbons combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, essential to all life on this planet. Coal is clean, and we cannot affect the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, because that is determined by the oceans, which contain 50 to 70 times more carbon dioxide than in the entire atmosphere.
Secondly, coal has saved the whales and the forests on this planet, because, as a result of coal and oil, we have been able to industrialise and prosper, and with that comes protection of the environment. But wait: we have reversed 160 years of prosperity and industrial evolution and we are now going backwards with renewable energy and storage. We have wind farms that are bird killers, human hurters—they hurt the hearing—and energy killers. And do you know that the carbon dioxide produced in the construction of a wind farm is greater than the carbon dioxide it saves in its entire life? It is a net producer of carbon dioxide. Solar power is wonderful for powering during the day—but hang on: there is the night-time, so we need double the capacity for storage. Oh, and then there are inefficiencies, so we need triple—and that is why the cost of that is not productive.
But the Liberals and the Nationals—I had a visit to Barnaby Joyce's electorate office in St George when he was a senator, and he told me, looked me in the eye, just two meters from me—the overwhelming majority of the coalition partners are skeptics. And he was sure that all of the Nationals were skeptics—strong skeptics. But no-one says anything. The Liberal-Nationals are like sycophantic leeches who like to tuck their knees under the tables on every failed energy policy until this one, and they have at last seen the light—that renewable energy has hurt us. The energy market has been destroyed by all parties in this Senate due to subsidies, regulations, vested interests and political interference that make it unmanageable—it is completely unmanageable. And Queensland, a state with the best coal in the world, is now facing, as of yesterday, $13,000 per megawatt hour. Yet we have the cheapest, cleanest coal in the world.
Senator Hanson-Young disgraced herself last Friday in a committee by trying to pin the blame on the Australian Energy Market Operator. Senator Xenophon is guilty for destroying his own state. Senator Bernardi has helped destroy his own state by being silent. Hopefully he will start to speak up. Only Senators Leyonhjelm, Lambie and Hinch and Pauline Hanson's One Nation senators are not guilty of destroying jobs and industry, because energy is fundamental to our society and to the future of this planet.
The ultimate misrepresenter is Senator McAllister, because, without having any empirical evidence, she misrepresents the fact that I have presented the empirical evidence. But then the Prime Minister—he has had 10 years of a narrative demonising carbon dioxide, and what have we got? Ten years of policy demonising carbon dioxide and the need to cut its products, and then he switches, overnight, with no change in the narrative, to be like a shag on a rock, a cold, grey bird sitting on a cold, miserable day. Is he about to change the climate policy? That is what we are after next, and we are coming to get you. Everything green on this planet is green because of the carbon dioxide. (Time expired)
I do not know whether to laugh or cry after hearing Senator Roberts's contribution to the debate on this matter of public importance. I should laugh because I have never heard so much stupidity in my life. It sounds like it is coming from the Illuminati that seem to support you—or maybe the lizard people, those humanoid lizard creatures that you also believe in. Or should I cry because this is the level of debate that is actually now in this chamber and there are people who actually believe these sorts of things and are peddling this absolute nonsense, as if there is no evidence out there that the climate is being affected and is being changed?
Apart from yourself and everyone in Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party, you have managed to attack everybody else in the chamber. Apparently the three of you have this superior knowledge that seems to come from some being somewhere, despite all the settled evidence that has been around for decades—absolute decades. We may disagree in this chamber on the way to try to remove the pollution from our society that is creating climate change, and that is a fair debate to have. But you come in here and say—Senator Macdonald has acknowledged this—until this year, there has never been a debate about climate in the parliament. Who told you that, Senator? Who whispered in your ear in the dark of night?
Order! Senator Marshall, please address your comments to the chair.
Thank you, and I should. I am glad Senator Roberts is going, because I might be able to move on and say something about the science in a moment. There must be some voices whispering in Senator Roberts's ears, saying, 'There hasn't been a debate in the federal parliament about climate change,' even though, for the last two decades, there has. It has probably been one of the most debated issues in this parliament over the last 20 years. But anyway, the voices, the voices, Senator Roberts, the voices—they are out there somewhere. Ignore them! Ignore them, if you can. I do not want to give Senator Bernardi a plug, but to say that he has been silenced on this issue is another quite extraordinary claim. Let us leave your contribution to one side, Senator Roberts, because, seriously, you should go back and reread it. That was appalling.
I want to go back to Senator McKim's contribution, because, quite frankly, I found that a little bit offensive too—he said that everyone else in this chamber makes him sick about where we have gone with this.
I was talking about the left hand side.
All right. I want to remind Senator McKim—I know he was not in the chamber at the time—that in 2009 the Greens stood shoulder to shoulder with the climate change sceptics over there and voted down the emissions trading scheme that we put before the Senate. Let me tell you, the voting down of that scheme at that time pushed back the momentum on the introduction of renewable energies. It pushed back the investment in renewable energies in this country, and many job opportunities at that time were lost, because you stood shoulder to shoulder with the sceptics over there and voted that scheme down.
Senator Back, who I have enormous respect for, made the point that coal is going to be part of the energy mix, not only in Australia but in the rest of the world, for a while yet. That is absolutely true; we cannot simply say we are going to close all our coal-fired power stations tomorrow. We cannot do that, because this government does not have any energy plan for what would come after that. Senator Back is also right: coal will remain in our energy mix. But it will not be forever; eventually coal will be gone from the energy mix. In the interim, on the journey to not using coal at all, if we can use more high-intensity, less-polluting coal, that would be a good thing, and we should do that. In that respect, Senator Back is absolutely right.
Let us look at where we are now. The emissions trading schemes that most countries have put in place and that we had in place in two forms for a while were letting the market determine the energy mix for us—given the goals that we had to set to reduce our emissions. In the first instance, with new technologies, if you are going to intervene in that marketplace you intervene to give someone who is at a disadvantage more of an advantage so that they can compete. Naturally, in renewable energies there were subsidies, and I think that was quite right. Those subsidies have driven changes in technology and improvements that we could not dream about only a decade ago. A decade ago, we could not dream about the advances in solar technology and battery storage power. It has been one of the most extraordinary technological advances that we have seen, and that has come as a result of worldwide targets, subsidies and investments made on the back of those subsidies to generate the development of those technologies.
Those technologies are increasing exponentially, and they are already now at the stage where investors will not invest in coal-fired power, because renewable energies are cheaper. Renewable energy power is now cheaper than coal power. Any new coal power station built now will require enormous government subsidies—we are already subsidising coal. Very soon, renewables will not need any subsidies at all. Investors are ready making these commercial decisions. If we actually had a government that had a proper energy plan, we would not be relying on other people—companies—to make decisions about when our coal-powered power stations and generators will close. We would be making those decisions ourselves. Over the next couple of decades, three-quarters of our coal-fired power stations will be reaching their use-by dates. At that time, we will be free from coal generation in this country. We will still have a mix of gas and other energy sources, but that is where we are going. So, instead of having a proper energy plan and a government courageous enough to say, 'This is where we, as a country, are going to be'—a low carbon emissions country doing our bit to reduce our global emissions—we are allowing other people to decide when our coal-powered power stations will close.
This is a terrible indictment of this government, because every time they squander the opportunity to have a plan, to have a long-term policy, they squander the opportunity for investment in this country, they squander the opportunity for R&D development of new technologies in this country and they squander opportunities for job development by these new technologies in this country. The government's failure to have a policy to enable those things to happen is a disgrace. Australia is well placed to be one of the leaders in the development of these technologies, and again, coming back to the point I made earlier, I am are so bitterly disappointed because back in 2009 we were at the leading edge with our proposed emissions trading scheme. We would have seen a lot of that investment in R&D activity go on in this country and we would have seen significant jobs growth in this country as a result of that. This was squandered in the first instance by the Greens standing shoulder to shoulder with the climate change sceptics and voting it down and then ultimately by this government voting down the second iteration of that cost-on-pollution scheme that we had in place.
This has been an enormous tragedy for this country, and another enormous tragedy is the people who say the sorts of things that come out of Senator Roberts's mouth. I hope we never have to hear it again—there is this alternative world where apparently we have not been debating climate change in this chamber until their presence this year.
I do worry about my colleague Senator Marshall's fragile ears—I hope he does not have to hear ideas that he is not comfortable with and that he does not agree with—it would be a great travesty in a democratic chamber if one had to encounter ideas one did not agree with. I find myself again thanking the Greens for bringing an important topic to the chamber, but I will not surprise them when I say I have to take some issue with the specific wording they have proposed and the angle they have taken. This morning when I saw the MPI letter come around, as it does every sitting morning, I thought it was fair enough that the Greens wanted to debate this issue—it is an issue that is passionate for them—and I expected them to be advocating for renewable energy, as they do. Even I was surprised to hear the Greens claim that renewable energy today is the most affordable and most reliable source of energy in Australia. Wow—renewable energy today is the most affordable and most reliable! I think a few South Australians would take issue with that, but I will come to that in a moment. I would have accepted the Greens saying that the cost of renewables is coming down—and it is, and that is a positive development. I would have accepted the Greens saying that renewable energy technology is improving and is becoming more reliable. That is also true. But to say that today, in Australia, it is the most reliable and most affordable source of energy is absolute fantasyland stuff—it is absolute alternative facts land.
If it were true that renewable energy was cheaper and more reliable, then why do we need any subsidies at all for renewable energy? If it is cheaper, if it is more reliable, then people would be building it—the private sector would build it without any government funding at all. The government has a renewable energy target of 23½ per cent by 2020, which I think is quite ambitious. Those opposite wanted to turbocharge it and make it 50 per cent by 2030, and I know the Greens would go further yet. If it was true that it was more affordable then those policies would be completely unnecessary—renewable energy would be rolled out on its own without any assistance from government.
Let us come to South Australia, because South Australia is a salutary lesson here. In the last four months in South Australia we have seen four blackouts. The South Australian government and those who seek to defend it, including Labor and the Greens, have had a different excuse each time one of these blackouts has happened. My absolute favourite is the most recent one—that it is the fault of the Australian Energy Market Operator. The hint as to why we should not blame the Australian Energy Market Operator for the most recent blackout in South Australia is in the name—it is the Australian energy market operator. And, lo and behold, it has not caused blackouts in any other state in Australia—it has not caused blackouts in Victoria or in New South Wales or in Queensland or anywhere else in Australia. If the fault lies with the Australian Energy Market Operator and not South Australia and their policies, why has AEMO not been blamed or found responsible for causing blackouts elsewhere?
I think the common thread between the blackouts we have been having is not AEMO, or any other government body outside of South Australia, but South Australia's policies on renewable energy. It is not a coincidence that the state in Australia which has the least affordable energy and the most serious issues with reliability also just happens to be the state that is most reliant on renewable energy. AEMO said in its report in December, after the spectacular state-wide blackout, that, yes, absolutely it was triggered by and the cause was the weather events that knocked out poles and wires across the state but the South Australian electricity grid is 'less resilient'—that is a direct quote—than other energy grids around the country because of its unusually high reliance on renewable energy. That is not a difficult thing to understand when you look at the proportion of energy in South Australia provided by wind. On a really good today wind can provide 80 per cent of South Australia's electricity needs. That is a great thing. But, unfortunately, not all days are good days from a wind point of view, and on some days it produces much less energy than that. In fact, on average it produces about 40 per cent and last week when they had a blackout it was producing 2½ per cent. The unfortunate thing is that, unlike thermal generation of power in which we control how much is produced, we do not control the wind and nor do we control the sun. Therefore South Australia is vulnerable, as a state that is so reliable on renewables, to radical fluctuations in supply.
If you want to have an electricity grid which is predominantly supplied by renewable energy, you need two things—two things are absolutely essential. You need storage of electricity and you need backup. Storage of electricity at this stage, with where we are in the technological cycle, is not viable for supplying a whole state. I hope that one day that will change and I hope technological evolution will allow that to happen. But we are not there today. We do, of course, have the capacity to back up our electricity networks with traditional thermal power stations, using coal or gas, that can come on and back up supply—but that will occur only if there is an incentive and only if they have not been pushed aside like they have been in South Australia by the renewable energy industry.
So unless we are able to overcome those two problems, renewable energy will be intermittent and unreliable, and that will have a very real cost for families and households. Even if we are able to overcome those problems, we will have a very serious issue of affordability, because renewable energy itself, as we know, since we need a RET to make it viable, is expensive, and the backups required to make it reliable are also expensive. So at the end of the day, if you want a state which is predominantly providing its electricity needs through renewable energy, you have to accept that it is going to be much more expensive electricity than it otherwise could be.
I think that, in this day and age, that is a very, very unwise thing to do. Australia could be the energy supercapital of the world. We could be more efficient and more competitive than any other nation in the world because we have some of the most abundant natural resources in the world in terms of coal and gas—in terms of uranium, even. We could be leading the world. But we do not lead the world, because of some of the policies that have been put into place, and the South Australian government is a leading example of this.
We know that because they used to boast about how they were a leading example of this. Jay Weatherill, the Premier of South Australia, once proudly boasted that they were conducting a big international experiment in South Australia. Well, the results are in: the experiment has failed, and people are paying the price. Families are paying the price because their children are not able to have air conditioning on on a hot day. Businesses are paying the price because they have to shut down and send their workers home when the lights go out when they are forced to load shed. They are the consequences of the policies pursued by the South Australian government. They are the consequences of the obsession with renewable energy.
By contrast, our government is very prudently considering the benefits of new coal-fired technology. If you really care about the planet and what you really seek to do is lower emissions you would be happy to seek lower emissions by any means. If you replace some of Australia's existing, admittedly old and not all that efficient coal-fired power stations with a brand new coal-fired power station using high-efficiency, low-emissions technology, using supercritical technology, then you can and will lower emissions in Australia. There is an estimate that if we replaced all of our traditional generation of coal with advanced ultrasupercritical generation, emissions in Australia could be reduced by 34 per cent. I think that is a good thing. I think that would be a welcome thing. Our emissions would be lower and we would also have an electricity grid which is much more stable and reliable. We would not have to worry about blackouts or load shedding. We will be able to provide affordable, reliable electricity to Australian families and businesses.
Of course we would not be the only ones doing this. Countries around the world, particularly in Asia, are leading the way. Japan and China are constructing many of these sorts of coal-fired power stations. China is even developing systems to retrofit their existing coal-fired power stations to make them more energy efficient. As the world's largest exporter of coal, it is in our interests to prove that this technology can work and can lower emissions at a reasonable cost. We hear a lot about the renewable energy policies favoured in the European Union, but in fact there are already 52 high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power stations in the European Union.
I want to conclude with some unfortunate facts—not alternative facts like we have heard from the Greens earlier today. It is from the National Electricity Market Watch, happily provided to me by the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia's office. It is about the electricity that is being generated today at midday. Black coal—50 per cent. Brown coal—18 per cent. Gas—15 per cent. Hydro—five per cent. Wind—0.8 per cent. Today is a day like many days in South Australia and around the country: if the wind is not blowing the power is not being generated, and there needs to be a reliable back-up supply. High-efficiency, low-emissions coal can be the answer.
I seek leave to make a personal statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
I would like to put on record that last night at the whips meeting it was decided that an MPI would not happen today and that the time would be devoted to our Indigenous Australians to talk about closing the gap. We in my party all thought that was a great idea. We did not submit an MPI this morning. I do not blame the Greens; they won the raffle. But I think the opposition was wrong in going for an MPI today when closing the gap was far more important. We have discussed energy many, many other times in the Senate.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works I present report no. 1 of 2017, Referrals made October and November 2016.
On behalf to the chair of the Education and Employment Legislation Committee, Senator McKenzie, I present additional information received by the committee on its inquiry into the provisions of the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Jobs for Families Child Care Package) Bill 2016 and related bills.
I present the government's response to report No. 454 of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, Early years quality fund: review of Auditor-General reports no. 23 (2014-15)and seek leave to have the document incorporated in Hansard.
Leaved granted.
The document read as follows—
Australian Government response to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit Report No. 454
Early Years Quality Fund
Review of Auditor-General Reports No. 23 (2014–15)
FEBRUARY 2017
Response to the recommendation(s)
Recommendation No. 1
The Committee recommends that the Department of Finance amend references to demand-driven grant programs in the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines to explicitly refer to the implementation risks of a 'first-in first-served' approach, as outlined in ANAO Report No. 23 (2014–15) and the Committee's report.
Agree
The Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines (CGRGs) are largely principles-based with limited specific requirements. They already provide that: 'Competitive, merit-based processes should be used to allocate grants based upon clearly defined criteria, unless specifically agreed otherwise by a Minister, accountable authority or a delegate' (CGRGs, paragraph 13.10). It is consistent with this principle to note that 'first in first-served' grant programs are associated with higher risks, and to refer to explicit guidance on the risks of demand-driven programs as part of complementary guidance and tools.
The Department of Finance (Finance) is currently developing a suite of grant guidelines templates to improve grants administration and to assist entities and non-government stakeholders. One of these templates is designed to be used for demand driven, or 'first-in first-served' processes. Once piloted, Finance will use this template, the related user guidance and information sessions to draw attention to the implementation risks associated with demand driven grants processes.
Recommendation No. 2
To encourage more effective departmental advice to ministers on program implementation risks, the Committee recommends the Department of Finance amend the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines to specify that, where a method other than a competitive merit-based selection process is planned to be used, officials also document, in the policy design phase:
The above matters should also be included in departmental ministerial advice.
Agree
The Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines (CGRGs) already provide that: 'Competitive, merit-based processes should be used to allocate grants based upon clearly defined criteria, unless specifically agreed otherwise by a Minister, accountable authority or a delegate' (CGRGs, paragraph 13.10). Where an alternative method is proposed, the CGRGs provide that officials should document why this approach has been used. The CGRGs will also be updated to indicate that, where demand-driven methods are used, officials should advise Ministers on how the grant allocation method was developed, explain how implementation issues were considered, and outline risk mitigation strategies. It is expected that the CGRGs will be updated for a 1 July 2017 implementation.
Officials are also required to have regard to the key principles, which include robust planning and design. The CGRGs note that 'officials should ensure that risk identification and engagement is supported by performance information, procedures and systems that continuously identify and treat emerging risks throughout the grants administration process. In addition, the mandatory provisions in the CGRGs require that officials must provide written advice to Minister, where Ministers exercise the role of an approver, and provide for minimum briefing requirements (CGRGs, paragraph 4.6).
Recommendation No. 5
The Committee recommends that the Department of Finance and the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) work together to strengthen the Commonwealth Grants Rule and Guidelines (CGRGs) and update and expand the Implementing Better Practice Grants Administration guide to reflect the Committee's findings in this report, and also the ANAO findings in Report No. 23 (2014–15). In particular:
Agree
One of the principles of grants administration in the CGRGs is probity and transparency. The CGRGs note that accountable authorities should put in place appropriate mechanisms for identifying and managing potential conflicts of interest for granting activities. This includes, 'where members of expert or advisory panels or committees have a direct or indirect interest in informing a decision about expenditure or providing advice on grants'. The CGRGs will be updated to indicate that it is not advisable to include prospective applicants for a grants program on bodies, which directly input into the grant selection process. It is expected that the CGRGs will be updated for a 1 July 2017 implementation.
On behalf of the Prime Minister, I table the annual report on closing the gap and accompanying ministerial statement. Pursuant to order, the documents are listed for consideration at item 18 as a government business order of the day and many be considered for not more than two hours today.
I table a document relating to the order for the production of documents relating to the Bell Group liquidation.
by leave—I move:
That Senator Hinch be appointed as a member of the Select Committee on a National Integrity Commission.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a first time.
I move:
That these bills be now read a second time.
I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speeches read as follows—
AGRICULTURE AND WATER RESOURCES LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 2016
Second Reading Speech
The Agriculture and Water Resources Legislation Amendment Bill 2016, and its companion Bill, the Excise Levies Legislation Amendment (Honey) Bill 2016, build on the agriculture and water resources portfolio's progress to reduce unnecessary regulation and to improve legislation so that it is clear, easy to read and easy to understand.
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources administers nearly 100 pieces of primary legislation, some of which date back to the 1980s. Not all of this legislation is now required and not all of it is clear and easy to understand.
This Bill will amend 13 portfolio Acts to cease four redundant statutory bodies, remove unnecessary regulation, improve administrative efficiency and make technical amendments. It will also repeal 12 Acts that are redundant or no longer required and re-introduce legislative measures that lapsed when the Parliament was prorogued in April 2016.
The Bill will benefit portfolio industries by removing unnecessary regulation and streamlining administrative practices.
For example, the Bill will amend fisheries management legislation to remove an unnecessary administrative burden on the fishing industry. Currently, permit holders need to complete an application form each year to apply for a new permit. The amendments will allow the Australian Fisheries Management Authority to grant existing permit holders a new permit without the need for them to complete a new application. This is a simple improvement but one that will lessen the burden for fisheries permit holders each year.
Current legislation requires meat exporters to have a licence to export meat-by-products such as skin, hide and tallow. The Bill will remove this requirement. As these products are not for human consumption, an export licence is not needed.
The Bill will also make amendments to improve government efficiency, including ceasing four statutory bodies. These bodies are either redundant or their functions can now be undertaken in other more efficient ways.
For example, the Statutory Fishing Rights Allocation Review Panel was created to review decisions during the reforms to statutory fishing rights. The amendments will transfer the merit review functions of the review panel to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). Due to the majority of the reforms now being completed, any work that would previously have been undertaken by the review panel can now be more appropriately performed by the AAT.
Amendments in the Bill will also address concerns raised by the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances about the appropriateness of the delegation of the Secretary's general rule-making powers in the Farm Household Support Act 2014. The provision that allows the delegation of the secretary's general rule-making power will be removed.
To streamline administrative practices, the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act 2012 will be amended to ensure that the process of retaining a seized item during an investigation process is efficient and practical. The delegation will be amended to enable inspectors, who are appointed under the legislation, to make applications to an issuing officer to retain items seized during an investigation.
Under current legislation some of the portfolio's industry bodies are required to provide the agriculture minister with certain corporate documents, which must be tabled in both houses of Parliament. To reduce unnecessary duplication and to maintain consistency, where industry bodies already make the same, or similar, information publicly available, the relevant legislation will be amended to remove the tabling requirements.
The Bill will reduce complexity and improve readability of numerous Acts. For example, consistent with current legislative drafting practice, about 40 pages of text of an international fisheries treaty will be removed from fisheries legislation. This will simplify the Act and remove the onerous process of making legislative amendments should there be any changes to the treaty.
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources continues to identify portfolio legislation that is redundant or no longer required. The Bill includes 12 Acts for repeal. These Acts relate to laws covering agricultural and veterinary chemicals, the national residue survey, export charges and quarantine fees, rural adjustment and meat and live-stock and wool industries. A number of these Acts date back to the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
This Bill supports the government's commitment to maintaining proper housekeeping of Commonwealth legislation and will assist portfolio industries by reducing unnecessary regulatory burden and helping them to understand the regulations that apply to them. Overall, the Bill will achieve improved and more efficient regulation in the agriculture and water resources portfolio.
EXCISE LEVIES LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (HONEY) BILL 2016
Second Reading Speech
The Excise Levies Legislation Amendment (Honey) Bill 2016 is a companion Bill to the Agriculture and Water Resources Legislation Amendment Bill 2016. Together, the Bills aim to reduce unnecessary regulation and improve legislation so that it is clear, easy to read and easy to understand.
The Excise Levies Legislation Amendment (Honey) Bill 2016 will amend the Primary Industries (Excise) Levy Act 1999 to remove an obsolete provision whereby a buyer may give to the seller a certificate of the buyer's intention to export honey.
The Bill will also make mirror amendments to the National Residue Survey (Excise) LevyAct1998 to remove an obsolete provision whereby a buyer may give to the seller a certificate of the buyer's intention to export honey.
Participants in the honey industry no longer issue, receive, or rely upon either of these certificates when selling to a buyer who intends to export the honey. The changes will not alter the amounts of levy or customs charges collected in relation to honey.
The Australian Honey Bee Industry Council supports these amendments.
During the 2015-16 financial year, Australian honey producers exported almost 4.5 million kilograms of honey valued at over $45 million.
Although these are minor amendments, it is another example of the government's commitment to ensuring administrative practices are streamlined and efficient and that agricultural industries are clear about the regulations that apply to them.
Debate adjourned.
I indicate to the Senate that these bills are being introduced together. After debate on the motion for the second reading has been adjourned, I will be moving a motion to have the bills listed separately on the Notice Paper. I move:
That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a first time.
I move:
That these bills be now read a second time.
I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speeches read as follows—
CUSTOMS AND OTHER LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 2016
Second Reading Speech
The Customs and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 is an omnibus Bill that proposes a number of changes to the Customs Act, as well as amendments to the Commerce (Trade Descriptions) Act, and the Maritime Powers Act.
The amendments proposed in Schedule 1 of the Bill will allow regulations to be made so that export permits for defence and strategic goods can be revoked where, in the opinion of the Defence Minister, the exportation of those goods would prejudice Australia's national security, defence or international relations. After this amendment to the Customs Act commences, the Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulations 1958 will need to be amended to give effect to this power.
Following feedback from participants throughout the pilot phase, Schedule 2 of the Bill will further streamline the accreditation process for the Australian Trusted Trader programme, by amending the Customs Act to remove the requirement that the Comptroller-General of Customs enter into an agreement with an entity that confers interim trusted trader status. This is being done at the suggestion of industry, and will reduce the regulatory burden on businesses seeking accreditation under the Australian Trusted Trader programme, and incentivise greater industry participation.
The Customs Act does not currently contain any mechanism by which an owner of goods can be exempt from liability to pay the import declaration processing charge. Schedule 3 of the Bill will amend the Customs Act to allow a determination that certain parties or goods are exempt from liability to pay this charge. These amendments will allow Australia to comply with international agreements and treaties involving the application of fees and charges at the border. These amendments ensure that people who pay the charge but are exempt from doing so are able to have their payment refunded.
Schedule 4 of the Bill will amend the Customs Act to extend the circumstances in which a person can apply to move, alter or interfere with goods for export that are subject to customs control. Outwards duty-free goods, including those issued under the current duty-free 'sealed bag scheme' require the same screening as any other baggage of travellers on international flights and voyages.
Screening staff at an international gateway airport are required to screen all liquids, aerosols and gels presented at a departure screening point. If an alarm is triggered while screening the goods, the goods are required to be re-screened. If the item is a duty-free item, this means removing it from the sealed duty-free packaging. However, the opening of sealed duty-free bags and/or tampering with the contents without permission while they are subject to customs control is an offence punishable under the Customs Act.
These amendments will allow screening authorities to apply for permission to open sealed duty-free bags for re-screening without breaching the Customs Act. Granting this permission will be relevant at international gateway airports, such as Melbourne, where departure screening occurs prior to customs processing.
Schedule 5 of the Bill will amend the Customs Act to remove unnecessary requirements for producers when demonstrating that they have made goods in Australia. Currently, when Australian manufacturers apply to have a tariff concession order revoked, or object to the making of a tariff concession order, they must meet two tests. They must demonstrate that at least 25 percent of factory costs of substitutable goods occur in Australia and that a substantial process of manufacture is also undertaken in Australia.
Where a substantial process of manufacture in Australia is proved, the Australian content always exceeds the 25 percent threshold as a matter of fact. Therefore, this requirement is to be removed. Providing evidence of factory costs requires detailed and confidential company accounting information and is a significant and costly administrative burden for manufacturers. Its removal is consistent with the Government's deregulation agenda.
Schedule 5 of the Bill also clarifies the requirements for Australian producers of made-to-order capital equipment when seeking to revoke a tariff concession order, or object to the making of a tariff concession order. If the tariff concession order relates to goods that are made-to-order capital equipment, Australian manufacturers need only demonstrate that they have the capacity to produce substitutable goods. Australian producers of made-to-order capital equipment do not need to have actually made substitutable goods the subject of a TCO application or revocation.
The amendment also extends the evidentiary window for a local manufacturer to demonstrate capability of production of substitutable goods from 2 years to 5 years. The current period of 2 years is often insufficient for an Australian manufacturer to demonstrate such capability in relation to large-scale capital works such as unique mining machinery, given the amount of time and labour involved in such manufacture.
Amendments to the Customs Act proposed in schedule 6 of the Bill will repeal an obsolete provision relating to the collection of duty on goods imported for a temporary purpose.
Schedule 7 of the Bill amends the Commerce (Trade Descriptions) Act to allow an officer to inspect and examine goods that are, or that the officer reasonably believes are, goods prescribed by the regulations made under that Act which are imported, and allows those Regulations to prescribe penalties, not exceeding 50 penalty units, for offences against those Regulations. These amendments reflect modern drafting practices.
The amendments proposed in Schedule 8 of the Bill are intended to confirm the Government's clear intent that the powers under the Maritime Powers Act are able to be exercised in the course of passage through or above the waters of another country in a manner consistent with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Finally, Schedule 9 of the Bill will repeal the Customs (Tariff Concession System Validations) Act 1999 and the Import Processing Charges (Amendment and Repeal) Act 2002 as these Acts are now redundant.
I commend the Bill to the Chamber.
CUSTOMS TARIFF AMENDMENT BILL 2016
Second Reading Speech
The Customs Tariff Amendment Bill 2016 contains four amendments to the Customs Tariff Act 1995 that will further enhance the operation of certain aspects of this Act.
Firstly, the Bill will repeal Schedule 1 to the Act and will enable its contents to instead be included in the Customs Tariff Regulations 2004. Schedule 1 provides for countries and places that are eligible for preferential rates of customs duty for certain goods. Placing these details in a regulation will allow the provisions to be updated in a timelier manner, when required.
Secondly, this Bill will remove the expired safeguard provisions relating to the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement from the Act. These agricultural safeguard provisions expired on 31 December 2008, and their removal will not affect the collection of customs duties.
Thirdly, the Bill will add three new Additional Notes to Schedule 3 of the Act to clarify the tariff classification of certain fruits, vegetables and pastas in response to recent Administrative Appeals Tribunal decisions. These new notes will ensure that goods imported into Australia are classified consistently with our trading partners and our international obligations. This amendment will help to minimise administrative costs for importers and will not affect the amount of customs duty payable on such goods.
Finally, this Bill will amend the provisions relating to the concessional treatment of goods imported under the Enhanced Project By-law Scheme, which is implemented under item 44 of Schedule 4. This Scheme was closed to new applicants as part of the 2016-17 Budget. Importers that currently have a valid determination will continue to be able to access the Scheme until 31 December 2017 at this time all valid determinations will have expired. This Bill will provide clarity to importers using this scheme by inserting the end date in item 44.
SUPERANNUATION AMENDMENT (PSSAP MEMBERSHIP) BILL 2016
Second Reading Speech
The Superannuation Amendment (PSSAP Membership) Bill 2016 (the Bill) enables members of the Public Sector Superannuation Accumulation Plan (PSSAP) who move to non-Commonwealth employment to choose to remain a contributory member of PSSAP.
The PSSAP, which was established on 1 July 2005, is the current default fund for new Commonwealth employees and employees of prescribed Commonwealth entities. As a fully funded accumulation scheme, the PSSAP provides more modern, flexible superannuation arrangements than the older Commonwealth defined benefit superannuation schemes, all of which are now closed to new members.
At present PSSAP members are unable to remain as contributory members when they move to non-Commonwealth employment. They must either maintain multiple superannuation accounts or consolidate their superannuation by moving the monies in their PSSAP account to another superannuation account. Both of these options involve additional administration costs for the member. For members who decide to maintain multiple superannuation accounts, these additional costs are ongoing.
The changes in the Bill address this issue by enabling PSSAP members who move to non-Commonwealth employment to maintain contributory membership. These persons will form a new sub-category of ordinary employer-sponsored member of PSSAP, referred to in the Bill as 'former Commonwealth ordinary employer-sponsored members', and their new employers will become 'designated employers'.
The changes will better align PSSAP with superannuation schemes in the superannuation industry, which commonly enable members to remain contributory members when they change employment. They are also consistent with broader government superannuation reforms and initiatives to lower the costs that members incur for the administration and management of their superannuation accounts.
The Bill places some restrictions on maintaining contributory PSSAP membership. A person must have been a Commonwealth employee or office holder for a continuous period of at least 12 months. They must also be engaged in non-Commonwealth employment in respect of which their employer has a Superannuation Guarantee obligation.
Those who move from Commonwealth employment to certain other roles with the Commonwealth – for example, service with the Australian Defence Force – will not be affected by the changes. They will continue to be subject to the Commonwealth superannuation arrangements specifically established for persons in these roles.
The Bill commences on the earlier of proclamation or 6 months after Royal Assent. This flexibility will help to ensure that Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, the trustee of the Australian Government's main schemes, has sufficient time to arrange necessary changes to the PSSAP systems before the new arrangements take effect.
Overall, the changes are important to maintain contemporary Australian Government superannuation arrangements that are in line with those in the broader superannuation industry. They support workforce mobility and complement broader government initiatives to reduce the administration costs borne by members of superannuation schemes.
TREASURY LAWS AMENDMENT (2016 MEASURES NO. 1) BILL 2016
SECOND READING SPEECH
Today, I introduce a bill to amend the Corporations, Terrorism Insurance and Income Tax Assessment Acts.
This bill has the complementary objectives of maintaining trust and confidence in the financial system, while also promoting entrepreneurialism – and it does that across three fields.
First, it will provide greater consumer protection for retail client monies held by financial services licensees in relation to over-the-counter – or OTC – derivatives. This will better meet community expectations of consumer protection.
Second, it will limit the requirement to make public the disclosure documents given to employees under an eligible employee share scheme and lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
And third, it provides clarity that the terrorism insurance scheme administered by the Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation covers losses as a result of a declared terrorist incident using chemical, biological or other similar means.
In addition, this bill makes changes to the Income Tax Assessment Acts of 1936 and 1997 to include six new organisations as deductible gift recipients and to provide ongoing tax relief for assistance payments provided to eligible New Zealand special category visa holders who are impacted by disaster events in Australia.
Let me take you through the contents of this bill in some detail.
I'll start with Terrorism Insurance.
Schedule 1: Terrorism Insurance Act 2003
The bill includes an amendment to the Terrorism Insurance Act 2003.
The amendment clarifies the existing provisions to ensure the terrorism reinsurance scheme operates as originally intended, that is, to provide insurance against a declared terrorist incident, including when carried out by chemical, biological or other similar means.
Schedule 2: Employee Share Schemes
This bill also introduces a measure fulfilling the Government's commitment to make it easier for start-up companies to provide incentives to their employees through an Employee Share Scheme, or ESS.
In many cases, under the current law, companies wishing to utilise an ESS must provide a disclosure document to their employees that complies with the Corporations Act.
These documents contain information about the business so that employees are properly informed about their interests.
Under the current law, the company must also lodge these documents with ASIC, who then places them on the public register.
This is discouraging certain small companies and start-ups from implementing an ESS because it could result in the release of commercially sensitive information.
As part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda, we committed to removing the requirement for eligible ESS disclosure documents lodged with ASIC to be made available to the public.
This legislation will amend the Corporations Act so that disclosure documents for ESS will not be made public if all the companies in the group are unlisted, have been incorporated for less than 10 years and have an aggregated turnover of less than $50 million.
This legislation removes an impediment to entrepreneurialism and helps start-ups attract skilled employees at a time when they may be cash-poor. This will benefit both start-up companies and their potential employees and contractors.
Schedule 3: DGR Specific Listings
Schedule 3 to this Bill amends Division 30 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to add six entities as deductible gift recipient specific listings: The Australasian College of Dermatologists; College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand Ltd; The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists; Australian Science Innovations Incorporated; The Ethics Centre Incorporated; and, for a five year period, Cambridge Australia Scholarships Limited.
Organisations may be specifically listed by name in the tax legislation only in exceptional circumstances where they also provide broad public benefits to the Australian community.
The Australasian College of Dermatologists trains and provides continuing professional development to dermatologists, supports scientific research, is an educator about dermatological matters and an advocate for the field of dermatology.
College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand Ltd cultivates and encourages high principles of practice, ethics and professional integrity in relation to intensive care medicine practice, education, assessment, training and research.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists trains and develops ophthalmologists. Through continuing professional training, education, research and advocacy, it leads improvements in eye health care and facilitates the improvement of eye health care internationally, particularly in relation to indigenous populations.
Australian Science Innovations Incorporated organises, fosters and promotes Australian participation in the International Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth Science Olympiads and related activities, as well as engaging in other activities designed to encourage science excellence in secondary education.
The Ethics Centre Incorporated's core objective is to relieve the significant distress faced by those struggling with complex ethical decisions and the personal and community suffering resulting from unethical behaviour.
Cambridge Australia Scholarships Limited is established and located in Australia and widens access to the University of Cambridge for outstanding Australian students from all backgrounds.
By obtaining deductible gift recipient status, these entities will be able to attract additional public financial support for their activities, as taxpayers can claim an income tax deduction for certain gifts to deductible gift recipients.
Schedule 4: Ex-Gratia Disaster Recovery Payments
Schedule 4 to this Bill make amendments to the Income Tax Assessment Acts of 1936 and 1997 to provide ongoing income tax relief to ex gratia disaster assistance payments made to eligible New Zealand Special Category Visa (subclass 444) holders.
The Australian Government gives eligible individuals adversely affected by a disaster event a helping hand by providing Disaster Recovery Payments or Income Support Allowances. At this difficult time, it's important that these payments are not subject to tax.
Exempting disaster recovery payments from tax, or providing a rebate for income support allowances, maximises the value of the payments for people whose lives are affected by a disaster event. It also ensures that the payments are treated in the same way as disaster assistance payments made to Australians.
Providing ongoing tax relief will provide recipients with certainty that their payments will be free from tax, or that a rebate is available. This will remove one concern from individuals who have been affected by a disaster event.
Schedule 5: Client Money
Honourable members may recall that, in introducing this bill, the Government is not only implementing a commitment set out in our response to the Financial System Inquiry, we are also responding to a view, long held by ASIC, that the current regime provides inadequate protection for retail client monies.
We know that trust and confidence in the sector have been diminished by the actions of some industry participants.
Once diminished, one has to work hard to restore them.
This Government is prepared to work hard.
This bill is just one part of our agenda to ensure that Australia's financial services regulatory regime can inspire confidence and trust.
And we've consulted extensively on this measure.
While views differed on the best approach to protecting client money, most stakeholders agreed that the regime as it currently stands is inadequate.
And that's why we are working to foster an environment where consumer protection matches the level of risk as it is understood by the client.
Let me explain.
Currently, Australia's regulatory arrangements governing the use of client money by OTC derivatives providers put retail clients at risk of losing their money in the event of the licensee's insolvency.
If client money relating to a derivative, or a dealing in a derivative, continues to be allowed to be used by financial services licensees to meet various obligations, which they themselves have incurred, confidence in our financial system will continue to be undermined.
Once client money has been withdrawn from client accounts by the licensee, it is no longer protected.
Instead, clients are exposed to higher levels of risk, particularly counter-party risk, and they might consequently be unable to recover their money if a licensee becomes insolvent.
Compared to experienced OTC derivatives traders, retail clients (who are usually 'mum and dad' investors or small businesses) often have less experience and may not understand or be able to evaluate the risks associated with their client money being used to meet the licensee's own obligations.
Certainly, for the vast majority of financial products and services, the client money regime already prohibits licensees from using client money and client property for their own purposes – in other words, most of the time, client money is held on trust for the client.
In those cases, client money is returned to clients if the licensee becomes insolvent, rather than being added to the pool that is distributed among all the licensee's creditors, in accordance with the insolvency laws.
By pursuing these reforms, we are closing a loophole, which will ensure that all retail client money is protected, in accordance with the same standards.
Honourable members, the reforms I introduce today will better protect client money provided for retail derivatives by ensuring that retail client money must be held on trust for the client.
The reforms do not ban licensees from hedging or prevent them from managing their own business risks.
Indeed, licensees are required by law to have adequate risk management practices in place.
But licensees' risk management practices need to be self-sustaining – they can't continue to facilitate their own risk management by placing retail client money at risk. And I appreciate that many licensees already choose both to hedge with their own money and respect clients' expectations that their money will be segregated and held on trust.
These reforms also provide ASIC with the power to effectively monitor the limitations on the use of derivative client money by enabling ASIC to make client money reconciliation and reporting rules.
The financial system is certainly more resilient than before the global financial crisis.
Nonetheless, I agree with the Financial System Inquiry's conclusions that, while consumers are ultimately responsible for the consequences of their financial decisions, they must be treated fairly and ethically.
Furthermore, the regulatory regime should engender confidence and trust in the system – because reduced trust represents a barrier to consumers engaging with the Australian financial system and blocks investment in Australian businesses.
That's why the Government has already introduced a number of measures to improve consumer protection within the financial system. We have established a register of financial advisers that allows consumers to verify the credentials of financial advisers and be confident that they are appropriately qualified and experienced.
We're progressing reforms to lift the professional, educational and ethical standards of financial advisers who provide advice on more complex financial products to retail clients.
And, we're progressing reforms to life insurance advice remuneration structures, which are an important step towards addressing concerns that remuneration incentives are affecting the quality of advice provided to consumers and encouraging the unnecessary turnover of policies.
Full details of these measures are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
In closing, I note that these reforms represent necessary and valuable changes to the current regulatory environment, both for the treatment of client monies and the disclosure requirements for Employee Share Schemes.
Not only will they deliver significant benefits to consumers, start-ups and employees, they will also help maintain trust and confidence in the financial system.
I commend this bill to the Senate.
Debate adjourned.
Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.
Pursuant to order and at the request of the chairs of the respective committees, I present reports on legislation as listed at item 18 on today's order of business, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committees.
Ordered that the report be printed.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the documents.
I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate 10 minutes to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the Clerk to set the clock accordingly. Senator Scullion.
I commend the documents to senators, not just for the clear understanding they provide of what needs to be done to address this disadvantage in First Australian communities but because it gets beyond a gap-focus and a deficit-mindset, and tells the proud stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander achievements. It is a catalogue of pride in country, pride in community, and pride in work and family. It shows how pride and cultural authority is driving change across the country.
It describes how we as a government have learnt the lessons of history and culture and are working with leaders and communities, and within and alongside culture. That is why I am adamant that Indigenous Advancement Strategy services should be delivered by Indigenous organisations and service providers that deeply understand that culture.
For nearly a decade we have been making progress against closing the gap targets. Last night, the Prime Minister and I hosted a function for Indigenous professionals, including the first Aboriginal surgeon and his sister, the first Australian obstetrician, the first person of Indigenous heritage to represent Australia as an ambassador in our diplomatic corp. Over the past 50 years, as the Prime Minister highlighted earlier in his statement to the House, there have been standout people who raised community expectations and pride. There have been many quiet, stalwart achievers who have contributed to their communities by changing one person's life at a time.
Being a proud Territorian, I am pleased many are from the Northern Territory—people such as Andrea Mason, Northern Territory Australian of the Year. There has been strong and wide advocacy that has changed attitudes and changed laws—Neville Bonner and Eddie Mabo, and the pioneers of the freedom rides, to name a few. I can describe the progress in the lives of Indigenous communities in my own stories and interactions with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
There are people like Regan Hart, who was a ranger at Kalpowar, Queensland, and who completed her training as an Indigenous compliance officer with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority; and Rick Hanlon, at AFL Cape York House, who was just awarded an Order of Australia for his work supporting students living away from home.
People's personal stories are community stories too, and the stories I see when I am out in community. Sadly, the reality remains that the majority of people working in communities are non-Indigenous—the teachers, the nurses, the police, the local chippie or electrician. There has been some change on this front, although the pace of change has not been as fast as many of us would like. There are educated and qualified Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are providing leadership in the communities, but they could be doing these jobs. I will not stop pushing until most if not all of the people working in remote Indigenous communities are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from those communities.
There is always the temptation, when talking about this report, to talk about deficits and gaps, because that is what the Closing the Gap targets show. But that is not the whole story—telling the whole story would mean including the 60 First Australians who are getting a job every day. It would mean including the work our remote staff—the so-called yellow shirts—are doing to help 14,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children get to school every day. It would mean including the $284 million in contracts Indigenous businesses won in 2015-16 as a result of their efforts and our procurement policy. Up from just $6.2 million in 2012-13, it is an extraordinary shift in Commonwealth purchasing and a real reflection of the quality of Indigenous businesses.
What we always have to keep in mind is that closing the gap is not about ethnicity; it is about poverty. The gaps in life outcomes do not stem from being an Aboriginal or a Torres Strait Islander person but from the fact that those people are living in poverty and suffering all of the consequential social outcomes. Take the target to close the life-expectancy gap by 2031. While we have seen ongoing improvements in life expectancy for the whole Australian population, there has been a gradual improvement for the Indigenous population; the current rate of progress is just slightly improving rather than closing the gap. Let us be frank: this target was ambitious and unrealistic in such a short time frame. Equivalent increases in life expectancy for the broader Australian population have taken between 70 and 90 years to achieve, instead of the 20-year target that we set for ourselves. We need to recognise the progress that has been made and the positive stories that are there.
The attendance rate for Indigenous students is 83.4 per cent, which means the majority of Indigenous students are attending school at a rate close to non-Indigenous students. We know that, if we can get kids to pre-school, getting them to go on to school is easier. Some jurisdictions have 100 per cent enrolment rates for Indigenous four-year-old children, but overall only 87 per cent of Indigenous children in the year before full-time schooling were enrolled in early childhood education. That is significantly short of the 95 per cent target set by COAG, so it is really important that we assist those jurisdictions who are simply not cutting it.
We all know that literacy and numeracy standards are stagnating across the entire Australian student population. Although the literacy and numeracy gaps remain, the numbers required to halve the gap are within reach. In 2016, if an additional 440 Indigenous year 3 students throughout Australia had achieved the national minimum standard in reading, we would have achieved the target. Again, it should be noted that both South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory actually achieved every single standard in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in reading, but the Northern Territory achieved none in both reading and numeracy. It is not only just saying that, broadly, we need to improve this; we also need to use the Closing the Gap report to ensure that we target resources and efforts at those jurisdictions that are failing. At the other end, in high school, the news is getting better. We are on track to halve the gap in year 12 attainment by 2020. But, just as a precautionary note, whilst the headline figures on this look good, I think you would not have to drill in too much to know that remote Australia is not doing anywhere near as well as metropolitan Australia.
The news gets better for those who go on to further education. With tertiary qualifications, Indigenous Australians have exactly the same employment outcomes as non-Indigenous Australians. In 1971, less than five per cent of working-age Indigenous men had a post-school qualification. By 2011, this proportion had risen to 31 per cent. It is still trending upwards for both men and women. In 2005, there were more than 8,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education award courses. Ten years later, there are more than 16,000—that is a 93 per cent increase, compared to a 47 per cent growth for all domestic students. We know the focus needs to shift from enrolments to lifting retention and completion rates. That is why we have focused our funding and our interventions on ensuring that people are not only enrolled but staying in there, investing $253-odd million in the Indigenous Student Success Program. I know this is going to ensure that we can translate those enrolments into completions, which should be the figure that we think is important.
The employment gap is another target where the short-term gains are not on target but where the long-term trend is heading in the right direction, and we are making inroads in all localities. Since September 2013, more than 47,000 jobs have been created for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians under employment programs in my portfolio. As I have indicated, that is about 60 jobs per day. The Community Development Program has accelerated progress in employment since July 2015, placing more than 12,000 jobseekers into jobs and outside of the CDP system.
Twelve months ago, the Prime Minister said that government has to focus on doing things with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That is a change from transactional government to enablement, from paying for services to linking funding with outcomes and from a one-size-fits-all mindset for program design to local solutions. Grants and national programs like the Community Development Program and the Remote School Attendance Strategy are driven by locals and by local needs. Our network of staff, many of whom are Indigenous themselves, are working with communities and organisations to develop these local solutions. The reforms to the Indigenous Advancement Strategy have enabled a far more strategic and flexible approach to the government's investment in Indigenous Affairs to achieve better outcomes on the ground while relieving the administrative burden and red tape for organisations servicing Indigenous communities. We have to work with stakeholders, listen to the views of those on the front line and make the changes necessary to get it right. We need to make those changes swiftly to ensure that the change can happen in the context of the information.
I seek leave to incorporate the remainder of my remarks.
Leave granted.
The remainder of the speech read as follows—
Recently, I announced $40 million over four years to strengthen the evaluation of Indigenous Affairs programmes.
This is the next step in our important IAS reforms and will allow us to better deliver what works — from the perspective of those receiving services, not providers.
Building on foundations (State and territory accountability and smarter targets)
Closing the Gap is everyone's responsibility and it was important COAG reaffirmed its commitment to Closing the Gap.
States and territories are continuing to identify opportunities to support Indigenous economic development on Indigenous-owned land.
They have agreed to work with the Commonwealth to improve their Indigenous procurement policies so that they mirror the success of the Coalition Government Indigenous Procurement Policy and those set for Indigenous employment and suppliers undertaking infrastructure projects.
And with some targets due to expire, we will have discussions about refreshing the Closing the Gap targets.
Each of the states and territories has recognised that it is not as simple as merely setting new targets and we would be remiss in our duty to get this right if all we did was pluck new figures out of the air because they sound ideal.
So we will work through COAG to consider whether the current breadth of targets adequately reflects the complexity of issues faced by Indigenous Australians.
We need smarter targets in the sense that they need to be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
We also recognise that, while the Commonwealth has powers under the constitution for Indigenous Affairs and we report these targets to the Federal Parliament, in reality, the states and territories are at the frontline of improving the lives of Indigenous Australians.
As we set new targets, we will improve accountability to ensure that we don't return to the mindset in which we set and forget.
Professor Chris Sarra, who is newly appointed to the Indigenous Advisory Council, said it best a few years ago when he said, 'For decades, Aboriginal people have signalled a dramatic sense of frustration about politicians who think that it's enough to throw money at a solution when we'd all prefer for them to sit down and do things with us, not to us, in the interest of making a difference.'
Today, together with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, we are working to ensure communities can be at the centre of the design of policies and the running of programmes.
I have to say I am looking forward to the challenge in this critical year ahead to build on what's working and change what's not.
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to elders past and present.
Nine years ago today, Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd rose in this place to right a great wrong and to deliver the long-overdue apology to the stolen generations. In the following February, to mark the anniversary of that address, Prime Minister Rudd delivered the first Closing the gap report to the national parliament, and it made very sobering reading. It was not a partisan report. It did not seek to ascribe blame to either Labor or Liberal, or any party. Instead, what it made clear was this: there has been no greater failure in public life in this nation than the failure of governments—both state and federal, Labor and Liberal—to ensure our First Australians enjoy the same quality of life as all other Australians.
And, so, it is right and proper that every single year in this place we are reminded of what we have achieved and we are reminded of where we have fallen short, and we are reminded of what is working and of where we need to do better—until we are no longer just closing the gap but until it has been eliminated, and until all the peoples of our first nations enjoy equality as with all those in our nation. Again, this year's report confirms we are falling short, with just one of the seven targets on track to be met.
The Closing the Gap targets emerged from the December 2007 COAG meeting, when first ministers agreed to close the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians by embracing seven key targets. Sadly, this year, nine years after this parliament received its first report on progress to achieving those targets, just one of seven Closing the Gap targets is now on track to be met—that is, halving the gap for the number of Indigenous students completing year 12 or its equivalent. Five of the remaining six other targets are not on track. These are: closing the gap in life expectancy by 2031; halving the gap in literacy and numeracy by 2018; closing the school attendance gap by 2018; and halving the unemployment gap in the same year. The seventh, which is a target of 95 per cent of Indigenous four-year-olds enrolled in early childhood education by 2025, shows mixed results nationwide.
It is not to say that there has been no progress or that we are going backwards. Whilst there is still much more to do, I think it is important to recognise the achievements, as well as our failures. Too often in this place there is a tendency to say that it is all too hard and that the disadvantage faced by our Indigenous Australians can never be overcome—that we should all just give up.
There can be few more important pointers to a nation's progress than its ability to prevent the avoidable death of a child. While the target to halve the gap in child mortality by 2018 is not on track, the Indigenous child mortality rate has declined by 33 per cent over the last 17 years. Overall, the total Indigenous mortality rate has declined by 15 per cent between 1998 and 2015. Eighty-seven per cent of all Indigenous children were enrolled in early childhood education in the year before full-time school, and the attendance rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students is 83.4 per cent. Whilst the targets to halve the gaps in reading and numeracy are not on track, half of the eight areas for years 3, 5, 7 and 9 literacy and numeracy do show statistically significant improvements.
The one area of significant improvement is that the proportion of Indigenous 20- to 24-year-olds who have achieved Year 12 or equivalent increased from 45.4 per cent in 2008 to 61.5 per cent in 2014-15. And that was over a period where there was little change for the rest of the population. However, there has been a decline in Indigenous employment, with the Indigenous employment rate at 48.4 per cent, compared with 72.6 per cent for non-Indigenous Australians. So the report card reads: some improvement, but a long way to go. It is a long way from even being given a pass. So the message, again, today is that we must try harder—much, much harder. But, above all, we must neither lose hope nor lessen our resolve.
Earlier today in the Labor caucus I was privileged to witness a welcoming ceremony conducted by Senator McCarthy and Linda Burney from the other place. I was also privileged to witness a deeply moving speech by Senator Pat Dodson. As leader of the Labor Party in the Senate, can I say what a privilege it is to serve with such extraordinary representatives of their community and of their people. Behind me is Senator Dodson, a man who has dedicated his life to reconciliation—to real reconciliation—between our peoples. I look forward to his contribution shortly. He gave a deeply moving speech. It was a speech that reminded us that nine years ago the Australian people exhibited and demonstrated an overwhelmingly positive response to the apology delivered by Mr Rudd. That was a heartening affirmation of the genuine desire of the Australian people to achieve genuine reconciliation.
Senator Dodson reminded us that, with the right political leadership, we could transcend the politics of fear and guilt towards a reconciliation based on truth telling, healing and justice—that wrongs can be righted. He also reminded us in the Labor Party of the impact that great Labor men and women have made in changing opinions and changing lives. Kim Beazley Senior brought the Yirrkala bark petition to the parliament in 1963 and helped pave the way to the 1967 referendum. There was the backing by the trade union movement for Vincent Lingiari's historic land rights struggle. A decade later, there was the tall stranger, Mr Gough Whitlam, pouring a handful of sand through Vincent's fingers, and the Racial Discrimination Act. Also, we had Bob Hawke's Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Paul Keating's nation-changing Redfern speech and his response on native title to the Mabo ruling, Kevin Rudd's national apology, and Julia Gillard's commencement of the constitutional recognition process. Today is a day of bipartisanship, but I do want to say these are achievements that make me proud to be a member of the Labor Party.
But I also share with all members and senators my sadness and my shame that so many of my fellow Australians, so many of our first peoples, continue to be denied their full place in this nation. Until a report is produced in this place confirming that all who live in this country have the same opportunities in education, the same access to health care, the same chance to see their grandchildren and their children grow up and thrive we must do everything we can in this place not only to close the gap, but to eliminate it once and for all.
I want to close with some of Pat Dodson's words. He reminded us today in the Labor caucus that as parliamentarians we consider challenges on a daily basis and we respond expeditiously. This is called political pragmatism. But, as he said, the new way forward cannot only be about pragmatics, it must shift to principle and honour. It is time for all of us to listen, to understand and to act, and it is time to make our word our bond.
I rise today to make a contribution to the discussion on the Prime Minister's statement on closing the gap. I find it extremely upsetting to see that we continue to see a lack of progress on meeting most, if not nearly all, of the Closing the Gap targets. We have actually regressed on one of them from last year. It breaks my heart that that has occurred, particularly as it is the child mortality rate. While we have shared the successes that we have seen, as Dr Jackie Huggins said this morning in the Great Hall, unfortunately we are seeing more negative than positive.
That is deeply distressing, and it should be to this entire place. It means that we need to redouble our efforts. Falling behind on child mortality rates means that the failure to act in this space is actually costing lives. As we have heard, only one of the targets is on track and if we keep going the way we are going then we will not meet the targets of 2031 and we will not achieve the objective that so many have committed to and are so dedicated to. We have also gone backwards when it comes to some of Aboriginal children's reading and numeracy. Only year 9 numeracy is on track at this stage, which means that kids are getting poorer outcomes just as they are starting out in life.
I have witnessed all of the Closing the gap reports in the time that I have been a senator, since they first started getting made and delivered after the apology in this place. I find this one particular devastating, given that some of the poor outcomes are a result of some of the other things that have occurred, such as the taking of over half a billion dollars worth of funding out of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs and the flawed implementation and the flawed process of the Indigenous Advancement Strategy. I could go on, but it would probably take most of the time that I have left to speak.
This morning many of us witnessed Aboriginal organisations, led by the National Congress of Australia's First People, present to the Prime Minister; the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten; and Senator Di Natale, the leader of the Greens; a copy of the Redfern Statement. I might just pause here and seek leave to table the Redfern Statement, which I have discussed with both the government and the opposition.
Leave granted.
I saw them formally present that document to parliament and also, which is very important, their proposed engagement strategy for better engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Hence the statement that a number of people have made during the course of today, and in fact previously, that the government does not do things to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples but with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The Redfern Statement was released during the election and essentially called the nation's attention to the lack of progress in closing the gap and what should be done. It was a call for action. It was produced by over 55 Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal organisations and peak bodies and it was led by the National Congress of Australia's First People. It is essentially a road map to guide the government and the parliament on how to better engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues and how to implement this statement on a continuing basis. The signatories are calling for a paradigm shift, and the statement, together with the engagement approach, provides the framework for this change. In the nine years since the Closing the Gap framework was set up, only half of the targets are currently even on track to be met, and we know that so far only one target has been met this year.
The Redfern Statement engagement approach for 2017, which we should all be supporting, calls for a new relationship with the government, one that includes increased engagement Australia's first peoples, so that the massive mistakes of programs like the flawed IAS approach are never repeated. The hope is that this will lead to better organised, co-designed and holistic policy and accountable implementation.
I call on the Prime Minister, and in fact the whole of this parliament, to agree to the engagement approach and ensure that a national enduring agreement or framework, as called for in the Redfern Statement and by the people presenting the Redfern Statement, is able to be produced prior to the 2018 budget and following their proposed national summit in September 2017. This agreement or framework will enable communities to drive their own development approaches based on their experiences, strengths and challenges.
I also call on the government to properly fund the National Congress of Australia's First People as well as other peak bodies. We heard so passionately this morning in the Great Hall how important are community based Aboriginal driven organisations, such as those addressing domestic violence, such as legal organisations, such as child care organisations. These organisations have suffered repeated cuts. It is time that stopped. It is time their vital work was funded.
Over the past 25 years there have been over 400 recommendations made to reduce the disadvantage for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Most of those recommendations have not been implemented, have largely been ignored or have been only partially implemented. It is time that these recommendations were implemented. The growing incarceration rate for our first peoples is shameful and the lack of urgency on this is deeply concerning. I will repeat again, although it falls on deaf ears all the time, the calls for setting justice targets. I will not repeat the figures again, because we have heard them so many times before. What we need now is some action to address those targets.
The Prime Minister commented today that he would be doing things with Aboriginal communities not to Aboriginal communities, but not long after that he continued to comment about how successful the cashless welfare card and those forms of programs are. Those are programs that are being imposed on Aboriginal communities. They are causing great distress to a number of Aboriginal people in communities and, in fact, on a number of occasions they are causing great division. I visited Kununurra in December and talked to many people in the community on both sides of the discussion. I did not just talk to people who opposed the card; I talked to many people who supported the card too. There are a number of issues with it, and I do not have time to go into those now. The point here is it is causing deep division within communities. It is being imposed on many people.
What we need now is to get behind the very strong calls from Aboriginal organisations, Aboriginal communities and leaders in their field of expertise to implement The Redfern Statement, which is a comprehensive approach that addresses issues around incarceration, child care and domestic violence and also raises the issues with out-of-home care. I have spoken in this place many times about the appalling rate of Aboriginal children going into out-of-home care. Only when we address all those issues will we finally manage to close the gap.
In the short amount of time I have left I would like to raise again issues around sovereignty and treaty. If we are to achieve a fully reconciled nation we need to make sure that we are having a national conversation about sovereignty and treaties. The Greens will support those discussions and do what we can to participate in the debates on how we achieve sovereignty and treaties, recognising that we need to hold extensive consultation and extensive discussions around these issues.
Senator Dodson, I understand that informal arrangements have been made for the clock to be set at 20 minutes.
Nine years ago the apology and our commitment to closing the gap married the symbolic and the practical. After a tumultuous decade of denial under the long term of the Howard government Prime Minister Rudd's apology was cathartic. The positive response of the whole of the Australian public was heartening, affirming that with the right political leadership we could transcend the politics of fear and guilt as a nation and work towards reconciliation based on truth telling, healing and justice. Wrongs could be righted. Both initiatives in their own way related to the quest for change, transformation and fundamental equality. The effect of the apology was powerful whilst being symbolic. Prime Minister Rudd at the commencement of the 42nd Parliament pointed to a future:
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.
As we look over the nearly 10 years of the Closing the gap report it is time to reflect on the past decade and ask: what has been achieved, are our Indigenous nations better off and where is our nation up to on the road to reconciliation, to social justice and to shared equality? We need to draw upon the inspiration provided by the courage, the spirit and the commitment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders when we think of the national challenge of closing the gap. We also need to draw inspiration from the efforts of senators who have served here in the past and also members in the other place who have sought to make a difference to the disadvantages that persist in our communities. Both sides of the chamber have made meaningful contributions but so much more needs to be done.
Closing the gap remains a serious and difficult challenge for our Aboriginal nations and for our parliament. Today's report tabled by the Prime Minister is an accounting process and it seemed to me that the Prime Minister, to his credit, was willing to be transparent, to identify some of the major shortcomings, the disappointments in this ninth report and the smattering of occasional and partial success stories. For example, I am pleased to note that there is a positive consistent trend in the attainment of year 12 qualifications, though there are many disappointments.
I share his particular sadness and disappointment that infant mortality rates, which in previous years seemed to be improving, have from today's reports slipped back once more. Far too many mothers and fathers in our communities have suffered the awful, unspeakable loss of their young ones. We must increase our efforts to reach the target of halving the gap in infant mortality. I particularly note that rates of attending antenatal care in the important first trimester are highest in the outer regions but lowest in the major cities.
The health statistics are troubling. In particular I note the following hard facts, each of which has a story of pain and suffering behind it. Indigenous mortality rates from cancer are rising, and the gap is widening. The most recent Indigenous life expectancy figures were published in late 2013 and showed a gap of 10.6 years for males and 9.5 years for females. There has been no significant change in the Indigenous mortality rate between the 2006 baseline and 2015, nor in the gap since 1998. Cancer mortality rates are rising, and the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians from cancer is widening. The health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is improving, but the current rate of progress will have to gather pace if the life expectancy target is to be met by 2031. We know that many promising beginnings in reversing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage have fallen short in delivering transformative, lasting change.
Given the recent history of defunding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, lasting change in the right direction seems unlikely. The overarching funding cuts of $500 million pointed out by the Audit Office, resulting from the amalgamation of different portfolio initiatives into the central agency of Prime Minister and Cabinet, have not helped the process of change. We know from the Audit Office review that the Indigenous Advancement Strategy is a shambolic failure of top-down centralised decision-making that leaves our Aboriginal nations on the margins as policy fringe dwellers, waiting for scraps from the big house. There have been documented funding cuts, very poor processes of consultation and negotiation, and weak evaluation of program progress. Even the recently announced evaluation investment is not new funding; it is taken directly from the Indigenous Advancement Strategy.
The gaps will not close across the board until attitudes at all levels are transformed in reality, not just in rhetoric. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been crying out for greater control, whether that be called empowerment, self-determination or, as referred to by the Prime Minister in his statement today, 'Do things with us, not to us.' A key question is whether 'do things with us' is really the approach that has been adopted by the bureaucrats of the department for which the minister and the Prime Minister are accountable.
The department has been focused on the laudable goals and objectives of the Closing the Gap agreements—initiatives such as getting kids to school, getting people to work, making communities safer, bridging the life expectancy gap. These have program funding, targets and protocols attached to them. However, the outcomes, as seen in this Closing the Gap report, are evidently disappointing.
These targets are really important. The public sector promises of change in both approach and regional engagement, however, have come packaged to the Indigenous nations without respect for their sovereign status, ignoring the commitment contained in the national apology that heralded respect in drafting, together, the next chapter of our relationship. The apology promised a partnership of equals. We are still confronted by persistent, deep matters of discrimination, racism and injustice that prevent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations from celebrating the nation-states' iconic and cherished treasures and from feeling that they can make it work in broader society. This affects the mindsets of people at all ends of the policy and program continuum, from policymakers to service organisations and even to the recipients of programs.
What we know is that there is a continuing gap in understanding significant matters to do with recognition of the sovereign status of the Indigenous nations: how this nation was settled without agreement, and to what extent will the original nations of this land be enabled to have their own voice within the deliberations of parliament on these matters that concern them greatly now and well into the future. Those matters include land, language, community, welfare, justice and service delivery, to name but a few.
Closing the gap into the future requires a commitment by all governments to engage in respectful dialogue to explore a way ahead to address these troubling statistical reports, and to negotiate an agreed way forward with the first nation peoples. This is at the heart of the Redfern Statement, tabled in here not so long ago, which was re-launched at the Closing the Gap breakfast this morning, which states that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peak representative organisations have a deep concern that 'the challenges confronting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to be isolated to the margins of the national debate' and that 'the transformative opportunities for government action are yet to be grasped'. At the program delivery point, in the community health centres, the schools or the local councils, this would look like a commitment to co-design, and it is accepted across the Western world as the only way forward to address entrenched disadvantage.
Let me highlight some of the major features of the Closing the Gap report that gives me a troubling sense that there is insufficient engagement, consultation and negotiation by the government and the service providers. School attendance for 2016 is at 83.4 per cent, similar to 2015, while attendance rates for non-Indigenous students have been steady at 93.1 per cent. Have the parents of our schoolchildren been effectively engaged on this issue at the local community level? That is the question I ask. Do our children have the community models and rightful aspirations to see schooling as important and worthwhile? The target to halve the gap in reading and numeracy by 2018 is off track. The target to halve the gap in employment by 2018 is, in the words of the report 'not on track'. In 2014-15 the Indigenous employment rate was 48.4 per cent, compared with 72.6 per cent for non-Indigenous Australians. In our remote communities, only 35.1 per cent were employed. As the Prime Minister said in launching the report:
We have come a long way since the referendum, but we have not come far enough.
Healing the injustices of the past needs a national dialogue to explore a settlement of these matters and to determine an agreed way forward with the First Nation peoples. Included in this dialogue is the necessary topic of restitution. In some states this is currently being contemplated, with redress schemes to cover compensation for victims of sexual abuse—and rightly so.
It is past the time to act on the recommendations of the Bringing Them Home report and provide restitution to those still alive who were taken away from their families and from their descendants. The Closing the Gap report gives us cause to pause in order to note the marginal improvements and persistent failings. We need to be able in this place and in our communities to re-imagine the possibilities of transformation and positive change. This is not about the ethnicity of the Aboriginal people. This is about poverty. This is about the cultural dimension of the issues that we are discussing, because they are central and essential to the discussion. Our identity as Aboriginal and Islander peoples cannot just be put in a box and labelled as poverty, making us to be just any other poor or marginalised Australian. We are and always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
We need to recognize that more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are cynical, frustrated and angry at the directions of public policy and the status quo treatment that government tends to give on matters that are of great consequence for them. We need new ways of thinking, talking and acting. We need to be freed from constantly leading you to understanding us. We need to be freed from explaining ourselves to you. We need to be freed to do the things that are important to us and which will still be important in decades to come. As the Leader of the Opposition in the other place said today in talking directly to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples whose lives are documented in this report: 'You belong to a tradition of sporting brilliance, in the face of racism from opponents, teammates, administrators and even spectators. You belong to humanity's oldest culture—more famous around the world than ever before. You do not belong in a jail cell for an offence that carries an $80 fine. You do not belong strapped in a chair with a hood on your head. Not dying in the back of a windowless van, away from your family. Not in some bureaucrat's office begging for money. Not on the streets with nowhere to go. You belong here, as members of this parliament, as leaders of this nation. Recognised in the Constitution, teaching in schools, building homes and caring for land. You belong here, growing up healthy, raising your children in safety, growing old with security. You belong here, strong in your culture and language and country. You belong here, equal in this great country, equal partners in our common endeavour. This is your place. Our future is your future—Australia's future.' I welcome this sad, distressing and disappointing report for once more bringing to this place our need to act.
I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this country, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, and to thank the spirits of this place for giving us all the strength to be able to speak in such depth on an issue that our country wrestles with as black and white Australians. I would like to acknowledge in the gallery Jackie Huggins, Rod Little and Gary Oliver from Congress and to thank them and all those who were able to speak directly to the hearts of all political leaders this morning, here in Parliament House, on the latest Closing the Gap report.
I would also like to say to this Senate and to the parliament that this day is an extraordinary day and an important day because it brings directly to the forefront the issues that impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. For parliamentary leaders of all Australians, it brings to the forefront the importance that is placed on the fact that the lives of Australia's First Nation's people are still the most impoverished and disadvantaged. It is also incredibly important in the way that is extraordinary, because what we are wrestling with here is actually in this parliament. We are talking about a law that governs our country—but we are really talking about two laws. I am a Yanyuwa Garrwa woman, whose spiritual origins come from the sea country and I feel really good and strong, yes, and I give thanks. I acknowledge the strength of my ancestors and the laws of the Yanyuwa Garrwa people in this house and respect the fact that I am on the awara, the country, of the traditional owners of this land. Those are the two laws that I live with and respect.
When we come to a day like this, when the parliament focuses specifically on first nations people, it fills me with great pride—deep pride—not just for the Yanyuwa Garrwa people and not just for the people of the Northern Territory but for our country, for all Australians. As much as this report does not hold good news, and as much as this report tells each and every one of you what we all live, it also tells the first nations people that this parliament, this law, does acknowledge a wrestling of our conscience in this country, a wrestling of our conscience that no political party has the answer to on its own. Every political party—the major parties—that has tried and continue to try, have all acknowledged here today the one thing that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been saying consistently since time immemorial: 'Work with us. Not for us, not to us, not against us, but work with us.'
I would like to take you on a bit of a journey. In my way we call it the kujika, the songline or the storyline. Kujikas are really important and that is the law of the Yanyuwa. The kujika tells a story over thousands of years. It is not just one story; it is hundreds of stories. As I travel from Borroloola through to Darwin through to Tennant Creek then to Alice Springs and then here to Sydney that is a kujika. That is a story, because we are travelling and it is the songline. It is my songline.
I remember the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. We know that one of the targets that is not in the Close the gap report is justice targets. In the lead up to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody there was one young woman—an outstanding woman, a young mum—who advocated strongly and who reminded this country that Aboriginal people were dying in custody at a rate that was such a phenomenon, on a tragic scale. She stood and faced media after media calling for something to be done. She was not alone but she stuck in my mind, because at the time I had started as a journalist and one of my first tasks was to cover was the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. I used to look at that woman, this Aboriginal woman with her young baby in tow, as she would face the media and I thought, 'Wow, thank goodness for people like you, because you inspire me and you give me hope.'
As I sat in the courts listening to the different stories as to why an Aboriginal man had died I would see my colleague Senator Dodson and many others. I covered the story when Elliott Johnston, the commissioner, was to release the recommendations. I share this story because, again, it is about the challenge of working in a mainstream environment. We want people to have jobs. But we are forever conscious that we are trying to balance, if you like, the many expectations on us from our own family and culture and kinship, and balancing the expectations of the broader Australian society.
The woman who inspired me throughout that process sits in the gallery today—Jackie Huggins, the woman who pushed and advocated for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, who today is still reminding the Australian parliament that you must work with Aboriginal people and who today does not give up on the fact that as imperfect as this parliamentary system is we still have to work at trying to get it right. Is Congress the answer? I certainly think it needs every bit of support to get there. Are there many other answers? Of course there are.
The other significant aspect of the kujika and the story that I would like also to share with you is the stolen generations. Yes: respect, recognise and restitution are absolutely critical in going forward in these next 12 months. In 2001 I covered another court case and that was the stolen generations court case in the Federal Court. When Lorna Cubillo and the late Mr Peter Gunner took the Commonwealth to court over their forced removal from their families. I covered that case. Throughout that whole case, which was carrying the weight of all the stolen generation people in the Northern Territory, they stood in that court and they shared the most intimate of brutal details that occurred to them while in the care of others under the Commonwealth. Yet everything hung on their case. Every member of the stolen generation from the Northern Territory, who needed that case to be won, was to be disappointed because they lost. They lost the case. But in the findings it was agreed that they did suffer sexual abuse.
I look at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today, and I ask, as a senator for the Northern Territory: why is it that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have to tell their story again? What is wrong with our system of governance that it does not just pick up a report that has already been acknowledged by one court case or one commission and carry it over here to this court case or this commission, without putting the same people through extreme pain and trauma compounded on further pain and trauma? That is what we as political leaders now need to really examine: this system of governance, this law that fails at every step to give the justice, to give the satisfaction, to give the respect and to acknowledge that there are two laws here that are clashing.
We talk about resetting the engagement with first nations people. We actually have to start the engagement with first nations people. We have to acknowledge that there are many nations here in this country, and if we are to move towards constitutional recognition, which we so strongly believe we have to, there are many other things that must be discussed on that journey. Those things will be further discussed as people gather over the next few months.
I say to the first nations people of Australia: don't give up. This wrestling of the consciousness of this country and the conscience of this country can only find a way if we find it together. But it does need the wisdom of the spirits—the good spirits, the strong spirits, the positive spirits—from the Yolngu nation to the Larrakia nation to the Yanyuwa nation to the Arrernte nation to the Yorta Yorta mob, right across the east, again to the west and to the Palawa in Tasmania. Do not give up, you mob. Find your spirits, because when your spirit is strong it gives strength to the rest of us. It gives strength to the rest of us to find a better way. That wrestling of this country's conscience will continue, and so it should until we get it right.
I would like to just conclude by addressing the Minister for Indigenous Affairs. I want to say to him: we see what you do and what you try to do in your party room, with your cabinet colleagues and as you travel across Australia, and we know that you make many mistakes, but there is no doubting the strong intent behind what you do to improve the lives of the first nations people in this country, and I want to say thank you for that. I want to say to the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, and to the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull: when you can both stand and reach a higher point in politics for the betterment of first nations people in this country, it can only be much better for all Australians in this country.
That is why having Closing the Gap and this day as a critical conscience moment for this parliament will always be important, because we do lose way too many people too early, too soon, who are being jailed at rates that are outrageous for a country like ours. So, to all first nations people, I say: thank you. Let's stay strong. Let's keep going. To the parliamentarians of both houses: let's get this right, hey? Bauji barra.
Let me begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people as the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and acknowledging their elders past and present. Let me also acknowledge that this is, was and always will be Aboriginal land.
I would like to acknowledge the wonderful contributions from Senator Dodson and Senator Malarndirri McCarthy for what were very powerful presentations. Let me also acknowledge the leaders of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, who are in the gallery today. Thank you so much for what was a very moving tribute this morning at the presentation of the Redfern Statement, which I will come to in a moment.
The tragic fact is that once again the government's figures in the ninth annual Closing the gap report have underlined our failures as a nation to move forward in any substantial way in Closing the Gap targets. We are still lagging behind on so many of those critical indicators—six of seven unchanged. We lag way behind on the life expectancy gap, on access to justice, on employment, on school attendance and on basic core measures such as child mortality and life expectancy. This report is another wake-up call to the nation.
Today we heard from the leaders of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples that Aboriginal people have the solutions, and we had the Redfern Statement presented to the Prime Minister this morning. The Redfern Statement is a statement that says we need a new approach. We need to redefine the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and government. The Redfern Statement is named after that powerful moment when Paul Keating made the self-evident yet controversial call to the nation that it was we who did the dispossessing—that this nation was founded on an act of theft, an act of dispossession.
It is important that we acknowledge that fact—that it is we, the non-Indigenous people, who have done the killing, the colonising, the discriminating and the dispossessing. That is not a black armband view of history. That is not guilt. That is justice, and that is what this is about. This is about achieving justice. It is so critical that we look at the Redfern Statement, take it seriously and recognise that the emphasis on self-determination, which is an undisputed right in international law, has never been afforded to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in this country, and it is about time we did something to address that.
It is self-evident as to why we need to act. From the moment of the Redfern statement, we have seen report after report—the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report, the Bringing them home report, the State of reconciliation in Australia report and many more—highlighting the failures that reflect the fact that this country is yet to achieve justice when it comes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who first introduced the annual Closing the gap statement, made a profound gesture when he made that apology in the parliament, and I was privileged to be there as an ordinary person in the crowd on the lawns of Parliament House. It was so moving and so powerful.
It was important that, for the first time, we put in place measures to judge how much progress we are making when it comes to closing the gap. Yet, as the former Prime Minister himself said only yesterday, he fears another stolen generation. We are seeing child removal rates continuing to increase, and we have seen a succession of government policy that is the antithesis to the statement that was made today to the Prime Minister—the paternalistic intervention into the Northern Territory.
We have seen the destruction of community development employment programs, we have seen the undermining of housing policies that assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, we have seen half a billion dollars ripped out of Indigenous affairs under this government in the 2014 budget and, of course, we have seen the controversial Indigenous Advancement Strategy, where we are seeing so many Aboriginal people lose out to big government departments, again, with that heavy-handed paternalistic over-the-top response. Well, this is a wake-up call. We do not have the answers. It is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have the solutions.
It is tempting for us in this place to think we know best. As I said in my speech this morning, as a young medical graduate—a young GP—walking into an Aboriginal health service, I thought I knew it all. I had read books, I had done a course and I was going to go in there and help fix things. But if there is any one lesson I took out of that experience, it is that you must work with Aboriginal people, listen to their voices and their stories and understand that before you can do anything.
Last year I was privileged to attend the celebration, with the Gurindji people, of the famous Wave Hill strike. That was an act of defiance where the Gurindji people walked off the Wave Hill cattle station. They did so against the advice of governments, bureaucrats, policymakers and, indeed, the church. It was a sign that Aboriginal people told us loudly and clearly: we know best for us; don't tell us what to do. It was a significant moment. It was a moment that transformed not just the lives of the Gurindji but also the nation. It took much more hard work and years of advocacy before we saw Gough Whitlam pour the sand into the hands of Vincent Lingiari, which should have signalled the beginning of a new wave, but sadly here we are. There has been limited progress in achieving what is at the heart of the Closing the gap report: justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The Prime Minister said last year, 'We need to be making change with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, not to them,' and that is exactly what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders from across the nation are saying. People from health, justice, violence prevention, disability and children and family sectors are coming together in the Redfern Statementa statement supported by over 50 Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups across a wide variety of sectors. It is a plan for engagement with government. It is an ambitious plan, but it needs to be ambitious if we are to make progress, and I urge the government and the opposition to support the schedule—the detailed plans—laid out in the Redfern Statement and to recognise that, in doing so, they have the full support of the Australian Greens.
In the parliament, we Greens have had a longstanding commitment to collaboration and to respecting the knowledge and wisdom of Aboriginal people and an Aboriginal led approach. My colleague Senator Siewert here is someone who has, for more than a decade in this place, been a proud ally and friend of the many organisations who added their names this morning to the calls for a new way forward. We know what needs to be done. There are so many things that we can do at a practical level—for example, delivering culturally safe high-quality health care in the country.
Let's prioritise getting Aboriginal people the skills, training and experience so that they can contribute to the workforce. From administration to allied health, GPs and obstetricians, we need more Aboriginal people delivering health care. I know this because I have seen it up close. We know that these people are the role models for their communities and that they can demonstrate what is possible and what can be achieved and how people can give back to their communities.
I met Kelvin Kong today, an Aboriginal doctor and ear, nose and throat surgeon who understands just how important it is to give young kids opportunities early in life through appropriate interventions when it comes to ear health. When young children cannot hear, they cannot learn language skills. They cannot learn at school. They are behind the eight ball right from the very start. There are simple things that we can do to ensure that we close the gap.
In finishing, let me just say that this is an opportunity for a new way forward. It is my great hope that the government and the opposition—indeed, the entire parliament—will take up this challenge. Please note that the Greens will be with you every step of the way.
Today we have heard another series of closing-the-gap speeches much the same as we have heard in previous years—but saying something over and over again does not make it true. A myth we hear regularly is that, in the Prime Minister's words, 'Greater empowerment of local communities will deliver the shared outcomes we all desire.' Government interventions are now more locally managed for Aborigines than for other Australians, and have been for decades, but the outcomes are worse. The more dysfunctional a community, the less qualified they are to shape government policy and direct taxpayer funds. Why should we assume that the victims of violence know how government could help stop the beatings, that sick people know how to run health services or that people without jobs know how they can be helped into jobs?
Another myth is that we need to pay deep respect to Aboriginal elders and community leaders. Many Aborigines have pointed out to me that these people are self-appointed, unelected and do not speak for them. They have no track record of improving the lot of Aboriginal people. They have an interest in maintaining existing power relationships and townships, even if this is keeping people in squalor and dependency.
Guilt is clouding judgement in this place. Guilt means that opponents of work-for-the-dole schemes, like Labor and the Greens, do nothing to oppose a work-for-the-dole scheme if it is for Aborigines. This scheme is called the Community Development Program, and it exempts Aborigines in dysfunctional remote communities from the usual conditions for receiving the dole provided they remain in these violent, backward communities that are barren of opportunities. Guilt is clouding judgement such that many find it impossible to apportion any blame for high Aboriginal incarceration rates on the Aboriginal offenders. And guilt is clouding judgement such that Aboriginal children in abusive or neglectful situations are being kept there for longer and more often than non-Aboriginal children in abusive or neglectful situations. This guilt is not helping anyone, so let's get over it.
Captain Arthur Phillip came. Terrible things were done to some Aborigines who are now dead. Terrible things were done to the ancestors of other Australians too, like Chinese Australians, Armenian Australians and Jewish Australians. It does not help to treat any of these Australians like children. Let's stop telling lopsided stories about ancient Aboriginal culture without mentioning anything barbaric. Let's not double down on a racist Constitution by setting Aborigines apart from the rest of the nation. Let's stop racist policies that deliver extra handouts if a self-appointed elder declares you to be Aboriginal. Let's expect all Australians to obey the law and face punishment if they do not. And let's impose tough welfare obligations on all Australians. To paraphrase some QUT students who were ejected from a computer lab because of the colour of their skin, you do not stop racism with racism.
I commence my remarks by acknowledging that we meet on the traditional lands of the Ngunawal and Ngambri people. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present. I also wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the Bundjalung lands, because those are the lands that I grew up on.
I want to use my time today—and I will try to keep my remarks brief—to reflect a little bit on what it meant to grow up in a community where the Bundjalung Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people played a very active role. I do so to perhaps place some of the remarks from the former speaker in context, because my memories of the relationships I had with the Aboriginal community and Islander community in northern New South Wales are overwhelmingly positive. I acknowledge that a child's eyes are more innocent than most. As I have grown up I have come to understand that many of those people faced poverty, racism and hardship. But the experience I had was of an enormously resilient community, with all of the strength and capabilities to take charge of their own destinies.
I think about the role that those young people in my school played as team players. They were always the leaders in the sports teams or any team we put together. They were always people who took a frankly hopeless sportsperson—that was me!—under their wing and gave me encouragement and support even though my contribution to the team's outcomes was always fairly limited. But those people were always willing to take the lead.
Senator Urquhart interjecting—
I am told not to put myself down, but sometimes accuracy is important even in—
Don't listen to interjections, Senator McAllister. Just proceed.
They were creative people. A number of the Indigenous students from my school went on to play very significant roles in our national cultural life. I think particularly of Daniel Browning, who attended my school and now plays a terrific role in broadcasting. I think about the fierce loyalty that that community had amongst family and about the fact that always Indigenous people are overrepresented when it comes to their family's willingness to come along to school events, to support their kids and to play a role in their kids' future. I think about their social leadership—that they are always willing to extend a generous word and a willingness to include any person in their conversations, their jokes and their social circle.
When I think about that community, I do not see the picture of despair or the story that Senator Leyonhjelm wished to tell. I see people who are capable of taking a role in their future, if only we will let them. I was thinking about all those things and all those people this morning at the remarkable ceremony in the Great Hall in support of the Redfern Statement. I wish to place on the record my thanks to congress for their generosity and their grace in inviting us into that room with them, telling their stories and once again explaining to us for our benefit how it is that we can work together to improve the circumstances that are reported in the Closing the gap report that was tabled today.
There is a very clear message they gave us: they said that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are ready to lead; they said that they have the answers, if we are ready to listen to them. I do think this is our great challenge as legislators and as policy makers. I have heard Senator Dodson say more than once today that empowerment, self-determination and doing things with us and not to us are the goals and reasonable asks of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Of course, it is the same for communities all around the world. It is the demand of all people everywhere that they have a hand in their own destiny and that they lead in their own destiny. It would be enormously surprising if this was not the goal of the first peoples in Australia as well.
Too often in this place we have ignored the enormous potential of deep, meaningful partnership and, I am afraid in my limited engagement with the policy area since I became a senator, this is what I saw. In the IAS the thing that struck me most was the fact that the program did not acknowledge the significant impact of having Aboriginal leadership in service delivery could make to outcomes in Aboriginal communities.
I say that one of my commitments here is to support this most reasonable objective for empowerment, for self-determination, for doing things in real partnership—that is something I seek to do in the role that I have here. I want to conclude my remarks because they have largely been about leadership by acknowledging the leadership of my friends and colleagues, Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy in this place—people I have very quickly become close to. I want to acknowledge also my friend in the other place, Linda Burney. They have chosen to lend their energy to our cause, to this place, and we owe it to them to return the favour.
I rise to put some remarks on the record this evening as a response to the delivery of the ninth Closing the gap report in this country of ours, of which we are so proud in so many ways. I am certainly proud to have the opportunity to stand in this place and in our nation alongside Aboriginal brothers and sisters. But there is also shame that rests on us for the real life outcomes of the peoples of the first nation at this time.
I want to acknowledge, as Senator McAllister has done, on this particular day that we are gathering on the lands of the Ngunawal and Ngambri people. I too echo my pride in being a woman who lives and has lived for 32 years since the commencement of my married life on the land of the Darkinjung and Guringai people. I very much honour NAISDA, which is in the seat of Robertson on the land of the Darkinjung—the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association. It is the equivalent of NIDA, except that it is for Aboriginal culture. It enriches our local community in the most profound and wonderful way; it also enriches the communities which the young people come from and return to with their skill sets enhanced. These are the choice of my life in my interactions with Aboriginal culture.
I also want to acknowledge the teaching role and the passionate advocacy undertaken by my colleagues in this place, Senator Patrick Dodson, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, and Linda Burney—all of whom I call very good friends. I would also like to acknowledge, as was done in the House today, the historic role that is now held Mr Ken Wyatt, the member for Hasluck in Western Australia, and Senator Jacqui Lambie in this place. On this day I would also like to acknowledge Senator Nova Peris, who was a great friend and mentor to me in the time she was here in the parliament. One of the things she taught me was how important it was to continue to hold ourselves to account for what happens in this country.
It is my hope that this reporting day becomes an increasingly significant day for all Australians, from all walks of life of all ages from all parties, to continually test against our intention and our hopes what we are doing to achieve real life outcomes for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters. We understand the concept of a report card—it is something that is a part of our lives. We understand that there are moments of accountability that help us to see clearly where we are and how far we are towards achieving the goals that we wanted to achieve.
I also want to acknowledge the support of Senator Scullion in making it possible for so many senators today to head over to the chamber to hear the report in person. I am happy that in this 45th Parliament there is an order with a continuing effect that enables us to go over and here live that very important report. It is so important that we tell the truth about what is going on. Today the truth telling is a continuing shame on us, a continuing shame on this nation for a failure to be wise enough, to be creative enough, to be brave enough and to be smart enough to find a way—a bipartisan way if we can—towards better outcomes for Australia's First Peoples.
The progress against the targets in the executive summary is a report card that you would have to consider a series of fails. The target to halve the gap in child mortality by 2018 is not on track this year—that is exactly what it says. The target to close the gap in life expectancy by 2031 is not on track, based on data since the 2006 baseline. You have to read target No. 3 quite carefully to figure out if we are on track or not on track because it does not clearly identify that we are actually failing our early childhood goals. It simply says that, in 2015, 87 per cent of all Indigenous children were enrolled in early childhood education compared with 98 per cent of their non-Indigenous counterparts. And right now there is legislation that this government is trying to push through the House that is going to have a devastatingly negative impact, particularly in rural and remote communities and particularly on Indigenous children who have at the moment some access to early childhood education.
The representatives of SNAICC have been all around this building. They have aired their advice. Their experience and their knowledge of their community have been shunned by ministers who have a chance in this government to ensure that young Aboriginal children actually get the access to early childhood education that they need. The decision making of governments one after the other to ignore those wise voices, particularly the wise voices of women in Indigenous communities, is going to cost all of those children, who will not be serviced. Some of these early childhood centres are tin sheds but those kids go there and they get a decent meal, they eat healthy food and there is support for their parents, for their mothers. That is happening. This government is about to take it away. The government has been told but there is a stuck. By arrogance, by historic precedent or by louder voices, it does not matter what it is by; the consequences are going to be devastating for those young people and this is what is happening time after time—not listening.
The fourth target: the new target to close the gap in school attendance by the end of 2018 is not on track. The fifth target: to halve the gap in reading and numeracy by 2018 is not on track. There is one tick. The means to target halve the gap in year 12 attainment by 2020 is on track. Thank God there is one thing that we have got some hope for, one thing that we have been able to maintain a commitment to. The sixth target to halve the gap in employment by 2018 is not on track.
So out of six tests that we set ourselves, we failed on five. I say 'we' because this is across governments. We cannot allow this to continue. We must continue to hold this day up to ourselves and we must suffer the shame of the report card of this year. We must also look at it as an opportunity to redouble our efforts to transform our understanding, to unstop our ears, to hear and to listen. We were told this morning by the gathering facilitated by the Congress at the Redfern Statementthis is the booklet—and the message was loud and clear. I was so glad to hear Aboriginal voices saying 'we have the solutions', demanding that we hear them here this morning. They are asking for some pretty clear things. I will read one: restoring over the forward estimates the $534 million, cut from the Indigenous affairs portfolio in the 2014 budget, to invest in priority areas outlined in this statement. That is a fact. That has happened under this government. That is a clear request.
How could a government take $534 million from Indigenous affairs and even expect that they were going to make closing the gap targets? This is either important to the governments of Australia or it is not. It is important to me and I am sure it is important to many Australians. Governments need to pay a lot more attention to what is going on in this area. The calls on the federal government here this morning I want to put on the record: commit to resourcing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander led solutions; commit to better engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through their representative national peaks; recommit to closing the gap in this generation by and in partnership with COAG and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; secure national funding agreements between Commonwealth, states and territories like the former national partnership agreements, which emphasise accountability to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and drive the implementation of national strategies; commit to working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders to establish a department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs in the future; and commit to addressing the unfinished business of reconciliation.
The calls of this document are very clear. There is a determination by Aboriginal people to have their voices heard to bring forward the solutions to the problems of their community, and I applaud the efforts in pulling that together. I hope that when I give a report next year we do not get five fails out of six categories.
Question agreed to.
I rise to speak this evening on the Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016. I rise to support the Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016. Aviation security must always come before partisan politics. This has always been Labor's commitment in both government and in opposition. This legislation provides some simple but necessary changes that will ensure it is up to date with a modern system of transport security, which I am sure you are very familiar with, Acting Deputy President Gallacher. Importantly it seeks to ensure the right balance between privacy and security, upholding Australia's commitment to an equal and non-discriminatory screening program.
All Australians expect the Commonwealth to ensure that ongoing vigilance, particularly in the aviation and airport sector, is awarded the utmost importance. Transport safety in today's world is dynamic. Governments must respond to threats, as they emerge, with appropriate legislative changes. This legislation will play an essential role in ensuring that this continues to occur. It will update the process airports use for screening of people, vehicles and goods which are already in a security zone at the airport, bringing it into line with international standards. While legislation currently permits screening of people, vehicles and goods when entering a security zone, there is no additional provision for the random screening of these when already inside a security zone. The main aim of the legislation is to provide this authority, while also reinforcing that any screening must be consistent with the random and unpredictable approach.
In its simplest form this legislation provides another layer of security at airports. The use of this authority will be a matter between the airport and the Office of Transport Security, the government body that approves transport security plans for each airport. The government has indicated that these in-zone screening arrangements will initially apply at the following nine airports: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Darwin Gold Coast and Cairns. Importantly, this legislation sits alongside enhanced security awareness training for employees and contractors who work in security zones. It also authorises greater delegation of powers under aviation and maritime transport security legislation to facilitate quicker responses. While the government has highlighted removal of regulatory constraints as a benefit, Labor believes transport security is too important to simply be an exercise in extending light-handed regulation. Regulatory settings should always be reviewed.
But Labor's main reason for supporting this legislation is first and foremost because it updates security measures so they are consistent with world standards. The legislation also includes an additional sensible option to enhance the central objective of removing threats to aviation security. Australia has always taken aviation security seriously. We are a signatory to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, known as the Chicago Convention. Recently the International Civil Aviation Organization, established under the Chicago Convention, has increased standards for screening of persons, goods and vehicles in security controlled zones at airports. Australian legislation should be updated to reflect this higher standard, which is what this amendment bill will achieve. We know from recent events, including the bombing of the Metrojet flight in Egypt in October 2015 and the attempted bombing of the Daallo Airlines flight in Somalia in February last year, that even potential threats require action.
Of course, these changes must ensure people's rights to equal treatment and privacy continue to be protected. The explanatory memorandum to this legislation outlines its commitment to both of these in the formal statement of compatibility with human rights. On equality and non-discrimination it says:
All people have the right to be treated equally. In keeping with Australia's egalitarian screening regime applied to aviation passengers, selection of airport and airline workers, visitors and contractors for screening inside the security restricted areas (SRAs) of airports will be conducted on a purely random basis. Individuals will not be selected according to their race, religion, gender, or any other personal characteristic.
In respect of privacy it says:
In cases where a frisk search is necessary the individual may request that procedure to occur in a private room or within a screened area. A frisk search will always be undertaken by someone of the same gender as the person being searched.
We expect airports and the government to ensure that appropriate arrangements exist for this to occur on all occasions. Importantly, this statement enshrines people's rights while also underpinning a robust and effective screening program. The explanatory memorandum explicitly states that racial and other profiling will not apply to searches and that frisk searches will be conducted by a person of the same gender.
This builds on Labor's strong track record for aviation and airport security. When in government we oversaw the strengthening of the security regime applying to air cargo, committing $54.2 million to install X-ray screening technology at freight depots. We also invested an additional $200 million in the nation's aviation security. Much of this funding facilitated the introduction of new and improved security technologies at airports, including the latest body scanners, next generation multiview X-ray machines and bottle scanners capable of detecting liquid based explosives. It also provided for increased policing at airports, enhanced security procedures and strengthened international cooperation. We improved security at regional airports, introducing legislation that requires domestic checked baggage screening at all regional airports operating RPT services.
With more than 150 million passengers flying through Australian skies each year, Labor will always support sensible measures that protect Australian citizens and continue the nation's reputation for aviation safety. Australia has an enviable aviation safety record. It is a credit to our existing system of regulation and to all participants in the system, including airports and airlines. This legislation is consistent with maintaining that record.
I rise today to provide some comments on the Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 and will begin by noting that the Greens are supportive of the measures contained in this bill and feel that they are an accurate and appropriate way to balance the issues between security and protecting people's rights. In amending the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004, the bill is providing for 'additional security measures to allow people, vehicles or goods to undergo aviation security screening within an airside area or zone at a security controlled airport', to quote the bill's explanatory memorandum.
We see the measures proposed in the bill as reasonable steps that complement existing airport security protocols by allowing for screening to occur within the airside zone at a security controlled airport in addition to the screening point where someone enters the zone. We all know as passengers the screening we have to go through to get into the security controlled zone. This essentially is adding to that. In particular for people working within that zone—for anybody within that zone—this gives the opportunity for those extra screening measures to take place. We feel that these measures in this bill are a good balance between providing safety and security versus privacy and the right of movement for people at our airports. The Greens recognise that we do have sensible measures in place at our airports to address the possibility of violence or terrorist attack, and we note that this bill assists Australia to meet its obligations under the Convention on International Civil Aviation. We recognise that there are particular security considerations that we need to take into account at airports to ensure the safety of travellers and workers who are moving through airports and flying between them. When you are up there in the plane and there are security issues, there is nowhere else to go. It is a particularly point place to be.
So, we need to make wise judgements. We need to make sure that we get that balance right. We need to make sure that when people are at airports and are flying they are safe while but at the same time to do that without unduly impacting upon people's rights and without unduly creating a climate of fear. People need to have the certainty and the confidence that they are going to be safe but not a sense of overt control that makes them feel that it is a very unsafe and fearful place to be. In creating a safe and harmonious society, it is really antithetical if we have people living in a climate of constant fear.
However, we think the government's bill represents a useful step to ensure that safety sits alongside the existing screening arrangements in Australian airports. A key element of this bill is that we want to make sure that the additional screening that takes place is random, that it is not racially profiling people or picking out a particular group of people under the presumption or the hunch that they are going to be more likely to be security risks. I think it is particularly worth noting that the bill does specify that the random screening events are just that—random—because it would be a serious breach of civil rights if people were in some way profiled before being identified for screening.
I note the amendment from Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, who in fact want to see racial profiling; they want to see racism in place in our airports. They want to say that no, we think this group of people are more likely to be security risks, purely on the basis of their race or other characteristics. We reject that completely, and we are pleased to see that this bill does not feature that. And I will be pleased to have that debate when we are addressing those amendments, to discuss how important it is that we do not resort to racial profiling in these screening measures, that everyone is treated equally, that the presumption of innocence is there for everyone, regardless of their background, their race, their gender or any other characteristics.
The other really important thing we need to ensure with this legislation is that the screening of workers or travellers is not unnecessarily invasive or impinging on people's privacy. Security is important, but not at the expense of civil liberties and human rights. So I am pleased to note that, as noted in the explanatory memorandum, the government has carefully considered how the introduction of in-zone screening will impact the privacy of people working in restricted airport areas or zones and has ensured that privacy safeguards are in place.
In conclusion, with those provisos in place—that we are not going to see racial profiling taking place, that people's rights, people's privacy, are being taken account of, that discrimination is not occurring, that nondiscrimination provisions currently exist in screening arrangements; it is really worth underlining how important it is that they are going to be taken forward into any future screening arrangements, because it would be a very bad step forward if that were to occur—the Greens are pleased to support this bill as a useful set of measures to maintain airport security in Australia.
I too rise to make my comments on the Transport Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2016, which we know has passed through the other house. We also know that Labor supports this bill; there is no argument. There is nothing more important in terms of transport than the security of our ports and our wharfs. And I can say that with a bit of background, because it was the Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, back when I first walked into this place, that was doing the inquiry into the MSIC—the Maritime Security Identification Card. But the previous card, the ASIC, as you would well know, Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher, with your experience, like mine, around the airport—actually, you have far more experience around the airport, being a worn-out old baggage handler, which I say with the greatest of respect, because that is a tough gig, especially when you are doing it in Darwin or Alice Springs, like you did for many, many years, and kept those flights going. You were a magnificent servant to our nation, Mr Acting Deputy President.
An honourable senator interjecting—
Do you not believe me? He was a baggage handler. While you lot all sat there sipping champagne in the chairman's lounge, he was loading the plane. That is what he was doing.
An honourable senator interjecting —
He was shearing sheep back then, but he is not now, is he? It is like me—I am not moving furniture anymore. But I digress.
Government senators interjecting—
You see, Mr Acting Deputy President, how dare I congratulate an old blue-collar worker with dirt under the fingernails who has done the hard stuff? They still pounce on me. With the born-to-rule mentality on that side of the chamber, it is hard to be serious and make a wonderful contribution to transport security.
So, to go back, when I first walked into this building, that was one of the first inquiries I walked into. The other one was the canker inquiry, and I will talk about that later, on another date. So I do know the importance, and, as Senator Rice said very clearly before me, we cannot overscreen.
You are sucking up to Senator Rice.
I am not sucking up to Senator Rice. Senator Williams, that is a bit harsh. Crikey, we are all on the same side on this one. But I too worry about the security of our airports. I have done inquiries over the years where we have travelled the nation and we have talked up a good fight about security. I remember the 'don't be alarmed, be alert' and all that sort of stuff. I have sat with other members from the other side of the chamber at Karratha Airport and we had wonderful screening going on in the terminal. That was fine, but there was a three-foot wire fence you could jump over and you could do whatever you liked on the other side. We have come a long, long way.
This bill, very clearly, takes that next step, where we can screen machinery, vehicles, workers and contractors once they are in the secure zone, which has never happened before. We should continue to keep going further. With your experience, Mr Acting Deputy President, you would know that we cannot overscreen freight. A lot of the time, in a lot of our ports, we have no idea what is coming through in these containers or whatever they may be. So this is a first step and a good step, and we should absolutely be able to instil in the travelling public in Australia that this government and governments to follow and previous governments put an absolute best foot forward to make sure, with the madness that is going on around the world, that Australian travellers can rest assured that there are no shortcuts in security—in aviation and on the waterfront. There is no argument at all. It is with great pleasure that I can make my contribution and talk this up and say to the government: 'I would like you to keep going. I would like you to put the big boy pants on and take one step further and instil in our national security a little bit more foresight in having a look at who is coming into our nation.' While I do not want to demean the work of the government, with the opposition and the minor parties supporting this, you still need to continue.
It is all very well to talk up the tough fight, but—this digresses a little bit, but it is very important I share this with you—we have flag-of-convenience vessels, and in 2012 a captain came in on one of the largest coal carriers in this nation, and, strangely, two seamen lost their lives on his ship. I want to mention the great work that the Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport Committee is doing. And I will tell you why it does: because it has members like Senator Williams, Senator O'Sullivan and Senator Back, who support me and you, Mr Acting Deputy President, when you were on the RRAT committee, and other members. We do take this seriously. I am proud to say that this is the most bipartisan Senate committee in this building, because it just puts the best interests of Australia and Australians first.
A Filipino captain who had lost two of his seafarers to terrible deaths came into our port. Then he confessed to being a gun-runner. I am not making this up. This sounds like a bad American B-grade movie. Unfortunately, it is true. But the kicker in this is that he sailed off. He went off. The Japanese owned the vessel and the Japanese were doing the investigation. I cannot believe I have to say this. Then there was a coronial inquest. It is still going. There was a coronial inquest in Sydney. The lawyers were up there, in the absence of Captain Salas. He was nowhere to be found. No-one knew where he was—ASIO, the AFP—no-one had a clue. So they were having the coronial inquiry in Sydney, and Owen Jacques, a reporter from north of Brisbane who had been following the case since 2012, flew down from the Sunshine Coast and was sitting in the spectator area listening to the prosecutor running the case about Captain Salas. At the smoko break, Owen Jacques walked up to the main lawyer said, 'Guess what, I know where Captain Salas is.' ASIO did not know. AFP did not know. Border control and Immigration did not know. He knew. He said, 'They are coming into the Port of Gladstone' on whatever ship it was. There was a flurry of activity.
Debate interrupted.
In two weeks time the people of Azerbaijan will remember the 25th anniversary of what has been one of the more bloody events in their country's history, when more than 600 civilians, including women and children, were killed. It is true that throughout history bad things happen—innocent people are abused and killed. Many atrocities are known to us but most are not. That is because they may be a long way away, they might have happened a long time ago or they were not as publicised in our region as they might have been elsewhere. However, tonight provides an opportunity to reflect on this event and to acknowledge that such events come at massive costs and that their impact will be felt in families for generations to come.
I take the opportunity to speak this evening to the events that occurred in the town of Khojaly in the now occupied territory of Azerbaijan, called Nagorno-Karabakh. This event took place on 25 and 26 February 1992, when the forces of the Armenian side, with the support of troops of the then-USSR, seized the town, a town of some 23,000 people. According to the Azerbaijanis, people were shot dead by Armenian soldiers or they froze to death. Armenia disputes the account and the number of deaths, and it says that Azeri soldiers were also involved in the violence that night, and accuses Azerbaijan's authorities of failing to move civilian population out of the area in time.
Events of this nature are tragic, they are horrific, and of course they do no country any good in terms of its future and in terms of its relations with its neighbours or indeed with the wider community as represented through the United Nations. There have been disputes in the area over Nagorno-Karabakh going back way back to 1918. Soviet rule was imposed in 1921. War broke out in 1991. A ceasefire was brokered by Russia in 1994, and it is estimated now that the population of this region is 100,000 ethnic Armenians. As one would expect, very few ethnic Azeris remain. The 1990s war, as we all came to expect, had catastrophic effects, which continue today. Up to 30,000 people on both sides were killed, and up to one million people were forced to leave their homes before a tenuous ceasefire was agreed.
This is a humanitarian crisis of the worst form. We know that without successful mediation ceasefire violations and renewed tensions will continue to threaten to reignite a military conflict in this place, as it will in others, between these countries and in this particular case that will only serve to destabilise the Caucasus region. Of course, critically important to Azerbaijan, and indeed to Western Europe, would be the interruption of supplies of essential oil and gas from that region. Azerbaijan is a significant producer—the first in the world to be known to produce oil and of course the first in the world in the Caspian Sea region to exploit subsea oil and now gas.
Peace talks have been mediated by Russia, by France and by the United States. They have stalled. Both sides are adamant that they should control this region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Neither party to date has shown any willingness to compromise. The disputed border region between Armenia and Azerbaijan faces an increasing risk of renewed hostilities due to the failure of mediation because of escalating militarisation and frequent ceasefire violations. The area is now controlled by Armenia, and obviously ethnic Azerbaijanis believe they should have the opportunity to reside in this place. The deaths that occurred were desperately unfortunate—children, women, elderly people—and people were taken hostage. It behoves all of us through the UN and other agencies to try and stop events of this type.
I rise today to pay my respects to Leonard Lewis 'Len' Bosman, former member for St George, who passed away last week on 6 February 2017, one day after his 93rd birthday. Last Thursday, 9 February, I was pleased the Senate marked the death of Len Bosman. Len served as a member in the House of Representatives from 1963 to 1969, representing the electors of St George in my home state of New South Wales. During his time in Parliament, Len Bosman was also a Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and chairman of the House Committee on Aircraft Noise from 1965 to 1969, and he was a member of the parliamentary delegation to South Asia in 1966.
But Len Bosman's work did not begin, or end, here in this parliament. From a very young age, Len devoted himself to serving the Australian people. On 1 June 1944, at 20 years of age, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force after serving in the militia from the age of 18. After the end of the Second World War, he continued serving in the military and, in July 1946, he transferred to headquarters of the Eastern Command, as a staff sergeant. Despite Len breaking his neck in early 1945, he became a runner to keep fit. As a result, he was the New South Wales 440-yard hurdle champion and captain of the South Sydney Amateur Athletics Club in 1947.
Len served this country and his community for much of his life with as much commitment and passion as he gave his athletic career, and he has been recognised by numerous organisations for his devotion and distinguished service. He was awarded life governorship of Apex Clubs of Australia, following his work as officer-in-charge of international activities for Australian and South-East Asian Apex clubs and establishing branches in five South-East Asian countries.
Through an Apex project in the late 1950s, Len played a leading role in the establishment of the Association of Civilian Widows, of which he received life governorship. The association helped civilian widows and single mothers and their children as Legacy was already doing for war widows and children. Len was also awarded life membership of the Australian Lone Parent Family Support Service, also known as the Australian Birthright Movement. Len himself founded the service in 1964, which sought to provide support to single-parent families through friendship and advice.
Len Bosman spoke of his passion for community affairs, volunteer work and foreign aid often during his time in parliament. He placed great importance on the work of service clubs and charitable organisations in the Australian community. When addressing the House in 1966, in reference to Australia's extensive record of giving aid to economically underdeveloped countries, he said that 'we are a country prepared to honour its moral responsibilities to mankind'. As the Minister for International Development and the Pacific I share his ideals.
I first met Len in 1990, when I started working with the Hon. Jim Carlton. As a 'dry' Jim was involved with the 'modest members society' which, as John Hyde wrote in The Weekend Australian on 29 September 1990, was usually written with lower case to emphasise modesty! At that time, Len was the president of the modest members. Of course, the society took its name from 'The Modest Member' columns written by the Hon. Bert Kelly, former member for Wakefield. I remember vividly the comings and goings in the Carlton office, especially when it was time for the AGM of the society or the annual former members' gatherings. I also had the privilege of working with Rod Bosman, Len's son. As patron senator for Bennelong, I was pleased to work with Rod as the campaign manager when the Liberals reclaimed Bennelong in 2010.
Len Bosman's achievements and actions throughout his life speak for themselves. His lifelong commitment to serve others and support those who give back is an inspiration to us all. On behalf of the government, I extend to his children Tony, Rod and Lyndel, and their husbands, wives and children, and to other family members and friends, our most sincere sympathy in their bereavement. I am sure their wonderful memories of Len will be of great comfort at this difficult time.
Last year I was fortunate enough to spend three months as part of a parliamentary secondment to the United Nations. It was an enlightening experience, which challenged some of my preconceived views on the UN and its efficiency and effectiveness. It may surprise some that I actually saw some aspects of the UN that I consider worthwhile. The opportunity for multilateral dialogue is a valuable one. I also recognise the importance of being able to facilitate global relief and security efforts.
However, these functions could equally be fulfilled by rapid coordination by sovereign states—in many cases, more efficiently than is currently the case. To state that the UN is overly bureaucratic would be an understatement. It is an organisation searching for problems that will always require more money and manpower to ensure that they are never solved.
Almost everyone I met shared the sentiment that the UN requires significant reform. Exactly what that reform should be depends on who you ask. One simple measure would be to increase transparency. Some UN bodies refuse to allow media or observers to attend their international conferences. The question that raises with me is 'What do they have to hide?' One particularly secretive event that was brought to my attention was the UN Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Let me make it crystal clear that I am not a fan of smoking. I am not a fan of the nanny state, either. I am a fan of transparency within taxpayer-funded bodies. The UNFCTC COP7 conference was not open to the media. There was no transparency on decision making. It does not encourage shareholder or industry engagement and actually discourages broad participation. It is literally the embodiment of the unelected, unaccountable bureaucratic body I so feared I would discover at the United Nations.
Amazingly, at a previous meeting of this body in April last year the delegates cosied up to the dictator of Turkmenistan. This is the chap who has banned beards, ballet and pet pooches in recent years. Now he has effectively banned smoking outside, but he runs a state-controlled tobacco monopoly. It goes without saying that in these despotic regimes there is a 20-metre-high gold monument of the person who runs a nation, which imprisons political opponents and foreign media. Male homosexuals are locked up in this country, and the government denies freedom of association, expression and religion.
But such tyranny and human rights violations are conveniently ignored by FCTC organisers, with the World Health Organization even presenting the repressive regime with an award for the fight against tobacco. How out of touch can you get? Of course the World Health Organization is also concerned about the plight of Syrians, who, as you might know, are in the midst of a major conflict. They recently received a lecture from the WHO representative stressing the importance of controlling the population's consumption of tobacco. Ignore the bombs and bullets—watch out for the second hand smoke!
This is an example of wrong priorities. That is a criticism that can be levelled at many UN agencies. They spend countless hours quarrelling over the offence of using terms like 'the family' or where a comma or full stop should be used in a report. It seems neither efficient nor effective. Let's remember that the UN was set up to avert future global conflict through dialogue. It has since morphed into the global moraliser, captured by vested interests, bureaucratic empire builders and the non-existent. The non-existent because, as far as I know, it is only at the United Nations that the state of Palestine actually exists!
Having said all that, Australia does play a significant role within this global organisation. Our team are professional and respected. They punch well above their weight as a sensible and pragmatic influence on some of the more ambitious UN agendas. The time with the UN has provided me with first-hand experience of a body that meets with equal parts of praise and criticism. If the hope was for me to be converted to the United Nations globalist agenda, I can say the process was not successful. However, it has given me a better understanding of the UN and the role that is played by Australia and our representatives there.
I rise tonight to speak again on the growing scandal that involves the government's actions around the expansion of the Shoalwater Bay training facility north of Rockhampton in Central Queensland. I have asked a number of questions about this issue in the Senate over the last week or so, trying to get to the bottom of exactly what members of this government knew about the expansion of this training facility prior to last year's election.
To recap briefly, just before last year's election the LNP, led by defence minister Marise Payne, went to the election with a big announcement talking about jobs and dollars that were going to be ploughed into Central Queensland as a result of the expansion of this training facility under a deal with the Singaporean government. Of course, the one thing that was missing from their announcement is the thing that we are finally starting to learn—that all along they intended that prime agricultural land would be compulsorily acquired as part of this expansion. Over the last couple of months we have had minister after minister talk about what they knew and did not know and deny that they knew that compulsory acquisitions were required. They tried to blame it on the defence department, and all the while Rockhampton and Central Queensland residents and businesses and farmers were left without any information from the government about what exactly they intended. They were told by one minister that there were not going to be any compulsory acquisitions. They were told by other ministers that there would be. There was mass confusion and mass distress right throughout the region, across Central Queensland. The one thing that was impossible to find out for sure was what government members and ministers knew about this expansion and the need for compulsory acquisitions prior to the election.
What we now finally know, based on the answers that have been extracted, painfully, from Senator Payne, the Minister for Defence, over the course of this week, is that she was advised by her department prior to the election that this expansion was going to require compulsory acquisition of land. The very strange thing about this is that neither she nor any other member of this government had the courtesy, the honesty or the decency to level with Central Queenslanders and tell them that this expansion of Shoalwater Bay and the dollars that were going to come with it were going to come at a price and the price was going to be the need for compulsory acquisitions of properties which supply tens of thousands of cattle to the beef market in Central Queensland.
So we finally now know that the Minister for Defence was advised prior to the election that compulsory acquisitions were required. The thing we still do not know and still do not have a clear answer on is what the two federal LNP representatives in Central Queensland—Senator Canavan, the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, and Michelle Landry, the member for Capricornia—were told prior to the election. They have been getting around Central Queensland in the last couple of months trying to say that they did not know until after the election, that they were not really sure when they were told. 'Please don’t ask me when I knew or what I knew. Go and talk to someone else about that.' I can assure people in Central Queensland that the opposition is still very much committed to finding out what was known by their federal LNP representatives.
It absolutely defies belief that the Minister for Defence of this country could be tripping around the countryside, making election announcements right throughout Central Queensland, talking about the benefits of this deal; it defies belief that that sort of announcement could be made when the minister has finally admitted that she knew prior to the election that acquisitions were going to be required; and it defies belief that she would not have told her ministerial colleague Senator Canavan and the local member Michelle Landry that these acquisitions were going to be required. It also defies belief that the Deputy Prime Minister, who is the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources and a member of the National Security Committee, was not himself informed about the need for compulsory acquisitions.
The only alternative, if these people did not know, is that they are completely out of the loop. And what sort of local member does the member for Capricornia, Michelle Landry, say she is if she is so irrelevant to government discussions that she is not even aware that a massive announcement is going to require the compulsory acquisitions of properties in her electorate? It is worth remembering that Capricornia turned on just over 1,000 votes and was the seat that delivered government. Profession Clive Bean from QUT has come out today and said that Michelle Landry would not have won this seat. I encourage Rockhampton residents to complain.
It is always good when you can take a line from Shakespeare and adapt it for home consumption. So: something is rotten in the state of Victoria—really rotten: street crime, gang crime, home invasions, carjackings, prison riots and a court system that lets a man out on bail, despite strenuous police opposition, resulting in carnage in the Bourke Street Mall. Melbourne, my Melbourne, is barely recognisable as a place that keeps getting voted 'the most liveable city in the world'. It is hard to see us winning next year. The state opposition leader, Matthew Guy, said the other day: 'Every day we're seeing riots, we're seeing crime waves'. And he said of the Andrews administration: 'This is a government who is standing by and allowing Melbourne to become the Johannesburg of the South Pacific.' That should be 'which is standing by' but I agree with the sentiment.
Not only Melbourne, but throughout Victoria, crime is rampant. It is out of control. In Caroline Springs on Saturday night, dozens of Sudanese youths—and I will identify them as Sudanese even though it is politically incorrect to do so—terrorised and terrified families at a community fireworks night, running through the crowd snatching mobile phones and handbags, punching anyone who resisted. Once the fireworks started and people started using their mobile phones to take pictures, the gang struck. One eyewitness said it was like the running of the bulls. Another witness said, 'They had no fear, no respect for authority'. Obviously not. One teenager was bashed and had his phone stolen right outside the Caroline Springs police station.
I said they have no respect for authority. Why would they? They are treated with kid gloves. Reportedly, troublemakers get ice-cream and pizzas in juvenile detention as rewards for behaving themselves. Why would they, when a department spokesman referring to the latest prison riot, yet another one, actually referred to rioting prisoners as 'clients'? They are criminals, prisoners. They are not clients. Although, the way the current government treats them, you can understand if they see themselves as clients or customers.
On 3AW last week Neil Mitchell found a bombshell of a line in the small print in an ombudsman's report. It turns out that, after rioting juveniles ransacked their Malmsbury and Parkville detention centres and were sent to country prisons, the government decided that it would be the decent thing to have their parents visit them and that it would be fair and decent for you the taxpayer to pay for it. They forked out for taxis and Uber rides for the folks to get there from Melbourne—I guess at around $200 to $300 a time. I do not know, although I would bet on it, that the taxpayers even paid for their motel or hotel expenses.
Ignore the fact that the only reasons these young crims were in the country jails was because they destroyed their city abode. A cynic would say it is a surprise that they are even in jail because they usually get bailed so easily—some of them eight or nine times. Thugs repeatedly are given chance after chance out on bail and go on to commit further offences. The justice system and magistrates continue to put the offender first and the victim and community protection last.
I have talked to a lot of police. They all say the current court system of granting bail to an accused is utterly frustrating and at times dangerous to the community. Police keep trying to remand the accused person until they hit the court system. But more often than not they are released on court bail, despite concerns by the police: exhibit A—Adrian Bayley, rapist and killer of Jill Meagher; exhibit B—Jimmy Gargasoulas, Bourke Street Mall; exhibit C—Sean Price, killer of Masa Vukotic. Exhibit D is still to come. It could be any day soon.
Melbourne is currently going through an extraordinary wave of carjackings and violent home invasions which are apparently not happening anywhere else in Australia. One of the problems I think is the VicPol policy to not tell it like it is, to be politically correct. It takes me back to the days when Christine Nixon was Police Commissioner. There were African gangs terrorising Kensington. I remember saying on 3AW that 'Mrs Doubtfire' had instructed police not to call them 'African gangs'—or even 'gangs'. Jesus wept. How much have they learnt since? Mollycoddling does not work. Ignoring reality does not work. The way things are going in Victoria, my state's next number plate slogan should not be 'Victoria: The Garden State' or 'Victoria: The Place To Be'; it should be 'Victoria: The Crime State'.
Yesterday, this Senate condemned the Turnbull government for its failure to secure the future of Palliative Care Tasmania. I would like to thank my colleague Senator Polley for co-sponsoring the motion and the Senate for supporting it. I know I have raised this issue several times in this place, but I do so again, because the closure of Palliative Care Tasmania is now imminent. In fact, I understand that, without further funding, they could end up closing their doors as early as this week. As I pointed out in the motion, Palliative Care Tasmania were funded to deliver the Networking End of Life Care Across Tasmania Project. Over the past four years, through this project, they have delivered education and information about palliative care, end-of-life care, death, dying, grief and bereavement to over 15,000 Tasmanians. This is an amazing achievement. When Labor funded this project four years ago, Palliative Care Tasmania was given a target to deliver education to 1,000 people, yet they have reached over 15,000.
Despite this amazing success, there is still a massive unmet demand for their services—demand which they, sadly, no longer have the capacity to meet, because their funding has run out. Even last week, Palliative Care Tasmania had to knock back seven requests for training from aged-care facilities. That is one request every day. Darren Mathewson, the CEO of Aged and Community Services Tasmania—the peak body for aged care in Tasmania—said that the closure of Palliative Care Tasmania will reduce his sector's workforce development. Mr Mathewson told the media:
The aged care industry needs ongoing support in this area of core business to ensure our workforce is adequately skilled and supported and we are building capability across the industry.
Palliative Care Tasmania does a lot of work in professional development, helping people in health and aged care better understand how to care for people who are dying and how to support them and their families in making informed choices about their care. But Mr Mathewson also pointed out that the closure of this program will lead to reduced support for individuals, families and communities.
Last week, the ABC highlighted the story of Trish McDonald, a patient with stage 4 melanoma. Seeking answers about her own mortality, Ms McDonald enrolled in a course on death and dying run by Palliative Care Tasmania. Not only did Palliative Care Tasmania help her to understand her situation; they also helped her to approach the subject of dying with her son, who was 11 years old at the time of her diagnosis. In the online article, Ms McDonald spoke passionately about the need for the service Palliative Care Tasmania provides. She said:
To have education within the community about death and dying, that's hugely important because if you don't talk about it, it's hidden.
We know that encouraging conversations with family about death and dying and that knowing how to approach those conversations and what to discuss leads to an improvement in end-of-life care. These conversations, and the education that helps facilitate them, have a massive impact in improving the quality of life for people who are dying, while also saving millions of dollars in acute care. Not only in Tasmania but across Australia, there is a need to change attitudes to death and dying and to encourage conversations about end-of-life care. This project has covered major ground in meeting this need in Tasmania, but there is much more to be done. With the closure of Palliative Care Tasmania, there is no other organisation or agency that can provide this service in my home state. To demonstrate the degree to which Tasmanians value the work of Palliative Care Tasmania, a petition I organised to call for further funding attracted more than 1,000 signatures in just a few weeks. When Palliative Care Tasmania closes its doors, I will be making it very clear to those petitioners that this intransigent government is at fault.
Unlike the Turnbull government, Labor understands the value of Palliative Care Tasmania's work in this area. Prior to the last election, we committed to extending their funding so that they could continue to deliver the project for another three years. Not only did we commit to extending this project but we also committed to evaluating it for a national rollout. What we are facing now is the impending closure of a highly successful program—a program that should be rolled out across Australia but instead is ending because of the pig-headed ignorance of this government. The kind of community education that Palliative Care Tasmania provides is vital to improving end-of-life care in Australia, yet this government has demonstrated that it does not understand the value of community education in end-of-life care. To allow Palliative Care Tasmania to close is absolutely shameful, and it is right that those opposite be condemned for it.
Cradle Mountain is a globally-recognised natural landmark. The look on a visitor's face the first time they gaze up at its presence and beauty is why its tourism potential has been recognised for over a century. It was in 1911 that Austrian naturalist Gustav Weindorfer bought land in Cradle Valley and built the original 'Waldheim' chalet for guests to use as a base when exploring the region. Our First Australians have used the land for at least 10,000 years, with the valley and surrounding area containing many Aboriginal living areas and sites. Cradle, as it is affectionately known, attracts over 200,000 visitors each year and, in the second half of 2016, there was a 20 per cent increase in visitor numbers compared to the same period the year before. These visitors support thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of investment both in the valley and across Northern Tasmania. To meet the expectations of visitors and to ensure we continue to preserve the valley, urgent infrastructure upgrades are needed at Cradle.
The Tasmanian National Parks Service, Tourism Industry Council Tasmania, Kentish Council and the regional Cradle Coast Authority developed the Cradle Mountain Master Plan, which they presented to all political parties before last year's election. Labor made a commitment of federal funding of $15 million, but the federal Liberals, despite their slogan of 'jobs and growth' and despite the then federal tourism minister living just an hour away, could only stump up $1 million for a feasibility study. What has developed in the seven months since the election demonstrates how little the Liberals care about Tasmania. Prime Minister Turnbull and then tourism minister Senator Colbeck made a clear commitment during the election. Despite his appalling result in Tasmania, the Prime Minister must honour his commitments to the Tasmanian people and deliver the promised funds.
But today we have learnt that the process for delivering just the $1 million for the feasibility study is to give the money to the state government first. Instead of the funding being administered by the Commonwealth and delivered directly to the Cradle Coast Authority, an organisation which regularly receives direct Commonwealth grants and is equipped to manage them, the federal and state Liberals have decided to deliver the money to the Cradle Coast Authority through the state government's great bureaucratic white elephant, the Coordinator-General. I note that when announced by the state Liberals the Coordinator-General was meant to attract new investment to the state, not manage Commonwealth grants that could be managed directly.
The people of Tasmania are crying out for new investment. Whether the conservative ideologues in the Liberal Party like it or not, there is a strong role for government in attracting investment to Tasmania. What we need for investment is certainty, not silly games from a government that continues to fight within itself rather than get on with the job that the Tasmanian people deserve. Tonight, I call on the Prime Minister and Senators Abetz, Bushby, Parry and Duniam to do what Labor did in government—hunt as a pack and deliver for Tasmania. Senators, you need to go and demand that the Prime Minister and the minister responsible deliver the funds as per the Prime Minister's election commitment, and then follow it up with constant pressure to ensure the Prime Minister matches the commitments of federal Labor and your state Liberal colleagues of $15 million from each jurisdiction. Use the government investment to attract private investment and get the development started.
The project is the No.1 priority for Tasmania's tourism industry and is supported by all levels of government. The development will generate 145 full-time jobs during construction and 113 new full-time jobs once complete. It will support thousands more jobs in both the Cradle Valley and across northern Tasmania. It will give tourists from across the world a sensational experience as they enter the valley. It will deliver a second 'wow' that supplements that natural beauty. The Cradle Coast Authority recently said that visitors are reporting disappointment with the sense of arrival at the valley. Therefore, it is a real risk that the attractiveness of Cradle will be overtaken by other sites.
The chase for tourists only gets harder each year. This project must be supported properly by this government. I urge the government to get on with the job of governing and deliver their election commitments to the people of Tasmania.
During question time today, I asked a few simple questions. However, when you are dealing with the most accident-prone Attorney-General in history, Senator Brandis, nothing is ever quite that simple. As usual, the Attorney-General took the Senate down a long, windy and unedifying response. In fact, his claims were false. His claims that the Queensland Labor Party had approached One Nation for preference deals were not true. Senator Brandis' claims that my colleague, Senator Chisholm, was the state secretary at the relevant time of the alleged approach were also false. The behaviour of the Attorney-General is misleading, disappointing and extremely unhelpful. In his answer, Senator Brandis attempted to somehow tie a senator, Senator Chisholm, to preference deals with One Nation in Queensland. Senator Dastyari raised the point earlier on as a point of order. Senator Brandis, please be aware that Senator Chisholm is not the state secretary of Queensland Labor; he is a Senator.
I understand that Senator Brandis must be upset. His Western Australian colleagues have thrown him and the Queensland LNP under the bus. Indeed, Senator Brandis has previously thrown his own Queensland LNP team under the bus—after previously revealing that he does not think they are very good. Senator Brandis' current rhetoric suggests that the Queensland Liberals will go down a similar path to the Western Australian Liberals. I say this because of his reluctance to denounce One Nation policies.
What I can say, like the rest of my Labor colleagues, is that there will be no deal between One Nation and Labor. How can Senator Brandis sit in this place—how can he seriously sit here in the Australian Senate—and in good conscience contemplate support for One Nation's policies? During question time, I also referred to comments from the former Treasurer, Mr Costello. The former Treasurer denounced One Nation's foolish economic policies, as did former Prime Minister John Howard, but the current government supports them.
Senator Brandis, the senator representing the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the Senate, is somehow unable to denounce their policies. Although, to his credit, the Attorney-General did accept that the two per cent flat tax was a foolish policy. This is shameful. It is shameful because their policies do not make any sense. As I said in question time, one senior cabinet minister has claimed that One Nation's approach had a certain 'economic rationalism', 'reflective of what it is to govern Australia in a fiscally responsible way,' and that theirs was a 'mature approach to economic policy'.
Let me just reiterate what those policies are. One Nation's policies include: the flat two per cent tax on every Australian; exploring the removal of federal taxation; getting rid of penalty rates across the board—and, for me, that is one of the most serious of One Nation's policies which can cause the greatest of harm to vulnerable workers across the state of Queensland; opposition to globalisation; opposition to free-trade economic policies; and a promise to withdraw from international treaties. If these policies are the policies which are part of what the Turnbull government says is a rational, fiscally responsible and mature economic approach, then they show just how quickly and abjectly the Liberal Party has surrendered to far-right populism.
I would just like to touch briefly on One Nation's 20-year-old Easytax system. I have a copy of the release from 1998 of Senator Hanson's One Nation taxation policy. I note that on 3 September 1998 it was stated:
… One Nation believes the only way to resolve the inequities, complexities, disincentives and punishing nature of our taxation system is to start again.
… … …
… One Nation has a totally new approach to taxation based on a 2% Easytax conceived in 1985 and researched over the last 13 years - a product of Tax Reform Limited.
This policy, therefore, has a 32-year gestational period, and it is still not finalised. Professor Quiggin of University of Queensland has indicated that the two per cent tax would destroy small business and see a collapse in government revenue. Is the government really at the point of endorsing a century-old tax system that would destroy small business? Has the government now reached the point where it cannot denounce One Nation's policies?
Senator Brandis said we need to respect One Nation because they were elected. Well, what about the Labor Party? The LNP have no problem denouncing us. They have no problem disrespecting voters who voted Labor. Quite frankly, I am quite confused as to why Senator Bernardi has left the LNP to start his own conservative movement, given that One Nation are now at the forefront of the LNP's political decision making.
We hear a lot these days about the politics of bigotry and hate. We hear a lot about politicians like Donald Trump and, indeed, we hear a lot from the likes of Senator Hanson and Senator Bernardi. But what we do not hear about is how racism and bigotry—how Islamophobia and anti-Semitism—actually affect people with far less power and influence in our community. That is why I will be standing up here in this place week after week and month after month sharing the experiences of these Australians who are bearing the brunt of attacks being made by those people who seek to divide us.
Last week I shared Sara's story. She was somebody who was caught up in Donald Trump's attempted ban on Muslim immigration. It had a profound effect on her and her family. This week I want to share the story of another woman—a woman who was born in regional Australia, where she now lives and works as a qualified health professional. She has asked to remain anonymous, and I will refer to her as Laila. Laila is a Muslim, as is her husband and 10-year-old son. She does not wear a veil or a hijab. She gets to know her clients quite well; she works with them closely, often over long periods of time. They get to know her quite well.
One day late last year, she was attending to a particular client who she had worked with for about a year. Laila's young son was in the room—he had a day off school—and the client was fine with that. During the session, Laila and the client got to chatting, as they often did. They had a good, cordial relationship. Toward the end of the appointment, the conversation moved on to the approaching Christmas holidays. The client asked Laila what her and her family would be doing for Christmas. Laila replied politely that her family were Muslims and they do not celebrate Christmas, but they were really looking forward to the holidays. Then, out of nowhere, came the response, 'You know, if you wore the hijab, I wouldn't come and see you.' Laila was lost for words, and, as though to emphasise the point, the client added, 'Actually, you know what? If you wore the hijab, I wouldn't even let you in through my front door.'
Laila was being told that regardless of who she was and regardless of the relationship she had with her client, if she identified with a particular group this person would not want to have anything to do with her. Laila's mother wears a hijab. Her sisters wear hijabs. Why on earth should wearing a hijab make any difference to the relationship that she and her client had? Why on earth would it make any difference to anyone? She was acutely aware that right throughout this her son was watching it all. What does she say to her son when someone has just told her that, no matter who you are, if you are a visible member of a particular community they do not want to know you.
That is what Islamophobia is. As much as we would like to, we cannot stop every person from expressing racism and bigotry. We have protections in law, and we have an opportunity in this place as political leaders to actually show some leadership. Every time people reflect on the Racial Discrimination Act and say that it is not necessary, talk about banning burqas or link asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island to terrorists, they give people license to express these hateful views. We need to make it clear that there is no place in the Australian parliament—indeed, within the Australian community—for racism and bigotry and that Islamophobia has no place in Australian society.
Our job in this parliament is very clear. We need to make sure that everybody in this nation understands that they are welcome here and that we are a nation that is inclusive, that celebrates our diversity and that welcomes people from all around the world—those different cultures and those different nations that have sought to come and make Australia their home. If we are to remain the most successful multicultural nation on earth, it is incumbent on each and every one of us to stand up and to speak these truths to ensure that, when members of parliament express hateful and bigoted views, whether privately or in public forums like we have seen over recent weeks, we stand up loudly and clearly and say, 'Racism stops with me.'
I make this contribution to this evening's adjournment debate with mixed emotions. I am saddened by the fact that the individual I am about to pay tribute to has now passed away, but, at the same time, I am enormously humbled and grateful for this opportunity to talk about his enormous and lasting contribution to Western Australia. I think it is very important that Liberals make every effort to recognise the contribution of those whose life's work leaves an enduring imprint and legacy not only on their own political party but also on the community they work so tirelessly to serve.
In the case of Western Australia, the Honourable Peter Jones, AM, who sadly passed away last month, is someone who well and truly earned a place in the great pantheon of WA Liberal heroes. Peter's name is probably not well known to those living outside of Western Australia. To the extent that there is an awareness on the east coast of those who have effectively created the modern state of Western Australia in an economic sense, it is generally limited to names like Sir David Brand and Sir Charles Court. Yes, they were political giants, but naturally they did not work alone and their governments could not have achieved the things they did without the assistance of loyal and talented ministers. I do not think it is overstating the case to say that, were it not for the life and work of Peter Jones, WA would have been a vastly less prosperous and less dynamic place over recent decades.
Peter was not someone given to boasting about his own centrality to the economic transformation of Western Australia. Indeed, he was not given to boasting at all. His quiet humility was amongst his finest qualities. Peter Jones was born in Tasmania, moving to Narrogin in WA's Great Southern region in 1968 where he became a successful wool, meat and grain producer. In 1974, his respect within his local community resulted in his election to state parliament as the member for Narrogin. Although originally elected as a National Country Party MP, his capacity for hard work and creative thinking quickly won the respect of the newly elected Liberal Premier, Sir Charles Court. After little more than one year as a member of state parliament, he was promoted to the ministry.
In fact, between his ministerial appointment in June 1975 and the defeat of the WA Liberal government in early 1983, Peter Jones held a total of 13 portfolios. Little wonder he was colloquially known as 'The Minister for Everything'. In a career that included service at various times as the minister responsible for housing, education, tourism and the environment—all crucial portfolios—it is nonetheless probably Peter Jones's period as Minister for Resources, Development, Mines, Fuel and Energy that will prove his lasting legacy. The crippling oil crisis of the late 1970s and accompanying economic downturn hit WA's resources sector especially hard. It is widely recognised that, without Peter Jones's skills as a negotiator, the giant North West Shelf gas project, which was a game changer for WA, would likely have collapsed and never begun gas production.
Likewise, Peter was among the first to understand the central role Asian markets would play in WA's future prosperity. This was evident from the very first days of Peter's parliamentary career. His maiden speech, delivered on 7 August 1974, displays an appreciation for the importance of engaging directly with Asian markets to better understand their needs:
I would like to refer to one other aspect of rural marketing; that is, we do not know enough about our customers and what they really want. One of the reasons for my trip in Japan was to deliver a speech to a businessmen's association there. After I had completed this very pleasant task, a considerable number of questions were directed to me. These questions really brought home the lesson that we do not know very much about our customers. For example. I was asked how much I knew about the Japanese distribution system, financial arrangements, and the dietary habits of the people whom we wish to buy our products. I had to admit that I knew very little, and it was quite obvious that whilst the Japanese knew a great deal about us and our production and business methods. we knew very little about theirs.
I assure members that when I returned here I made a very strong recommendation that we must make every effort to know more about those with whom we deal and what they want from us.
So said Peter Jones in his first speech to the Western Australian parliament in 1974. The fact that, as a newly elected MP, Peter Jones saw fit to include those sentiments in his first speech is very instructive. He clearly saw cross-cultural understanding and engagement as crucial to WA's economic expansion, and it was a principle that informed his approach to policy development throughout his ministerial career.
One obvious example was in his approach to dealing with China. Peter clearly understood that the China of the late 1970s and early 1980s was a nation of great economic ambitions but one which lacked the resources to meet those ambitions. With remarkable foresight, he established regular 'technical missions' where Chinese technologists came to Western Australia to learn about the capacity and quality of our own recourses sector and its products and how to develop productive infrastructure in remote locations. This direct engagement with China had the effect of significantly boosting WA's profile and potential export markets in a nation that was about to begin one of the largest economic transformations we have ever witnessed in the world.
Having helped to transform his state, Peter Jones would have been entitled to enjoy a quiet retirement from public life. But his desire to serve continued long after he left parliament in 1986, including two years as President of the Western Australian Liberal Party from 1989 to 1991 and six years as a federal vice-president of the Liberal Party from 1990 to 1996. His period in both roles came at times when the party was dealing with the challenges of opposition, and his judicious stewardship helped the Liberal Party organisation to do the work that it needed to do to return to office a Liberal government. And so it was under his stewardship in 1993 that Richard Court became the Premier of WA and federally John Howard was elected Prime Minister in 1996.
During Richard Court's eight years as WA premier, Peter was a frequent and welcome source of counsel, again helping his state to position for advantage in the coming resources boom. In addition, he served in Western Australia as the inaugural chairman of the Water Corporation for seven years and was appointed by the Howard Government as Chairman of the Defence Housing Authority during a period when that organisation was undergoing major change.
Peter was also generous in devoting himself to charitable work, including with the Hackett Foundation at the University of Western Australia, the board of the Perth International Arts Festival and the Diabetes Research Foundation of WA. Then there was Peter's unofficial charity service, serving as a source of encouragement and wise counsel to those beginning to make their way in the WA Liberal Party.
This year marks 30 years since I first joined the WA Liberal Party, so Peter Jones's parliamentary career had already ended and his time as state president occurred relatively early in my membership. But even then he was generous with his time, unfailingly approachable and warm, and always prepared to share his perspective on contemporary political events through the lens of his considerable experience. I will be forever grateful for the encouragement and patient advice Peter offered to me, first as a Young Liberal some 30 years ago and continuing right up to these times as a federal parliamentarian.
Peter's passing last month was an enormously sad moment for the entire Western Australian Liberal family. However, all Western Australians have reason to be grateful for his lifetime of service to our great state and, importantly, for the quiet determination he showed in shaping its economic transformation. This evening, I extend my heartfelt sympathies to Peter's wife of more than 50 years, Toni, their three children and their seven grandchildren.
I rise to discuss the local economy, education and innovation in my home state of Tasmania. Tasmania continues to strive and succeed in innovation thanks to previous investments by state and federal Labor governments into education.
This evening I want to outline the important work of LiveTiles, an information technology business which is kicking goals not only in my home state but also across the globe. To demonstrate just how fast the success of LiveTiles has been in a very short time, LiveTiles has expanded its marketing team from four people to over 40 in the last few months. The company is headed up by now New York based CEO Karl Redenbach and chief financial officer Matt Brown. The company was originally founded in Australia but has since diversified and is working out of offices across the globe. The company is focused on product design and customer innovations, specialising in problem-solving IT applications and also including holographic and virtual reality technology.
The company is committed to positive outcomes for Tasmanians with its research and development base in Hobart. The company wants to continue a strong relationship with Tasmania because Simon Tyrrell, their technical guru, is based in Hobart. During a recent visit, I was fortunate enough to meet with Mr Tyrrell and to hear about their exciting plans. Mr Tyrrell and LiveTiles are acutely aware of the opportunities that exist in my home state. There is so much opportunity for the company to thrive and for Tasmanians to take advantage of a company that is committed to Tasmania and its way of life.
The fast pace at which this company is moving is staggering. Late last year the company was set to sign a business deal with one of the United States largest multinational retail stores, Walmart, and has contracts with the Dallas Cowboys and the US Marine Corps. The company is committed to creating better efficiencies within organisations so it has truly global reach. The company is also listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.
LiveTiles is also growing extremely quickly in Tasmania and has a positive vision to invest in a further 50 jobs in my home state. The company has a long-term strategy that starts with investing in people with a passion for problem solving and creativity. LiveTiles understands the importance of finding people who are passionate about innovation, and that is why it has started an identification and mentoring program for young people. LiveTiles intends to mentor young Tasmanians to work in the IT industry.
The organisation is committed to collaboration with Tasmanian colleges, including Don College and Rokeby College. Currently, these colleges, in conjunction with LiveTiles, are running innovative thinking labs and working with students to brainstorm ideas to encourage creative-thinking and problem-solving thought processes. They are also working with other students to help them design and build apps. LiveTiles understands the importance of education and collaboration, which is why it is also working with TasTAFE and the University of Tasmania to create opportunities for young people interested in the technology space.
A particular focus is being placed on attracting young people to the IT sector with their outreach program which aims to ensure there are plenty of young people inspired to make the IT sector their future career path. It is crucial that these students are targeted early to sustain a creative focus and a thinking-outside-the-square perspective. The values which LiveTiles strive towards are built upon a strong work ethic committed to problem solving. Interested students must also be loyal and resilient to work in a sector that is always changing. Above all though, students must be passionate and creative.
Labor is continually talking about the importance of investing in STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths. People wanting to work in the IT sector must also be artistic and creative, and therefore LiveTiles is now talking about the importance of STEAM, which embraces the concept of the arts under the STEM banner. In a world which is increasingly competitive, it is fundamental that companies like LiveTiles attract the best free thinkers.
I am of the view that, if Tasmania can emphasise the importance of building a pool of talent that the IT sector can utilise, it will not only allow for the creation of well-paid jobs for young people, but also lead to a new generation of young people who can solve difficult problems now and into the future. We must also utilise vocational training, because it allows for the training of the newest practical skills that can be applied in the workplace from the outset of a person's career.
A youthful, committed workforce that is driven to create and help people solve problems at a local level is very exciting. For example, how do we solve the problem of access to health care for people in remote areas across the country? It is something that we must solve and so the focus must be engaging with young people to create and solve problems we face at a public and social policy level.
Currently, LiveTiles is working with 20 small businesses in Tasmania. Further to this, TasALERT is an emergency warning and information system in an online platform. It is now running LiveTiles products which allows it to provide a single source of clear and consistent emergency information from across government in an easy-to-use and high-performing interface.
I think the goal of trying to create a niche market for IT in Tasmania would be highly beneficial to Tasmania's local economy. Tasmania's lifestyle is very attractive to people, and I believe Tasmania could build a bigger hub for information technology into the future. Our lifestyle is perfect for new and upcoming IT companies.
LiveTiles is not the only IT company in Tasmania kicking goals. In this place I have talked about Definium Technologies, Foundry, The Innovation Circle, Bitlink and Enterprize. We know in Tasmania that we have the vibe and the energy for organisations such as this. We are world leaders in catching and inspiring young people to take an interest to tap into their creativity and to invest their time and energy in this important industry.
LiveTiles talked to me about one young person who came to them for work experience but who was not really engaged with the education system. But Mr Tyrrell saw in this young man the ability to be creative and to think outside the box. As a result, this young person has already turned his life around. They were so impressed with him that he will continue to be engaged with this innovative company. That is the sort of story that we need to hear more of in this chamber.
Labor believes that government has a vital role in encouraging and spreading activities around innovation across the country, and I know that Tasmania can play an enormous part in this effort. If we are not involving our regions in our push to be smarter and more innovative, then we are not allowing ourselves the opportunity to reach our full potential. Labor has always understood that innovation should be a national economic priority and that innovation is not something that just occurs in our capitals.
It is very unfortunate that the Turnbull government is all talk and no action on innovation. Mr Turnbull has promised so much in this space but has delivered nothing. The agile and innovative Prime Minister is nowhere to be seen in this space. When it comes to innovation, the Turnbull government has been a big disappointment. It has cut $30 billion out of schools and dumped the Gonski reforms, it has botched the rollout of the NBN, it has backed cuts to CSIRO and it has underfunded Australian innovation activity. If Mr Turnbull really wants to be taken seriously on innovation, he needs to do a lot better than his over hyped innovation statement last December and his glossy 'ideas boom' ad campaign that is costing more than $28 million.
Mr Turnbull certainly needs to listen when it comes to innovation. He ought to visit our very creative innovation sector in Tasmania because we are leading the way. Distance and where we are placed is only an advantage because our lifestyle is second to none. We are the jewel in the crown of the Australian community.
I rise tonight to talk about inequality, employment and other key indicators of quality of life in Western Australia. I have talked previously in this place about reports from the BankWest Curtin Economic Centre. I raised the issues around its reports about sharing the benefits of the boom when it was at its height in Western Australia and raised the fact that inequality increased in Western Australia. In fact the philosophy of the 'rising tide floats all boats' is a flawed approach and not all the benefits of the boom at the time were shared equally by all people in Western Australia. People with more wealth and higher incomes tended to get a bigger share of the benefits hence the increasing inequality. This issue also came up during a Senate inquiry into inequality in Australia, which I chaired, and we noted then the increasing inequality in Australia. However, to get back to the focus of my discussion tonight in more specific detail, I want to talk about report that was released by the BankWest Curtin Economic Centre late last year—Back to the Future: Western Australia's economic future after the boom.
The BankWest Curtin Economic Centre is an independent economic and social research organisation located at the Curtin Business School at Curtin University with a focus on examining the key economic and social policy issues that contribute to the sustainability of Western Australia and to the wellbeing of households both nationally and in Western Australia. Using the latest data available, this report looked at recent changes in the state's economic trends in light of the trailing off of the resource boom. The report contains some very interesting facts about changes experienced by Western Australian households including changes in employment and wealth and income inequality.
The report found that there are no strong signs that we are moving to a more egalitarian society and while some indicators for income inequality have dropped, wealth inequality has not. The richest 20 per cent of Western Australian households hold at least 64.7 per cent of the state's aggregate household net worth. I think people will agree that is a significant amount of wealth held by a relatively small percentage of the people. The report also found that there is an evident gender gap of some 33 per cent in median gross incomes between men and women. I would say it is simply not good enough for my home state of Western Australia to have that appalling difference in gross income between men and women.
The report found there have been significant shifts in Western Australia's labour market over the last few years. It shows that workforce casualisation is on the rise. Between 2008 and 2014 the share of casual employees in Western Australia rose from 20.5 per cent to 22.5 per cent. Running alongside an increase in the casualisation of the workforce, there has also been a downward trend in full-time employment and a rise in part-time employment. This shift undermines the belief that most Western Australians will secure and maintain long-term full-time employment for his or her working life. By these figures, it confirms that employment increasingly will be insecure and that people may be required to hold multiple jobs at the same time to make up their preferred working hours. If this was a reflection of someone's individual choice, that they wanted more flexible working hours or wanted fewer working hours, that would be one thing. However, the report points out that some of the growth in part-time employment has been largely involuntary in nature. In other words, people are not choosing the casualisation and part-time employment approach but are being forced into it. The report also found that at both a state and national level, the growth in new employees has been negative in recent years and there is a clear decline in the number of new traineeships being offered.
The report found that the contribution of health care and social assistance to the state's employment has grown from 9.5 per cent to 12 per cent between 2010 and 2015. It is clear that the health care and social assistance sectors are growing as the population ages. However, the report notes that this sector also faces challenges related to high costs and low pay. The report says that if the state is to capitalise on the growth in this sector then issues related to sectoral wages and working conditions will need to be addressed. They say there is:
… the need for efficient, creative and imaginative policy settings to take full advantage of new opportunities for economic growth and future industrial development. This responsibility extends to the imperative for new, secure employment opportunities for the state's workforce. In doing so, it is surely also worth reflecting on the fact that the labour market of the future—flexible, multi-faceted, portfolio-based—may well be substantially different from the labour market of the past.
It is obvious from the work of this report that some significant changes need to be made to avoid an increase in inequality in Western Australia and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of a small percentage of Western Australians.
This was not hard to predict. I had a report done in the mid-noughties, and there were others, that showed that the benefits of the boom were not being shared equally across the population. If you were working directly in the mining industry on high wages, you were getting the benefits, but people working in the public sector, our police, our emergency service responders and those that worked in retail and hospitality were not sharing the benefits of the boom. I think that has contributed to the increase in income and wealth inequality that was occurring, where wealth became more and more concentrated in a small percentage of Western Australians. It was clear at the time that the Barnett government did not make the appropriate policy decisions to invest the benefits of the boom wisely.
As we come out of the boom, we see that employment is becoming less secure and more part time, that we have this appalling disparity between men's and women's pay and that, where we are seeing an increase in wealth inequality, we need policy approaches that are different to the same old, same old. I am not at all confident in the Barnett government, given that they did not ensure the sharing of the benefits of the boom. There are some serious issues that need to be addressed in the tailing-off of the boom, and the Barnett government has failed to address those, nor has there been leadership from the federal government, who also are failing to address the issues of growing inequality. They have refused to address the issues of the concentration of wealth in the rich; in fact, they want to give tax cuts to the wealthy and to take money off the most vulnerable members of our community, as can been seen from the 15 clauses in the omnibus bill. The coalition, at both federal and state level, has mismanaged the benefits of the boom and has increased inequality. (Time expired)
This evening I rise to talk about what is on the minds of my fellow Western Australians as they contemplate their vote and the arrogant and out-of-touch Barnett Liberal government that they are currently confronted with and governed by. With an election just around the corner, it is obvious to more and more Western Australians, upon reflection, what a disappointment the last eight years of the Barnett government have been. They have had eight years of wasted opportunities. They have squandered the mining boom, and our economy is suffering.
When I say they have squandered the mining boom, what they did was stand idly by while competition for labour in the mining sector hollowed out the rest of the economy, which means now that the mining boom has gone, many of those other jobs that Western Australians traditionally worked in have declined. We are talking about services, higher education, manufacturing and more. Our WA economy is suffering. What should have been the good times has very much turned into very difficult times because of the mismanagement of the Barnett government. Instead of investing in jobs, education and health, the Barnett government invested in vanity projects like we have seen at Elizabeth Quay and the new sports stadium. It is a government with the wrong priorities. It has its priorities all wrong.
Tonight, I want to outline to the Senate some of the key concerns that I and my Labor colleagues in WA are hearing from WA voters who are sick of Colin Barnett's arrogance and of this tired old Liberal government. Firstly, Western Australians are, most importantly, worried about jobs, and for good reason. Our unemployment rate is above six per cent, one of the highest rates in the country. In some parts of WA, it is more than double the national average. It is even worse for young Western Australians—up near 15 per cent in some areas. All over the state, people are feeling this economic pressure. Again, I highlight that it is because the Barnett government squandered the mining boom because they had no alternative plan in place to generate jobs in our state.
But I can tell you that Mark McGowan and WA Labor do. Earlier this month we saw our own Labor leader Bill Shorten and state leader Mark McGowan announcing their job plan for WA. It highlights that we believe that every young person deserves an opportunity to go to university or TAFE and that they should be able to be confident that they will have a job at the end. The WA Liberal government has been focused on making sure WA jobs go offshore. Each year they send a list here to Canberra promoting overseas workers into Western Australia in traditional trades where we already have large numbers of unemployed people back home. While the Liberals are continuing to send jobs overseas, what we have from WA Labor is a plan to make local jobs, training and apprenticeships at the heart of everything that government does. A Mark McGowan Labor government will make it law that government departments are required to provide more apprenticeships for local people. They will put in place Western Australian participation plans that require WA content in bidding processes for construction work across government and a consideration for apprenticeships and traineeships for local Western Australians. We need this focus on local jobs and local manufacturing to ensure that we have an economy that survives the boom-bust cycle that we have had. Labor's Metronet plan has a key focus on jobs also, creating more than 10,000 jobs for Western Australians. It will involve the manufacturing of our rail cars in WA, increasing our local manufacturing to 50 per cent, up from the current two per cent. With that will come really important apprenticeships.
While Colin Barnett, Liza Harvey and their mates here in Canberra in the Turnbull government are sitting back and doing nothing about congestion in Western Australia, Mark McGowan and WA Labor have a real alternative plan. Metronet is about connecting the suburbs of Perth to fix our congestion problem. We want a circle line around the state, revolutionising Perth's rail system, providing our state's very first east-west rail link so that commuters are not having to travel into the CBD and back out again when there is a more direct route. This means the Forrestfield line to Ellenbrook; a line to Yanchep, the North and Byford to the east; as well as a new train station in Karnup in the south. We know that Metronet is smart, affordable and achievable and it will bring Perth in line with some of the best cities in the world when it comes to public transport, and I firmly believe that is what Western Australians deserve.
We have also a stark contrast between Mark McGowan and Colin Barnett in the privatisation of Western Power. Colin Barnett and Liza Harvey are making such a mess on this issue. They have made such a mess of the state budget. Their solution is to privatise Western Power to make a quick buck, despite One Nation's opposition to its privatisation. But we know that a vote for One Nation is in fact a vote to privatise Western Power. After recklessly squandering the revenue from the mining boom, the Liberal government has a plan to privatise Western Power to fix their budget problems. It is a short-term solution that is actually going to leave our state worse off, because we will forgo the $500 million worth of revenue that Western Power brings in every year. It will see rising power prices and it is a cost that people who are under the financial pressures that they are already under simply cannot afford.
We know that people in WA want Western Power to stay in public hands, which is why a Labor government would not sell Western Power. We outlined just this week a comprehensive plan to reduce state debt—a plan that would keep Western Power in state hands. It is a plan that invests in education. We know that education is a key priority for families across the state. It is certainly a key priority for my own. We want to see more than 1,300 local jobs created by investing in new school infrastructure across the state—10 new primary schools in the outer suburban growth areas, secondary schools with major upgrades and $30 million to be invested in regional schools, which is reversing eight years of neglect by the Liberal-Nationals government. We want to see investments in science and coding in primary schools to prepare our kids for the jobs of the future. We want to put education assistants back into public schools. They were ripped out, leaving many of our state's most vulnerable children neglected in the classroom. We want to allow school communities the option of hosting quality childcare providers on-site to make life easier for busy families like my own. These are just a small highlight of some of the plans WA Labor has to ensure that we have quality education for our children in our state.
We also know that health care is an issue that many voters are talking to us about. Our approach is to put patients first. It is about doctors and nurses working on the front line to provide world-class health care to patients. It is about investing in an upgrade at the Joondalup hospital, with $160 million worth of resources there. It is a campus for a very large and growing urban community that is currently travelling a long way to the city to get basic hospital services.
We want to build medi-hotels at major hospitals to free up hospital beds, reduce waiting times for surgery and allow patients a chance to recuperate. We know that many hospital beds are taken up because people do not have reliable care at home. They may not live with anyone who can look after them, but if there is a medi-hotel they are only a phone call away from the hospital, and we think that is a really important initiative. We also want to see urgent care clinics to ensure that people are able to get after-hours care, reducing pressure and waiting times at our overstressed hospitals.
These are just some of the issues we are taking into this election. I want to highlight that Mark McGowan and WA Labor are very much ready to govern in WA. They are bringing fresh ideas to the state, and I am really proud to support our excellent candidates there. I know that only Mark McGowan has a plan for WA—a plan that invests in schools, public transport, Metronet, public hospitals and patients and will keep our Western Power in public hands. With just 25 days to go, I am really looking forward to getting out and talking to voters about a much brighter future for our state.
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I need to start by saying that I love to learn, and what I learn I like to share, especially about the state I represent. Last month I had the fortune to travel for 2,000 kilometres across the state to almost the South Australian border and covered many climatic and topographic regions. And I felt re-energised doing it—loving to listen, it is so easy, with so much going on in the state.
The first people we listened to were farmers Trevor and Wendy Cross, near Bundaberg. Trevor said to me—and I can still remember him in his work clothes, an easygoing, knockabout bloke who has been very successful due to using his brains. He said to me that farmers who cannot make a profit should get out. I notice that he works in an industry with very small margins on very high volume and enormous risk, and that is why he needs to be so well managed. He produces 14 different types of fruit and vegetables, and he exports some of them. I realised there, yet again, that the customer is the best regulator. He employs 350 backpackers; some of them are from overseas, but most are regulars. They come from as far away as Victoria every year. Why? Because the locals will not work, according to Trevor. He cites tax, red tape, green tape, blue tape—that is the UN tape— and payroll tax, and he sees the need for comprehensive tax reform. As I have heard somewhere else, we cannot make the poor rich by making the rich poor.
I went to Bundaberg and unveiled a transparency portal—a concept that people loved. It was at the time of the pollies' perks scandal with Sussan Ley and Julie Bishop. That night we had dinner with Damian Huxham, Jane Truscott and Ashley Lynch. They are passionate about Queensland, as were so many other people in the Bundaberg RSL club. As Damian said to me, all the people want is a fair go.
The next morning, after staying the night in Bundy, we visited Tony Brierley of Brierley Wines in Childers. What a surprise—he is a biodynamic and organic farmer who learnt how to make wine in the traditional Italian way. He is a real character, with many other side businesses on the go. He is having a go, and his initiative and research led him to this business that he built out of nothing. Quite a character. It brings back fond memories.
Then we went on to Biggenden, where we met Tyler the butcher. He has done three apprenticeships—light diesel and heavy diesel and then he went into butchery. He is willing to work as an apprentice to a butcher who he had to hire to be his boss and overseer. He talked about many innovations in the town and his own innovations for his own market. The Biggenden butcher shop was shut down until his parents, who are farmers, bought it. Tyler talked about things as diverse as the irrigation of Colton, which would turn that wonderfully rich volcanic soil into a remarkably productive region, and all by just buying a pump and installing it near, I think, Paradise Dam. He talked about the changes underway in his town and in his industry.
While in Biggenden I visited Eddie Chandler and his wife, who have the local post office franchise. They are swamped with trends and changes. The internet has dramatically increased the number of parcels and the percentage of parcels he has to deliver. The number of letters is plummeting, which reduces his income, and he is tied to an old formula—it is up to five years old, I believe, from memory. That formula is out of date for his revenue. Yet the CEO of Australia Post makes over $5 million a year. Changes are happening and the old guard at Australia Post is out of touch, choked by systems.
Then we drove onto Mondure, where we met Poppy and Robyn Cross. Poppy is a sawmiller and a timber-getter, and he will not employ people anymore because of the regulations and the red tape. What a character he is. Poppy has a shed that is famous for miles around. It is a national treasure. The evening dinner was instructive. Poppy and Robyn invited quite a few of the locals off the property and out of the town, and, to a person, they are disillusioned with the political class, disillusioned with tax and disillusioned with red tape. What is the point? The world is changing, but the political class are anchored by old, outdated governance policies.
The next day I met Mike and Andrea, cotton and beef farmers. What an amazing couple. Mike talked about multi-peril insurance instead of the subsidies that seem to be dragging down farming in many, many ways. He talked about Cubbie Station, and what an eye-opener that was. We will be going back into the south-west next week to go specifically to Cubbie Station and other areas. Mike and Andrea showed their initiative, their dedication and their competence but, sadly, they do not employ anyone. They do all the work themselves. They invest at great risk in their heavy machinery, their scientific management of their crop and their scientific management of their water that they have to buy. Why no employees? Too many regulations and too much tax. So they have to work very, very hard on the land. Again, there are more and more changes.
The next day we went Dalby, where I met with a mechanic named David Wheelahan. He is faced with a change too—a simple change. I had never thought of it—the improvement in cars. Cars now come with stainless steel exhaust pipes, so they do not rust, and his exhaust and mechanic shop does not have the same work. He is now working creatively in improving cars. So, he is at the mercy of change as well, but he is taking hold of it through his initiative.
Then we went onto Chinchilla, where we met Hamish and Kim Munro, the owners of the local McDonald's. He is also the chairman of Chinchilla Community Commerce & Industry. In Chinchilla they are facing a slump in the gas price and unemployment, yet it is difficult for them at the McDonald's to get people to work—in a town with high unemployment. So they actually employ four Indians at McDonald's, and they are finding them to be fantastic workers. Chinchilla Community Commerce & Industry, wonderfully, said that their aim is to make the town a better place in which to live. Isn't that wonderful. They can see that business is fundamental to community life and to quality of life. They had come from Western Australia, and they mentioned that country towns like Chinchilla—and this is something echoed through many of the towns—are a great place for young families. But of course the trend is occurring there—changes.
Then we went to Roma, and I met a person who was perhaps the highlight of the tour, Tyson Golders. He is a retailer and farmer, so he understands the importance of customers and how customers regulate businesses. He understands weather, he understands climate and he understands the natural laws of the universe. He is the Mayor of the Maranoa Regional Council. That was formed some years ago by the amalgamation of five shire councils. He ran for mayor on the ticket of localising the regional council—getting the services back to the people. That is very popular with the people, but it is choked by councillors who are wedded to old ways that benefit them in the regionalisation. What Tyson Golders showed me—repeatedly, by talking with people in various towns there—was the need to connect with people, the need to be in touch with people for information and the need for accountability. That is why he wants to get things back—the work, the decisions and the accountability—to the local shires.
Amalgamation was supposed to give economies of scale but instead it has given diseconomies of scale because of the diseconomies of information. Roma is faced with a gas downturn, tax is an issue, GST is an issue for a local coffee and a restaurant shop, drugs are an issue—and how can I forget this in a country town: Bruce Garvie invested in a very, very well designed hotel, the Royal Hotel. They are very proud of their saleyards. I can remember walking around the saleyards on the top deck and seeing massive dark blue and black storm clouds coming over. You could smell the rain and everyone was anticipating it. By next morning we had not had as much as we had expected, but it was wonderfully refreshing to smell the rain on that soil.
On this trip I learned that there are many opportunities for state policies, and I will be passing some of them onto Steve Dickson, the leader of the Pauline Hanson's One Nation party in the Queensland election. De-amalgamation would seem to be near the top of those policies. That is all I want to say tonight; I will share the remainder on another night.
I stand tonight in solidarity with women around the world. Regardless of where they live I stand by their rights to access reproductive counselling and other sexual health services. I stand by a woman's right to choose. I reaffirm this stance in light of the reinstatement of the global gag rule by US President Trump on 23 January—a rule imposed on women around the world by the US government. I am deeply concerned by this move to restrict family planning advice. The implications are far reaching and punishing for the most vulnerable women.
This rule prohibits international organisations such as HIV/AIDS clinics, birth control providers and other planned parenthood organisations from receiving US aid if they have any involvement in abortion services—including counselling, referrals or advocacy. The rule applies even if the organisation is using their own funds in this area of service. If a provider refuses to sign the gag a loss of funding and removal of access to donated contraceptives, including condoms, will follow. Marie Stopes International has estimated the funding loss will lead to 6.5 million unintended pregnancies, 2.2 million abortions, 2.1 million unsafe abortions and 21,000 maternal deaths—all during President Trump's first term. Family planning organisations and NGOs in Australia are equally speaking out. Family Planning Alliance Australia has said:
FPAA recognises that this decision has wide reaching and damaging impacts. The oppression of women and the removal of autonomous decision making about their sexual and reproductive health has flow on social, economic and political impacts to the whole community.
Similarly, Marjorie Newman-Williams, vice-president of Marie Stopes International, has explained:
All the medical evidence, as well as everything we know from our daily interactions with women, is unequivocal: If you take safe abortion services out of the reproductive health care package, it exposes women to risk.
The last time this global gag rule was in place it did immense harm. It endangered health systems and it endangered the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable women on this planet. Services such as maternal and child health care, access to contraceptives, sexual advice, STI and HIV testing and counselling are all impacted. In many cases clinics are the only places where women can access sexual health information and contraceptives.
Shackling access to terminations does not result in fewer terminations—it makes the procedures unsafe. Denying access to life-saving family planning and reproductive health and HIV services endangers women's lives. It stigmatises women and criminalises them. It leads to irresponsible practices and increased maternal deaths, and it violates women's rights. The World Health Organisation estimates that 22 million women experience unsafe abortions each year, the vast majority of whom are in developing countries.
Sustainable Development Goal 3.7 ensures universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services. It is an acknowledgement of the right of women to autonomous decisions. The United Nations Population Fund believes access to quality sexual and reproductive healthcare, including voluntary family planning, can reduce maternal deaths by one-third and child deaths by as much as one-fifth. Further, poverty and reproductive health are intricately related. Supportive family planning enables the world's poorest countries to speed up their economic growth and social development, and create the conditions for raising living standards and reducing poverty.
Of course this global gag rule has been enforced before, under the Bush administration, and it was backed up unashamedly by the Howard government. Indeed one of President Barack Obama's first acts as President was to reverse the global gag rule on family planning organisations. I am proud that when Labor were in government we reversed the Howard government's prohibition on Australian international development assistance for organisations that delivered family planning services. I am proud that funding was doubled under Labor for family planning services directed towards women in developing countries.
I applaud the Dutch government for announcing it is planning to launch an international fund to support services defunded under the US global gag rule. As a country they have recognised women have the right to make their own family planning decisions. Tonight I call on the Turnbull government to follow the lead of the Dutch and Belgian governments and also pledge funds to help plug this $600 million per year funding gap left behind by the US global gag rule. I understand there is a pledging conference scheduled for around the beginning of March, and I have written to Minister Julie Bishop to call on our government to lend our support to women and girls around the world affected by this global gag rule.
The global gag rule is an attack on women. It sends a message to the world that women do not have the right to make autonomous decisions, that their judgment cannot be trusted. It is a dangerous precedent to set. When we value women's lives as less important we remove their rights and choices.
It is timely that it is Valentine's Day. The United Nations Population Fund launched a campaign around Valentine's Day. Their campaign highlights the plight of child brides, the practise that ensnares tens of thousands of girls around the world every day. It calls on us to say 'I don't' instead of 'I do'. As outlined in the report by Plan International Australia Just married, just a child: child marriage in the Indo-Pacific region, girls who are married at a young age are exposed to early and unwanted pregnancies and often face a higher risk of STIs and HIV. Many girls also suffer physical, emotional and sexual violence. Complications of pregnancy are the second leading killer of girls aged 15 to 19. In developing countries where child brides are most prevalent nine out of 10 births to adolescent girls take place within a marriage. In Nepal, more than 48 per cent of adult women report that they were married before they reached the age of 18.
Gender inequality is a leading cause of the high rate of child brides. These girls need high-quality services and support. Health clinics provide much more than critical sexual education: they are a haven, a place of support where girls can learn to advocate for their own rights. This US global gag rule is a barrier to women and girls throughout the world accessing these services. It is a barrier to those child brides who need that support.
Voluntary family planning empowers women and girls to finish their education, join the workforce and empower their communities. When women are empowered, communities are empowered. Educated women are more likely to send their children to school, which helps end the poverty cycle. Educated women are more likely to become economically self-reliant and engaged in their community, which builds a culturally rich society. Women around the world contribute extraordinary achievements and deserve and demand to be respected. The global gag rule is an attack on women everywhere. It demeans women, which is why I stand in solidarity with the communities affected by the global gag rule. (Time expired)
Young people in my home state of Tasmania are being absolutely shafted. There is no other way to put it. This government is waging a generational war against young Tasmanians. They have been saddled with the disastrous legacy of 30 years of failed trickle-down economics and corrupt crony capitalism. This has entrenched intergenerational poverty and disadvantage for many families. Of course it is their children who so often have borne the brunt of this through things like substandard nutrition, substandard education and substandard opportunity.
Here are just a few of the things that this Federal Liberal government is bequeathing to young Tasmanians. A climate warming out of control. An unstable jobs landscape, with significant decreases in full-time employment, particularly recently, partially offset by increases in part-time employment. An unaffordable housing market that is basically impossible to enter for many young Tasmanians. A welfare system that punishes and dehumanises vulnerable people, and because of Tasmania's status as having the highest percentage of welfare recipients of any state in the country, attacks on vulnerable people through the welfare system impact on Tasmanian young people the hardest. Health and education systems skewed to the rich, and serious and ongoing discrimination against LGBTI people and people from racial and religious minorities.
Hobart, Launceston and Devonport all suffered their warmest year in known records in 2016. Last year, parts of the precious Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area that had never before seen bushfires burnt, and many of those areas may never recover. And remember, it is wilderness above all other of Tasmania's outstanding attributes that attracts tourists to Tasmania. Of course, much of this wilderness was saved by the Greens and the tens of thousands of Tasmanians and hundreds of thousands of Australians who voted Green and campaigned to protect these precious places, but remember that the tourism sector is Tasmania's biggest employment sector, so when our wilderness is hit it is a jobs issue as well as an environment issue. Our warming climate is an issue in Tasmania now, not the distant future, but in the future it is going to be young Tasmanians who bear the brunt of this government's refusal to act on climate.
Instead of embracing the jobs-rich renewable sector, the coalition of course wants to double down on coal, pandering to an industry which has delivered literally millions of dollars of donations into the pocket of the coalition. It is well worth pointing out that Malcolm Turnbull's threat to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation—another great result delivered to Australia by the Greens, I might add—the Prime Minister wants to take money from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and allocate it to coal, and of course Tasmania will not have any chance of all that receiving any of that money because we effectively have no coal industry in the state. The hour is growing late to look after Tasmania's precious forests and oceans for the next generation. They are suffering under climate change right now.
Because of low wages, Hobart is now the second-most-unaffordable city in the country, behind Sydney, in which to rent, in relative terms. That is an eye-opener for people. But this government stubbornly refuses to remove the massively unfair loopholes that reward property developers and speculators who may be buying their fifth property or their 50th property—with more taxpayer support than is given to a young Tasmanian couple struggling to save for their first home. More than 21,000 Tasmanians rely on the barely survivable Newstart, with another 3,500 on youth allowance. There are far more young Tasmanian people unemployed than there are jobs available. So what does this country do? It goes to war with Centrelink recipients through the massive, shambolic debt recovery program that has been rolled out and has resulted in stress and trauma for so many Tasmanians.
What else do they want to do for welfare recipients? In the omnibus bill—or, as we call it, the 'omnicuts bill'—that is currently before this Senate, one of the measures snuck through is to increase the waiting period for Newstart from its current one-week waiting period to a five-week waiting period. It is all right for the tories to think to themselves that if it was their kids they could just move home for five weeks—another mouth to feed, no skin off their nose. But that is not the case for many Tasmanians, and particularly not for many Tasmanian young people. Mark my words: this government has gone to war with young Tasmanians.
It is a disgusting attack, which reminds people that this government begrudges giving the most vulnerable people even a single extra cent. Meanwhile, they are happy for their corporate mates, their major donors and the very rich to pay very little or no tax. Who can forget the debate we have already had in this place this year when the top 20 per cent of income earners in Australia got a tax break delivered to them by the government—and, would you believe it? One Nation—and the other 80 per cent of Australians got nothing. In fact this government wants to claim even less revenue from the most wealthy in our society and leave wide open the tax loopholes that rob our government of untold billions—which are being rorted out of the government by the major fossil fuel companies, including the gas companies—that could actually be invested in making our community a safer and fairer place.
This government has a particular contempt for young people who are not white and heterosexual. They want to scrap hate speech protections in the Racial Discrimination Act. Basically, they want to make it easier to be a racist in this country. We only need to look at the filth spouted at Q Society's dinner last week to get a glimpse at what it is that they want people to be able to say in Australia. And every single one of the Liberals' Tasmanian representatives in this place are locked in behind a plebiscite on marriage equality, which was set up by Tony Abbott to delay and frustrate this much-needed human rights reform rather than deliver it. Even after that appalling effort, we have Senator Abetz saying he was going to ignore the will of the people anyway and vote to keep discrimination in marriage.
Mercifully, there is a better way than the way the Liberals have conducted themselves. It is not too late to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, to end our unhealthy dependence on coal, and to embrace a jobs-rich future, a clean future delivered by renewable energy. We can make the housing market fairer, and make it easier for young people to find stable and rewarding employment. We can get rid of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. We can make corporations pay their fair share of tax. We can make the super-rich in this country pay their fair share of tax, so that we can invest in basic public services, like health and education that are crying out for investment in my home state of Tasmania.
Young people, young Tasmanians, deserve a fair go at prosperity and a fair go at opportunity—at least to the level of those of us who sit currently in this place this evening have had. But mark my words: they are not going to get it under a federal Liberal government which has declared war on young Tasmanians.
I rise to record and respond to the resignation of the Labor member of parliament for the seat of Gosford, Kathy Smith, a caring and determined advocate for the Central Coast. I first met Kathy Smith when she was chair of Cancer Voices New South Wales, at a time when I was the candidate for Robertson, in 2010. At that time, she was the head of a steering committee for a hard-fought campaign to build a radiotherapy treatment centre on the Central Coast.
Kathy had beaten cancer in 1996 and she knew what a valuable asset a radiotherapy centre would be for cancer patients on the Central Coast. At that time cancer patients had to travel to either Sydney or Newcastle for public treatment, or run up large debts for treatment at a private clinic locally. As she explained:
I had become aware of an elderly lady who had to travel from Wyong to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for radiotherapy treatment each day for six weeks. She travelled by bus and train, and what torture that must have been for her. I was living in Hornsby at the time of my diagnosis and I was fortunate enough to be able to afford private radiotherapy treatment only 10 minutes away from home and my place of work.
Silly or not, I was left with a feeling of guilt knowing that this much older lady was having to struggle to travel for treatment while I could be driven for mine without any effort on my part.
Kathy and the former member for Gosford, Marie Andrews, rallied the community and secured tens of thousands of petitioners to create the political context in which I was able to fight very hard to secure $29 million from the Labor government under Kevin Rudd and $10 million from the state Labor government under Kristina Keneally. With that $39 million investment, the experience of people suffering cancer on the Central Coast was transformed. This cancer centre on the coast is a testament to Kathy Smith's drive and determination to get things done for the community. She is a natural campaigner and a down-to-earth straight talker, and it was these attributes, among others, that won her the seat of Gosford from the Liberals in 2015. Kathy touched on her motivation for the cancer centre campaign—and I think her comments are instructive of her motivation generally—in her maiden speech to the NSW Legislative Assembly. She said:
Being a person who always spoke up for the underdog and who took on the battles of those not able to fight for themselves, it was inevitable that I would do something to draw attention to this dreadful situation.
And she did. Although she has not been successful in keeping good health and finishing her term, in her service for the community as the member for Gosford, Kathy has continued to take up the fight for the underdog in parliament.
She helped expose the dangerous condition of the Hawkesbury River railway bridge, a line that carries 600 train services and 11,000 commuters between Sydney and the coast every day. A report in 2013 discovered one of the bridge's pylons was severely corroded, but repairs had not been made by 2015—a potentially disastrous state of affairs for such a train journey. Kathy's work on that issue alone led to an inquiry by the Office of Transport Safety Investigations, and she forced the government to make repairs. She led the fight against the closure of the Roads and Maritime Services office in Woy Woy by collecting a petition with more than 15,000 signatures and forcing a debate in the New South Wales parliament. The out-of-touch Liberals did not listen; they shut it and the community is all the poorer.
Kathy also stopped the proposed increase in train fares, which would have almost doubled fares for seniors by 2018 and would have cost daily commuters from Woy Woy to Tuggerah an extra $386 per year. She fought to keep our public hospitals in public hands, because patients should always come before profit. She campaigned to fix the $12 million maintenance backlog at Gosford schools, with Brisbane Water Secondary College Umina Campus alone requiring $1.1 million worth of repairs and maintenance. She supported the residents of Spencer to bring an end to the illegal landfill that was occurring locally on a large scale. She championed Brisbane Water oyster growers in their continuing efforts to re-establish a viable local industry. She worked with Peat Island and Mooney Mooney residents to save this gateway to the Hawkesbury from over-development, and she campaigned to secure a safer community environment by supporting residents and lobbying for more effective crime prevention and Neighbourhood Watch centres.
In fact, despite her recent ill health and leave from parliament, Kathy has fought just as tirelessly and fervently for the community as she always has. Her staff should also be congratulated for maintaining the vital functions of Kathy's electorate office during such a demanding and stressful time. Unfortunately, Kathy's most recent diagnosis means she will be unable to maintain her workload. She has decided her resignation would be the best course of action for the benefit of her constituents, and that will bring on a by-election. The airwaves on the Central Coast today were full of gracious wishes and praise for Kathy's work, as parliamentarians from both sides of the political divide called in, as I did this morning, to offer support and recognise her powerful advocacy. Her boss, NSW Labor leader, Luke Foley, acknowledged Kathy Smith's spirit and outlook, saying:
With her resignation we are losing a remarkable, resilient and admirable woman, mother and colleague. Her spirit and outlook will be missed around Parliament and important though her work here was she has a much bigger battle ahead. Please give her your best thoughts, and prayers. She and her family will get strength from that.
I can only concur with Mr Foley's sentiments.
I also want to put on the record a very important event that happened on Friday evening. I know that people think of St Patrick's Day as the big day of Irish celebration, but the Irish have a second patron saint: a woman, St Brigid, whose feast day is 1 February. This event on Friday evening recognised 12 remarkable Irish-Australian women from the community who are also very active in the Labor movement and the union movement. We were very pleased to receive notification of support for that event from Sabina Higgins—the equivalent of the first lady of Ireland, as the wife of Michael D Higgins—who wrote about the important place that St Brigid holds in terms of women who take action with compassion and practical action to support the community. This is what all these women that we awarded really demonstrated.
I would like to particularly acknowledge the lifetime achievement award, which this year went to Janice Currie-Henderson. She was a founding member of the Australian Irish Dancing Association Incorporated, which celebrates 50 years this year. She has taught Irish dancing for 57 years and was instrumental in establishing the Australian Irish Dancing Association. She has been the president of the Australian Irish Dancing Association many times and she has danced with her students all over Sydney and New South Wales, bringing joy to so many and sharing Irish culture right across that 57-year career.
We also awarded, posthumously, a remarkable Australian by the name of Bridget Whelan OAM. Bridget was a senior adviser to a number of Labor state and federal ministers and made a profound contribution, shifting from her work as a lawyer in the private sphere to serving the public through the Labor Party. When she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2010, Bridget turned her incredible skillset to advocacy for the cause of ovarian cancer. Her award was received by John Whelan.
We had a community hero category and, for the first time, we were able to acknowledge people who may or may not be members of the Labor Party but certainly make a fantastic civic contribution. I want to acknowledge and put on the record the contribution of Una Champion, from the Macarthur area, a nurse and midwife who not only contributed to Irish culture in the area but was also a significant investigator in research projects to identify the needs of young people in custody. Eileen Donaghey, the famous owner of the Irish restaurant in the middle of the city known as Mulligans, is a wonderful champion for Variety, having raised over $125,000 for that cause. Dr Marie Leech was awarded for her contribution to the Aisling Society of Sydney. She has made a great contribution to the academic life of this country and to the sharing of literature. And Louise Nealon, a founding member of Irish YesEquality Australia, was awarded for her significant contribution.
I also acknowledge other awardees at the evening, including Maura Chambers, who comes from Lismore and made a tremendous contribution and who has a great interest in Indigenous affairs; Carmel Cook, who joined in 1986 and has been a passionate and powerful advocate for community benefit; Deirdre Grusovin AM, a former member of the NSW Legislative Council, who held several significant offices and ministries; Coral Levett, a registered nurse for 33 years and a very significant leader of the union movement and former president of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation; Sheila Nolan from the SDA for organising and supporting workers; and Celine Smullen. (Time expired)
Last week, Australia's second largest salmon farming company, Huon Aquaculture, initiated legal proceedings against the Tasmanian government for failing to protect the environment in the World Heritage-listed area in Macquarie Harbour. These unprecedented legal actions were filed in the Federal Court and in Tasmania's Supreme Court. Huon Aquaculture—and I will say it again: the second largest aquaculture company in this country that employs 600 Tasmanians—claims the industry regulator, the Environment Protection Authority and the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment—DPIPWE—have failed to manage and protect the environment in Macquarie Harbour, with the government allowing companies to intensively farm salmon in numbers far greater than the harbour can sustain.
This is extraordinary, and it is unprecedented—that a public company is actually launching legal action; for a government not doing its job; for a government not regulating the industry. How many companies go to the extent of asking for more regulation, let alone launching a legal proceedings against both the state and federal government for not doing their jobs? As I understand it, this is unprecedented; it has never happened in Tasmanian Supreme Court history before. So while that is novel, what is actually behind this, unfortunately, is a sad Tasmanian story. It is a story of history repeating itself—a story of cronyism and of governments getting too close to business and not doing their jobs of providing the checks and balances that are needed to protect the environment, communities and, ultimately, the future of workers and the reputation and brand of my state in Tasmania.
The forestry industry went down this road. My road to parliament was all about watching: a powerful CEO of a large corporation getting his way in Tasmania; the Tasmanian Premier and ministers being summoned at his beck and call; the government allowing a company to write its own legislation for a pulp mill. This has been very well documented. I recommend people read Professor Quentin Beresford's book, The Rise and Fall of Gunns Ltd. And it is not just forestry; it is happened in other industries in the past—for example, around the power of hydro—and in mining in areas like the north-west of the Tarkine.
The question is: why? Why is the salmon industry, a successful industry in Tasmania that employs a lot of Tasmanians, now in open conflict and open warfare? The answer is simple: a government is not doing its job. The more important question is: why isn't the government doing its job? And I will tell you what: I am frustrated and I am angry because, 18 months ago, I tabled some leaked documents at an adjournment speech in here and I stood up and said, 'We need to have a Senate inquiry into this issue. The federal government needs to step in, the Senate needs to step in and sort this issue out for the sake of the industry, as well as the environment.' We had a chance in the Senate to actually shine some light on what were emerging as serious problems based on the leaked information that was given to the Greens. But, unfortunately, history shows that a lot of that Senate inquiry was a whitewash. A lot of the evidence provided from a number of the expert witnesses turned out to be either ignorantly false or wilfully misleading and deceptive. And things have gotten worse. We had a chance to actually fix the situation, but, instead, what we got was a cover-up.
And what does the Tasmanian government do when they are in a situation when suddenly they are coming under attack—and, by the way, from not the Greens and the environment movement but within the industry itself? What do they do? They pass this off as competitive pressures. 'These are competitive tensions between salmon companies.' That is patently untrue. This is about special deals for special mates in Tasmania.
So I am going to name this up. This is about one CEO of Tassal, Mark Ryan, and his relationship with the Tasmanian government—his very close relationship with the Tasmanian government. These allegations are not just being made by me. Read the leaked documents that made their way to the media last week about accusations from other salmon companies that this industry has been regulated for Tassal—that this industry is being regulated for one company; that it is regulatory capture.
Why, for example, was Tassal given special stocking densities in Macquarie Harbour that other companies were not given? The letters exposed on Four Cornersquite showed that Tassal has been given the most favourable farming rates despite Tassal having the worst environment record in Macquarie Harbour. The letters exposed that Tassal was issued with 14 non-compliance notices in September 2016, up from three notices in May. The other companies had a couple of non-compliance notices over that period. And I keep in mind that Tassal's lease is also located closest to the World Heritage Area. Why were they given stocking densities up to three times the other leases for the other companies in Macquarie Harbour? Why, when, finally, after 18 months of us talking about this issue to try to get some transparency from the government, were they given three months to de-stock their leases? Apparently, the EPA has came out and said, 'It's for commercial considerations. We let them de-stock that lease for three months for commercial considerations.' Since when does an Environmental Protection Authority make their decisions based on commercial considerations?
I can understand the Hodgman government not caring about the environment and putting dollars before the environment. That make sense to me. But is the EPA in Tasmania ultimately independent? Is the EPA in Tasmania independent like it was supposed to be? This was a Greens recommendation—that the EPA be put in charge of regulating the Tasmanian salmon industry. That needs to be substantiated. Exactly what is independence, and how is this process working? I ask that because it is not working. We have an industry that is openly split. We have an industry participant who is suing both the state and federal governments for not doing their jobs. We have damage being done to the Tasmanian brand. We have workers' jobs on the line here if we do not fix it.
The Tasmanian government needs to move beyond cronyism. It needs to move beyond giving big business whatever they want and to actually do its job. There are 600 workers working for Huon Aquaculture, a very important company that is making a stand because it actually wants its leases in Macquarie Harbour to be destocked to down below 10,000 tonnes. The government was previously running them at 21,000 tonnes. They are going to question a new consideration of 14,000 tonnes.
I raised this issue privately with Senator Ruston, who is in the chamber here—that this could have been avoided if the federal government had stepped in and actually tried to do its job under the EPBC Act and actually looked at the considerations around its responsibilities in Macquarie Harbour. The IMAS report, which has just been released in the last week, suggests that the science tells us that there are significant problems. I will be on the east coast of Tasmania next week and I will be meeting communities around Okehampton Bay where Tassal are planning to expand fish farms. Based on my experience as a Tasmanian senator trying to do my job—trying to get this situation sorted out—I will have to say to them: 'I have no faith in the Tasmanian government to regulate this industry. I believe Tassal is too close to the Tasmanian government, and they you good reason to be concerned. You should be opposing the expansion of fish farms in Tasmania until we can actually get the Tasmanian government to do their job and properly regulate this industry.' We need public confidence in this industry. This industry needs to have a future, and future sustainability. (Time expired)
Whilst tonight I intend to raise a separate issue, since I am in the chamber and have had the opportunity to listen to some comments from Senator Whish-Wilson, can I just say how tremendously disappointed I am about the contribution that he has just made. As Senator Whish-Wilson mentioned in his speech, he has been speaking to me about this particular issue, and for him to come in here and start espousing his conspiracy theories on this matter is very disappointing because I do not think it serves to benefit anybody.
There is absolutely no doubt, when we speak about our fisheries sector, that we are talking about a shared environment. We are talking about a shared resource. That means that there are a number of people who legitimately have a stake in this particular resource. It is not just about the environment, it is not just about recreational fishers, it is not just about commercial fishers and it is not just about the people who happen to live along the coastline having the ambience and amenity of their views considered. It is a resource that everybody has a right to have a part of. I think the whole 'all or nothing' approach that the Greens seem to be taking on this particular issue is a job destroyer. Let's not commit the kinds of issues and comments that we have heard from Senator Whish-Wilson. Let's actually be more serious and actually take some sensible and responsible action about dealing with what is a mounting issue in Tasmania.
If we work together and establish a mutually agreed management position then we can get the Tasmanian salmon industry to achieve what I think it can in terms of its future. It is a marvellous industry. Everybody in Australia is extraordinarily proud of the Tasmanian salmon industry. And whilst every industry that is a shared resource and every industry that has an impact on an environment or an area will constantly have challenges that it has to meet, the best way that we can do it is by working together and not standing up and making the kind of comments that were made tonight by Senator Whish-Wilson.
Can I also say that it is extraordinarily disappointing when it becomes personal, Senator Whish-Wilson. It is extraordinarily disappointing for you to come in here tonight and actually name people and make allegations about people, as you did about the chief executive of Tassal. I am not standing here and defending, or otherwise, anybody—
Yes, you are!
in this particular industry, but I think—Senator Whish-Wilson, perhaps you should stay and listen as I sat and listened to your contribution—that, if you are going to make those sorts of accusations, maybe you should say them outside of this place. I do not think making comments like that serves any purpose in trying to resolve a very important and very serious issue which you raised tonight, Senator Whish-Wilson.
Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—
I did not interject on you, and I think that you should respectfully not interject on me.
Senator Ruston, just put your comments to the Chair. Thank you very much.
Certainly. I would be grateful if you would suggest to Senator Whish-Wilson that he might like to show me the respect I showed him when he was making his speech. The reality is that making the kinds of accusations and making the kind of speech that Senator Whish-Wilson did tonight does not help anybody. It does not help the people of Tasmania, it does not help the people of the salmon industry, it does not help his community and it certainly does not help the environment.
But, as I said, my intention tonight was actually to stand up and talk about a much more positive issue. It starts off with a very sad place, and that is the current energy crisis that has befallen my home state of South Australia and the ensuing renewable energy debate that has occurred. Whilst we have heard lots of comments about this there is one thing that is absolutely assured and everybody agrees on, and that is that the requirement for energy demand into the future is going to go on unabated. When it comes to renewable energy, unfortunately we have an ideological approach from the Greens and from the ALP about pursuit of renewable energy, without actually looking at the transition process about how we are going to actually get to a position where that is a sustainable source of energy. It is a somewhat blinkered and narrow-minded outlook.
There is far more to renewable energy than windmills and solar panels. There is an energy source out there that can actually generate jobs and growth in regional Australia, and it is based on a renewable resource that sequesters carbon. That energy source is bioenergy. It can function as carbon-neutral, it can provide a baseload energy source and it is not dependent on the wind blowing, the sun shining, the waves rolling in or building infrastructure that allows things to fall from great heights to generate energy. It can produce sustainable, renewable, reliable energy, and it can do it 24 hours a day. That renewable energy resource is wood waste. It is beneficial to the environment and it is identified as a positive carbon-neutral source.
Generating bioenergy from woody biomass is about making the most use from materials sourced during sustainable forest harvesting and the production of wood and paper. The use of forest biomass is carbon-neutral, and most often the particular material used is actually the offcuts, the bits and pieces that are left over after you have used the wood that you have harvested for other purposes. This residue is quite often left to rot on the forest floor. This is an issue because it is a fire hazard. It is also not being used for its highest value application. Often it is just used as green mulch. Using woody residues, the low-value materials that are left lying around, to produce energy is a sensible way to avoid using fossil based fuels that have such high levels of emissions.
One of the major objections to the use of woody biomass comes from a body of people who believe that bioenergy will displace other forms of clean-energy generation. All forms of renewable energy need to be pursued in coming up with a mix of renewable energies that will be sustainable into the future but particularly in making sure that we have renewable energies that are available for us 24 hours a day. Some environmental activists claim that using wood waste to produce bioenergy will increase logging activities in our native forests. This is simply not true.
At this point, it would be very remiss of me not to mention an emotional, fact-devoid speech that was given in this place a few weeks ago by Senator Rice when she was referring to the regional forestry agreements that we are currently in the process of renewing. The Greens revel in fomenting disruption and uncertainty in the industries they feel must be punished for not conforming to their narrow views, as we saw tonight with Senator Whish-Wilson. However, if they were really true to their cause, they would throw all possible support behind the regional forestry agreements because a sustainable forestry industry using renewable, carbon-sequestering resources with some of the strongest conservation values in the world certainly fits into the narrative that we often hear them use. If they were true to their purpose in this place, they would throw all possible support behind these RFAs to provide certainty and security for thousands of forestry workers in regional Australia. If they were true to their word about supporting regional communities, they would throw their support behind the RFAs to ensure those communities which literally depend on forestry for their survival will have a future. There is absolutely no doubt that the forestry sector provides one of the pieces that needs to be put in place for our renewable-energy future. It is somewhat ironical coming from a state like South Australia where we see this ideological, hell-bent pursuit of a renewable-energy future without having a look at all those pieces that we now see that major generation of energy in many of our rural and regional communities in South Australia is from burning diesel.
Standing here tonight I would like to say that I am a great supporter of our forestry sector. I believe that it is a sunrise industry with an amazing future in the Australian landscape. I believe that wood waste stands ready to assist us in our renewable-energy future. I commend to this house that everybody look at the forestry sector as an element that we can add to our renewable-energy mix into the future and to seek for the Greens and those who are not supporting this as an energy source to rethink their ideological beliefs and think about the future of our rural and regional communities across the whole of Australia.
The last fortnight we have seen a collection of the very worst that Australia can dredge up in climate politics. A record-breaking heatwave has put the blowtorch on the eastern two-thirds of the continent. Sydney recorded its hottest day in history. Last Saturday, the 15 hottest locations in the world were all in Australia. At the same time as parts of inland Australia were hotter than 50 degrees, severe floods were washing away parts of the Western Australian wheat belt.
On the assumption that you are listening to this speech from outside Parliament House, I can confirm that this building is air-conditioned. It is extremely comfortable in here. You can go whole days without knowing what the weather is doing outside because this place is so self-contained and cut off from the world. Add that cocoon effect to the built-in prejudice of the conservative mindset to reject anything that cannot be explained in a one-panel Bill Leak cartoon and that is how you can have Liberals and Nationals in here attacking Australian renewable energy companies even as people are evacuating burning townships in New South Wales or having their farms washed away in the southwest of WA.
I confess that I used to treat climate change denial as an annoyance or a psychological curiosity but not something to take super seriously. I have listened to Senator Macdonald in here talking about how this morning was unusually chilly or Senator Boswell before him proclaiming that he personally had not observed the sea level rising when he took his boat out. I have seen the contempt they have shown for CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, NASA, NOAA and the world's National Academy of Sciences. I have been wondering for years what it would take to get through to them.
So instead of bringing a bunch of ice core data in with me tonight, I asked the advice of a schoolteacher and how they would get through. They told me to say this. What do you do if you are in bed and you get really cold? You put a doona on. How does that make you warmer? It traps a layer of warm air between the blanket and your body. It is elegant, isn't it? Now imagine that starting in about 1750 you began pulling another doona on top. Imagine that that doona is stuffed with 2,000 billion tonnes of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and methane from burning coal, oil and gas and that when parts of the bed begin to smoulder and catch fire it is not because of sunspots, socialism or the United Nations; it is because that extra doona is really starting to heat the place up.
At one end of the denial spectrum we have the total lost cause, someone like One Nation's Senator Malcolm Roberts. Senator Roberts would not recognise empirical evidence if it bit him on the face. It is empirically provable that the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet and that the Greenland ice sheet is coming apart at the seams. But it does not matter—he is unpersuadable. He is unpersuadable because his whole political identity is based in that denial. He is like a man wearing a hideously tight blindfold walking out onto a busy freeway, demanding to be shown empirical evidence of the traffic that is speeding towards him. Sometime soon the painful reality is going to hit the people following him out onto the road. But at least you know where he stands. He is desperately wrong about the situation that we are plunging into but at least he is consistently wrong.
A little further along the denial spectrum you run across characters like former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Premier Colin Barnett or former Labor minister Martin Ferguson. In my view these people are a lot more dangerous than weird outliers like Senator Roberts, because they have a much bigger platform and they use it to say one thing while doing exactly the opposite. They assure us that they care and that they have planned to do something about climate change but, because a lot of them are in hock up to their armpits to coal and gas corporations, their actions and their voting record are in violent contradiction to their words. So step up, Queensland Labor Party. They campaigned to save the Great Barrier Reef when they were in opposition and five minutes after winning government they started writing cheques with other people's money to help a corrupt Indian multinational to gouge out the world's largest coalmine.
Guess who else sits in this category of unforgivable hypocrites? Here is a quote. See if you can guess who this is:
It provides the most comprehensive technical blueprint yet for what our engineers, our scientists can begin to do for us tomorrow...A zero emission future... is absolutely essential if we are to leave a safe planet to our children and the generations that come after them.
Raise your hand if you guessed that that was Mr Malcolm Turnbull at the Sydney Town Hall in 2010, helping to launch the Beyond Zero Emissions' 100 per cent national renewable energy plan. I know he said that, because I was up on stage with him and I vividly remember feeling a brief flash of hope, because here was an articulate contender for the Prime Ministership endorsing a plan for a rapid rollout of utility-scale solar thermal plants and seven-megawatt wind turbines. Prime Minister, what happened? You have ended up politically grafted to embarrassing throwbacks like Mr Barnaby Joyce and Senator Ian Macdonald and you are reduced to shuffling around pathetically in the background while your idiot colleagues pass a lump of coal around the House of Representatives.
Our objective must be to make it politically impossible for people like this to ever hold high office again. The atmosphere does not care what delusions they have wrapped this criminally irresponsible conduct in. The West Antarctic ice sheet does not care about their feelings. The tinder dry forests and the dying reef do not take their cues from smug push polls from the Minerals Council.
In a couple of weeks' time the pointless, exhausted waste of space that we know as the Barnett government will finally go to the polls in Western Australia. As his final act of desperation, Premier Colin Barnett has cut a preference deal with Pauline Hanson's One Nation. That comprehensively rats out the National Party and raises the serious prospect that Ms Hanson and the 'all single mothers are lazy and have ugly children' guy will hold balance of power in the state upper house.
The Liberal Party have been lining up for week to endorse Senator Hanson as a more sophisticated and compliant individual than the version who self-destructed in the early 2000s. So wait until they hear about the candidate for Bateman, who is running on a platform of rescuing Christians from a 'covert Nazi-inspired gay mind-control program'. I kid you not. While I am delighted to be the first person to get that phrase into Hansard, I am horrified that this is the party that Premier Barnett thinks can refloat his sinking ship. We have different view. We think on 11 March the Barnett government should be broken up and sold off to whoever will have them. One Nation can get in the sea. We need something very different in their place.
So here is the plan. In December 2015 our national energy spokesperson, the Member for Melbourne Adam Bandt launched Renew Australia with Senators Di Natale and Waters. This is what we mean by something different. It establishes a new authority responsible for leveraging $5 billion into planning, construction and operating new energy generation over the next four years. It describes a plan to support workers as we transition away from fossil fuels through a $100 million fund for training, reskilling and to assist new industries move to affected areas. It sets out a staged and orderly closure plan for coal-fired and then gas-fired power stations guided by new emissions intensity and pollution standards. Renew Australia is not a slogan; it is a roadmap that we can start putting into action as we build a critical mass of support. It sets us up with a national platform for developing more detailed transition pathways for individual states.
Unlike South Australia, WA is not connected to the national electricity market. About half the state's electricity demand is served by a single grid that runs the South-West corner of WA from Geraldton to just east of Albany. Unlike the east coast, half of this electricity is generated by gas-fired stations, fuelled by gas pumped nearly 1600 kilometres from the Burrup Peninsula in the north-west. Dwindling coal supplies from Collie make up most of the rest. A slender eight per cent is served with renewable energy, mostly wind power, topped up by a rapidly expanding rooftop solar industry.
For eight years, we have watched with mounting horror as Premier Barnett sacked nearly everyone in the state public service with any clean energy or climate expertise, hurling money at the heavily profitable mining sector instead. He has been a champion of uranium mining, fracking, gas industry vandalism on the Burrup Peninsula and James Price Point in the Kimberley. He blew $300 million refitting an obsolete coal-fired power station that we did not need. He promised an electric light- rail transit system for Perth before the last state election and then changed his mind straight afterwards and went on a freeway-building bender instead.
So faced with the government's determination to obstruct the clean energy transition, we undertook to write the plan ourselves. We published the first iteration in 2013; we updated the plan in 2014; and we launched the culmination of this work, Energy2030, earlier this month. How much renewable energy does the South-West need to get to 100 per cent? How much will it cost? Will it be reliable even at night or when there is no wind? Where would we build it? How many jobs does it create? How long does it take? These are the questions that we set out to answer with the help of a group of independent Western Australian energy experts known as Sustainable Energy Now. They were able to plot two different scenarios for a 100 per cent clean energy build. One relies more heavily on solar thermal plants and costs a little bit more but results in lower carbon emissions at the end of the build. The other is more diverse with a lower-cost set up that uses more distributed energy. In both scenarios, by the year 2030, there would be 700,000 homes and businesses with solar battery storage. That massively increases the network's resilience to shocks and it cuts but power bills dramatically. What does is look like in the year 2030 if we get this right? There will be 12 new concentrated solar thermal stations of about 100 megawatts each.
Senator Milne and I visited a small-scale version of one of these plants in Spain in 2012. I undertook to visit a 110-megawatt plant in Nevada a couple of years ago. The company, Solar Reserve, that built that plant is active here in Australia. They cannot get a project to market and they cannot get a power purchase agreement because the Australian governments, state and federal, are facing the wrong way. So 12 plants of that scale, six large-scale solar photo voltaic farms, 29 large-scale wind farms and four biomass plants. We are not interested in native forest logging or so-called native forest waste; what we are interested in the south-west of Western Australia is oil Mallee bio cropping for power stations. This is a total of 51 power stations but 17 of them already exist. We are part way into the build.
The plan creates 12,000 jobs a year in technical, trades, engineering and white collar occupations. The best part is, it costs the same as not doing it when you add the savings from energy efficiency and the fact that, by the time 2030 comes around, we no longer have an annual coal or gas bill—we have kicked the fossil habit. Colleagues, this is doable, but it is not inevitable. It is going to take political courage, determination, and a change of government in three weeks' time in Western Australia.
A week ago I launched the Energy2030 plan with our East Metropolitan spokesperson Tim Clifford, and he said:
I have been door knocking for weeks taking out policy directly to people's doorsteps and there has been overwhelming support in the community. I never thought a person with my background would ever be in a position where I would be launching an historic initiative like our battery storage policy.
So if you know someone in Western Australia, can you do us a giant favour and tag them in this video. Please share it.
Personally I cannot think of a better favour that Western Australia could do the rest of the country than voting Colin Barnett and his One Nation partners into the bin on 11 March. The most important thing is to prove to young people that we are determined not to abandon them to the kind of hothouse future that Premier Barnett, Ms Hanson, Mr Morrison and his pet lump of coal are setting up for them. I hope some of these individuals live long enough so they can be around to get a glimpse of the future they are setting up for those who are too young to vote but I doubt it. The negligence of this generation will probably not be punished. It will be long after these old men have died that the impact of their contempt for the generations will be felt. I honestly believe that there is still time to prevent the very worst impacts of what we have set in motion but there really is no more time to stuff around. We have proven that we do not have an engineering problem. We do not have a technical problem. We have a very substantial political problem. On 11 March, a little more than three weeks from now, we can take a decisive step to solve part of a problem.
What I find most perverse is that the same people working hardest to prevent clean energy companies from getting a start in Australia are the same ones who are most horrified at the idea of giving safe harbour to refugees. It is about the most brutal failure to put two and two together imaginable. Here is one obvious example. There are around 170 million people living in Bangladesh, so about seven times the population of Australia. Most of these men, women and children—sisters, brothers, grandparents, grandchildren—live on alluvial flood plains on the edge of the Indian Ocean. Conservatively, 10 per cent of the land area will be inundated and lost if the sea level rises one metre. Not in a slow and gradual manner but given effect by violent storm surges and hurricanes. So how many people do we realistically think will be on the move by mid-century?
Like many in here, I am at risk of becoming numb to the statistics of suicides, murders, mental illness, sexual assaults and rapes on the island internment camps that are Australia's national shame. But it is essential that we do not turn away from the horrors being inflicted in our name because the way that we treat desperate people forced to flee their homes will be the issue that defines whether or not the human family survives this century.
Last week, the Australian government began forcibly deporting people from Manus Island. The UN Refugee Agency has said that no deportations should take place because there are concerns about how people's refugee claims have been assessed. Asylum seekers on the island have provided dozens of examples of procedural mistakes, inconsistencies and perverse decisions. Legal avenues for these asylum seekers have not been exhausted, and many of them have not yet been subject to the possibility of judicial review.
The detention centre in Manus Island was declared illegal 10 months ago. The PNG Supreme Court ruled last April that the indefinite detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island was unconstitutional but nothing has been done to close it down. Today the Liberal and Labor parties washed their collective hands of responsibility by refusing to support a Greens motion opposing these forced deportations.
I said I would avoid statistics, so let us learn a little more of one individual's story. Iran, the theocracy that the United States government inadvertently set in place when the CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected government in 1953 has long refused to accept any person who is repatriated involuntarily. This means that these individuals face the prospect of indefinite detentions or worse when they are forced to go back to Iran having fled that place. One such person is the Iranian asylum seeker and cartoonist known by pen name Eaten Fish. Eaten Fish is 25 years old. His real name is Ali. He suffers severe mental illness. He has been on a hunger strike for 16 days as of today. He is bleeding from his stomach and he is becoming more and more unwell. His ability to communicate and be lucid is deteriorating and he is desperate.
Eaten Fish has received a deportation notice but he wants people to know that he is not on hunger strike for that reason. He is on hunger strike because he has been the victim of sexual assault, chronic sexual harassment and abuse in Australia's immigration prison camp. He cannot bear the suffering anymore. He is petrified of being moved from his supported accommodation back into the general area and he is petrified of being returned to Iran and executed. His refugee determination status process was an obscene joke. During the determination, and he was so unwell that he was unable to present his case. All of this has been documented. It has taken Eaten Fish a year to talk about his experience and now he wants people to know what is going on.
The Australian government has been petitioned many times both from within Australia and from internationally asking that Eaten Fish be brought to Australia for medical treatment. Cartoonists Rights Network International is one such group, and they write the following:
It is with profound alarm and sadness that we learn that our friend and colleague … Mr Eaten Fish, currently held in an Australian refugee rendition camp in Papua New Guinea, has decided to undertake a hunger strike. He is a man who has given up hope, cannot struggle any longer, cannot face the future that is being forced upon him, and would rather die than submit to the indignities of further inhuman treatment.
Today the Greens stand once again against this unacceptable treatment of asylum seekers by this government and by the ALP, who initiated the establishment of these camps in the first place. We urge you to transfer this critically ill young man to Australia, or you risk another death on our hands.
I would like to acknowledge Senator Nick McKim, our spokesperson on this issue, and the work done by Senator Hanson-Young over many years on this issue. The Greens will never give up while these camps remain open. I also take this opportunity to say that we will not forget the young men who have died in our care in these death camps: Reza Berati, 24, also from Iran, died from head injuries after he was beaten to death by security personnel who were paid by Australian taxpayers to protect him; Hamid Khazaei, 24, also from Iran, died from medical neglect after a treatable foot infection; Faysal Ishak Ahmed, 27, from Sudan, fell ill and died on Christmas Eve 2016 after seeking medical treatment 13 times in two months. On the death of Faysal, Manus Island detainee Abdul Aziz Adams said, 'This system is designed to kill us one by one.' Colleagues, this system shames us one by one. It is time that these camps are closed and that the people were brought here to Australia.
Last week Flo Seckold, who has lived in Millers Point all her life, left her home for the last time. Like many, she had been turfed out as the New South Wales Liberal-National government begins their public housing sell-off in Millers Point. Flo worked at the Bushells factory. Her husband, Teddy, was a wharfie. Teddy was one of the first arrested during the green bans action to save the area from the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority demolitions, back in the sixties and seventies. They were together for 62 years until Teddy died three years ago. The day after Teddy's funeral, Flo was sent a letter to tell her that her home was to be sold off. In 2014 the New South Wales government announced the sell-off of public housing in the Millers Point area, and since then people have been forced to move out. Flo has been a central part of community campaigns against the public housing sell-offs in Millers Point, and I want to congratulate her and say that I am deeply for sorry for what has happened.
Flo's story, sadly, is a common one. People across the country are being shifted from one property to the next if they live in public housing. Australia has weak protection not just for public housing tenants but for tenants in the private sector as well. Callous state governments are flogging off public housing for a quick buck. There is little recognition that houses are more than just bricks and mortar, that houses are homes for people. Much of the discussion in the media around the housing crisis has focused on young people. While young people are being locked out of the housing market, older people are also increasingly suffering housing stress. Late last year I met with representatives of the Older Women's Network, Zonta International and Equal Rights Alliance. They highlighted the situation of tens of thousands of older women who are in severe housing stress, right on edge of being evicted. A hostile housing market, climbing rents and a lack of rental security, a lack of appropriate public housing, public housing sell-offs, the closure of women's refuges and a lack of homelessness services all leave older people—in particular, older women—increasingly vulnerable to housing stress and homelessness.
Many older women will come into retirement on small pensions and with not enough superannuation after a lifetime of unpaid family labour, unequal pay and structural disadvantage. A lack of affordable, accessible and secure housing makes that situation so much worse. Between the 2006 census and the census in 2011 there was a 19 per cent increase in the number of older homeless people. Roughly 17 per cent of people experiencing homelessness in Australia are older than 55. The latest Rental Affordability Snapshot report from Anglicare characterises the dire housing situation for single older Australians living on the pension. Less than 0.1 per cent of private rental properties in the Greater Sydney and Illawarra region are appropriate and affordable for a single person getting by on the age pension. On the North Coast that figure is 1.1 per cent. In the ACT, with the exception of one granny flat, the only rental properties that were affordable for an older individual living on the pension were share houses.
But the Turnbull government has no plan for affordable housing on the table. There is no ministerial portfolio for housing; there is no federal housing and homelessness strategy. There are no policies at the federal level to address housing affordability, and after the May budget, if the government follows through with its threat, there will be no federal funding for homelessness services. What does the Turnbull government do? They announce that they will scrap the National Affordable Housing Agreement and take an axe to the only federal funding stream in existence for homelessness and public services. This agreement delivers about two-thirds of the total funding allocated to specialist homelessness services. But without any plans in place, without consulting the sector and at the height of a national crisis, the Turnbull government announced via the pages of The Australian last Friday that it is going to scrap it. In the words of National Shelter, this 'would be an unmitigated disaster' for the sector.
The Greens believe it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that all Australians have access to secure and affordable housing, and we believe that homes for all should be a priority of every government. The government should be renegotiating and improving the National Affordable Housing Agreement, not scrapping it in the upcoming May budget. If they are looking for savings, they can start by scrapping the handouts to property investors and speculators.
On another matter, today the Australian National Audit Office released its report into Commonwealth funding of the WestConnex project. I requested, along with Labor, that the Australian National Audit Office undertake this audit of the WestConnex project. That was in August 2015. It was off the back of a strong community campaign that such an independent audit should be undertaken. The objective of this audit was to assess whether appropriate steps were taken to protect the Commonwealth's interests and obtain value for money in respect of the $3.5 billion in Commonwealth funding committed to the New South Wales government for the WestConnex project. The report considers whether or not appropriate steps were taken to protect the Commonwealth's interest and obtain value for money. The Greens pushed for this report because we knew that the concessional loan stunk and we knew that the project fell well short of the rigorous and independent planning that enormous infrastructure investments like this require.
I am so glad that we pushed hard for this audit. It confirms what we have guessed for a long time—that is, that the rationale for funding this project is deeply deficient. And the alarm bells have been sounding on this project for many years. It was December 2014 when the then New South Wales Auditor-General, Grant Hehir, first raised serious concerns about the government's finance and independence of the initial WestConnex business case. Mr Hehir is now the national Auditor-General and he has again exposed serious problems with WestConnex. Today's report also will make uncomfortable reading for the former transport minister, Mr Albanese, as well as the coalition, about their role in pushing the WestConnex onto Sydney communities.
The findings in this audit certainly are damning. It shows that the former Abbott and Gillard governments committed at least $1.5 billion to WestConnex in 2013 despite warnings that the project was not yet suitable for federal support and had not yet been properly assessed. Remember, 2013 was an election year, and the big promises were being made by both the major parties in what we now know was clearly a very irresponsible way. In further findings, we learned that the Abbott government's $2 billion concessional loan for WestConnex may not have been necessary and failed to speed up the project as was intended.
So, we now know that the Liberal, Nationals and Labor parties were advancing this project well before an initial business case was presented to the appropriate government departments. It is a real example of policy and processes being done within the cynical cycle of elections and in terms of deals with mates. This is where we need to examine the political donations involved. Analysis from the Greens' Democracy for Sale project has revealed that, since 2010, $13 million in political donations has been handed over to the major parties from companies with significant interests in tollway construction. Since 2008, $600,000 has flowed to the Liberal Party from the Cormack Foundation's investments in the toll road giant Transurban. It is worth remembering how much control Transurban has over the motorways of our major capital cities—tollways that are robbing money and robbing space from the public transport we so urgently need. Transurban manages and develops tollways around this country as well as many in North America. In Australia it is a full owner of the CityLink in Melbourne. It has stakes in the six major tollways in Sydney, and similarly most of Brisbane's tollways come under Transurban, which is now making millions of dollars year after year because of the control it has been given by successive Liberal governments, particularly at a state level. As I said, Labor's hands are not clean in this, and my colleague Jenny Leong, who has worked extensively in opposition to the WestConnex project, summed it up today: 'Labor's infrastructure minister, Anthony Albanese, committed millions to nothing more than an idea. This was then progressed when the Abbott government came to power and infrastructure minister Warren Truss continued to push it through despite warnings.'
It is worth looking at what Mr Albanese has actually said about this. In commenting on the audit today he said that Labor's commitment of $1.8 billion to the project in May 2013 was 'contingent on a proper business case'. Now, they are his words. It sounds good that he was doing the right thing. But I cannot find where he set that out before 2013, and certainly a lot of the material and the comments being made by him and other Labor people at the time were very much a clear, blunt commitment to the WestConnex project in a very simplistic way, trying to make out that it was going to solve the transport problems of the people of Western Sydney when that is certainly not the case. The project is about bringing greater congestion to the inner west and massive destruction of homes, businesses and many open-space areas.
What comes out in the audit is that it was prior to the 2013 election that Mr Albanese committed to funding the project despite the project lacking a business case at that stage. And I want to repeat that so that we get it on the record, because Mr Albanese needs to go back to his leaflets, to his comments in 2013, and show us whether that commitment for linking the commitment of money to the project was contingent on a business case, because, from what I have seen, in most of the statements—in all the statements I have seen—there is certainly no link.
Good governance was effectively absent from the management of the WestConnex project once it got underway under the Liberal-Nationals governments at a state and federal level. The proper process has not occurred, and locals have suffered. And that suffering goes on—such as the degree of destruction and the wasteland of lost homes at a time when the housing crisis, as I have just spoken about, is becoming more and more urgent.
I particularly pay tribute to the many groups and residents who have fought so hard, many of them getting arrested in taking action to try to stop this destructive motorway. Sharon Laura, from the WestConnex Action Group, whose home is close to part of the WestConnex devastation, said this to City Hub:
People are angry and very distressed. They feel abandoned by government and treated with contempt by the Department of Planning.
This feeling is so widespread among people. I particularly pay tribute to the City of Sydney, to The Marrickville and Ashfield councils—when they existed—and to commentators and writers such as Wendy Bacon, Jenny Leong and Cathy Peters, who have worked so extensively with the community to document this destruction. Their work has certainly now been vindicated by the audit that has come out today. Also, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, has been outstanding in her work. I particularly wanted to mention the report by the City of Sydney's independent consultant, SGS, on the WestConnex strategic business case. The SGS consultancy describes the WestConnex business case as:
… a confused document filled with contradictions which does little to address the wide ranging concerns about WestConnex.
I want to revisit that document because it further strengthens concerns about the extensive problems that this project encapsulates and that we now know have been given greater weight by the audit that has come out today. The report, which was commissioned by the City of Sydney, finds that the construction costs have been conservatively estimated. The report states that, after taking into account these and other issues, WestConnex is 'likely to be marginal at best' and that it is quite possible that the actual Benefits Cost Ratio for WestConnex is less than one, where it was promised to be about one to 1.7. The report continues:
New South Wales taxpayers will be exposed to the risk of the project not succeeding in the short to medium term. Given this and the lack of strategic justification, the decision to proceed with WestConnex is questionable.
So here is another very considered report showing that this project is deeply irresponsible.
Today is very significant, with the ANAO releasing its audit and a report that is extensively damning of this project—a project that has caused economic, social and environmental stress to so many parts of Sydney. This project, off the back of this audit alone, should be stopped now. Yes, some parts of it have commenced. It is tragic that houses have gone, but now those areas should be moved over to thorough, extensive public transport. This motorway will divide Sydney. In reality, it will divide communities and it will cause more destruction if it goes ahead. The evidence is now so overwhelming that the responsible thing is to end the project.
I raise the issue about Mr Albanese. If you look at the record, you see there is inconsistency. But today he has come out and also criticised the project. That criticism now needs to put into a commitment that, when Labor get into office, this project will be scrapped. When Labor were running for office in Victoria, they gave the commitment that they would break the contract on the East West Link. They did it in Perth with the big battle that is going on about Roe 8. Labor, fighting to get into office there, have given a commitment that that project will not go ahead. That commitment now needs to be given by New South Wales Labor, and, in the federal parliament, by people like Mr Albanese and Senator Dastyari. This WestConnex project is so divisive and so destructive that it needs to be put to bed, and we all need to get behind that.
Senate adjour ned at 22 : 18