2008-02-19
42
1
1
REPS
0
0
2008-02-19
The SPEAKER (Mr Harry Jenkins) took the chair at 2 pm and read prayers.
MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS
669
Ministerial Arrangements
669
14:00:00
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
Prime Minister
1
0
Mr RUDD
—I inform the House that the Minister for Health and Ageing will be absent from question time today. The Minister for Ageing will be answering questions on her behalf.
QUEENSLAND FLOODS
669
Miscellaneous
669
14:00:00
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
Prime Minister
1
0
Mr RUDD
—Mr Speaker, on indulgence, on behalf of the government I want to extend our thoughts to the victims of the severe flooding that commenced in Mackay on 14 Febru-ary. The Bureau of Meteorology has reported that that was the biggest rainfall in 90 years—624 millimetres of rain fell in just 10 hours. The joint state-Commonwealth natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements were activated on the weekend. That has made it possible for local residents, small business, primary producers and councils to access a range of assistance measures, including personal hardship grants, concessional loans, freight subsidies and cost recovery for restoring certain assets. On Saturday, the Minister for Human Services, Senator Ludwig, toured the areas affected with the Queensland Premier to survey the extent of the damage firsthand.
As I announced on Sunday, in addition to the natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements, the government has decided that the Australian government disaster recovery payment, the AGDRP, will be made available to those people adversely affected by the storms and associated flooding. The Australian government disaster recovery payment will provide financial assistance to people whose principal place of residence has been destroyed or significantly damaged and to those who have been seriously injured and hospitalised for more than 48 hours as a direct result of the floods. Those eligible will be able to receive a one-off payment of $1,000 for adults and $400 for each child to help relieve their hardship. In addition, the Minister for Human Services announced that the so-called drought bus, a mobile Centrelink office and communications centre, will arrive in Mackay on Thursday and will be there for one week to help residents to access their entitlements. There will be much work to do over the coming weeks to help these communities to fully recover. The federal government will do its bit to help families, small businesses and local communities get back on their feet as soon as possible.
This has been a kick in the guts for the people of Mackay. It was a huge flood, and with very little warning. People in Mackay have coped remarkably well in the circumstances. They are a robust, resilient community. They will bounce back, but we intend to do whatever we can to provide assistance on the way through. The member for Dawson, James Bidgood, is now in Mackay assisting in ensuring that assistance which is promised by government is actually reaching those who need it most.
669
14:03:00
Nelson, Dr Brendan, MP
RW5
Bradfield
LP
Leader of the Opposition
0
0
Dr NELSON
—Mr Speaker, on indulgence, I rise to support strongly the remarks of the Prime Minister in relation to the floods in Mackay. For people there to have 600 millimetres of rain in a six-hour period is nothing short of extraordinary, as well as winds of 90 kilometres an hour. To see families with their belongings, at least what is left of them, on their front lawns and all of the tragedy which has beset them in a material and emotional sense would move every Australian to support all initiatives by the Queensland and Australian governments to support these families.
I urge all Australians to give generously to the Premier’s appeal. I think Queensland Premier Bligh has done a very good job in supporting those communities in Mackay and, more recently, in Emerald and Charleville, which have also been affected by flood. I urge all Australians to add to the $1 million which is now in that fund.
Two thousand homes and more than 100 businesses have been affected and/or damaged or destroyed. In a community like Mackay that is nothing short of devastating. I support any initiatives the Australian government has taken, which I know includes a $1,000 payment for families and $400 for children, and all of the other initiatives that will be necessary. Our thoughts are very much with the people of Mackay.
670
14:05:00
Lindsay, Peter, MP
HK6
Herbert
LP
0
0
Mr LINDSAY
—Mr Speaker, on indulgence, this rainfall event has also impacted on other areas in North Queensland, albeit fewer homes were affected. I trust the same disaster relief arrangements that the Prime Minister has announced today will also apply to those homes affected in Airlie Beach, in the Burdekin and in Townsville.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
670
14:05:00
Questions Without Notice
Fuel Prices
670
14:05:00
670
Nelson, Dr Brendan, MP
RW5
Bradfield
LP
Leader of the Opposition
0
Dr NELSON
—My question is directed to the Treasurer. Is the Treasurer aware of comments of the newly-appointed petrol commissioner, who said on Channel 9’s Today show: ‘I haven’t promised them significant savings. I think it is a naive notion that petrol is going to dramatically reduce’? Treasurer, will the appointment of the petrol commissioner reduce the price of petrol and, if so, when and by how much?
670
Swan, Wayne, MP
2V5
Lilley
ALP
Treasurer
1
Mr SWAN
—I thank the member for his question. I am not aware of the comments of the petrol commissioner, but I tell you what: I am very pleased that he has been appointed. Everybody on this side of the House wants a petrol cop on the beat in the ACCC full-time. This side of the House is committed to competitive markets. Competitive markets are very important at a time when prices are on the rise, which is why we made the commitment to the appointment of a petrol commissioner.
We had to shame the opposition when they were in government into doing something in this area at all. We eventually forced them to have an inquiry. That was a good thing. The problem was that they did not do anything. But within 10 weeks we have put in place a petrol commissioner. Our objective is to put the pressure on the petrol companies to ensure that motorists do not pay one cent more than they have to, one cent more than is fair. That is the commitment that the Rudd government made to the Australian people.
And we have gone further. We have put in place the grocery inquiry, something those opposite could not do in 11 long years, something those opposite could never do.
So on this side of the House we are absolutely determined to protect working families. We understand—
RW5
Nelson, Dr Brendan, MP
Dr Nelson
—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. It goes to relevance. The question is by how much does he expect the price of petrol to come down and when. From his answer, is he saying it is 1c?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Points of order should not stray into disguised supplementaries. The Treasurer will return his response to the question.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—The Rudd government is determined to ensure that consumers get value for money. Those opposite had 11 long years to take action. Did they do anything? They did nothing. You are going to see this government very active in this area of competition policy to ensure that Australians get the best value for money, whether it is at the petrol bowser or in the supermarket.
Economy
671
671
14:09:00
Collins, Julie, MP
HWM
Franklin
ALP
1
Ms COLLINS
—My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister update the House on the challenges confronting the Australian economy and the government’s response?
671
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
Prime Minister
1
Mr RUDD
—I thank the honourable member for Franklin for her question. Australia faces a range of economic challenges at present, challenges which come from abroad and challenges which are being generated domestically. From abroad we see corrections to growth projections across many of the developed economies in the world, coming out of in part the subprime crisis in the United States—revision downwards in growth for the American economy, those in Europe and those in Japan.
But on the domestic front we also face a serious economic challenge arising from inflationary pressures in the economy. At the time the government took office at the end of last year, inflation in this country was running at its highest rate in 16 years. It did not get there overnight. Further on the inflation front, this morning the Assistant Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Malcolm Edey, highlighted the risk in a speech to the Committee for Economic Development in Australia. In that speech Mr Edey stated that for the Australian economy ‘the main domestic challenges are those of strong demand, tight capacity and inflationary pressures’. Mr Edey added the warning that the consumer price index’s annual figure ‘could spike to something close to four per cent next quarter’.
The threat of rising inflation, as I said before, has not arisen overnight. We have seen the emergence of data on rising inflationary pressures in the economy over some years now. The Reserve Bank Statement on monetary policy most recently projected ahead that this economy was in the likelihood of receiving inflation outcomes in 2008, 2009 and through to mid-2010 which would be at or above the projected Reserve Bank upper range of three per cent.
These mean that the government and the nation must act in concert in the fight against inflation. We, the government, are the first to concede that inflation cannot be controlled by all factors which lie within domestic policy. You have massive boosts to the terms of trade. That has an effect in terms of the amount of consumption which then flows around in the domestic Australian economy. Another causative factor of these inflationary pressures is what is happening with the drought in recent times.
But there are factors which are within the range of government policy, and they go to what we can do on the question of public demand, what we can do through budget policy, what we can do when it comes to boosting private savings, what we can do when it comes to inflation and what we can do when it comes to infrastructure as well as skills and participation in the economy. That is why the government has articulated a clear-cut strategy in its fight against inflation. Our five-point plan deals with, one, what do we do with the overall projection for the budget surplus; two, what do we do to boost private savings; three and four, what can we do to boost skills and infrastructure; and, five, increasing our overall workforce participation rate. This is a clear-cut plan for the future and is necessary if we are to confront the challenge of inflation.
Part of the participation challenge lies with what we do in industrial relations to ensure that we have a flexible system which is both fair for working people and flexible for employers. That is why we believe in having an industrial relations system which gets the balance right, an industrial relations system which says to working families, ‘Here is a fair outcome for working families,’ and says to employers, ‘Here are a flexible set of arrangements which enable you to build your businesses into the future,’ and overall to enhance participation in the economy and long-term productivity growth. We know on this side of the House where we stand on industrial relations. Our position on industrial relations has been rock solid throughout the year leading up to the 2007 election. Everyone knows what we stood for. We would abolish Work Choices; we would abolish AWAs.
We have not seen so far parallel parity from those opposite. In fact, what we have seen from those opposite is an evolution of positions. We had the opposition leader telling us just after the election that Work Choices was dead. Then straight afterwards they unleashed the Senate to try and give Work Choices some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, bring it back to life and make sure that our legislation in the Senate would be frustrated to the greatest extent possible. Now we have the third iteration, the third evolution, coming out of the party room today. As of today, Tuesday, I think Work Choices is off again. I think it has gone again, but I am not altogether clear and I would like some clarification from those opposite. We have had flip, flop and flap when it comes to the whole question of Work Choices and the future of AWAs. I gather we are up to the flap stage but I am all ears to hear what the current status of Liberal Party policy is formally on Work Choices and AWAs for the future.
If the Liberal Party is returned to office in the future, and whichever group within the Liberal Party happens to have assumed dominance by that stage, where will their industrial relations policy stand at that point? I know that the Leader of the Opposition’s chief of staff is gung-ho on this stuff; he comes from ACCI. I know that a whole lot of people are gung-ho on this stuff. So, once they get the chance, as happened before the 2004 election, whatever is said before the election, we know one thing for certain: what they say before the election they will turn turtle on after the election. We have got flip, flop, flap now on Work Choices. If they return to office, the guarantee is that we will have another extreme, hardline approach to industrial relations, because the party opposite has lost its way and lost touch altogether with working families.
Economy
672
672
14:15:00
Turnbull, Malcolm, MP
885
Wentworth
LP
0
Mr TURNBULL
—My question is addressed to the Treasurer and again concerns the relationship between inflation and jobs. Is the Treasurer aware that, over the last five years, the unemployment rate in Queensland has fallen from seven to 3.4 per cent and in Western Australia from 6.1 to 3.3 per cent, compared to very much lower declines elsewhere, including in New South Wales and Victoria? Given that the export-driven mining industry in Western Australia and Queensland is not likely to be materially affected by domestic interest rate rises, how will you ensure that your fight against inflation will not have a very uneven impact, with a heavy cost in jobs outside of Queensland and Western Australia?
672
Swan, Wayne, MP
2V5
Lilley
ALP
Treasurer
1
Mr SWAN
—I thank the member for his question because it is true—it is absolutely true—that the participation rate in Queensland and Western Australia has increased substantially. The participation rate has increased and the unemployment rate has gone down—and isn’t it a fantastic thing that the participation rate in Queensland and Western Australia has upped substantially and that unemployment is down? And one of the reasons why this has occurred is that people have gone back into the workforce.
Opposition members interjecting—
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—Absolutely—people in those states have gone back into the workforce, and what that has done is enhance the labour supply in those states, and that is very good for a lot of people. There are members all around here who will have older women or older men in their electorates who are back in the workforce for the first time in a long time because the participation rate has increased in those states. At the very core of our plan to lift productivity in this economy, to combat inflation, is to lift workforce participation. That is one of the reasons why we are so supportive of the income-tax cuts which we have argued for for a long period of time, because people on modest wages do deserve some incentive. Particularly when it comes to second-income earners, we have to design an income taxation system and a transfer system which gives them incentives when they go back to work. So not only is it older workers—
885
Turnbull, Malcolm, MP
Mr Turnbull
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I asked the Treasurer a very important question about the differential impact of anti-inflation measures across Australia. He has not responded to that at all. He has not addressed it at all.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The honourable member will resume his seat. The Treasurer has the call.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—Yesterday, the shadow Treasurer wanted to engage in some sort of arid debate about NAIRU. And what we have today is a repeat of the stupidity of yesterday from the shadow Treasurer. This is what the former governor of the Reserve Bank, Mr Macfarlane, had to say about what the shadow Treasurer was saying yesterday—
Opposition members interjecting—
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—Listen for a second. Let’s just listen to what the former Governor of the Reserve Bank had to say about the proposition that was put by the shadow Treasurer yesterday. He said:
I do not think it is a particularly useful construct. I do not think I have ever heard it mentioned in the Reserve Bank boardroom.
The NAIRU has never been mentioned in the Reserve Bank boardroom. And there is a reason for that: it is not used in practical economics.
885
Turnbull, Malcolm, MP
Mr Turnbull
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order going to relevance. He is now endeavouring to answer the question he could not answer yesterday. He’s got to answer the question I asked today.
Opposition members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—In giving the Treasurer the call I would remind him that he should be responding to today’s question.
Opposition members interjecting—
QI4
Price, Roger, MP
Mr Price
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We at the back here are having great difficulty in hearing the answer from the Treasurer.
Opposition members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I’m at the front and I’m having difficulty. The House will come to order.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—The reforms that are required to ensure that we have strong growth across the whole of this country, but most particularly in Western Australia and Queensland, are precisely the reforms that go to the core of the Rudd government’s five-point plan. And it has been the complacency of those opposite over a long period of time, when it came to investment in skills, when it came to their failure to deal with infrastructure bottlenecks, that has put upward pressure on inflation and made it harder in all states of Australia, but most particularly in those states, to have strong growth with low inflation.
So the answer to the question is a very simple one: put in place a raft of reforms that lift productivity, lift economic growth and put downward pressure on inflation. And that is what our reform of federal-state relations is all about. That is what the Deputy Prime Minister is talking about when she is talking about investing in skills. That is what the minister for infrastructure is talking about: things that those opposite could not do for 11 long years. So if you cannot be part of the solution, you certainly will never ever be fit to govern this country.
Workplace Relations
674
674
14:21:00
Clare, Jason, MP
HWL
Blaxland
ALP
1
Mr CLARE
—My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the minister detail the waste and excessive promotional material associated with previous government policies? What steps are being taken to recycle that material?
674
Gillard, Julia, MP
83L
Lalor
ALP
Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion
1
Ms GILLARD
—Yesterday the Prime Minister and I sought to ensure the destruction of the remaining Work Choices propaganda of the Howard-Costello government. We arranged for the recycling of 436,000 Work Choices booklets. We made sure that they were taken off to the recyclers so that they could be turned into things more useful—things like scribble paper for children. There were some suggestions from the media about other uses that these paper products could be put to, but I will not go there. But we did ensure that these booklets would be recycled. Of course, this was part of the $121 million propaganda blitz of the Howard-Costello government to try and sell its grossly unfair Work Choices laws, which stripped basic working conditions away from Australian families. We know that even that government thought it was best to start shredding these booklets, because 3½ million of them were in fact sent off to the recyclers before the election. The waste of taxpayers’ money was just amazing.
I have to say that I allowed myself to believe yesterday that the Prime Minister and I had brought an end to the scourge of Work Choices propaganda in this country, just as we are committed to bringing an end to the scourge of Work Choices itself. I had allowed myself to believe yesterday that we had achieved that goal, but overnight I have discovered more. Whilst the Four Corners program was exhibiting Liberal rats in the ranks, I found 100,000 Work Choices propaganda mousepads lying around from the days of the Howard-Costello government. I am going to ask the House to help me with a very difficult issue here, which is this: one can easily recycle booklets; it is less clear what one can do to recycle mousepads. What I am committed to doing—
SJ4
Tuckey, Wilson, MP
Mr Tuckey
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. My point of order is this: to assist her in this matter, she can send them out with her free computers.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for O’Connor knows that that was not a point of order. A point of order is not an invitation for competing in comedy hour with the chair.
83L
Gillard, Julia, MP
Ms GILLARD
—Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I reassure you that it is not my intention to scare small children through that distribution of these mousepads. They would obviously be very worried about their parents’ working conditions if this turned up at their school. I do have a dilemma, which is what to do with these 100,000 mousepads. It is my intention to send them to the supporters of Work Choices, so there are 65 on their way to the opposition members in the House of Representatives and there are 38 on their way to the opposition senators. Now I have 99,897 left and I cannot find another Work Choices supporter to send them to. If anybody has any suggestions about what to do with the remainder of the 100,000 mousepads, I would be very grateful to receive them. In sending these mousepads to the opposition today, I do not know if I have made an error, because I watched the press conference of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition at lunchtime today.
DK6
Hockey, Joe, MP
Mr Hockey
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Yesterday you raised the issue of using props in the chamber. Again the Deputy Prime Minister is using props. Unless she wants to play second row, I would ask her to put the props away.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The Deputy Prime Minister.
83L
Gillard, Julia, MP
Ms GILLARD
—I am not sure whether I have sent the Work Choices mousepads to the right people. I watched the press conference of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition today. I have to say that I listened carefully but, having listened to that press conference, I have no idea what on earth is going on. This is the same Deputy Leader of the Opposition who said that she was going to defend AWAs with a no-disadvantage test to the death. She was reported in the newspaper in quotes as saying that she would not be ‘complicit in a downturn’—
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms Julie Bishop
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I should not be misquoted by the Deputy Prime Minister. If she wishes to quote where I said that I will defend the right of employees and employers to enter into individual agreements—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. If the Deputy Leader of the Opposition feels aggrieved by misquotes, she has other forms of the House that she can use. I say to the Deputy Prime Minister that she is verging on debating the answer.
83L
Gillard, Julia, MP
Ms GILLARD
—Well, I read the newspaper reports and some of our friends upstairs have them.
DK6
Hockey, Joe, MP
Mr Hockey
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It was a specific question in relation to the marketing of Work Choices. The Deputy Prime Minister was not asked about alternative views and I ask you to bring her back to the question that she was asked. If she cannot answer her own questions, we are happy to take over.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Based on the five words that were uttered since the previous interruption, it was a bit hard for me to know where the response was going. The Deputy Prime Minister knows that she is required to be relevant.
83L
Gillard, Julia, MP
Ms GILLARD
—On the question of marketing Work Choices, of course, Work Choices was the policy of the Howard-Costello government. We need to ask, ‘Who is it the policy of now?’ We know the Deputy Leader of the Opposition wanted AWAs with a no-disadvantage test. Now she does not know whether she is going to amend the bill, whether she is not going to amend the bill, whether she is going to amend it in the Senate, whether she is not going to amend it in the Senate—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The Deputy Prime Minister will resume her seat. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition.
Opposition members interjecting—
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms Julie Bishop
—It’s horrible, isn’t it?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has the call.
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms Julie Bishop
—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. The Deputy Prime Minister was asked about the marketing of brochures including mousepads; she was not asked about any alternative views. That was not part of the question, and I would ask you to bring her back to the question and adhere to the requirement of relevance.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The Deputy Prime Minister will bring her answer to a close.
83L
Gillard, Julia, MP
Ms GILLARD
—Yes, Work Choices is horrible and you are in a horrible mess. Yes, that is absolutely true.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The Deputy Prime Minister is not assisting.
83L
Gillard, Julia, MP
Ms GILLARD
—On the question of the mousepads, can I say this: we are now in a situation where we do not know whether you stand behind this propaganda or the policy that led to it, but what we suspect is that—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The Deputy Prime Minister will resume her seat.
Economy
676
676
14:30:00
Turnbull, Malcolm, MP
885
Wentworth
LP
0
Mr TURNBULL
—My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Is the minister aware of this morning’s speech by Reserve Bank Assistant Governor Malcolm Edey, in which he projects GDP growth to December 2008 of 3¼ per cent but, excluding both the farming and mining sectors, of only 2½ per cent, compared to 4¼ per cent in December 2007? What is the government’s plan to ensure that its claimed inflation-fighting proposed budget cuts will not further reduce growth and jobs in those sectors of the economy outside mining?
676
Tanner, Lindsay, MP
YU5
Melbourne
ALP
Minister for Finance and Deregulation
1
Mr TANNER
—It would appear that the member for Wentworth does not understand the reason why there is a need to crack down on government spending. On top of the figures he has quoted, I will add another one: government spending is currently running at a 4½ per cent real increase in the current financial year, well ahead of the growth projections—either of the growth projections that he quoted—in the economy. That is what we inherited from the previous government. We inherited a situation where inflation is beyond the Reserve Bank’s target band. It is at 3.6 per cent underlying. We inherited a situation where we had five interest rate increases in the previous six months, and we inherited a situation where government spending is running out of control. The primary commitment of this government is to ensure that government spending gets into an area that will ensure that we put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates.
Let me remind the member for Wentworth that, if he talks to business, the one thing they will tell him they do not want is inflation to take off in this country. The one thing that business in the mineral sector and in other sectors of the economy that are so crucial to the future of this nation do not want is inflation to take off, because that erodes savings, it erodes productivity and, most importantly of all, contrary to the commentary from the Leader of the Opposition a couple of weeks ago, higher inflation means higher interest rates. It means higher interest rates for homebuyers and it means higher interest rates for businesses. So that is why the government is committed to getting government spending under control.
885
Turnbull, Malcolm, MP
Mr Turnbull
—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. There seems to be a contagion on the government benches of inability to address the questions asked.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The minister is relevant. The minister will return to his response.
YU5
Tanner, Lindsay, MP
Mr TANNER
—The question I was asked was about growth projections and the significance for sectors of the economy that are particularly important to the future of the Australian economy, especially the mining sector, and how this connected with the government’s economic policy. What I am trying to explain to the member for Wentworth, who amazingly was described the other day by a journalist as one of the more numerate members of this House, is that the critical commitment of this government is to get under control the inflation problem that was left by the former government, and that means getting government spending under control. It means getting rid of the sort of nonsense that we inherited, some of which we cut out of the budget a couple of weeks ago and more of which we are going to cut out. It means cutting government advertising. It means getting rid of the regional rorts. It means getting rid of the plethora of spending programs, all of which were contributing to a pattern of increased government spending, 4½ per cent in real terms—
DK6
Hockey, Joe, MP
Mr Hockey
—Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. Again, it was a specific question about the impact of budget cuts on the non-mining sector of the economy. It is very important—unless these guys are going to club the economy to death.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I simply say to the member for North Sydney that the minister is being relevant to the totality of the question. In the point of order, the member is raising points that are in the introduction to the question, but certainly he loses the chair when he uses a point of order to argue a point, as he did at the end. The minister has the call and will respond to the question.
YU5
Tanner, Lindsay, MP
Mr TANNER
—I will conclude on this point. The opposition has a fundamental question that they have to ask themselves, and that is this: do you think there is a problem? Do you think there is a problem with government spending in this country? Do you accept that it is running too fast and that it needs to be brought back under control? And do you believe that programs like, for example, the $3 million that had been earmarked for the fishing hall of fame are fundamental to the economic future of this country, or would you like to relieve the tax and interest rate burden on ordinary working people in this country? That is the fundamental question that you need to ask yourselves, because at this point we do not know. The member for Wentworth has told us that the inflation problem is a fairytale. The opposition leader has said that the government has taken over an economy in first-rate condition. So the question you need to answer is: is there a problem with inflation in this country, or do you think it is a fairytale?
Reserve Bank of Australia
677
677
14:36:00
Rishworth, Amanda, MP
HWA
Kingston
ALP
1
Ms RISHWORTH
—My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline for the House the benefits of the measures the government and the Reserve Bank have introduced to strengthen the RBA’s independence and to better communicate the reasons for its decisions?
677
Swan, Wayne, MP
2V5
Lilley
ALP
Treasurer
1
Mr SWAN
—I thank the member for her question, because it is a very important one. Today the Reserve Bank released minutes of its February meeting, and this was a first. I do not intend to give a running commentary on Reserve Bank board minutes and their publication, but I would certainly like to welcome their publication and the increased transparency in the conduct of monetary policy. These minutes will help working families better understand the reasons behind interest rate movements.
Within weeks of the election of the Rudd government, the governor and I issued a joint statement on the conduct of monetary policy in which we committed to a number of governance reforms that enhance the independence and transparency of the Reserve Bank. The statement delivers on the Rudd government’s election commitment to strengthen the independence of the Reserve Bank and to enhance the transparency of its decisions. Firstly, and this is the very important one, we increased the statutory independence of the positions of the governor and the deputy governor so that termination would require parliamentary approval. Secondly, we agreed to make future Reserve Bank board appointments from a register of candidates of the highest integrity. This was to ensure we did not see a repeat of the Gerard affair.
Strengthening the independence of the RBA is a critical part of the government’s commitment to putting downward pressure on inflation and downward pressure on interest rates. The Rudd government has a five-point plan to fight inflation and will ensure the government is working with the Reserve Bank and not against it.
Taxation
678
678
14:38:00
Robert, Stuart, MP
HWT
Fadden
LP
0
Mr ROBERT
—My question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer stand by his election commitment to ensure that tax does not increase as a proportion of GDP? Isn’t it the case that this commitment will be broken by the more recent announcement that the government will hoard future increases in revenue?
678
Swan, Wayne, MP
2V5
Lilley
ALP
Treasurer
1
Mr SWAN
—I thank the member for his question. In our five-point plan to combat inflation, to tackle the inflationary pressures in the Australian economy, we made it very, very clear that we would allow the automatic stabilisers to work. It is very important that we put in place a fiscal policy that backs up the monetary policy which is put together by an independent Reserve Bank board. And because, as the Minister for Finance and Deregulation was saying, spending has been out of control, we have got to bring it back into control. We have had the fastest increase in spending in the past four-year period out of any four-year period in the past 15 years. That expansion of Commonwealth demand simply has to be brought under control. That is why we have said that we will set an objective of a surplus of at least 1.5 per cent of GDP in our next budget.
00APG
Smith, Anthony, MP
Mr Anthony Smith
—They are all going pale again, Wayne.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Casey!
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—The Commonwealth will provide the leadership that those opposite could not provide in recent years.
00APG
Smith, Anthony, MP
Mr Anthony Smith
—What about the percentage of GDP?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! I warn the member for Casey!
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—It was interesting watching the ABC last night. The ABC last night showed in all its glory the disunity in the coalition—
00AKI
Dutton, Peter, MP
Mr Dutton
—I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker: relevance. This is his best answer yet; it is just an answer to the wrong question.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member will resume his seat.
Government members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Members on my right are not assisting. I call the Treasurer.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—We will pursue our objective of having a surplus, as a percentage of GDP, of at least 1.5 per cent. We will provide the leadership to restrain the spending that those opposite could not restrain. Of course, the former Treasurer is on the record, in the Howard biography, complaining that the previous Prime Minister, in 2004, went on a reckless spending spree—a reckless spending spree that put upward pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates. The consequence of that has been seven interest rate rises in the last three years.
DK6
Hockey, Joe, MP
Mr Hockey
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It relates to relevance. It was a very specific question about tax as a proportion of GDP and whether the Treasurer stood by his previous commitments—a very specific question.
SJ4
Tuckey, Wilson, MP
Mr Tuckey
—Working families are interested!
4T4
Melham, Daryl, MP
Mr Melham
—Why weren’t you on Four Corners last night, Wilson?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Banks knows that he cannot be disruptive like that. He has had his one warning for the session. As an urger, he knew he was on thin ice. I call the Treasurer.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—We have a very specific commitment in this budget process to have a surplus of at least 1.5 per cent of GDP and to keep our commitments over the cycle.
Workplace Relations
679
679
14:42:00
Neumann, Shayne, MP
HVO
Blair
ALP
1
Mr NEUMANN
—My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. What impact have Australian workplace agreements had on hardworking Australians?
679
Gillard, Julia, MP
83L
Lalor
ALP
Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion
1
Ms GILLARD
—I thank the member for his question. There appears to be some confusion amongst some members of the House about the impact of Australian workplace agreements and Work Choices on hardworking Australians. The member for North Sydney last night said that former cabinet ministers of the Howard government did not know about the impact of AWAs on hardworking families. I note the shadow minister for foreign affairs disagreed with this view on radio this morning, where he said:
I heard what Joe said. I don’t know whether … how true that was. But, you know, certainly I led the task force there for six months and certainly I understood that the removal of the no disadvantage test did expose us, and the community were on to it very quickly.
So there is confusion amongst the opposition about the impact of Australian workplace agreements. Can I help the opposition with that confusion, because the opposition, when in government, deliberately decided not to collect information on what Australian workplace agreements were doing to hardworking families. They knew that those results would be bad, so they preferred not to ask any questions that they did not want the answers to.
We did have some samples in May 2006; they came out in Senate estimates. Then the clamper went on—no more information was to come out. The government did sample AWAs between March 2006 and May 2007. To the extent that that analysis got into the public domain, it was there because it leaked. In particular, a sample of over 1,000 AWAs was leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald. Today I can confirm what the results were for that complete sample of 1,700 Australian workplace agreements. These are actual results. I note that the former government denied the figures in the Sydney Morning Herald leak. They will not be able to deny these figures, because these are the actual results. Of the 1,700 Australian workplace agreements that were sampled, 89 per cent removed at least one protected award condition, 83 per cent excluded two or more protected award conditions, 52 per cent excluded six or more—that is more than half—and of course the list goes on.
When we are talking about protected award conditions, we are talking about the things that the very expensive propaganda told people were protected by law but could still be taken away without compensation. In these agreements, we know that they were stripped away. What was excluded? What were the sorts of things that got stripped away? We know that the things that are basic to the take-home pay of Australians got stripped away. Shift loadings were excluded in 70 per cent of agreements, annual leave loading was excluded in 68 per cent of agreements and penalty rates were excluded in 63 per cent of agreements. This is the truth that the Howard government covered up in the run-up to the election.
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms Julie Bishop
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order going to relevance. The Deputy Prime Minister has not stated the salary increases that people got as a result of these award conditions.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The deputy leader will resume her seat. She knows that a point of order is not an invitation to come to the dispatch box and debate.
83L
Gillard, Julia, MP
Ms GILLARD
—Of course, these questions from the former Howard ministers are fatuous because they deliberately decided, in government, to not do this analysis because they did not want to know the results. They deliberately decided they did not want to analyse the dimension of the rip-off of Australian working families. We should also note that these are the people who deliberately decided not to release any economic modelling of Work Choices. They did not want that information out there.
We are in a situation today where hardworking Australians are still caught by Work Choices. We are trying to get rid of Australian workplace agreements, in accordance with our policy and the election mandate of the Australian people. That is why we introduced last week the transition bill. What has been the answer, given these shocking statistics, in this parliament of the opposition to that bill’s introduction? Well, really, we have got confusion, but what we know that they have actually done is extend the Senate inquiry in order to keep Work Choices going on as long as possible. Whatever they say about amendments, whatever they say about not opposing, whatever they say about five-year transitional agreements and them lasting to 2012 or 2017—they do not seem to know—whatever they say about those things, the thing that they have achieved is the continuation of the Australian workplace agreements that these shocking statistics come from. The one thing that should happen today in light of these shocking statistics is that the opposition, in all of its confusion and division, should say, ‘What we will do today is we will agree with Labor that this bill will be through the House and through the Senate before Easter.’ That will enable a Senate inquiry on the same timetable that the parliament last had when workplace relations laws were dealt with by this parliament. This opposition should get people out of the clutches of Work Choices. In delaying that, all it is doing is reinforcing its reputation as the Work Choices party.
Economy
680
680
14:48:00
Hull, Kay, MP
83O
Riverina
NATS
0
Mrs HULL
—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer advise the House of the level of state debt? Can the Treasurer also advise the House how state debt impacts on inflation?
680
Swan, Wayne, MP
2V5
Lilley
ALP
Treasurer
1
Mr SWAN
—I thank the member for her question. It is the case that there is a substantial amount of state debt out there, a very substantial amount. Why are those borrowings taking place? I will tell you why those borrowings are taking place. Those borrowings are taking place for essential economic infrastructure—the sort of essential economic infrastructure that those opposite would not concern themselves with for 11 long years. The Rudd government has made it very clear that it is prepared to work with the states when it comes to critical economic infrastructure because this is a key plank in its platform to put downward pressure on inflation and downward pressure on interest rates. Eleven years of neglect in infrastructure have produced a situation where the states are having to borrow because the Commonwealth would not come to the table and provide the political leadership that was required so that we could develop a modern economy which was capable of tackling the future challenges.
00AMM
Hartsuyker, Luke, MP
Mr Hartsuyker
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The point of order is relevance. The question clearly asked, ‘What was the level of state debt?’ He obviously does not know.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I remind the honourable member for Cowper that it did then go on to ask about what the effect of state debt was.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—I am happy to provide the member with the exact figure. We have had the member for Wentworth and now another member, the member for Riverina, wanting to conduct a pop quiz. That is what they have come to; they are just so desperate. Sometimes I will have the details on hand and sometimes I will not.
Opposition members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The question has been asked. The Treasurer is giving his response. His response should be heard in silence.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—Let me tell you what I will never do. I will never arrogantly dismiss inflation as a fairy story, like the member for Wentworth has. I will never, ever do that to Australian families. I will never, ever, like the Leader of the Opposition, say—
DK6
Hockey, Joe, MP
Mr Hockey
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On this side of the House, we are very keen to hear every word that the Treasurer says but he is speaking away from the Speaker. I can understand him not wanting to turn his back on his colleagues, but can he please address—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The honourable member will resume his seat. The members on my left would assist if they sat there quietly.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—The one thing that I will never, ever do is this. I will never lecture working families, after 10 rate rises, saying that they have never been better off. I will never do that, and that is what those opposite did.
83O
Hull, Kay, MP
Mrs Hull
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order that goes to relevance. I specifically asked two questions, the first being to advise the House of the level of state debt and the second being to advise how that state debt impacts on inflation. Neither of these points has been answered by the Treasurer.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The Treasurer has the call.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—Mr Speaker, I made it very clear to the member that I will provide that information to her. I will get the exact figure—not a problem. But the one thing that I will never do—
885
Turnbull, Malcolm, MP
Mr Turnbull
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. The Treasurer has said that he does not know the amount of state debt and he will get the details to the member for Riverina, but he has not addressed the primary issue, which is: what is its impact on inflation?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The Treasurer is relevant to the second part of the question and he has indicated his response to the first part. The Treasurer is in continuation.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr SWAN
—I will be very happy to provide all of that material.
Economy
681
681
14:55:00
Neal, Belinda, MP
B36
Robertson
ALP
1
Ms NEAL
—My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Minister, why is it necessary for government spending to be cut? What steps is the government taking to eliminate wasteful spending and improve the efficiency of government?
681
Tanner, Lindsay, MP
YU5
Melbourne
ALP
Minister for Finance and Deregulation
1
Mr TANNER
—I thank the member for Robertson for her question and congratulate her on her first speech last evening. The government inherited challenging economic circumstances: underlying inflation running at 3.6 per cent, five interest rate increases over the past 18 months—with another one well and truly in the pipeline—and government spending growing by 4½ per cent in real terms. In an economy already being supercharged by very high returns from the mining boom, allowing government spending to increase at that rate is simply and totally irresponsible. I would like to go through one example to illustrate this point—just one example. From the middle of 2006 until the election late last year, over a period of 16 months, the former Howard government spent $457 million on government advertising—almost half a billion dollars within a space of 16 months.
And it is interesting to look at the figures over the preceding five years or so. On a calendar year basis, government advertising spending increased from $95.6 million in 2002 to $368.8 million in 2007. That is a 285 per cent increase—and they did not even get to go the full year. They did not even get to go the full year and they still managed to spend nearly $370 million in that one year. If you divide the spending between campaign advertising and non-campaign advertising—non-campaign advertising is routine stuff mostly; job ads and the like—you will see that it increased from $60.4 million in 2002 to $281.2 million in 2007. That is a 365 per cent increase.
The House and the Australian people are entitled to ask: how did this happen and who was in charge? I note, as the Treasurer did earlier, that in the middle of last year the former Treasurer, the member for Higgins, was quoted in the biography of the former Prime Minister about his worries in relation to government spending running out of control, and I quote:
I do worry about the sustainability of all these things.
That was the then Treasurer in the middle of last year. Well, good on him! Isn’t that hunky-dory—he was there in his office worrying about it all! He was really worried about the sustainability of government spending. Thank goodness he was worried, because you can imagine what they would have spent if he had not been worried! The great pity is that he did not take any action; he did not actually do anything. That is the great pity. The truth is that, as on so many other things, the member for Higgins is all talk, all bluff, all bluster and no action. He is Australia’s champion flat-track bully, and we saw that in evidence last night.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The minister should not debate and bring other individuals into the response.
YU5
Tanner, Lindsay, MP
Mr TANNER
—Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Sadly, not much has changed since the election. I note that, in the member for Higgins’s local paper, the Stonnington Leader, he is quoted on 5 February as saying:
Government members interjecting—
YU5
Tanner, Lindsay, MP
Mr TANNER
—It is a very interesting newspaper. The member for Higgins is quoted as saying:
If I was still Treasurer we’d have 10 CCTV cameras on Chapel St.
… … …
Before the election, I wouldn’t have had to ask Mr Rudd; I would have authorised the cheque myself.
That will be his political epitaph: ‘I just kept authorising the cheques.’
I can assure the House that the Treasurer and I will not be in the business of automatically authorising cheques. We will not be in the business of massive increases in government spending for things like government advertising, because we and the government are serious about cutting government spending and putting downward pressure on inflation and on interest rates. We are particularly serious about cutting out the outrageous misuse of taxpayers’ money on things like government advertising. The previous government spent almost half a billion dollars within the space of 16 months in a desperate attempt to secure re-election. That money could have been invested in infrastructure and in building the skills of this nation to help tackle the inflation problem that has been brewing for some time but instead it was spent in a desperate attempt to secure re-election. There is one big lesson that we can learn from all of this, and that is that you cannot trust the Liberals with public money.
Economy
683
683
15:00:00
Turnbull, Malcolm, MP
885
Wentworth
LP
0
Mr TURNBULL
—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. The Treasurer and the Minister for Finance and Deregulation have said again and again that spending by the federal government is inflationary and that reducing spending by the federal government will reduce aggregate demand and will reduce inflation, and this is part of their anti-inflation plan. Yet, when asked what the inflationary impact of state government borrowings is—which of course funds spending by state governments—the Treasurer is unable to say. Is it the Treasurer’s contention that it is only spending by coalition governments that contributes to inflation?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The preamble for that question was a little long but I am happy to allow it.
683
Swan, Wayne, MP
2V5
Lilley
ALP
Treasurer
1
Mr SWAN
—I thank the shadow Treasurer for his question. My contention is that spending to enhance the productive capacity of the economy is absolutely critical to lifting productivity and to putting downward pressure on inflation and downward pressure on interest rates, which is why we have a minister for infrastructure—someone who will work with the states, someone who will provide political leadership. That is why, as part of our five-point plan, we are committed to providing national leadership when it comes to essential economic infrastructure. And, for the record, the shadow Treasurer should have a good look at the commentary on this from the former Governor of the Reserve Bank, Mr Macfarlane, because it simply disproves the ridiculous claims he is making in the House today.
Small Business
683
683
15:02:00
Champion, Nick, MP
HW9
Wakefield
ALP
1
Mr CHAMPION
—My question is to the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy. Will the minister advise the House of the government’s policy approach for small business owners and their employees, and the prospects for successful implementation of these policies?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I call the minister for small business and other things.
683
Emerson, Craig, MP
83V
Rankin
ALP
Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy and Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation
1
Dr EMERSON
—And everything else; and lots of things! I thank the member for Wakefield for his question. The Rudd government supports reward for effort, risk-taking and entrepreneurship. We support the freedom of working Australians to be employees or to choose a career in small business or independent contracting. The government will support small businesses by tackling inflation, which hit 16-year highs under the previous coalition government. We will tackle inflation by reining in the extravagant government spending of the ‘coalition Coreys’ over there. We will tackle inflation by investing in skills through an education revolution. We will tackle inflation by investing in infrastructure, including through a high-speed national broadband network. And we will tackle inflation by increasing workforce participation to boost the supply of labour.
The government will support small business by amending the Trade Practices Act to combat anticompetitive behaviour by powerful businesses and by reversing what the Business Council of Australia described as ‘the creeping re-regulation’ of the Australian business community that occurred over the 11 years of the previous government. This government will also fulfil its election commitment and introduce a fair and flexible industrial relations system, based on productivity. We will remove the red-tape burden on small business created by the farcical Work Choices ‘fairness’ test and we will take on the task of award modernisation, a task that was shirked by the coalition in 11½ years in government. And the government will work with small business in developing a fair dismissal code. The Rudd Labor government does not consider it fair that the four million Australians working in small businesses should be able to be sacked on the spot with no explanation, for no reason and with no remedy.
I noticed that last night the Manager of Opposition Business said that members of the former coalition cabinet did not know that Work Choices could make people worse off. What is he saying—that they did not know that sacking good workers would make them worse off? How out of touch can you get if you do not know that getting the sack makes you worse off?
I have been asked about the prospects for a successful implementation of the government’s policies. Those prospects are being threatened by the confusion and the divisions in the coalition. The opposition leader declared that Work Choices is dead but he was contradicted by the shadow minister for families, who said, ‘I think that whatever they put up we should vote against.’ But then he was contradicted by the Manager of Opposition Business, who said, ‘But the people have spoken and the Labor Party have a mandate to tear up Work Choices.’ But he was contradicted by the small business spokesman, who said that Labor’s attempts to apply unfair dismissal laws to small businesses would meet his ‘absolute and determined opposition’. But then he was contradicted by the shadow Treasurer, who said, ‘Labor ran very hard on this issue and they have a mandate for change.’ Flip, flop, flap.
00AMM
Hartsuyker, Luke, MP
Mr Hartsuyker
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question did not call for alternative policies.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The question asked for the government’s approach to small business, so the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy—and I apologise to independent contractors and the service economy for having called them ‘other things’—will stick to the question.
83V
Emerson, Craig, MP
Dr EMERSON
—I was also asked about the prospects for successful implementation of these policies. The fact is that the opposition is divided and confused. It is out of touch with working families. The Rudd Labor government is building a modern economy to meet the challenges of the 21st century for the nation and for the working families of Australia.
University Fees
684
684
15:07:00
Farmer, Patrick, MP
00AMO
Macarthur
LP
0
Mr FARMER
—Mr Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer. We have heard the Prime Minister talking about flip, flop, flap. Will the Treasurer rule out slip, slop or slapping a new tax, levy or compulsory fees on university students?
684
Swan, Wayne, MP
2V5
Lilley
ALP
Treasurer
1
Mr SWAN
—I am not ruling anything in or out, whether it is slip, slop, slap or anything else, because we are in a budget process.
Judicial Appointments
684
684
15:08:00
Zappia, Tony, MP
HWB
Makin
ALP
1
Mr ZAPPIA
—Mr Speaker, my question is to the Attorney-General. Will the Attorney-General inform the House of what the government is doing to increase transparency in judicial appointments?
684
McClelland, Robert, MP
JK6
Barton
ALP
Attorney-General
1
Mr McCLELLAND
—I thank the member for his question. This is an important issue. The Rudd government is committed to open government, and that is why we have introduced greater transparency and broader consultation in respect of the appointment of senior public servants. On the weekend I had the opportunity to give a speech to the Queensland Bar Association, and I outlined similar proposals in respect of the appointment of federal magistrates and federal judges. As a result of vacancies that have arisen on the Federal Magistrates Court, I have had the opportunity to put that process in train.
We have put ads in national newspapers calling for expressions of interest by way of application or nomination. We have sought input from a broad cross-section not only of the legal professional bodies but also of the community legal centres, the Legal Aid Commission, academia and the Australian Women Lawyers Association. I intend to appoint a selection panel made up of the Chief Magistrate, a retired judge and a representative of my department. That panel will assist in the selection of candidates according to criteria which have been published on the department’s website—criteria determined to achieve not only selection on the basis of merit but personalities who have empathy with litigants who appear before them. That panel will provide me with a short-list, and it is proposed that I would recommend a suitable candidate from that short-list for the consideration of government. I have outlined options in respect of the appointment of Federal Court and Family Court judges. I have invited input from the profession. I also have invited input from the broader public. Indeed, I would welcome input from members of the House.
It is an incremental step but an important step. We are not advocating a United States-type veto through the Senate or otherwise, but it is an important step to assure Australians that those people who will deliberate in respect of their rights or, if it be in force, obligations against them are chosen not by a narrow, select few but by an appropriately qualified panel. It is important that Australians have confidence that all judicial appointments are entirely on the basis of merit, not on personal associations or political affiliations. This is an important step in further developing the Rudd Labor government’s commitment to open government.
Brian Burke
685
Mr
685
15:11:00
Pyne, Chris, MP
9V5
Sturt
LP
0
Mr PYNE
—Speaking of open government, my question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his release of emails between him and Brian Burke on 17 February. Given his public admission that the meetings with Brian Burke were through the conduit of his former colleague Graham Edwards, will the Prime Minister release all emails or other correspondence between him and Graham Edwards that are relevant to the relationship with Brian Burke? Further, can he assure the House that he will release any emails or other correspondence between him or Graham Edwards and Julian Grill, Brian Burke’s business partner, concerning the arrangements he made for meetings and dinner with Brian Burke?
685
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
Prime Minister
1
Mr RUDD
—I thank the honourable member for his question. I am unaware of any emails between me and Graham Edwards on this matter. I will check. If there are, I am happy to top them out. I do not have anything further to add to my earlier remarks.
National Capital Authority
685
685
15:12:00
Sullivan, Jon, MP
HVS
Longman
ALP
1
Mr SULLIVAN
—Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. What is the latest information about reforms to the National Capital Authority?
685
Debus, Bob, MP
8IS
Macquarie
ALP
Minister for Home Affairs
1
Mr DEBUS
—I thank the honourable member for his question. The National Capital Authority was established, along with the government of the Australian Capital Territory, in 1989. It is a statutory body whose role is to promote awareness of Canberra as the nation’s capital and to look after the planning and management of the parliamentary triangle and other sites of national significance. It is an important role and it is one that the government supports. But there is a widely held view, in my short experience in this place—a view held by most Canberra taxi drivers—that, under the previous government, the NCA’s role became unclear. This was a deliberate strategy adopted by the Howard government because of its political differences with the ACT Labor government; in other words, the Howard government allowed the NCA’s role to expand beyond its original responsibilities, purposely thwarting the planning and administration roles of the democratically elected government of the ACT and inevitably causing tensions between those two bodies. It is time for that to end.
This is a new government that is not interested in the blame game, not here or elsewhere. We are interested in preventing duplication and waste and improving the performance of all agencies. That is why it is time to take a fresh look at the NCA’s role to see that it operates effectively, that it has its planning responsibilities clearly defined and, once and for all, to end the wrangling over Canberra’s designated areas.
The previous government was much more interested in picking a fight with the ACT than ensuring that the NCA operated usefully. It was happy to allow taxpayers’ money to be wasted—the Minister for Finance and Deregulation has sufficiently demonstrated his concern about that—for its own political purpose by allowing that unnecessary duplication and confusion to occur. That will not be happening under this government. We are interested in forward-thinking, sensible policy that will see governments and agencies working together to meet our commitments, one of which is to reform the NCA.
The National Capital Authority is subject to the scrutiny of a joint standing committee. When it last reported in 2004, it was very critical of the NCA for focusing on local events that did not meet the requirement to promote national awareness. The previous government ignored all of the standing committee’s recommendations, and that further compromised the work and reputation of the NCA. It is time again to have another look at that role, and that is one of the reasons that I have asked the joint committee to conduct an inquiry and report back by the middle of this year. The committee has been given five terms of reference. It will look into the administration of the National Capital Plan, the governance arrangements for the NCA, the level of oversight required to maintain the highest standards of design in the ACT, opportunities for greater cooperation with local planning authorities, and the promotion of the national capital and new infrastructure projects. The decision to conduct a new inquiry has received wide support. The Canberra Business Council said it was exactly what they had been seeking. The Property Council of Australia said that it supports any reforms that can get the NCA and the ACT government working together. Senator Gary Humphries, who is a member of the joint committee, has told ABC radio that it is a good chance to clear the air.
The government has directed many agencies across the whole area of government to achieve substantial savings, and this authority is no exception. Its budget of more than $20 million will be reduced by $1.6 million, and the NCA has the authority—indeed, it has the obligation—to come up with its own plan as to where those cuts will be made.
There have been many reports suggesting that this will mean the end of the Australia Day celebrations. However, the NCA does not own that event. The Australia Day concert belongs to the National Australia Day Council. It has merely had a partnership with the NCA for the last five years. I am assured by the Australia Day Council that it will seek sponsorship elsewhere, and it expects to be successful in that respect. The National Capital Authority has a significant and important role to play in the future, but under this government it will be a role that is properly defined.
Climate Change
687
687
15:18:00
Hunt, Gregory, MP
00AMV
Flinders
LP
0
Mr HUNT
—My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts and it concerns climate change. Can the minister give a guarantee that greenhouse gas emissions trading will not increase the price of petrol?
687
Garrett, Peter, MP
HV4
Kingsford Smith
ALP
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts
1
Mr GARRETT
—I thank the honourable member for his question. We are at an interesting phase in this question time, and I will tell the House why. The reason is that at last we have a question about climate change from an opposition that did nothing about it for 11 years.
Opposition members interjecting—
885
Turnbull, Malcolm, MP
Mr Turnbull
—Mr Speaker, on a point of order: the minister may be at an interesting stage but he is not at a relevant stage.
DK6
Hockey, Joe, MP
Mr Hockey
—Don’t give him the answers, Albo.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! I just make the observation that, if members on my left are worried about the minister being coached, the interruption was caused by one of theirs. I say to the member for Wentworth that I think that when he rose from his seat, very definitively on this occasion, the minister had been less than 17 seconds into his answer.
LL6
Baldwin, Robert, MP
Mr Baldwin
—It seemed like a lifetime.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—It may be for you, Member for Paterson.
HV4
Garrett, Peter, MP
Mr GARRETT
—The fact is that for 11 years the Howard government did not even acknowledge the existence of climate change. Now they are coming into the House to ask us questions about the economic impacts of actually doing something about it. That is the gesture that we are witnessing in the House today. I remember very well when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change first produced a set of data which suggested that there was the possibility that we may have an increase in temperatures on this planet of some four to six degrees and the question was put to the then Prime Minister, Mr Howard, as to what the impact of that would be on the people of Australia and our planet, and he said that it would be uncomfortable for some. Let me tell you, Mr Speaker, that it will be uncomfortable for some if they get up to the dispatch box and ask us questions about climate change, because their record is one that can be condemned with every answer that is given. Let me continue, Mr Speaker. Don’t wave your fingers at me, Joe.
Opposition members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The minister will resume his seat. The member for North Sydney will resume his seat. To try to shorten this process, I simply say to the minister that he has now had a good preamble—that is in time, because I am not allowed to reflect on the matter—but he will now return to the question.
HV4
Garrett, Peter, MP
Mr GARRETT
—The fact is that the Rudd government has in place a set of measures which will ensure the least cost delivery of greenhouse gas emissions trading through the appropriate utilisation of market mechanisms and sensible frameworks and regulations—something that those opposite were never able to bring forward to the Australian people. We saw last night that they did not have any idea about the impact of Work Choices. For 11 years they showed us they did not have any idea about the impact of climate change. The Rudd Labor government is fully committed to putting those measures in place—
DK6
Hockey, Joe, MP
Mr Hockey
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order which goes to relevance. This is ridiculous. It was a question about the policies of the government and the impact they will have on petrol prices. If he cannot answer it, he should sit down.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I again say to the member for North Sydney that he does not assist with his little addendas to his points of order. I appreciate that the minister has responsibility for the arts, but he should not give a critique on TV shows. He should return to his response to the question asked.
HV4
Garrett, Peter, MP
Mr GARRETT
—The Rudd Labor government has brought forward a set of complementary measures which ensure that we have a least cost impost on the Australian economy as we go about the fact of reducing greenhouse gas emissions over time. It was the Rudd Labor government that set a target—something that the opposition was allergic to. It was the Rudd Labor government that ratified Kyoto—something that the opposition was allergic to. It is the Rudd Labor government that has put in place a sensible process of understanding research and commissioning advice to best inform this government as to the best way to ensure that we have both a sustainable economy and a sustainable environment—something that the opposition was never capable of doing.
00AMV
Hunt, Gregory, MP
Mr Hunt
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order which goes to relevance. The question was very simple; it related to the cost of petrol under the policies to be introduced.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The minister has concluded his answer.
Opposition members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The members on my left have given the member for Leichhardt his free kick for the day. As long as the media spell his name right, he is probably happy. I call the member for Leichhardt.
Australian Defence Force: Indigenous Participation
688
688
15:24:00
Turnour, Jim, MP
HVV
Leichhardt
ALP
1
Mr TURNOUR
—My question is to the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel. Would the minister update the House on Indigenous participation in the Australian Defence Force? What potential exists to strengthen this participation?
688
Snowdon, Warren, MP
IJ4
Lingiari
ALP
Minister for Defence Science and Personnel
1
Mr SNOWDON
—I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question. He will be interested in this answer, and I am sure all members of the House will be. Yesterday we heard from the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs about the bombing of Darwin festivities today, commemorating that fateful event in 1942. A month after that event was the strafing of Broome. As a result of the strafing of Broome, the North Australia Observation Unit was formed, later called the ‘Nackeroos’ or, euphemistically, ‘Curtin’s Cowboys’. It was pulled together by a subsequently very famous Australian, Major Bill Stanner. This unit consisted of 550 personnel, based out of Katherine, in the Northern Territory, and was charged with patrolling northern Australia to try to discover if there were any enemies on Australian soil. It was disbanded three years later, in March of 1945.
Its equivalent today is the Regional Force Surveillance Units, or RFSUs, one of which exists in the member for Leichhardt’s electorate. That is the 51st Battalion, the Far North Queensland Regiment. Forty-seven per cent of its members are Indigenous Australians. Another unit is in NORFORCE, based out of Darwin. Forty-eight per cent of its members are Indigenous Australians. The other is in the member for Kalgoorlie’s electorate, at Karratha, in the Pilbara Regiment, where only four per cent are Indigenous Australians.
What we need to comprehend here is that Indigenous people make up 2.4 per cent of the Australian population. They make up 1.4 per cent of the Australian workforce. But across the Department of Defence and the Australian Defence Force they are only 0.6 per cent. There is much that needs to be done. One of the biggest challenges currently facing the Australian Defence Force is a shortage of the right people, the right skills. We know this. The now Leader of the Opposition understood this in his former role as Minister for Defence. We need to make the most of Australia’s human resources, and this includes Indigenous Australians. Attracting Indigenous people into the Defence Force is a huge challenge, but it offers huge potential.
There are many reasons why Indigenous Australians are not attracted to the Defence Force or are not adequately represented. Some of those reasons go to the issues which we confronted last week on those momentous days, Tuesday and Wednesday. They involve lifestyle, health, homelessness, lack of education, poor skills, cultural issues, isolation—things that we as a nation need to address. But there are many reasons why we should have Indigenous people in the Australian Defence Force. They have an incredible amount to offer.
I am someone who has been able to observe this over many years. I have observed their role in NORFORCE in particular. I have had the opportunity to go on patrols with the squadron out of Darwin. They have done great work over the last 12 months on Operation Outreach, supporting the government’s intervention in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory and providing logistical support, primarily for the health teams. They have done great service over a number of years by protecting Australia’s borders, doing those surveillance tasks which have been very important to Operation Resolute.
There is a lot more that can be done, but we need to appreciate that on the other side of the coin there are many advantages to Indigenous Australians being part of the Australian Defence Force, because the ADF can provide many things. It provides a capacity for not only new educational opportunities, new training opportunities and new skills but income support and personal and community pride. We have proven that it can be done. This success needs to be reflected across the ADF. There are lessons that can be shared. In fact, I note that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence, the member for Eden-Monaro, has responsibility for the ADF Parlia-mentary Program. One of the activities in the parliamentary exchange this year is an opportunity to spend four days patrolling with the Centre Squadron from NORFORCE, and I commend that opportunity to members of the chamber.
Currently, we are finalising within Defence an Indigenous recruitment strategy, which is part of a larger Aboriginal recruitment training, employment and retention effort within the department. We have to learn from the mistakes as well as the successes of the past. What we need to acknowledge is that the one-size-fits-all approach will not work and has not worked. If we need additional programs or initiatives such as mentoring, networking, cadetships and traineeships then sobeit—it will be done. We must do all that we can to enhance the capability of the ADF, including by increasing Indigenous participation. After all, it is in the national interest.
Environment: Sewage
690
690
15:30:00
Hunt, Gregory, MP
00AMV
Flinders
LP
0
Mr HUNT
—My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. I refer to the 1,800 gigalitres of partially treated sewage which state Labor governments either dump or authorise for discharge off our coasts every year. Does the minister stand by his view of 9 November 2005 that this practice is unacceptable? If not, what does he now regard as the acceptable standard for discharge: class C, class A or reverse osmosis?
690
Garrett, Peter, MP
HV4
Kingsford Smith
ALP
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts
1
Mr GARRETT
—I do not regard levels of discharge of sewage which are over the regulatory levels as acceptable, and I think no-one in this House would. If the member is asking me to form an opinion as to which of the options that he has identified is more acceptable than the other, I am happy to come back to him with an answer when I have considered it more fully.
Quarantine
690
690
15:31:00
Cheeseman, Darren, MP
HW7
Corangamite
ALP
1
Mr CHEESEMAN
—My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. In light of the recent failures in Australia’s quarantine and biosecurity arrangements, would the minister provide further information to the House on the Australian government’s commitment to undertake a comprehensive, independent review of Australia’s quarantine and biosecurity arrangements?
690
Burke, Tony, MP
DYW
Watson
ALP
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
1
Mr BURKE
—I thank the member for Corangamite for his question. Throughout Australia there has always been a high concern to make sure that our quarantine and biosecurity services were up to scratch. If ever this concern came to the front of public consciousness, it was during the equine influenza outbreak towards the end of last year. At that point, the then government initiated the Callinan inquiry, which looked only into the specifics of the outbreak of equine influenza. As the opposition at the time, we made a commitment that there would be a full and broad-ranging review into all aspects of Australia’s biosecurity and quarantine systems. The last time a review of that nature occurred was in 1995—the Nairn review—under the previous Labor government.
We are in a world of increased international movements and, in so many ways, the world itself is getting smaller, which has particular challenges for our biosecurity system. In an age of climate change, we also have the problem of the migration of pests and weeds and the further biosecurity problems that come with that. We need to maintain our biodiversity, protect public health and ensure our primary industries are not further burdened by pests and diseases, whether it be outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom, avian influenza throughout many parts of the world or new diseases such as SARS. We also have to be mindful of having a review that takes into account the significant body of case law which now exists within the WTO.
Earlier today I announced the commencement of that review. The review will consider the appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of our quarantine and biosecurity arrangements. I also announced that this review would evaluate Australia’s current arrangements to achieve its appropriate level of protection consistent with our international obligations; look at the adequacy of the consultation and review processes currently in place; and consider other important quarantine reviews, including the implementation of the Nairn review. This inquiry will be headed up by Mr Roger Beale AO. Mr Beale has held very senior roles in both public and private sectors and is a former Secretary of the Department of Environment and Heritage. He will be assisted in that task by Mr Andrew Inglis AM, Mr David Trebeck and Dr Jeffory Fairbrother AM. Mr Andrew Inglis AM was also a member of the Nairn review of quarantine. I spoke today with Mr Roger Beale AO, and he made it clear that he wanted to ensure that there was a maximum level of community consultation. There will be a full-ranging opportunity for the community to participate in this process.
I cannot begin to say how important it is to make sure that we get our systems in place so that we can make available the maximum level of protection through our quarantine and biosecurity processes. I look forward to this report coming back to me in the second half of the year so that it can inform the budget process of the following year.
83T
Rudd, Kevin, MP
Mr Rudd
—Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
QUESTION TIME
691
Miscellaneous
691
15:35:00
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
0
The SPEAKER
—Order! The Chief Government Whip raised a point of order about his ability to hear proceedings, and comments have also been made by others about this. I wish to indicate two things. I have emphasised the first, which is that there is generally too much noise in the chamber both to my left and to my right. The second is that, after observing proceedings since that time, I realised that it is difficult to hear people at the dispatch box when they are not speaking directly into the microphone. Whilst I emphasise both in the asking of questions and in their answering that remarks be relayed through the chair, as the standing orders require, it would assist the chair, given the directional nature of the microphones, if remarks were made to the microphone. I do not wish to pick on the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel but he best illustrated this when he drifted around and away from speaking into the microphone. Even with his voice it was a little hard to hear him when he was not speaking into the microphone.
QUESTIONS TO THE SPEAKER
691
Questions to the Speaker
Question Time
691
691
15:37:00
Pyne, Chris, MP
9V5
Sturt
LP
0
Mr PYNE
—Mr Speaker, I have a question to you. On 14 February the Prime Minister stated in the House that the Howard government averaged 63 question times. In fact, that is the figure for all years of the Howard government. A more accurate comparison—
R36
Albanese, Anthony, MP
Mr Albanese
—Mr Speaker—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The Leader of the House will resume his seat.
9V5
Pyne, Chris, MP
Mr PYNE
—It is a question to the Speaker. A more accurate comparison with the 67 question times scheduled for 2008, a non-election year, is the comparison with non-election years in the Howard government, when the average was 70. Will you request that the Prime Minister return to the House to correct the record with the more accurate figure?
691
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
The SPEAKER
—I think that a matter like that is in the hands of the House.
Question Time
691
691
15:37:00
Broadbent, Russell, MP
MT4
McMillan
LP
0
Mr BROADBENT
—I have a question to you, Mr Speaker. Referring to the last answer given by the Minister for Fisheries and Forestry, I do not know whether you are expecting this side of the House to call a point of order when there is clearly a ministerial statement being given as an answer to a question. The power—
691
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
The SPEAKER
—The member for McMillan will resume his seat. Any things that people think are matters that they want to question about proceedings of question time should be raised at the time. I would prefer that they are raised at the time by way of point of order. It is not my intention to enter into a question and answer session after question time which is a review of matters that happened in question time.
Question Time
692
692
15:38:00
Bevis, Arch, MP
ET4
Brisbane
ALP
1
Mr BEVIS
—Mr Speaker, during question time today the opposition raised I think 19 points of order, including in answers that were less than 20 seconds into the answer. Notwithstanding the provisions of standing order 86, I would ask whether or not you would consider, as previous Speakers have, reviewing the use of standing orders and points of order to disrupt the business of the House, which has in the past been viewed as disorderly and is in contravention of standing order 91—
692
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
The SPEAKER
—The honourable member for Brisbane will resume his seat. The answer is the same as to the member for McMillan. I will not be entering into a question and answer session about proceedings of question time. If people are aggrieved about my actions in the chair, they should raise them at the time. If they think that the points of order are disorderly, I would ask that that be raised at the time. I am not making general comments about the proceedings of the parliament. At this point in time the Speaker may be asked questions about those matters under his or her administration.
ET4
Bevis, Arch, MP
Mr Bevis
—Mr Speaker—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Brisbane, if he has a further comment, will not make it by way of interjection. I am saying to the House quite clearly that I will not be in the practice of reviewing every question time for the purposes of replaying things that have happened. If members feel aggrieved about things that are occurring in question time, they should act at the time.
ET4
Bevis, Arch, MP
Mr Bevis
—On that point of order, Mr Speaker, I was not asking you to reflect in the past on what happened today and make some decision about today. I was referring to the events of today and asking whether, as other Speakers have, you would consider the use of points of order as disruptive, as provided for in the standing orders—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I do not wish to encourage interjections. The problem that has occurred when we have entered into these discussions is that it leads people to believe that the person raising the question is reflecting on the chair. I do not think that that is the case. The point that I would make is that I do not think that there is any advantage by people asking for advisory rulings. The Chief Government Whip by his body language can just be a bit careful, because I am trying to set the scene. He interjected at one stage about points of order and their disruptive nature, and I tend to agree with that. But that might be best raised at the time and not by way of advisory rulings. That is all I am simply saying.
DOCUMENTS
692
Documents
Mr ALBANESE
(Grayndler
—Leader of the House)
15:42:00
—Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
692
Ministerial Statements
Afghanistan
692
692
15:42:00
Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
8K6
Hunter
ALP
Minister for Defence
1
0
Mr FITZGIBBON
—by leave—The war in Afghanistan is at a crossroads and the time for making difficult decisions is upon us. For the global community the stakes are high. For the Afghan people, they are even higher.
When we gather in Bucharest in April, the partners to the Afghanistan project need to embrace a new strategy to win. To win not just the military battle, but the battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Broadly, there are five keys to winning the military campaign.
The first is reaching agreed and common campaign objectives. The second is securing a coherent campaign plan. The third is clarifying chains of command and lines of responsibility. The fourth is securing new NATO troop commitments. The fifth is growing the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police Force to the critical mass and skill level they need to hold our military gains and to enforce the rule of law in their war-torn country.
Winning the hearts and minds of the local population will require the partners to do more on the non-military side. First, we must do more to build an economy free of narcotics. Second, we must do more to provide guidance and assistance on governance issues. And, third, we must focus more acutely on the establishment of a justice system not so vulnerable to corruption and manipulation.
In short, it is about giving the Afghan people hope, hope that a democratic Afghanistan can deliver for them a decent society and a decent standard of living.
It is appropriate to acknowledge that, on both the military and non-military fronts, significant gains have been made. We have enjoyed some success in targeting the insurgent leadership and we have disrupted their coordination and lines of command.
Six million Afghan children are now receiving an education and 80 per cent of the population now has access to basic health care. But so much more needs to be done.
Today I am able to inform the House, the Australian community and the wider global community that the new Australian government has taken a number of decisions which will demonstrate we are willing to back our criticisms of the Afghanistan mission with real and meaningful action.
The government has decided to adjust Australia’s defence contribution in Afghanistan. While maintaining our engineering and security effort, we intend to increase our focus on training.
This means the Australian government has decided to maintain our current level of military commitment to Afghanistan, but to increase the focus on training and mentoring of the Afghanistan national army.
We are making these changes with an eye on the longer term future of the country, noting that the government of Afghanistan needs to be able to develop the security forces which will provide the security for their own citizens into the future.
The adjustments to Australia’s military commitment will be focused on enhancing the capabilities of the Afghan national army while retaining our reconstruction and combat effort in Oruzgan.
Based on both our reviews and consultation with our partners, the new government believes the time is right for Australia to evolve the role of its forces so that the additional task of training the Afghan army can be embraced and adopted.
This will be achieved by providing an Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team which will be responsible for the training of an Afghan national army battalion which will shortly commence operations in Oruzgan province.
The introduction of this training team will be an important step in assisting the development of the Afghan security forces. As part of the broader effort of our Dutch partners, the Australian training team will commence operations later this year. The core of the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team will be highly skilled officers and senior non-commissioned officers with experience in infantry operations. The team will also include integral force protection troops and assets.
The training team will be embedded with an Oruzgan based Afghan national army battalion—commonly known there as a Kandak—which normally consists of around 600 soldiers. The Australian Defence Force personnel will mentor and advise key commanders within the Kandak during both training and operations. The mentoring and training team will assist the Kandak Headquarters in military operational necessities such as logistics and personnel management, force protection planning and coordinating combined operations.
The commitment of the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team will help rebuild the security institutions of the Afghan government, particularly in the Oruzgan province.
The training team will develop the skills of the Afghan security forces to enable them to do the job that is currently being undertaken by coalition forces. The need for this shift in focus is well recognised by the international community.
ISAF’s operational mentoring and liaison teams have been operating successfully with the Afghan army throughout the various provinces in Afghanistan. Given this success, the international community is increasingly moving towards providing greater training to the Afghan national security forces through these teams.
While this adjustment to our military commitment will not result in an increase in the number of troops that we have deployed in Afghanistan, Australia will maintain all of its current force elements including the Reconstruction Task Force, the Special Operations Task Group, the Rotary Wing Group and the Control and Reporting Centre.
The Reconstruction Task Force will continue to make its important contribution to the reconstruction and security of Oruzgan province. It will retain a construction and security capability as well as continuing to manage the trade training school and provide project management experience to assist the people of Oruzgan in rebuilding their province.
The Special Operations Task Group will also continue its work in providing security for the province by taking the fight directly to the insurgents. This work creates a more secure environment for the international community and the Afghan government to deliver development assistance in the Dutch and Australian supported province of Oruzgan. Further, the Rotary Wing Group and the Control and Reporting Centre, based in Kandahar, will continue to provide vital air transport and battle airspace management for the international community’s efforts in southern Afghanistan.
In addition to the initiatives that I have announced today, the government will soon announce an enhancement of its efforts on the non-military side of the equation.
The government remains firmly committed to international efforts to stabilise and rebuild Afghanistan. As I noted earlier, a strong, highly trained and competent Afghan national army will be critical for the future security of the country.
Australia’s continued military commitment to Afghanistan and its ongoing participation in the International Security Assistance Force mission reflects the critical role a stable Afghanistan plays in regional and international security. Australia has a direct interest in working with our international partners and the Afghan government to ensure that the country does not again become a base for terrorist activity. Australia remains committed to working with the government of Afghanistan to improve governance and security and to develop its capacity to deliver improved services to its citizens.
I look forward to working with our ISAF partners in Bucharest and beyond to deliver a safe, secure and stable Afghanistan.
Mr BRENDAN O’CONNOR
(Gorton)
—Minister for Employment Participation)
15:51:00
—by leave—I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Baldwin speaking for a period not exceeding 8 ½ minutes.
Question agreed to.
695
15:51:00
Baldwin, Robert, MP
LL6
Paterson
LP
0
0
Mr BALDWIN
—Let me state for the record that the coalition, whether in government or in opposition, will never withhold or withdraw support for our troops, particularly when they are serving overseas. In receiving this statement today, the coalition supports the statement in principle. Our work in Operation Slipper commenced some 6½ years ago. The International Security Assistance Force, led by Major General Mark Evans and supported by Brigadier Stuart Smith, has done an outstanding job. Whether it is through the National Command Element, the liaison offices, Reconstruction Task Force 3, the Special Operations Task Group, the Air Force control and reporting centres, the force level logistic assets or, indeed, other support elements, the Australian military has a great presence and has made a great contribution. Indeed, in this House last week we moved condolence motions for Special Forces Sergeant Matthew Locke, Trooper David Pearce and Special Forces Commando Luke Worsley, who gave their lives in defending the freedoms and democracies that Australia stepped up to the plate for after 9-11 to make sure that there was a democratic, free Afghanistan, which was free of terrorist elements that rain down not only on that country but indeed across the world. We stood up to the plate at that time, I am proud to say, and the Labor opposition supported that.
Some of the work that has been achieved over there includes the training of 130 Afghanis who are being trained by our people in the reconstruction task force in the trade training schools. One hundred and thirty-five members of the Afghan National Army have been trained by the reconstruction task force. Some of their work has included the redevelopment of Tarin Kowt provincial hospital, the renovation of Tarin Kowt high school and major causeway constructions over the Garmab Mandah River. The ANP checkpoints on the eastern and western edges of Tarin Kowt have now been completed. The Yaklengah health centre has been renovated. The Talani school has been refurbished. Training has been implemented—that is, put in place and commenced—at the Afghan health and development services. Twenty wells throughout Tarin Kowt have been established to provide clean drinking water for people. This is the fine work of the Australian military in areas such as Afghanistan.
The issue that we have in relation to this statement is that, to date, the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow minister for defence, I and our shadow parliamentary secretary, the member for Herbert, have not actually been briefed on the processes of this ministerial statement and what it means. We support the idea of increasing training, but there are some questions that we have to ask which would normally be asked during a private briefing, such as questions concerning the allocation of special protection forces for our trainers. We do not intend to be political in relation to this statement; we intend to be supportive of our men and women who serve overseas.
Much has been said by the minister in relation to the information provided by NATO. I am informed by previous ministers for defence and for foreign affairs that we have always had access to and been included in NATO information. I can only assume that, with this restructuring of the force, the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister must have had information provided to them that showed the necessity of developing this battalion of Afghanis to provide greater security and protection in their growth and development as a country providing their own security. The minister has mentioned the need to stamp out the narcotics trade. This is very important. The effects on the local people there and, indeed, across the globe are quite dramatic. The human rights injustices created by the Taliban and the terrorists that have been active in that area have been beyond a dimension that we could ever understand. Without prolonging this, we support this ministerial statement in principle as we have always supported our fine men and women who serve in the Australian military.
MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
696
Matters of Public Importance
Climate Change
696
10000
Burke, Anna (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Ms AE Burke)—I have received a letter from the honourable member for Flinders proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The failure of the Government to implement effective climate and water programs
I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
696
15:56:00
Hunt, Gregory, MP
00AMV
Flinders
LP
0
0
Mr HUNT
—Climate change is real. It is important. It is significant. But it takes substance, not symbols, in order to manage it. It takes substance, not symbols, in order to manage the water requirements as well as the climate change requirements that this country will face over the coming decade, over the coming 20 years and over the coming 30 years. The case that we want to present today is a simple one: the early signs from this government are not of competent management of climate and water but of incompetent and ineffective management of those programs necessary to make a real and sustainable difference to the way in which Australia deals with both the climate challenge and with our water supplies. I want to make this case, along with my colleagues the member for Calare and the member for Murray, in three stages: the domestic climate change policies, the international climate change policies and the rural water policies.
Underpinning all of this is the concept of competence. Let me start in relation to the issue of competence with a recent decision of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. The minister was called upon under the EPBC to decide whether or not to allow dredging of Port Phillip Bay. He had to make whatever decision he had to make, and that included a decision regarding the two million tonnes of toxic sediment containing zinc, cadmium, lead, arsenic and up to 270 trace elements, which will now be dumped into the middle of Port Phillip Bay. But there was a slight issue. In making his decision for Port Phillip Bay, his reasons referred to Western Port Bay. This is a minister who made one of the biggest environmental decisions in Australian history for the wrong bay. I just want to repeat that: he made it for the wrong bay! Did he know the right bay? No. Did he consult with the community? No. Is he competent? No.
That is the base of and the way in which we are looking at this sort of issue. What we see is a dangerous practice of incompetence and ineffective programs. Let me turn to the first of these areas, which is the notion of domestic failure in terms of the climate change programs which they are seeking to bring forward. We put forward a very interesting proposal called the Green Vouchers for Schools program. What we see today with that Green Vouchers for Schools program is, in a word, chaos under the new government. First, it was axed. Second, it was placed on hold. Third—and I note this from the website in the last couple of days—our program, which was initially axed and then placed on hold, has suddenly and mysteriously been reinstated. Why is that?
We see that the new program which the government put in place to supersede it is late. The website says 1 July, maybe. It is inflexible. There were originally no projects over $30,000; whereas we had a $50,000 limit. I noticed, again on the website today, that it appears—but we do not know—that they have changed their cap to agree with ours to give schools precisely the flexibility which we had given them, but they have done this without even the slightest acknowledgement of the mistake which they made, the way in which we warned them of it and the change that they have made in response to the very problem we identified in the Age on 2 January this year.
More than this, schools seeking to decrease greenhouse gas emissions today are trapped. That is because, at this point in time, the very program which the government said would succeed is not in place. The current program, which they axed, then put on hold and reinstated, is in the minister’s own website accompanied by the words ‘you may wish to reconsider’. Their program promised 27,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas savings a year. At present, how many are we receiving from the work that they have done? None. Zero. Nothing. Not one tonne, precisely because they have put on hold and failed to administer a simple program which was effective, which was wanted, which was appreciated and which they will now spend a significant amount just rebranding. I would be fascinated if the minister could provide the figures to the House of what the cost of that rebranding exercise will be.
So we see, firstly, that this greenhouse gas program, Green Vouchers for Schools, has been axed, put on hold and now reinstated, but the government are discouraging schools from taking it up whilst providing no way forward. On the other front, the Community Water Grants program, from which members on all sides will have seen tremendous results in their electorates, is on ice, on hold, with no date for a new round of Community Water Grants, no date by which community groups, schools, councils or those wishing to avail themselves of the opportunity to save water, to improve riverbanks, to improve watercourses or to work on pollution can do so. All around Australia, community groups are throwing up their hands. We have had the query: when will this happen? Unfortunately, we have to refer the questions to the office of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts or the Minister for Climate Change and Water, and to date there is no news and no sign, just a pattern of maladministration. We have a pattern of maladministration which does not befit officeholders under the Crown.
I turn, secondly, to the biggest area of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia: the question of emissions from power stations. We see a fascinating thing. We set out prior to the last election the need for a clean energy target. The reason we set out a clean energy target is that we believe that we have to go beyond renewables only. Renewables are important, but, unless you have incentives for cleaning up the 75 per cent of coal and gas electricity which is part and parcel of Australia’s makeup, you will never deal effectively with the great challenge of greenhouse in this world. We will see in India and China 800 new one-gigawatt coal fired power stations over the coming five years. Yet we see that they have turned their backs on the need for clean energy which cleans up the power stations.
Do not take my word. Who has put out a report on this? In December last year, after the election, the CFMEU put out a report called Carbon capture and storage: making it happen. What was its conclusion? Its conclusion, at page 15, was fundamental. The CFMEU—great friends of the coalition—said exactly what we have been saying: if you want to make a difference to greenhouse gases in Australia, you have to provide an incentive for adoption of clean coal technology and, if you want to do that, you have to have a clean energy target.
The government have turned their backs on cleaning up the coal and gas fired power stations of Australia. There is no adoption incentive. They will use this idea of technology development, but I can tell you, Minister, that, for as long as we are here, unless you provide an adoption incentive it will not happen. That is the simple answer. My prediction before this House today is that by the end of this term the government will have buckled and agreed with us on the need for a clean energy target. I go so far as to put on the record my prediction that by May 2009, in the budget that comes down then, there will be the adoption of some form of clean energy target so as to encourage clean coal and gas and the cleaning up of our power stations. You can have two choices here: either you clean up the power stations or you do not clean up the power stations.
Our approach is very simple. We are source blind. Everything needs to be cleaned up. But, because of an ideological disposition that the government took to the electorate, they have turned their back on the single biggest challenge facing the world and the single biggest challenge facing Australia in terms of clean emissions and clean energy, and that is cleaning up the power stations, both coal and gas, as well as generating new, clean, renewables. Solar, wind, hydro and geothermal—we support all of those, but unless you have a clean energy target you will never solve the great global challenge.
This brings me onto another issue—that is, the question of international policy. We see here a pattern of silence. Yes, the government will point out one of the symbolic gestures that they have made, and good luck to them, but much more important is this: we see a silence about those countries of the world which, unlike Australia, are not meeting their targets. Of all the developed countries, Australia is one of the few countries to be meeting its international targets, and that is because we put $3.4 billion down into effective greenhouse gas reduction programs over the last decade. The problem is real. The solutions were real. The effect was real. But what we see overseas and from this government, which is hurting our capacity to have an impact internationally, is silence about those countries that are failing to meet their obligations.
Canada is plus 22 per cent on its international greenhouse targets, but have we heard anything from the government about that? No. France is plus nine per cent on its international targets, but have we heard anything from the government about that failure? No. Japan is plus 12 per cent on its international targets. Have we heard anything about that failure? No. Norway is plus 22 per cent on its international targets, but have we heard anything about that failure? No. Spain, for example, is 36 per cent over and above its international commitments, but have we heard anything? No. The government’s pattern is very simple: apologise for Australia being one of the very few countries in the world which is actually meeting its targets and say nothing about those countries which are actually breaching that which they have pledged.
It is very important that we set down $3.4 billion worth of funds to produce real emissions savings. We have achieved real emissions savings of about 87 million tonnes a year. That is real. That is practical. One thing that we know about the atmosphere is the tonnes of CO and parts per million of CO or equivalent gases that are in the air. Yet we see a failure to speak up internationally about the real challenge and the failure of other countries to meet their obligations. It is fine to criticise Australia for not pledging to do what we already did in any event. But will you say something about those countries which I have outlined and the many others that have failed to do that which they have agreed internationally?
The second great failure internationally—and this is important—is a silence on the destruction of the rainforests of the world. The former Minister for Foreign Affairs and the former Minister for the Environment and Water Resources set out a very important initiative: the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate. There was a reason for that. That was because of a perverse incentive under the international regime: rainforests are being cleared for palm oil. This is the very regime which needs to be rectified in order to overcome that. As a result, what the previous government did was to lay down $200 million for a Global Initiative on Forests and Climate. Twenty per cent of the world’s greenhouse emissions come from rainforest destruction, and it is the single area which over the next five years can be most quickly turned around and most quickly addressed. Yet we see—in part I think because it was one of the great issues which we championed—a silence on this issue of immediate international action. There is a great opportunity—at the lowest cost and with the highest ecological benefit—for action today. They went to Bali and they said virtually nothing about protecting the great rainforests. They said nothing about our proposal for a global rainforest recovery plan. If you want to have an impact, as the McKinsey report showed only on Friday of last week, you turn to what you can do to capture carbon through natural systems and to prevent its release into the atmosphere.
All of these things—what schools can do as consumers, what power stations can do in order to reduce emissions and what we can do through the natural environment—are fundamental to this question of how we implement real, effective and important greenhouse plans. It is real, it is significant and it is fundamental. But if you engage in symbols alone and if you fail to administer your portfolio properly then what we see is a failure of government to do the real work.
Who on that side of the House will justify the closure of the Green Vouchers for Schools program? Is that acceptable? Are there people over there who have received complaints from schools that they could not access this program whilst it was put on ice and the alternative program to succeed it was put off into the never-never? Ultimately the position is very clear. We are concerned and we raise this as a matter of public importance because the issue is important and what we see is a failure to properly administer the charge of government and a failure to deliver effective programs. We see it in the declaration of the wrong bay, for one of the most important environmental decisions that the government will face. We see it in the failure to administer the green schools program. We see it in the failure to develop a proper alternative for a pathway to clean coal and clean gas. And we see it in the silence about what is necessary at the international level if we are to achieve real, sustainable and important emissions reductions over the coming 10, 20 and 30 years further on. (Time expired)
700
16:11:00
Garrett, Peter, MP
HV4
Kingsford Smith
ALP
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts
1
0
Mr GARRETT
—I thank the member for bringing this matter into the House so that we can debate it. The member has an interesting challenge. He somehow has to white out 11 years of inaction, denial and obfuscation by the previous Howard government, which failed to take climate change seriously. So what he is really doing in the House is repositioning himself. He is showing, as the opposition spokesman on these matters, that he is aware of the seriousness of those issues. I do commend that, because members opposite—including this member—had to labour for years and years under the burden of a government for which it was only symbols. The member comes in here and accuses this party of being a party preferring symbols over substance. And yet they were led by a leader who for 11 years refused on a symbolic basis not to ratify the Kyoto protocol.
Opposition members interjecting—
HV4
Garrett, Peter, MP
Mr GARRETT
—Well, that is what it was all about. That is what the debate was about when we were in the House. The Prime Minister did not want to talk about Kyoto even though it was his view—and it was the view of the government at the time—that they were putting in place matters of substance. If ever there was an example of symbolism over substance it was the position that you held on not ratifying the Kyoto protocol. It is now in the history books. It is a matter of record in this House. And you have tried to distance yourself from it in this MPI—perhaps not satisfactorily.
Let us look at the agenda that the Rudd Labor government has brought forward and let us determine whether it is an agenda of substance or not. But before we do that let us just raise answers to a couple of questions that the member brought into the House. The member for Flinders says that the reasons named in the statement for Port Phillip Bay were inaccurate. In fact, that is not the case at all. In fact, the reasons named in the statement have been subject to a court challenge. The court has found that the statements had validity. Additionally, I will remind the member, if he wants to raise the issue of Port Phillip Bay, that it was the position, as I understood it, of the opposition to support the Victorian approvals process and the independent experts group that was in the process of endorsing that. Now, if that is not your position any longer, bring it back in to us.
The member for Flinders came into the House to talk about green vouchers. I am really glad that the member came in to talk about green vouchers because I can assure the members and public listening that this government takes very seriously both the commitment it has made in respect of the National Solar Schools Program and, particularly, the investment of an extra $153 million to allow schools to choose the most effective way to meet their energy and water requirements. At the beginning of this month I put in place transition arrangements for the government’s $489 million Solar Schools Program. From 1 July this year, every school in Australia will be eligible to apply for grants of up to $50,000 to install two-kilowatt solar panels, a range of energy efficient measures, lighting upgrades, skylights and shade awnings, in addition to rainwater tanks and solar hot water systems. That commitment by the Rudd Labor government will enable schools to choose a flexible mix of measures that they determine in their circumstances are appropriate for them to meet the greenhouse challenge.
That was the problem with the former government’s plan. The former government’s policy was an interesting one. Unfortunately, you could only have solar hot water systems in one aspect of it and water tanks in another. Under the Rudd Labor government’s plan, you will actually have the flexibility to determine the kinds of measures you want to put in place in your schools. If members opposite are wondering why it is that we have not seen a rush of schools taking up the green vouchers—which they are still entitled to do at this point in time—it is because schools are smart enough to realise that the policy that we offered is superior to the one they brought to the last election.
The member for Flinders spoke about the clean energy target. I remind the House that, under the Howard government, Australia not only did not have a position to take to the international community in terms of ratifying the Kyoto protocol but did not have a mandatory renewable energy target at all. In fact, I remember asking a question in the House—I think it might have been the first question that I put to the then Minister for the Environment and Heritage, who is now the shadow Treasurer. The question was a simple one: will the government support a mandatory renewable energy target? The answer was never given. The fact of the matter is that, by having a mandatory renewable energy target, we will enable Australian industries and Australian communities to have a specific target that they can head towards to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Other countries have them. The member for Flinders asks why we are not talking about greenhouse gas emissions in other countries. Why aren’t they talking about mandatory renewable energy targets in other countries? Because they have them. Why shouldn’t Australia have one? The reason Australia did not have one was the same reason we did not ratify the Kyoto protocol. It was the same reason we, as a nation, did not set a target for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. One of the most basic and necessary tasks of any government is to set a target. It is a task those on the other side, led by Prime Minister Howard, failed to do.
Why was that? The answer is a very simple one. The Liberal Party did not have a conviction that a national government should take resolute action on climate change. They did not have a conviction that we in this parliament should bring forward policies to deal with addressing dangerous climate change. That is what a mandatory renewable energy target is. It is not symbolic. It is a policy of substance. Setting a target of a 60 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050 on 2000 levels is a policy. Professor Ross Garnaut was commissioned to consider least-cost paths and matters determined by the state premiers and the Leader of the Opposition at the time—because the government had never done it—and to better inform governments as to how to reduce emissions in a low-cost way to ensure that we have a sustainable economy. Those on the other side of the House, when they were in government, never did it.
In fact, the Liberal Party and the Howard government were so disinterested in addressing climate change seriously that when the states finally got together to determine what a national emissions trading scheme would look like—it was called the National Emissions Trading Taskforce—the Commonwealth did not participate. When the Commonwealth realised very late in the day that climate change was an issue that counted to Australians and that they wanted to do something about it, it was far too late. Notwithstanding the efforts of the former minister for the environment, who went into the cabinet and suggested at the eleventh hour, ‘Wait a minute, maybe we should ratify Kyoto,’ it was too late. It was all over red rover. The symbolism of hanging on to an unwillingness to ratify Kyoto was stronger for the former government than any positive sign they could show the world community that this country knew how to take climate change seriously.
The member for Flinders came in here and said, ‘We don’t hear you speaking internationally.’ He must be joking. He was in Bali when the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, and I went to Bali. Australia was given a standing ovation in the halls at Bali as a consequence of our ratification. It was not that the world was not listening. The world could not believe that for 11 years Australia had been led by a government that was not willing to ratify the Kyoto protocol. It is as simple as that. To say that we are not speaking in international fora is to deny the absolute facts. We have ratified the protocol. It was the first step of the Rudd Labor government. It was a proud step, which was supported by the majority of Australians and countries right around the world.
I was asked by the member for Flinders about rainforests and what we are saying and doing about it. I want to take the comments that the member made and say that I think rainforests are an important issue. There is no question about it. In the policy repertoire of the former government, rainforests were all they had. Rainforests were in effect their fig leaf—if you will excuse a rather lame analogy. Unwilling to ratify the Kyoto protocol, unwilling to allow businesses access to the market that was generated by the protocol and the clean development mechanism, they trumpeted and talked about rainforests. Rainforests are important, particularly the impact that clearing rainforests for palm oil production will have both on the biodiversity of rainforests and on the greenhouse gas emissions that the planet has got to bear. It is an important issue. It is one that we will look at and consider seriously. We take the environment very seriously. We take climate change very seriously. That is why we have a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That is why we have a commitment to adapt to the impacts of climate change that we cannot avoid. That is why we have a commitment to work in international fora. The Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, will be going to meetings of the parties, will be going into international fora, to take a position that the Australian government is consistently putting about the need to act nationally.
In the past, in this House—and I think this will shock some new members on this side—members opposite participating in debates on climate change have denied its scientific validity. We had debates in the House from members opposite where they said there was no connection between climate change and drought. They expressed great concern for the farmers of this country and the serious impact that the current drought was having—and we have a genuine concern and awareness of the impact that the drought can have—but who was going to get up here and argue on the basis of symbolism that climate change, already identified as increasing the temperatures in southern Australia over the next decades, did not count and had nothing whatsoever to do with droughts now or in the future? I can tell you who was going to do it: it was the former Leader of the National Party. He got up here and said it and he said it publicly. That is symbolism over substance of the very worst kind. Captive to a narrow ideology and unwilling to accept the validity and the basis of science as delivered by the IPCC and Nobel Prize award winner, former Vice-President, Al Gore, whose contribution was called, by a former government minister in this House, ‘an entertainment’—
Government members interjecting—
HV4
Garrett, Peter, MP
Mr GARRETT
—That is the language that was used: ‘an entertainment’. The IPCC examination, the most extensive examination by the scientific community of the likely impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on our planet and on the climate in terms of warming, was dismissed—it meant nothing.
There has been talk about symbolism and substance. The opportunity to provide substance comes when the Treasurer has to get up and present a budget. But in all but one of the past Treasurer’s budgets, climate change was never mentioned. When former environment ministers went to international fora to talk about climate change, they dared not say the word ‘Kyoto’. That was symbolism over substance. When we look at the task that the nation has to put us on an even and sure footing so that we can manage the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time build a sustainable economy, we see that the former government went missing in action. The cry from business leaders, trade unions, communities, farmers and schools right around Australia was: ‘Will someone wake up this government to do something about climate change?’ On election day that is what Australians did. As well as being a clear expression of the will of the Australian people about the Work Choices legislation, the election in 2007 was a clear expression of the will of the people about the importance of taking a nationally strong position on climate change—something the Liberal Party and the former Howard government never did.
Let me conclude by saying that it is our intention to drive a clean energy revolutionary with policies such as the establishment of a $500 million renewable energy fund, an energy innovation fund and the national clean coal initiative. We want to help Australian families green their homes with policies like green loans, a one-stop green shop and rebates for energy-efficient rental homes. We want to bring cleaner transport through with measures like the green car innovation fund and the green car challenge. They are matters of substance. They are the policy matters that we should be debating in this House, but instead the member for Flinders comes in here and attempts to skate over a past which cannot be ignored or escaped from and throws some flamboyant and erratic language around in an attempt to marshal a debate.
We have reached the stage in our national life where we need seriousness on this issue, not frivolity. We need to take the issues that we are debating right up to one another. I absolutely welcome that. We need to go out to communities and provide them with opportunities, as we have done for the people of Coober Pedy. They will have the opportunity to have the largest solar power station in Australia—erected in remote Australia. The people in Coober Pedy and others in remote Australia who may be listening know that they have issues. They are reliant on diesel, but they have a lot of sunlight—and we have the technology and the expertise. For 11 years this issue stayed in the too-hard basket for the previous government. The Rudd Labor government is fully committed to climate change solutions and matters of substance that mean a lot to the Australian people.
703
16:27:00
Cobb, John, MP
00AN1
Calare
NATS
0
0
Mr JOHN COBB
—I rise to bring the attention of the House to the fact that, after three months in government, the new government has pretty much ignored what is for Australia one of the biggest issues it has, and that is the state of the Murray-Darling Basin and its water and the fact that Australia gets over 40 per cent of its food product from the people of that region. And this is a government that, on 25 January 2006, when in opposition, backed then Prime Minister John Howard and our government when we launched the National Water Initiative.
In the last three months, the only way in which this government has acknowledged the issue of water and the problems associated with the Murray-Darling Basin has been to cut $50 million from that program. Some of it was money that could not be spent this financial year, which is fine—it was about setting up the Murray-Darling Basin Authority—and some of it was money to set up a structure within the Bureau of Meteorology to monitor what happens with water in Australia as part of that initiative. But if you have a look at the forward projections, you see that that money has not been put back.
It is very good to see some new members of the new government here today, because in the next 10 minutes they will learn more about water than any of their senior executive know about it. The fact is that, in all the time that Labor has been in government—three months—not once has the Minister for Climate Change and Water allowed anyone from the irrigation industry to see her or her staff. In fact, the government has been deadly silent on this issue and the National Water Initiative, which was backed by the Labor Party at the time it was launched. The people in the Murray-Darling Basin still do not know one thing about how this government is going to proceed with it. Is the restructuring money going to be put in? Is the money to create efficiencies in the transfer of water in the Murray-Darling Basin going to go ahead? Is the money to create efficiencies on farms going to go ahead? There has not been one word.
The issue of Victoria is very interesting in this. For a government who have said that they are getting rid of the blame game, that they are going to work with state governments, that they are all kindred spirits of a socialist bent and that they are going to sort it out, why have they not already got Victoria signed up? They will say that they had a meeting with Premier Brumby on the water issue. I could not believe it when the person who said that Victoria wanted nothing to do with a national water plan—that it did not want to do it—then said that he had always believed in a national water plan. That is quite unbelievable.
The failure of state Labor governments right around Australia to ever pay for what they have taken from irrigators is a path that this new federal government, it would seem, is going to follow. If you listen to one of the new members of the new government—the member for Maribyrnong, a former heavy, and probably still very much a heavy, in the union movement—it would seem his idea is that the government should compulsorily acquire water from irrigators and shut down the rice and cotton industries because they are using water. This is about ignorance. The fact is that the cotton industry is, by and large, an extremely efficient user of water. If you know something about it, you realise efficiency is the issue, not what is grown. The cotton industry, like other industries which are horticultural, uses around eight megalitres of water per hectare per crop. That is what they need to concentrate on, not what is growing. In the past some people have simply not liked an industry.
All the states have worked under the national competition policy. New South Wales, in particular, and Victoria have in the past taken water from irrigators despite taking federal money under the national competition policy, and they have never given any of it back. The new government has to learn that the National Plan for Water Security acted like it did because of production and food prices and helping industry help itself. A small part of the $10 billion was to buy water, some of it was for restructuring but most of it—almost $6 billion—was there to help industry become more efficient and to help water transfer become more efficient. That has to happen.
The Leader of the House said that that money simply had to be spent on buying water, not on creating efficiency and getting water back that way. He simply wants to buy water. We have a mixture of the member for Maribyrnong wanting to compulsorily acquire water from irrigators, and the former shadow minister for water and the present Leader of the House wanting to do nothing but buy water. They have to understand that it was no accident that the National Plan for Water Security was put there like it was. If you simply take water, you are going to cut production. If you simply take water from people when they are at their most vulnerable, physically, financially and mentally—and we are talking about irrigators and farmers who have gone through six years of drought—then probably some of them will sell water, but they will regret it as soon as things get better. It is taking advantage of people when they are at their most vulnerable.
The government have to accept that they are totally ignorant about water and the effect of taking it away. They will cut production. What happens when you cut production from an area as important as this? Up go food prices. If you put up food prices then the Treasurer, who is having so much trouble grasping the subject, will realise that suddenly up goes inflation, and it has a bad effect on the economy. The things that have to be learnt have to be learnt by going and talking to the people involved with them. Do not do what the government in Victoria are doing. They are stealing water, which is going to have the same long-term effect as what the member for Maribyrnong and the current Leader of the House want to do in taking water without making efficiencies.
The Victorian government are focused on pinching water out of the basin and giving it to Melbourne. They want to take over 100 gigalitres of water a year—and I am sure the member for Murray will touch on this—but over twice that is currently being put into the sea from Melbourne as waste water. Why don’t they concentrate on that? But no, they cannot get it around their heads that by flogging water out of the basin and taking it to Melbourne they are creating greater pressures on the Murray-Darling Basin.
We all know that water is under more pressure than it has ever been. Look at the storages. Both the Dartmouth and the Hume reservoirs—the two biggest reservoirs—are under 20 per cent still, and it is not looking good at the moment despite the rain. The rain has not been in the catchment, and that is something you can tell your leaders. Look at the facts, the figures and what is happening and, for heaven’s sake, go out there and tell the people in the towns, not just the farmers or the irrigators who are so dependent upon this system. Ask people in Adelaide what they think about the need for water in the Murray River and I think you will find that they are pretty interested in it.
When you have the minister for water and even her staff refusing to talk to the people most concerned with what happens to the irrigation industry, it is a worry. That she has not given any indication of where she wants to go in the future is a worry, because if they take that water without letting people make efficiencies on farm infrastructure or whatever it might be then they are going to create higher food prices, more inflation and a bad effect on the economy, as I said before. Our plan was going to help the irrigation industry, make savings, help their production, increase their efficiency and, at the same time, look after the nation.
705
16:37:00
Thomson, Kelvin, MP
UK6
Wills
ALP
1
0
Mr KELVIN THOMSON
—It is entertaining to hear a member of the National Party bemoan the current state of the Murray-Darling Basin. It is precisely on the watch of members opposite that the Murray-Darling Basin has been trashed. It is precisely as a result of the policies that you have pursued that the Murray-Darling has deteriorated to its present sorry state. The National Party, right throughout, has been running interference on the measures needed to generate environmental flows and to protect the Murray-Darling Basin, and the member for Calare continued to run interference this afternoon on the measures needed to save the Murray-Darling Basin. As a result, we find the Murray-Darling Basin afflicted by rising levels of salinity, algal blooms, the loss of river red gum species, the loss of waterbirds and a Murray mouth which requires dredging in order to keep the mouth open—in other words, it is a river system which is on life support. The honourable member has the gall to refer to the quality of drinking water for the city of Adelaide. It is Adelaide which has suffered as a result of the policies and neglect of the Howard government, yet the member for Calare has the gall to come in here and say that we ought to do more about the Murray-Darling Basin. It is members opposite who have run interference on all measures needed to protect the health of the Murray-Darling Basin.
Members opposite and members of the National Party have sat on their hands while the Murray-Darling and the rest of this country have suffered from the effects of climate change. I draw to the attention of the House the figures from the two-year period to November 2007, which recorded the lowest ever inflow to the Murray River. Inflows during this period were 43 per cent lower than the previous record low, which occurred at the end of 1938. The CSIRO estimates that, if these sorts of trends continue, by 2030 the Ovens River will have a 27 per cent reduction, the Gwydir River a 10 per cent reduction and the Wimmera River a 50 per cent reduction. This will be catastrophic for the Murray-Darling Basin, yet members opposite sat on their hands over the course of 10 years and were completely inactive, completely passive, on the issue of climate change.
When I saw this MPI topic—‘The failure of the government to implement effective climate and water programs’—I was amused. I thought there must have been a typo. Surely the resolution would have made sense if it read, ‘The failure of the Howard government to implement effective climate and water programs’. It is truly remarkable to hear the member for Flinders, having been in this place for the best part of a decade of shameful inaction, spouting the need for effective climate and water programs. Talk about a road to Damascus conversion. What a difference an election makes!
The Australian people might well wonder just when the Liberal and National parties were going to implement effective climate and water programs—it did not happen in year 1, year 2, year 3, year 4, year 5, year 6 or year 7, and it did not happen in years 8, 9, 10 or 11. So we can suppose that it was going to happen in year 12—that they had a year 12 agenda to do something about climate change and water. The member for Flinders asks the nation to take seriously his claim that the Liberal Party would have tackled global warming if only it had been re-elected for its 12th year.
There are three issues that are litmus tests for whether you are serious about tackling global warming, whether it is just posturing or whether it is a fraud. The first test is this: global warming is an international problem. Carbon is no respecter of national boundaries so, if we are going to tackle it, we have to tackle it through collective international endeavour. The forum for that is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and, in particular, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Astonishingly, the previous government, having negotiated a good deal for Australia back in 1997, ratted on the deal, refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol and proceeded to go around doing everything it could to scuttle and undermine collective international endeavours to tackle climate change. At a time when the science was becoming increasingly clear, and the need for action ever more urgent, the previous government were not merely sitting on their hands but doing everything they could to undermine collective international action. They were living in some kind of bizarre fantasy world in which Australia was located on a planet other than Earth, where we were immune from the effects of global warming. Nothing could more dramatically demonstrate the fact that they are the party of the past and we are the party of the future than the first action of the incoming Labor government: the ratification of the Kyoto protocol on climate change. We showed that we are part of the international solution, whereas those opposite are part of the problem.
The second test of whether you are fair dinkum about climate change is to put a price on carbon. Unfortunately we have gone through a period where we have treated the earth as a business in liquidation. We have not put a value on a healthy and functioning atmosphere. The level of carbon has risen from 280 parts per million in pre-industrial times to 380 parts per million as at 2005. It is expected to rise to 500, 600, even 700 parts per million, with potentially catastrophic consequences. Scientists tell us that we need to contain the carbon levels and, in order to do that, we need to put a price on carbon. Labor have committed to doing that. We have committed to the introduction of an emissions trading regime. Those opposite said, ‘Oh yes, we have committed to an emissions trading regime as well.’ They did it last year—another eleventh-hour road to Damascus conversion—but if you are going to have an emissions trading regime, it has to be built around a target. It cannot be fair dinkum unless there is a target. Labor committed to reducing our carbon emissions by 60 per cent, from year 2000 levels, by the year 2050. We put in place a target.
Those opposite did not put in place a target, and they still have not put in place a target. This is just nonsense. If you went to the election and said, ‘We’re going to change the school funding system and we’ll give you the detail after the election,’ there would be outrage and there would be uproar. Or if you said, ‘We’re going to change the private health insurance arrangements; we’ll give you the details after the election,’ there would be uproar, and so there should be. But those opposite attempted to perpetrate a fraud on the Australian people, going to the election without nominating any target for carbon reductions into the future. Until the member for Flinders nominates a target he cannot and will not be taken seriously by the Australian people so far as his bona fides on climate change are concerned.
The third area in which you can tell whether somebody is serious and fair dinkum about climate change is renewable energy. The previous government had a renewable energy target, but it was so ineffectual that the proportion of renewable energy actually declined during their period in office. By contrast, we have set for ourselves a target of 20 per cent renewable energy by the year 2020—a challenging target, but one which is necessary and one which will benefit the Australian economy, because there are jobs in renewable energy and there is regional development in renewable energy. Those opposite failed to set a target. They ran interference on wind farms. They said, ‘We’ll block the south Gippsland wind farm at Bald Hills because it might endanger the orange-bellied parrot,’ even though one had not been sighted in the area for 50 years. That was the kind of interference that they ran on wind energy.
At least the member for Flinders and the Leader of the Opposition have been out there trying; the rest of them are busy playing the blame game about who lost the 2007 election. There they are; they are trying. They are a dynamic duo—Batman and Robin—but I suspect they will be unsuccessful. There are too many sceptics on that side, too many doubters, for them to produce the serious policies which are needed to tackle the major challenge which Australia and the rest of the world faces in relation to global warming and which the Labor government is committed to tackling. (Time expired)
708
16:47:00
Stone, Dr Sharman, MP
EM6
Murray
LP
0
0
Dr STONE
—I rise to say that a matter of extreme public importance is the fact that we have the failure of this government to implement effective climate and water programs. In the budget address-in-reply last year Mr Rudd, in what was one of his first major speeches as Leader of the Opposition, very tentatively said, ‘Well, yes, we need to deal with the challenge of climate change and the water crisis before the costs of inaction become too great.’ Now we are looking for the Rudd government action. There have been a few months of Rudd government now. We had a lot of expectations built during the campaign that this government would be serious about climate change and water. What has it done? Very simply, it has signed Kyoto—a very easy thing to do.
In government, we the coalition led the climate change umbrella group with the minister of the day, Robert Hill. We introduced as an issue carbon sequestration through vegetation into the whole Kyoto debate. We also, as leader of the umbrella group, tried very hard to bring in the developing nations to the whole Kyoto agreement arena, knowing that, no matter what the developed nations did, their efforts would be completely subsumed by the emissions from the developing nations over a very short period of time. We knew it would have been dead easy simply to sign Kyoto and look as if we were serious. We knew it was much more important to use our weight to change our own domestic economy. We had a coal dependent energy driven economy that we had to manage very carefully while bringing ourselves to achieve the Kyoto target. We made the point in the international community that Kyoto was not good enough without the developing nations. That is what we did, and we achieved international acclaim for that stand.
We introduced the first Greenhouse Office, for example—the first in the world funded with over $1 billion. We made, as you are aware, such a careful response that our economy continued to thrive. We had employment grow through that time. We had new industries come to this country and invest with security, knowing that the hands on the wheel were steady. They knew that we understood climate change but would balance it with the needs of the economy. We also, during our period of office, funded the largest and most significant natural resource management program this nation had ever seen. It was called the Natural Heritage Trust. We also, several years later, introduced the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, the NAP.
As we speak, there are about 15 regional catchment management authorities staring down insolvency and having to sack many workers because this government has refused to say anything at all about the future funding of the Natural Heritage Trust. Come on; it cannot be that hard. We had a multibillion-dollar program that was right throughout Australia. We know that it did enormous good in terms of biodiversity protection and water quality protection. Minister Garrett, you cannot organise yourself to tell the Australians who delivered this program on our behalf what you are going to do with it. These catchment management authorities, who delivered this program on behalf of us and our state colleagues, are, as I said, staring down insolvency. Read about it in the ANAO report just delivered. They are having to sack their workers, presumably because the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts has not got around to thinking about it. Or perhaps he just does not understand.
Let me say, too, that we introduced the National Water Initiative. It has been referred to by my colleague the member for Calare. We understood the failure of Federation, where we had four state governments, a territory government and the Commonwealth presiding over a dog’s breakfast of different water laws, different water allocation systems, different property rights—all of them in there—trying to manage one ecosystem. Successive Labor governments at the federal level had never tackled this Murray-Darling Basin problem, and the wall-to-wall state Labor governments in the basin have continued to use that basin in a profligate way, not dealing with the overallocations, not dealing with our National Water Initiative in a proper way when we put it on the table. In particular, the government of Victoria said, ‘It’s a good idea, but we’re not signing up.’ Mr Rudd, I have to give him credit, did say—
1000
Slipper, Peter (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. Peter Slipper)—Order! The honourable member will refer to the Prime Minister by his title.
EM6
Stone, Dr Sharman, MP
Dr STONE
—I beg your pardon. Mr Rudd, the Prime Minister, did announce in his budget address-in-reply speech that he would build bipartisan support for a national consensus around this Murray-Darling Basin initiative. He has failed. (Time expired)
709
16:52:00
George, Jennie, MP
JH5
Throsby
ALP
0
0
Ms GEORGE
—I want to complete this debate on the MPI by restating the words that were used by the shadow minister for climate change, environment and urban water in introducing the debate today. He said:
Climate change is real. It is important. It is significant. But it takes substance, not symbols …
On this side of the House I think we can all agree with the sentiments expressed by the shadow minister, but the great tragedy for our nation and the great tragedy for the international community is that over 11 long years those sentiments were never translated into any decisive action on the part of the Howard government. The last speaker really should reflect on the fact that this is the first week of the 42nd Parliament, the first week of the Rudd Labor government in power. I would argue, and I think the Australian community accepts, that the Labor Party and the Labor government are doing a lot more in terms of practical policies and proposals to address an issue that is of great concern to the whole community. I have no doubt that the environment and the dangerous impact of climate change were very high on the list of issues that saw the defeat of the Howard government and the election of the Rudd Labor government. That and Work Choices were the decisive issues that swung a lot of people out there in the community behind a very clearly articulated program and policy approach by the Rudd Labor team.
I might say, for the new members present in the chamber, that it is really hard to contemplate but there are still members on the opposition benches who are sceptical about the science of climate change. I am delighted to see my new colleague the member for Lindsay in the chamber. The former member for Lindsay was one of the very notable people contributing to a minority report on a House of Representatives committee inquiry last year, together with the member for Tangney and others, who, even as late as late last year, doubted the science behind climate change and global warming. I think the opposition has a lot to answer for. It is a pity that the new shadow minister for the environment, who I think is genuinely quite sympathetic to the issues of climate change and global warming, was not in cabinet to convince the sceptics on the then government benches about the importance of this issue.
The TV program last night was really fascinating. One of the fascinating points that came across was the rather belated acknowledgement by the former Treasurer that in hindsight, yes, the government should have ratified Kyoto. ‘In hindsight, yes,’ he said, ‘we should have ratified Kyoto and we should have done it a lot earlier.’ But the truth of the matter is that they did not. They had 11 long years to really get their act together on an issue of substantial global challenge and they failed the task. It is not surprising that they failed. They had a senior industry minister saying to Laurie Oakes on the Sunday program:
I am a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change.
Really, for a senior minister to profess to scepticism on this issue beggars belief. When Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth was shown—and I think it was a very important consciousness-raising exercise—the same minister said of that really important documentary that it was ‘just entertainment’. The truth is that the people who were then on the government benches were well behind community opinion. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming, in the dying days of the Howard government, to acknowledge the importance of this issue. They have got a hide now to come into the chamber to try to castigate a government that is sitting in its first week. Within days of our election to office, the first official act of the new Rudd Labor government was the ratification of the Kyoto protocol. That was important because, for the first time, Australia had a seat at the table when it had previously been missing in action.
1000
Slipper, Peter (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. Peter Slipper)—Order! The honourable member will resume her seat, as the time for discussion has concluded.
AGED CARE AMENDMENT (2008 MEASURES NO. 1) BILL 2008
710
Bills
R2910
APPROPRIATION (DROUGHT AND EQUINE INFLUENZA ASSISTANCE) BILL (NO. 1) 2007-2008
710
Bills
R2902
APPROPRIATION (DROUGHT AND EQUINE INFLUENZA ASSISTANCE) BILL (NO. 2) 2007-2008
710
Bills
R2903
Assent
710
Messages from the Governor-General reported informing the House of assent to the bills.
Appropriation Bill (No
. 3) 2007-2008
710
Bills
R2905
Appropriation Bill (No
. 4) 2007-2008
710
Bills
R2923
Referred to Main Committee
710
Mr PRICE
(Chifley)
16:58:00
—by leave—I move:
That, unless otherwise ordered, at the adjournment of the House for this sitting, the following bills stand referred to the Main Committee for further consideration:
Appropriation (No. 3) 2007-2008; and
Appropriation (No. 4) 2007-2008.
May I inform all honourable members that this motion has the concurrence of the Chief Opposition Whip.
Question agreed to.
COMMITTEES
711
Committees
Membership
711
Mr LAURIE FERGUSON
(Reid
—Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services)
16:59:00
—by leave—I move:
That Members be appointed as members of certain committees in accordance with the following schedule:
COMMITTEE
MEMBERSHIP
STANDING
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs
Mr Marles, Mr Trevor, Mr K. J. Thomson, Ms Rea, Mr Turnour, Ms Campbell
Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts
Ms George, Mr Zappia, Ms Livermore, Mrs D’Ath, Mr Dreyfus, Mrs Irwin
Communications
Ms Neal, Ms Rishworth, Mr Bradbury, Ms Collins, Ms Rea, Mr Georganas
Economics
Mr C. R. Thomson, Mr Bradbury, Mr Marles, Ms Owens, Ms Jackson, Mr Turnour
Education and Training
Ms Bird, Mr Clare, Mrs D’Ath, Mr Sidebottom, Ms Collins, Mr Zappia
Employment and Workplace Relations
Mr Hayes, Ms Bird, Mr Marles, Ms Hall, Ms Jackson, Mr Symon
Family, Community, Housing and Youth
Ms A. L. Ellis, Mr Raguse, Mr Trevor, Ms Collins, Ms Campbell, Ms Livermore
Health and Ageing
Mrs Irwin, Mr Bidgood, Ms Rishworth, Mr Georganas, Ms King, Ms Hall
House
Mr Price, Mr Hayes, Ms Grierson, Ms Saffin
Industry, Science and Innovation
Mr Bidgood, Mr Champion, Ms Rishworth, Ms Vamvakinou, Mr Cheeseman, Mr Symon
Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government
Ms King, Mr Cheeseman, Ms Campbell, Mr Sullivan, Mr Raguse, Mr Clare
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Mr Dreyfus, Mr Neumann, Ms Neal, Mr Perrett, Mr Melham, Mr Butler
Privileges and Members’ Interests
Mr Raguse, Mr Price, Mr C. R. Thomson, Mr Melham, Mr Georganas
Petitions
Mrs Irwin, Mr C. R. Thomson, Mr Neumann, Mr Adams, Ms Vamvakinou, Ms George
Primary Industries and Resources
Mr Champion, Mr Bidgood, Mr Sidebottom, Mr Adams, Ms Livermore, Mr Perrett
Procedure
Mr Price, Ms Bird, Ms Owens, Ms George
Publications
Ms Hall, Mr Hayes, Mr Sidebottom, Mr Sullivan
JOINT STANDING
Parliamentary Library
Mr Perrett
As the list is a lengthy one, I do not propose to read it to the House. Details will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
Question agreed to.
GOVERNOR-GENERAL’S SPEECH
711
Governor-General's Speech
Address-in-Reply
711
Debate resumed from 18 February, on motion by Mr Hale:
That the Address be agreed to.
711
17:00:00
Thomson, Kelvin, MP
UK6
Wills
ALP
1
0
Mr KELVIN THOMSON
—I continue my contribution to the address-in-reply. The second priority issue raised by GetUp! is making high-quality primary, secondary and tertiary public education accessible to all Australians. GetUp! wants public education at all levels to be both world class and affordable. That means more funding to provide better trained and better paid professional teachers at all levels and ensuring the universal availability of edu-cation. It says it wants teachers to be better paid, the national curriculum more broad based and class sizes smaller. I note some recent survey work which suggests that perhaps the better pay issue might prove to be more important than smaller class sizes.
The third issue raised by GetUp! relates to respecting the rights and improving the living standards of Indigenous Australians. GetUp! wants the new parliament to address Indigenous issues in both a symbolic and a practical way, seeing the two as intertwined and mutually dependent. I think that is spot on. It expects parliament to make it an urgent priority to close the 17-year life expectancy gap and to make vast improvements to health, education, housing and other areas to improve the living standards of Indigenous communities. It has a couple of quotes. Firstly:
No Australian citizen should be living in third world conditions in a first world country.
Secondly:
It sends fundamental moral and ideological messages to inhabitants of this country and to the rest of the world about how we think about ourselves and treat all our citizens.
As well as those three priority issues, GetUp! identified seven other issues to round up a top 10. No. 4 was making high-quality, prevention focused health care accessible to all, putting an end to the federal-state blame game, and also seeking to address the private-public health care disparity. No. 5 was combating entrenched poverty and narrowing the divide between the rich and the poor, with affordable housing being a focus. No. 6 was withdrawing the troops from Iraq and urging the United States to change its approach to the ‘war on terror’. It said:
We want Australia to be a good global citizen ... We would prefer our resources be put into increasing our foreign aid as a percentage of GDP and working multilaterally to decrease global poverty. We expect future potential conflicts, such as Iran, to be resolved through the United Nations, not unilaterally.
I read another quote:
The current approach of the US in its war on terror is an absolute disaster for world peace, the lives of citizens and soldiers and human rights.
Issue No. 7 was protecting our human rights and civil liberties. It is looking for equal rights and recognition of same-sex couples and for protections to extend to Indigenous people, asylum seekers and refugees, and the disenfranchised. No. 8 was improving community infrastructure and planning. GetUp! said:
We want our taxes spent on community infrastructure and planning that improves and sustains our way of life. We want serious investment in public transport to both ease our environmental burden and allow equitable access to services for all—and we want support for it at a federal level.
Issue No. 9 was the protection of workers’ rights. It said:
We want WorkChoices to be repealed as soon as possible, and in a comprehensive manner. We want fairness restored to employee/employer relationships—fair pay, fair protections from unfair dismissal and safe working conditions for all workers. The right to collectively bargain for conditions the majority of workers want should be restored.
Finally, there was strengthening our democracy. GetUp! said:
We need reforms to strengthen our democratic processes that increase government accountability and transparency. We want Freedom of Information laws brought to the highest international standards and steps taken to protect whistleblowers.
It said we should restore political integrity and dramatically reduce the threshold for political donations and that bodies, such as the ABC and CSIRO, should be depoliticised. I think this is a very commendable set of propositions and priorities, but the more important thing is not so much whether or not I or other individual members of parliament agree with each of them but the fact that there has been a very constructive and creative process gone through by GetUp! involving tens of thousands Australians in thinking about the kind of country in which we live and the kind of country which we hand on to our children.
I indicated in my opening remarks that we live in a time of big challenges. We have had discussions about global warming, and I certainly hope that we have more discussions about global warming. There is no doubt in my mind that it is a show stopper. The amount of carbon that we have managed to put into the atmosphere in the last couple of hundred years has changed the earth’s climate and is continuing to change the earth’s climate. The increased frequency and severity of floods, droughts, bushfires and storms will be no good for Australia and will have very deleterious impacts in other parts of the world. When we think about the melting of the polar caps, rising sea levels and the threat to the Great Barrier Reef from coral bleaching as a result of warmer water temperatures, increased typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes—the severity of those things—it is clear to me that action is needed urgently to deal with it. The proposals that the government has brought forward for international cooperation through the Kyoto protocol, an emissions-trading regime and increasing the renewable energy target are all important initiatives. There is a role for the whole community in doing everything it can at an individual and a collective level to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and to move to more sustainable ways of living.
One of the issues that I think we have failed to pursue adequately, both in Australia and in other countries, is the need to transition out of petrol. A couple of the new members of parliament made reference in their initial speeches to the fact that Australia and, indeed, many other countries have a great reliance and dependence on petrol. We can see the price of petrol rising dramatically but very little is being done to move us to a future in which we should be using other fuels. In Australia we have an LPG distribution system which is quite sophisticated and advanced. I have an LPG car and I have no difficulty finding places to fill it up. Indeed, Australia has great reserves of natural gas located off the North West Shelf. Those reserves of gas could, in my view, be made to serve a domestic Australian automotive industry. It would have major environmental benefits through dramatically reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and it would also bring regional development benefits, jobs and reduced prices for motorists. It would give Australia more energy independence instead of being, as we currently are, at the mercy of the international price per barrel of crude oil. Transitioning out of petrol is an important policy area, in my view.
I think we need to do much more by way of skilling young Australians. It is clear that there is a skills crisis and it is clear that it is generating inflationary pressures and pressures on interest rates. I believe that, rather than turning to skilled migration as the way to deal with this, what we should be doing is directly making the investment into educating and training our young Australians. The previous government had a lack of interest in and support for TAFE. They effectively undermined TAFE. We need to see more investment in TAFE colleges, secondary schools and universities to train young Australians and give us the skills to produce the kinds of economic activity which will support our ongoing economic prosperity and wellbeing.
The agenda of the GetUp! people made reference to urban transport, and I want to register my support for that. It is an area that the last federal government had no involvement in whatsoever. The road budget, the AusLink programs, can be used to support urban public transport. When you look at the congestion in my own city of Melbourne and in Sydney and Brisbane, we could do better in terms of the way we move people around. This is from an environmental point of view and also from the point of view of the comfort of those concerned. It is certainly no fun to spend your life on the outer motorway trying to make your way into central Brisbane or other similar locations. This has been an area of neglect and it is something which the federal government could well be doing.
There are important quality of life issues that we have not addressed as well as we should. There seems to be something of an epidemic of mental health issues amongst our young people. It saddens me to see so much depression and anger management problems and body image issues amongst teenagers. We need to look at the causes of these problems and what we as a community can do to assist people who are experiencing mental health problems by tackling the causes and providing better support for them.
There are issues surrounding obesity. It is quite remarkable to hear that we may now be coming to the first generation of Australians who have a lesser life expectancy than the generation before them. We are accustomed to improvements in our health and living standards, yet we have allowed lifestyle issues like diet and exercise to contribute to obesity in a way which is prejudicial to the health of the next generation of Australians. In my view, the obsession of young Australians with the internet and computers and the like contributes to obesity and represents a social problem that we need to recognise and tackle.
There are groups of Australians who have fared poorly under the previous government, and I hope that they will do better during the life of this parliament. There has been a lot said about the Aboriginal people, the Indigenous people, and how they have suffered. What we have seen in the last week has been amazing and wonderful, and I hope it leads to better things for Aboriginal people in the future.
I think our support for and relationships with the people of the Third World need to be better and closer. We can do more in terms of our aid budget and what we do to assist Third World countries, particularly in terms of moving to sustainable energy paths, having regard to the challenge of climate change.
Those opposite always present themselves as the party of small business, but in practice they do nothing for them. What they gave them during the life of the Howard government was red tape and the GST. I think we can do more to support small business, particularly in their dealings with larger business.
Some singles and some older people have not received the sort of support and acknowledgement to which they are entitled, and I hope that they fare better under this government, during the life of this parliament.
Above all else, I hope that we regularly ask ourselves the question: what kind of world are we leaving to our young people? I hope that we resolve that we will not pass on to our young people a country and a world which are in poorer shape than when they were passed on to us.
714
17:13:00
May, Margaret, MP
83B
McPherson
LP
0
0
Mrs MAY
—The Australian parliament is the centre of Australia’s democracy, which has been forged over more than a century without bloodshed and without civil wars, just robust campaigns—though some of us would certainly say we endured a civil war in the election campaign and the lead-up to the election on 24 November. Changes in governments are made by the will of the people, and last November we saw a change of government for only the sixth time in 60 years. Unlike the people of so many other countries around the world, we as a people should be proud of our robust and strong democracy and the manner in which we peacefully transition from one government to another—although that does not mean that the change did not bring some sadness to me personally and to many of my colleagues.
My win was bittersweet, with the loss of so many wonderful colleagues who fought the hard fight and have not returned to this place. I am proud of the fact that I was a member of the government that was supported by so many Australian people. Millions of people—in fact around 47 per cent of the Australian people—voted for the return of the Howard government, but sadly not enough. However, as we embark on the 42nd Parliament and we welcome the new members on both sides to this place, it is important that the positive legacies of the Howard government are not forgotten. There is no doubt our history will be debated and written about for years, but I think it is important that the history that is recorded and commented on truly reflects our achievements. The incoming Rudd government certainly has inherited strong foundations on which to build the future achievements of this country, and quite frankly it is time it started building and implementing its policy agenda and stopped the stunts and rhetoric. It is time it moved on. Make no mistake: we will be challenging and questioning as it proceeds to implement its policy agenda and its election promises.
Apart from my very deep disappointment that the Howard government did not get re-elected, I am very proud of being re-elected as the member for McPherson. It is truly an honour and a privilege to, once again, for my fourth term, be representing the people of McPherson. I say to the people of McPherson: I will not let you down. I will remain a strong and demanding advocate to ensure McPherson is not forgotten by the new Labor government and, to that end, I will ensure Labor promises are kept to ensure that our community remains strong and prosperous, older Australians are cared for, our young are given every opportunity to achieve their full potential and business continues to work in a strong economy that will ensure its success.
Not a member of this House was successful at the last election without the help of a strong team of volunteers and supporters—and I am no different. I did not win McPherson on my own. I was helped by many wonderful people who gave their time and energy to ensure we kept McPherson in Liberal hands, and today I want to pay tribute to some particular individuals and say thank you to the hundreds of people who worked on election day manning the booths on what was a very hot day in Queensland. In particular, I want to put on the record my sincere thanks to some very special people. Scott Paterson, my treasurer, had the unenviable task of raising the funds that were needed to mount the campaign. To Scott and his wife, Claudette, I say a very sincere thankyou. I also say thank you to the rest of the team who manned the shopping centres, manned the street stalls, worked in my office, stuffed the envelopes and answered the phones. Karen and Emma Andrews, a wonderful mother and daughter team, were with me every Saturday in shopping centres—and they even dragged along Chris, Karen’s husband, one day. Valerie and Albert Aumann were always there at those shopping centre visits. Thank you to Greer Waters and John Strickland. Sandy Brennan and Michelle Nassoor worked tirelessly on election day delivering the food and drinks to all the workers. Annette and Bruce Poppett—Annette worked in the office and the two of them also delivered food on election day. Helen Mills, a wonderful cook, brought the food into the office to keep the staff going and also delivered food on election day. Anne Philips, a wonderful supporter and volunteer in my office to this day, has been there for a long time and was wonderful on the computer with her data entry, supporting the staff and also working on election day. On election night we needed to feed hundreds of supporters, and I thank Judi and Mike Walsh and Jocelyn and Steve Penwarden for the wonderful effort in cooking the barbecue and feeding hundreds of workers on election night. We were all pretty bruised and battered from a very long day in the sun, and they did a remarkable job. I cannot name all the people who helped us. It was a very tough campaign. We had been on the campaign trail for months. But to all of those who helped—all those Liberal Party branch members and all the supporters from my community—I say a very sincere thankyou.
I would like to reflect on a few of the projects in my electorate that I would like to see committed to by the new Labor government. I was buoyed yesterday to hear the government has announced an infrastructure audit and the establishment of Infrastructure Australia. This is an important step forward in identifying those areas of infrastructure we certainly need—and on the Gold Coast we need roads. The last federal government did make a commitment of $120 million to build the Tugun Bypass, and in the lead-up to the last election day made a commitment of $455 million for the upgrade of the M1. I want to see the commitment to fund the upgrade of the M1 made clear by the new Labor government. The $455 million funding announcement during the campaign was great news for Gold Coast residents. The M1 is the major gateway from northern New South Wales, and we should be driving on the Tugun Bypass, which is nearing completion, by the middle of this year. With the rapidly growing population and the completion of the stadium at Robina, sections of the Pacific Highway will face further congestion and increasing demands well into the future. Funding for this project will meet the challenges and the demands of growth that we are seeing in our city. One of the city’s most pressing road bottlenecks is the M1, and I hope that the new Labor government will match the $455 million funding that we committed to see that that upgrade does take place. I call on the new Labor government to match that funding with Anna Bligh’s state government in Queensland.
I would also like to put on record the success of the Black Spot Program and the Roads to Recovery program, which saw a lot of our local roads upgraded in our city. They were both extremely successful programs. It would be great to see them continue. I think it is important for our local governments to have support from our federal government to meet the demands of cities like the Gold Coast, with its growing population and growing need for those roads to be upgraded.
We just heard from the last speaker, the member for Wills, about the skills shortage in this country, and there is no doubt we are facing a skills shortage. I recently had the pleasure of launching the 2008 academic year for the Gold Coast Australian Technical College. This was committed to by the last federal government. We have opened the doors and I am delighted to say that 150 new students will be going through that new Australian Technical College. The college was announced last year by the former federal government. Of course, it was great news for the young students and for employers in particular on the Gold Coast. It will go a long way to ensuring that those skills shortages that we are facing in our city will be met. The physical building will be completed by the middle of this year and, as I said, it will cater for 150 students who will complete grades 11 and 12 in English, maths, business and information technology.
The campus will provide on-site facilities for the range of crucial trades offered by the college, including commercial cookery, plastering and small group testing in automotive, metal and engineering, building and construction. The students will spend four weeks at the college undertaking academic studies, followed by four weeks in industry off site. This pattern repeats itself for the last two years of the students’ schooling. On completion, the students are then placed in businesses as full-time apprentices. Positions are available to all students on the Gold Coast from both independent and non-independent schools.
I understand the criteria and the competition for entering the college were pretty stiff. I know Mark Hands and his team went through an interview process. They wanted to ensure that the students who were enrolling in the college were committed to what they were doing and committed to their future. I would like to place on record today my best wishes to Mark Hands and to those 150 students I met a couple of weeks ago and wish them every success for the future.
We have heard from the incoming Labor government that the Investing in Our Schools Program will be scrapped. It will be replaced by an education revolution. Schools on the southern Gold Coast will be worse off under Labor’s decision to scrap the successful Investing in Our Schools Program. The Labor government will abolish the $1.2 billion program to pay for its election promise to put computers and trade centres in secondary schools. In the electorate of McPherson, around $1.6 million has been provided through the program to approximately 30 schools to fix projects it decided were a priority. Up to $150,000 in funding was made available to each of these schools to fix everything from run-down toilets and classrooms to funding upgrades of playgrounds and IT equipment. The program has been a huge success in McPherson and, with schoolchildren, P&Cs and the local community enthusiastically getting behind the projects, tangible results have been achieved that advance the education and wellbeing of our young students. Schools such as Burleigh Heads State School, Clover Hill State School and Caningeraba State School—all junior primary schools—received record amounts of funding to fix a lot of problems. School communities on the southern Gold Coast have particularly relied on this funding to make up for state government shortfalls. A strength of the Investing in Our Schools Program has been that the schools themselves identified the projects that would be of most benefit to individual schools, not some bureaucrat in Canberra making blind decisions.
The government’s decision to scrap this incredibly successful program is short-sighted, in my view, and indeed runs counter to their so-called education revolution. Primary schools in McPherson particularly will be hit hard because they will miss out on Labor’s funding for the education revolution, which is particularly for high schools and for the planned trade centres. I do ask: how will primary schools in McPherson address the shortfalls in funding for the infrastructure they so desperately need?
Most people in this place know of my involvement with the Titans Rugby League Football Club. In fact, I was one of those in the original bid teams when we went after the 16th rugby league licence for the Gold Coast city, and we were successful. This year we start with our first game on 14 March in round 1, and we will be playing the Cowboys. So I think we Queenslanders will be barracking one end to the—
HVO
Neumann, Shayne, MP
Mr Neumann interjecting—
83B
May, Margaret, MP
Mrs MAY
—No—go the Titans! What will be very exciting for the Titans is that, on 14 March, we will be playing at Skilled Park, our brand-new stadium. There is a very special ceremony happening in April. We actually take on the New Zealand Warriors on the weekend of 25-27 April. At that game we will be stopping and remembering our Anzacs. I think it is fitting that on that weekend we will be planting a lone pine. It will be planted in a place of remembrance that we can use for ceremonies on important days. Of course, most members in this House would know that Lone Pine was the scene of one of the fiercest hand-to-hand battles of World War I and took its name from the single tree left standing after Turkish soldiers had cleared the plateau to make roofs for the trenches. During the withdrawal, a soldier picked up a pine cone, which his aunt then propagated at home in Victoria. Gradually, more trees grown from the original pine were propagated. I want to put on the record today my thanks to Norm Smith. He is one of my Vietnam War veterans. He has been raising a lone pine which will eventually be located outside Skilled Park on that very special April weekend. Thank you, Norm.
Mr Speaker, I note you have just taken the chair. Welcome and congratulations! Last week was Organ Donor Awareness Week, and we celebrated here in the parliament the gift of life. There are in fact 1,875 people who are still waiting for organ transplants in this country. It is very significant that only 198 people signed up last year for organ donation. Those waiting lists keep growing. I would say to all Australians and to the federal government: let us make a massive effort to ensure that Australians are aware of what they have to do to ensure they are on that donor list. In my electorate of McPherson a very special young man received a heart-lung transplant. It turned his life around. Chris Wills now has a life because of the gift of life. I would say to all members in this place: see what you can do about raising the awareness of organ donation in your electorates.
Security in our communities is also something that really concerns me. My electorate, like many electorates around Australia, has concerns about hooning, graffiti and antisocial behaviour. The advent of CCTV has certainly allowed us to make great steps in ensuring that people in our communities can live safely knowing that those cameras are trained on antisocial people. I say to the incoming Labor government: give some thought to security in our communities and to setting up a fund whereby each of us can identify those areas of concern in our community and ensure that people can live safely and walk our streets knowing that any antisocial behaviour is going to be tracked by CCTV cameras.
In the short time left to me today, I would like to say how proud I am to have been named the shadow minister for ageing. This is an area that has been of particular interest to me over a number of years. I was a member of the health policy committee when I was in government. Now, as shadow minister for ageing, I look forward to working with the Minister for Ageing to ensure that the elderly residents of this country and our older Australians are ageing with dignity. We certainly have some challenges ahead of us. We know that we have an ageing population. We need to ensure that those people have services and infrastructure in place so that they can age with dignity.
I look forward to those challenges. I am very much into active ageing and I will certainly be putting forward some programs to encourage the older Australians in our community to take some care of themselves and take responsibility for some of their lifestyle choices. All of us in the House today could stop and think about the lifestyle choices we make. We know that obesity is on the rise in this country, cancer is on the rise in this country and diabetes is on the rise in this country. Each and every one of us has a part to play in ensuring that older Australians in our community do something about those lifestyle choices. Each and every one of us can set some examples in that way.
Once again, to the people of McPherson: thank you for your support. I thank you for the trust you have put in me in electing me to represent you once again in the federal parliament. To the incoming new members: I wish you every success in your new careers. It is an honour and a privilege to sit in this place. It is something I will never take for granted, and I hope that each and every one of you will get the satisfaction and the rewards that come with this job. It is hard work representing your constituents—we are going to sit that extra day; we all know about our five days a week. We on this side are, of course, committed to doing that, to representing our constituents in this House. It is a rewarding profession, and I think you will gain a lot more from it if you put something into it. I wish all those new members well and I thank the people of McPherson for the trust in me they have shown in re-electing me to the federal parliament.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! Before I call Ms Rea, I remind honourable members that this is her first speech. I therefore ask that the usual courtesies be extended to her.
719
17:33:00
Rea, Kerry, MP
HVR
Bonner
ALP
1
1
Ms REA
—I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land upon which we are gathered here today and the traditional owners of the land which is covered by the electorate of Bonner, the Quandamooka and Jagera peoples. I wish to acknowledge elders past and present and, in so doing, make special mention of the late Neville Bonner, the first Indigenous member of parliament, a true gentleman and a great Queenslander. Mr Speaker, may I also congratulate you on your election to this very significant office.
Only 1,059 people have sat in the federal parliament since Federation and, of that 1,059, only 78 have been women. When you consider the millions of Australians who have contributed over the last 107 years to making this country what it is today, I am humbled by the incredible honour and opportunity I have been granted by the people of Bonner and Australia.
Democracy is a wonderful thing. It is highly likely that the next United States President will be either an African-American man or a white woman. In Australia, our Prime Minister and Treasurer are two blokes from Nambour called Kevin and Wayne. The last election was clearly a call by the Australian people to restore our democratic system of government as a positive force for change. For its health and vitality, its equitable progress and advancement, our system of government depends on an open, transparent and accountable political process, a robust opposition and a concerned and informed public. These are the foundations not only to make democracy work but to make democracy matter to citizens of our nation.
Our democracy must be robust to survive and succeed. It can only be so if all its citizens are able to participate freely, fairly and to their full potential. That is why the next step for our ever-evolving democracy must be reconciliation between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples of Australia. When prejudice and economic or social disadvantage prevent even one person from participating in society then we are all weakened. As the great Martin Luther King Jr said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister moved a formal apology to the stolen generations. It was an important step in achieving reconciliation, an important step to begin the process of healing the rift that has existed for too long between Australians. It was a day that made me so proud to be a member of the first Labor government in almost 12 years. For me, personally, there was no more poignant moment. My mother is now 88, the same age as many of the members of the stolen generations who sat in this parliament last Wednesday. Ten years ago my siblings and I discovered that her grandmother, Nellie Richards, was an Aboriginal woman from Central Queensland. It has made us all keenly aware of how different her life and my mother’s life could have been.
The focus of the day was deliberately and quite rightly the apology to Indigenous Australians. Further to this, we must also recognise the importance of this day for our whole nation and its democratic traditions. Reconciliation is vital, not just to acknowledge the wrongs Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have suffered in the past; it is also important for non-Indigenous Australians. Until we recognise that we are not two separate peoples simply inhabiting the same continent, we are denying a fundamental part of our social development. Our language, our placenames and our music have all been influenced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. We share a history and we must embrace that with pride.
For nearly 12 years, all of us as a nation have been subjected to the most cynical use of our democratic sensibilities. They have been used to divide and drive wedges between us, but last Wednesday the people of Australia—all over Australia—came out of their homes in their thousands to acknowledge the government’s apology. It was proof that for so long we have been waiting for a chance to unite in a common cause, to feel whole rather than a mixture of different parts. We demonstrated the Australian generosity of spirit and the fundamental belief that working collectively, whether it is in the workplace or on the lawn of Parliament House, is a far better way for us all to individually succeed.
The corrosive politics of division that played on suspicion and fear are gone. The setting against each other of workers, practitioners of different faiths and citizens from differing ethnic backgrounds is gone and, ultimately, the refusal to acknowledge our responsibility and to show true respect for the Indigenous people of this country is also gone. It felt like a breath of fresh air, and the nation collectively breathed it and sighed with relief.
Up to this point, most of my working life has been devoted to serving the people of Brisbane as a city councillor. Building a city is similar to building a nation. It is the best way to learn how government and our democratic system work best to provide the community with the basic services and infrastructure they need to go about their daily lives. It taught me a lot. I have learned that building a community is about investing in the people that live there. It is about providing the infrastructure, both physical and social, that enables everyone to develop the lifestyle that best suits them.
If there is one lesson you learn from local government, it is a sense of reality. You are transported from the theatre of parliamentary politics and planted right in the middle of someone’s backyard or even their street. You quickly learn that no problem is too big or too small, and playing the blame game matters nought to someone who cannot sleep because of their neighbour’s barking dog.
Of course, being a member of the Brisbane City Council is a unique experience in local government. It is the largest council in the country, covering the whole metropolitan area of the city, with a budget of over $2 billion. Serving with Brisbane City Council was an experience that taught me the value of being involved at the grassroots of a local community. I would like here to acknowledge my friend Jim Soorley, a person who led by action, a true visionary and, I believe, one of the best lord mayors Brisbane has ever had. He set out to transform Brisbane. In the 13 years that I was part of the Labor council led by Jim, I grew up—and so did Brisbane. The city emerged from having a sleepy, country town image to become the bustling, cosmopolitan, modern city it is today. Much of the urban renewal that occurred in Brisbane was, of course, driven by the visionary Building Better Cities program initiated by then Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe. This program invested federal government money into local government areas, enabling valuable inner-city land—traditionally, industrial areas now redundant—to be redeveloped into new suburbs. They were strategically planned to include affordable housing and community infrastructure, creating a village-like atmosphere in the middle of a major city.
Indeed, it was the achievements of the Brisbane City Council and my passion for local government that had a strong influence on my decision to enter the federal parliament. It is at this level of governance in our country that the lack of Commonwealth government investment in our cities and regions over the last 11 years has been keenly felt. I look forward to seeing a revitalised relationship between the federal government and local councils to deliver the infrastructure required to build even better communities—invest federally; think locally. I know that this government appreciates the local knowledge and expertise that local councils can bring to ensuring that Infrastructure Australia invests most effectively. So I say to my former council colleagues: I look forward to continuing to work with you to deliver for Bonner. I will never forget the lessons I learnt at the coalface.
These experiences have brought me here as the representative for Bonner, one of the most interesting electorates in the country. It covers the south-eastern suburbs of Brisbane, from the city’s southern border to the river, so, like the Prime Minister, I am a proud southsider. I often describe Bonner as ‘the lungs of Brisbane’. On three sides it is bordered by significant waterways: Brisbane River, Tingalpa Creek and Moreton Bay. From Mount Gravatt, in the south-west, to Moreton Bay run several major creek catchments, protected by large tracts of bushland. Then there is Moreton Island, which boasts the largest sand dunes in the world. This is all within an electorate fully contained within the fastest growing capital city in the country. What a privilege and a challenge it will be to represent. It is why signing the Kyoto protocol was so important to the Bonner community, and I thank the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts for taking such a strong stance on commercial whaling. The islands of Moreton Bay are home to some of the best whale-watching sites in the country.
Of course, Bonner’s charm is not just its landscape; it is also the people. Around the bay side are some of the oldest suburbs in Brisbane, where a largely elderly population are facing the challenges that being elderly brings. The middle suburbs of the electorate are growing as fast as the rest of south-east Queensland. The suburb of Wakerley alone has become home to an extra 3,500 people just over the last three years. That is a lot of working families needing the physical and social infrastructure that more established suburbs take for granted, while trying to cope with rising mortgage payments. Homelessness is increasing. Many residents live in public housing and many are struggling to survive in an increasingly competitive rental market.
The most encouraging elements of the strengths of a thriving democracy are the ideals of justice, equity and a fair go and seeing those ideals practically implemented to extend and encourage the voice of those we represent in this House. The new priorities committed to by the Rudd government are reflected as welcome developments for Bonner. That is why the Prime Minister’s focus on housing affordability and infrastructure was welcomed by the whole community.
I look forward to working with the Prime Minister and the Minister for Housing to deliver a range of solutions that will assist the residents of Bonner to move more freely through all levels of the housing sector. These include policies that will address the causes of homelessness, rental assistance for those who wish to move into the private rental market but cannot, and the very innovative First Home Saver Account scheme that will enable so many more people to purchase their first home. This will mean that the prosperity that comes from the significant pace of population growth in south-east Queensland can be shared by all. The residents of Bonner are a socially diverse group.
From a significant Indigenous population through to all the communities who came here post war and the most newly-arrived refugees from Africa, this electorate is a snapshot of migration in Australia. I am pleased to be part of a new government that will build opportunities for all Australians. The government’s focus on education will ensure this. And I look forward to the education revolution beginning with the completion of the school hall at Gumdale State School.
As only the second federal member for Bonner, I wish to acknowledge the first, Ross Vasta, and thank him for the positive and cordial manner in which he conducted the campaign. I also wish to acknowledge the Hon. Con Sciacca, the former member for Bowman, whose seat was redistributed. He contributed so much to this parliament and his local community. I also wish to make mention of my good friend Garrie Gibbon, the former member for Moreton, who is in the gallery today.
I simply do not have the time to name individually all those wonderful people who helped win the seat of Bonner for the Labor Party or all the family and friends who have been the means of encouragement and inspiration throughout my life. However, there are a few to whom I would like to express my thanks here today. I will begin by thanking the Whitlam government. It enabled me to attend university; it improved the status of women that gave my generation opportunities never experienced before; and it had the foresight to provide affordable and accessible childcare, which allowed me to have a career and children. Without these reforms I do not believe I would be here today.
I would like to thank the nuns of Mount Carmel College Wynnum, who tolerated my rebelliousness whilst instilling in me and my fellow students the notion that women can do anything as long as they have a good education and keep their hemlines below their knees. I would like to thank my first boss and mentor, Ann Warner, who has never let me forget my principles and values and whose integrity as a person and as a politician will always be my benchmark. I would like to thank the many committed workers in the Your Rights at Work campaign, particularly the coordinator in the Bonner area, Barry Welch—a true community champion. I thank him and his many volunteers for demonstrating that the trade union movement has a long and proud history in community activity and community advocacy and for giving those workers in Bonner most disadvantaged by Work Choices a voice and a sense of hope.
To Mike Nicholls, my campaign director, I owe a special debt of thanks. Managing a candidate as well as a large group of volunteers is not the easiest thing to do. But, Mike, you did it with grace and authority and earned much respect as a result. To Greg Laumann and the Bonner campaign committee, I say thank you. I am indebted to your tireless commitment and support—in particular, Lynne Maree Lewis and her husband, Martin, whose presence at a campaign meeting with a full pot of freshly made pasta sauce for my family sustained us for about three days. I also thank state members Phil Reeves and Paul Lucas, who, despite their own senior government roles, went out of their way to assist in any way that they could. My staff, who are in the gallery, were also supportive friends and volunteers throughout the campaign. They are Melissa Webster, Michelle Curran, Toby Broughton and Susan O’Connor, without whom the campaign office would not have functioned, and Lynne Moffat, Christine Cosgrove and Darren Godwell.
I wish to make special mention of Glenda Venn. Glenda and I have worked together in my capacity as a councillor for 17 years, and we have gone through many political and personal upheavals together. Glenda alleges that she is retiring by the end of the year. Just in case we are unable to talk her out of it, I wish to put on record my deepest and sincerest thanks for her loyalty, her support, her sanity, her incredible ability to organise my chaos and, most importantly, her friendship. At this point I would also like to mention her husband, Graham, and his friend Tony Watson, who are listening today.
My thanks also go to my campaign organiser, friend, mentor and sounding board, Lindesay Jones and his wife, Norma. Those who know him know that I could not have been blessed with a better campaigner. Lindesay’s passion for the Labor Party, combined with his sporting coach background, has made him one of the most successful campaigners Queensland has ever produced. To the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party, in particular, state secretary, Milton Dick, I say thank you and wish you well in your new career—a great choice.
My deepest thanks and love go to my three children—Emma, Charlotte and Liam. Their love and support keeps me going. They keep me grounded and remind me that, whatever my day job is, my most important and enduring role will always be as their mother. My husband, Ian, is in the gallery today. When we met on a polling booth 20 years ago this year, neither of us would ever have imagined that we would be here together. We have shared so much—not just a love of politics. It is Ian’s support, care and love that has enabled me to succeed. Not everyone is lucky enough to find their soul mate, and I am so grateful that I have.
My wise and loving mother, Monica Rea, cannot be here today, but my brother Robert and sister Vicki are here on behalf of mum and my four other siblings—that is seven altogether, if you cannot count. It is very special to have them here.
In conclusion, I wish to dedicate this speech to my father, Jack. For the first 21 years of my life until his early death from cancer he was not only my father; he was my best friend. He instilled in me a deep respect for the Labor Party and its values. He gave me a sense of humour based on never taking yourself too seriously. Even though it is over 24 years since his death, I still seek his approval for everything I do because it was always so hard to attain. But today I think I can almost hear him say, ‘Well done, kid.’
724
17:52:00
Secker, Patrick, MP
848
Barker
LP
0
0
Mr SECKER
—I congratulate the new member for Bonner on her first speech in this parliament. Those of us who have been in this chamber for a while have seen some very good first speeches by new members on both sides of this parliament and it certainly augurs well for the future of this country when we have such good maiden speeches.
I intend to raise several matters in the address-in-reply to the Governor-General’s address. It will be quite wide-ranging. I start off by talking about some information I have received, a scientific report on aerosol plumes and the cause of droughts and El Nino events by regional dimming. I do not profess to be a scientist, but the information that I have had explained to me makes me intuitively think that this is quite correct. I think it would be very important for the new environment minister to actually take notice of this report and get it assessed. I actually think it would probably take less than a week’s assessment by a competent scientist, so it is not as if there would be great expense. I did seek leave of the previous person at the table on the government side to table the report and I seek leave for tabling that report.
Leave granted.
848
Secker, Patrick, MP
Mr SECKER
—I appreciate that leave being given. I think it is an important report. What it is basically saying, in rough layman’s terms, is that things like volcanic ash or a lot of carbon particles in the air cause regional dimming. Obviously it will stop the sunlight coming through into the atmosphere below because it is blocked by these carbon or volcanic ash particles. Intuitively I think you can then say that it must have an effect on the climate below that smog cloud, for want of a better phrase. What I think this report will show is that there is quite a causal effect on the drought that we had, especially last year, from the regional dimming caused by the fires in Indonesia, where they have been burning down the forests to plant palm trees for biodiesel production. It can be shown elsewhere in the world, such as in the Amazon forests or in the Sahara desert or the pollution that is being caused in China by the extra development, that this is actually having an effect on the climate. So I hope that the minister has an open mind on this and will read this report and get it assessed officially. I would suggest that the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology would be two government instrumentalities that would be very useful in assessing that report. It may come back that it is a very good report or it may not, but I think it is worth going through that assessment.
It certainly was a very interesting campaign. I think anyone that gets involved in a campaign like the recent one realises that things can change, and they obviously have at the election. One of the issues that I want to address during this speech is the issue of climate change and in particular to consider scientific exposure of some of what I might call the colourful language that is being used on climate change. Perhaps we can quite reasonably challenge some of the doom-laden views often promulgated by alarmists. Again that happened today in question time when the minister for the environment talked about a four to six degree increase in global temperature. I do not think even the most rabid of the promoters of climate change or anyone in the IPCC report have even remotely suggested that we are going to increase the temperature by four to six degrees. I think at most we are talking about one degree or 1.5 degrees. Six degrees obviously would have an effect. I do not reject that we have climate change; I believe we have always had climate change. It has been going for thousands and thousands of years. If we want to look back at history, for example, around the 1300s the recorded temperatures were probably in the vicinity of two degrees warmer than we have now. As a result of that we were producing more food in Europe, where there was a much warmer period. Even if we have had a warming in the last 25 years, we preceded that by a cooling over 30 to 35 years, and that is just part of what normally happens. So I think we can question some of the statements that are made to suggest that the end is nigh.
Before I say more on that, I would like to extend my thanks to the hardworking Barker campaign team. Their dedication and assistance helped me to return to serve the people of Barker for a fourth term as a member of this House. This fantastic team has seen the electorate of Barker return my party in fine form. We did experience a swing against us, the first time since I was elected that I have had a swing against me. In fact, in the 2001 and 2004 elections I had the biggest swings in the state of South Australia. But basically that has disappeared with this election, so I am back to about where I started. However, we did win 105 of the booths, which is more than in 2004, and did achieve positive swings in 12 of those booths.
The results in the electorate of Barker were the culmination of months of hard work by my wonderful team, both prior to and during the election. Their commitment was fantastic and their loyalty was unwavering. I consider myself most fortunate to have such a fantastic team. My campaign team worked tirelessly on this campaign. In our campaign committee we had members from all over the electorate, and my electorate covers 64,000 square kilometres—which is bigger than Tasmania, to put that in perspective. There are distances of 500 kilometres between members of my team, so you can imagine the logistics of getting them together and working through those tyrannies of distance that you have in a large rural electorate.
I would especially like to thank my lovely wife, Sharon, whose positive and vibrant approach, together with her total support and commitment not only during the campaign but also over the last few years, supported me during this long campaign. I think any of those in this House will understand what our spouses go through not only in our campaigns but also during our whole period in parliament. They certainly do give up a lot and carry some of the burden that we have as members of parliament. In fact, I am one of those people who are lucky enough not to get stressed very much, but I think I might be a carrier. Our campaign staff, our spouses and families do get a bit more stressed than we do sometimes. I think they feel it a lot more than we do.
I would also like to thank my staff members—Beth, Karen, Deb, Haley, Megan and Kylie—who worked tirelessly throughout the campaign. They worked long and hard days. That is the sort of support and loyalty that I had from my staff, and I do not think that anyone could wish for better. I would also like to thank Tim Cartledge, who was my FEC president, and Norm Paterson, our FEC treasurer. He is a treasure as a treasurer and he has certainly been a great supporter of the Liberal Party for a very, very long time.
Mr Deputy Speaker, as you would be aware, election campaigns come at a great cost. That is the price of democracy. But, then again, I think elections are the oxygen of democracy as well, and it is very important that I take the opportunity to publicly thank those who lent their financial support to my campaign. Their generosity is greatly appreciated. Just as they have demonstrated their faith in me as their parliamentary representative, I would like to express my faith in the businesses and individuals in the seat of Barker.
Lastly, and with incessant appreciation, I would like to thank the Liberal Party branches of Barker. I have 24 branches, which is in anyone’s terms a lot to deal with. Certainly they are absolutely fantastic in the support they give to the Liberal Party both financially and on the ground. They are the lifeblood of the campaign. As I said, Barker is a very large electorate—it has more than 120 polling booths—so we rely heavily on the loyalty and commitment of our volunteers and party members. That I was returned to this House for a fourth term is a result of the dedicated support from all our supporters, and I thank them sincerely.
Being in opposition is new to me, indeed to many of us here. I have made a promise to the people of Barker that I am coming out to fight for them. I will not allow the Rudd government to make them easy targets in funding cuts. Regional and rural constituents are a resilient and determined group. The nature of their environment endows them so, and I commit myself to standing up for them over the next three years as we regroup to ensure that we are elected to government at the next election.
Nearly 12 months ago, when opening Labor’s climate change summit in Canberra, Mr Rudd said that his aim was to harness the nation’s best and brightest talent. On gaining office, he appointed Senator Penny Wong as Minister for Climate Change and Water. Minister Wong, since being nominated, has been to Bali and to Honolulu, which is probably quite nice, while steadfastly telling the water-desperate residents of my electorate that it will be the end of the year before she can see for herself the issues they face—and this is in her own state. The Minister for Climate Change and Water confirmed this view with her inauspicious start to question time last Wednesday by refusing to answer whether or not she had input into the ‘razor gang’ cuts to environmental funding and then giving contradictory answers as to the nature of the cuts. If that is the brightest and best talent, I share the fear of my constituents for the outcome.
We have a $10 billion plan to fix up the Murray-Darling Basin. About $6 billion of that will be to provide better infrastructure, mainly in areas where we have open channels so that we can reduce quite drastically the amount of seepage and evaporation from those open channels throughout the Murray-Darling Basin. Another $3 billion of that will be used to buy back water licences. But after three months, unfortunately, we have not seen any of that funding spent. That is a very large concern to me, because it is not until those infrastructure improvements are made and those overallocated water licences are bought back that we will really receive the great benefit to the Murray-Darling Basin.
To put this into perspective, that plan is designed to save between 2½ thousand and 3,000 gigalitres of water on an annual basis—up to 3,000 gigalitres a year. To again put that into perspective, the whole of South Australia—Adelaide and irrigators—uses about 750 gigalitres out of the Murray River. So we will be saving up to four times what we are using in the whole of South Australia. It is a very significant measure that needs to be taken. I was very pleased that we made that commitment last year. Unfortunately, we were held back for six months by Victoria and, in the end, we just said that we would go along without Victoria. We still have not, after three months, seen any great change to that suggestion that they come on board.
I, and members of my party here, recognise that climate change is a complex subject. There are genuine areas of uncertainty and scientific controversy. There are also a number of misunderstandings and myths, which are recycled, often by non-climate scientists, and portrayed as scientific fact. One of the factors which have complicated the public and political response to the climate change issue has been a widespread misunderstanding of uncertainty in science. The issues surrounding the greenhouse effect, global warming, climate change and their potential consequences have been vigorously debated among scientists, politicians and the general public in Australia and around the world since the 1980s. In fact, I remember that in the seventies the same scientists who are now saying that we have global warming were saying that we were going through a mini ice age. I wonder how they can change their views so quickly. The challenge was then and is now to identify and attempt to measure the elements of climate change, examine the possible and likely results and agree on policies that attempt to reduce the identified serious problems.
In November 2004, the then New South Wales Labor Premier, Bob Carr, launched a report his government had commissioned from the CSIRO on the future regional climate of his state. His press release stated:
NSW can expect fewer frosts but more-frequent droughts, heatwaves, rainstorms and strong winds.
Ironically, the CSIRO report contained an important, explicit and up-front caveat which essentially stated that the report related to climate change scenarios based on computer modelling and that the models involved simplifications of the real physical processes that were not fully understood. That caveat went on to say that no responsibility would be accepted by the CSIRO or the New South Wales government for the accuracy of the projections in the report or the actions on reliance of the report. That did not stop Bob Carr from making his definitive unsupported scientific conclusions.
It is fairly generally agreed that, in science, it is only possible to prove the falsehood of a proposition and not its truth, and that there is no such thing as absolute certainty. In the face of scientific uncertainty, Mr Carr’s unequivocal conclusion represented a serious overstatement, and this continues to be the case with the Rudd Labor government. If we are going to have problems as a result of climate change, which we have always had, I think the most sensible approach would be to adapt. In the end, some of the other suggestions that have been put forward are going to come at a great cost to the Australian economy.
As I said, I do not deny that climate change is occurring. The fact is that climate is always changing; change is what climate is. History tells us that the rates and magnitudes of warming during the late 20th century fell within the limits of earlier natural climate change and it follows that it cannot be attributed solely, or even partly, to human origin. It is also a fact that the average global temperature has not increased during the eight years since 1998—which was a warm El Nino year—despite an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide of four per cent over the same period. The recent rate of average global temperature rise has been between one and two degrees Celsius per century, which falls squarely within natural rates of climate change for the last 10,000 years. Average global temperature has been several degrees warmer than it is today many times in the recent geological past.
There is also room for uncertainty in inferences drawn from the recent rise in global temperature. The recent rise in itself is real enough, but that does not necessarily mean that human activity is to blame. There you have it, Mr Speaker. I will be speaking more in this the 42nd Parliament on climate change and how we should be responding to it. I thank the House.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! Before I call the member for Dobell, I remind honourable members that this is the honourable member’s first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.
728
18:12:00
Thomson, Craig, MP
HVZ
Dobell
ALP
1
1
Mr CRAIG THOMSON
—Can I say right at the start what a great honour it is to be here today representing the people of Dobell in this place. Not many people get the honour and privilege of representing in federal parliament and to be counted amongst them is an immense privilege.
At this stage, I need to acknowledge the fantastic advice and assistance I received from Mark Arbib, Karl Bitar and Sam Dastyari from the New South Wales ALP head office. All of the Labor shadow ministers in the last parliament were great, but, in particular, Wayne Swan and Anthony Albanese need to be acknowledged for the support they gave to and tireless work they put into my campaign. Senator Hutchins has been a fantastic supporter for many years and has helped to create the opportunity to win back Dobell. Along with former member Michael Lee, he has provided tremendous insight into the many issues that affect the people of Dobell. I would also like to acknowledge the work of former Prime Minister Bob Hawke. He visited my electorate four times, along with many other electorates around the country. The shot of old Hawkie charisma was just the lift that my campaign needed.
I must thank Criselee Stevens, Sue Mueller and Matt Burke, who were there every day throughout the campaign. They are dedicated people and, to my relief, all agreed to work for me following the election. Branch members one and all need to be acknowledged, but, in particular, Bernie and Isobel Lowe, Pat and Owen Llewellyn, John Hawkins, John Shanny, Marie Watson, Bob Mulvey, Gloria Watson, Bill Smith, Richard Keating, Adam Wardroupe, Brian Sullivan, Robbie Kellog, Alan Wilcock, Barry Broadhurst, Darcy Waller, Brian Kirk, Jack Higgs, Ceri Aubrey, Iris and John Knight, Dermot Keane, John Redfern, Jim Briggs and, finally, Peter Cooley, who drove a busload of people down here today; they are in the gallery. I also acknowledge the assistance of Daniel Parish, who donated the use of a full-sized bus for six months of the campaign. Assistance from Mark McLeay; Struan Robertson; Karene Walton; the member for Wyong, David Harris MP; Councillor Neil Rose; and Mark Robinson also needs to be acknowledged. Special thanks must also go to Zoe Arnold, who has been a great support to me throughout this campaign.
This was a campaign in which unions were at the centre of crucial debates on industrial relations. The support I received from the entire union movement but in particular from Unions New South Wales, the TWU, the CFMEU mining division, the PSA, and of course my own union, the Health Services Union, was phenomenal. Michael Williamson, the HSU national president, was a marvel in relation to the long-term support he provided to me. I would also like to acknowledge the support and friendship of my former state branch secretaries, but in particular, along with Michael, I would like to acknowledge Dan Hill, from Western Australia, Lloyd Williams, from Victoria and Chris Brown, from Tasmania.
Finally, I need to acknowledge my friends and family for what they have had to put up with and to acknowledge that in some cases they have had to make permanent sacrifices so that I could be here today. Politics is a great and exciting profession, but it can extract a high personal cost from those involved and those close to the candidate. To my parents, who are here tonight, my sister, Jane, and my brother, Struan, through to Christa, my partner of 15 years: thank you. You have all taught me so much and supported me in all my decisions.
I am a unionist, a former trade union official of the Health Services Union. Can I say that I am immensely proud of that fact. This election showed everybody that ‘union’ is not a dirty word, and we should never again allow our country to go down the path on which the former Prime Minister and his cohorts opposite were trying to take us. The economy and how its proceeds are distributed are always the major issues in any election. Those sitting on the benches opposite chose in this most recent election to forget that the purpose of developing a strong economy is so that it can drive and fulfil the aspirations of this great country’s citizens. A government that presides over an economy that is performing strongly has, in my view, an obligation to make sure that improvements in citizens’ lives result. It is socially divisive when most of the benefits of a strong economy go to those who are already prosperous.
Without needing parliamentary privilege, let me say that the electorate of Dobell is blessed with physical beauty unsurpassed by any other region in Australia. It is also the home of the soon to be crowned A-league champions, the mighty Central Coast Mariners. We are uniquely located, midway between the cities of Newcastle and Sydney, but with a population of over 300,000 on the Central Coast we very much have our own stand-alone identity, separate from those of Sydney and the Hunter region. Our world-class beaches, intricate lake systems, unspoilt national parks and pristine valleys are a source of constant pride for all of us who live there.
The physical beauty of the Central Coast, however, is not matched by its present economic strength. Despite 17 years of uninterrupted national economic growth, many hardworking families on the Central Coast have not seen the benefits of these good economic times. The Central Coast has the lowest median household income in New South Wales and consistently has double the national unemployment levels. The youth unemployment rate in the Wyong LGA is at an unacceptable level of over 19 per cent.
For those of us who work, the conditions are often harsher than for those who live in major cities. Anywhere between 30,000 and 60,000 Central Coast people commute to Sydney to work. Over a third of the full-time employees in the many new housing estates on the Central Coast commute to Sydney. These people are spending anywhere between two and five hours a day commuting. Many parents are off to work before their children are awake, and they are back after they have gone to sleep at night. It is not uncommon to hear of people on the Central Coast spending more of their income on transport than they do on housing repayments.
I am a proud member of the Australian Labor Party, which holds as a fundamental belief the creation of a competitive economy that delivers opportunity for all Australians. A strong economy should and can coexist with social justice. We as a Labor Party are serious about our role as a regulator to ensure fairness wherever markets fail. I am proud to be a member of a Labor government that at its outset is serious about urban planning and development; water infrastructure; universal, quality health care; and the economic and social benefits of a world-class education system.
The people of the Central Coast deserve a member and a government that deliver for them. They deserve a parliament that better channels national prosperity towards universal opportunities for the generations ahead. The former Howard government’s boast that ‘workers have never been better off’ sounds very hollow in Dobell.
The former Howard government was never honest about its intentions for working families and instead attempted to disguise its intentions through spin, Orwellian language and doublespeak, and that is precisely why it can never be trusted on these issues. Just look at the naming of some of the industrial legislation it brought before this place: the Workplace Relations Amendment (Fair Dismissal Reform) Bill, the Workplace Relations Amendment (Better Bargaining) Bill and of course the Fair Pay Commission. Each piece of legislation is designed to do absolutely the opposite of what its title implies. That is, the ‘fair dismissal reform’ bill makes it easier to dismiss employees, the ‘better bargaining’ bill makes it harder to bargain collectively with your employer, and the Fair Pay Commission was created to reduce the outcome of national wage cases. No wonder that in the union movement we most feared the ‘building better and stronger unions’ bills. The public is sick and tired of political spin and wants politicians to speak clearly and honestly. The best way for us to promote ethical language in public conversation is to say what we mean and mean what we say.
This led me to think about my childhood. I grew up in country New South Wales, in Bathurst, a town that, when I was there, had less than 30,000 people. When I was a kid growing up, we had a real sense of community. When people moved into the neighbourhood, they were surrounded by neighbours inviting them for drinks and the kids for a kick of the footy. People made an effort to make newcomers feel part of the group. Those leaving the neighbourhood were always given a rousing send-off and welcomed back fondly when they came to visit. If anything happened to someone in the community, people rallied round and helped.
My New Zealand grandfather had a heart attack, which meant my mother had to go to New Zealand to nurse him for six weeks. While she was away, my father had no problems with meals—even though he could not cook—because the neighbours were always bringing around meals specially prepared for us or inviting us over for dinner. There was nothing special in this—it happens all around Australia that people respond to those in need. Whilst mum was away, we were on a roster, with different people picking us up and taking us to school and sporting events and all the things we were normally involved in.
Our neighbours made sure that no-one in the community was left feeling isolated and alone when they needed help. Clearly this meant putting themselves out, not for their personal or individual reward but from a shared sense of making sure there was a fair go all round. These are everyday Australian values that make us who we are and bind us together.
At the same time, in the workplace, unions were accepted by the employer and, whilst there were often fierce disagreements and strikes, no-one ever questioned the legitimacy of the union or the employer. It was part of the Australian way. Just as in sport, bitter confrontation did not go on forever because the Australian way was to go to the independent umpire, the Industrial Relations Commission, to help resolve the dispute. Whilst occasionally we on the union side had some bad luck with the umpire’s decision, we knew that a strong, independent commission that helped protect the weaker from the strong was essential for our community. These things were taken as unquestionable truths in our society. It is these values of community—values of sharing a common sense of belonging, of looking out for those less fortunate—that those on the opposition benches threatened at the last election.
I started by saying that the language we use as politicians should be simple, straightforward and honest, easy to understand—childlike, one might say. That had me thinking about messages we teach our children as to what is good and bad, from an early age. A lot of these messages are based on our religious beliefs. I think it is worth having a look at some of those values and then comparing them to the former government’s values on the same issue. Value: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you.’ Former government: ‘Don’t worry about what others might do to you. If you can, do it to them first.’ Value: ‘Make sure you share with the other kids.’ Former government: ‘Take as much as you can. Don’t share. Fairness is not part of the system.’ Value: ‘If you have done the wrong thing, say you are sorry.’ Howard government—we know what their position is on ‘sorry’, don’t we. Value: ‘Play by the rules and accept the umpire’s decision.’ Former government: ‘If I don’t like the rules, I’ll get rid of the umpire.’
The meaning of Christmas, as well as children’s stories, would change for the worse if we imposed the Howard government’s values on it. With no vacancies in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph would not have been given the stable unless they were prepared to pay above the market rates. Joseph would not have been a carpenter, because there would have been no apprenticeships. Mary would have had to quit her job, as there was no maternity leave. We know those three wise men would not be giving handouts without some form of mutual obligation.
In terms of fairy stories, the ugly duckling would have been locked up in a detention camp for being different. The sheriff of Nottingham would have been the hero and Robin Hood some market interventionist attempting income redistribution. We all know here that Snow White would have had those seven dwarfs on AWAs. In the former government’s world, fairy stories would have all been written by the Grimm brothers. These are not values we want as a nation. These are not values that reflect the Australia that I know and want to see flourish. As a Labor government, we cannot afford to treat the electors as fools through political spin. We need to be honest and forthright and to pursue values that bring our nation together rather than divide us.
The industrial relations agenda of the former government was about taking away simple rights that all Australians valued. How can dad coach the footy team or join the surf club or the SES if he has no input or certainty about the rosters and the days that he will work? How is the economy improved by a radiographer losing rights through unfair dismissal? No amount of spin or clever advertising could hide the effect that these laws have on the lives of ordinary families. I believe that is largely why we are sitting on this side of the chamber and not the other.
However, as the government we have to stand for more than a decent workplace. We need to look at other fundamental values in our society that have been eroded or overturned, and to propose positive policy responses. In my union role I have seen two areas in particular where the former government let us down. These important areas need to be addressed by the ALP in a Labor manner whilst in office. Under Labor, a strong and robust economy should create a humane society that will distribute benefits to those most in need. The two areas in particular that I want to concentrate on are aged care and dental care.
A critical lack of staffing is the greatest problem facing the aged-care sector. With the rapid expansion of the industry to cope with an ageing population, shortages are becoming more acute. The lack of staff, however, is not all due to a tightening in the labour market. The former government’s deliberate policy has been to neglect the question of staffing standards for this most critical area. There is clear evidence both in Australia and internationally of the link between staffing levels and the quality of care delivered to the elderly. Staffing shortfalls jeopardise the health, safety and quality of life experienced by residents in aged-care facilities. There is a greater risk they will be injured, be attacked by other residents, be given the wrong medication, not get sufficient exercise or treatment from specialists, receive inadequate clinical care and not be properly supervised even in an emergency situation. Workforce shortages also have a clear adverse effect on staff.
Aged-care staff are committed, motivated and strongly believe in the importance of the work they do. But for those in workplaces with inadequate staffing levels it is a demanding and stressful job. Working in aged care, for too many staff, has become more dangerous and less fulfilling. The National Institute of Labour Studies report commissioned by the previous federal government included a survey of over 6,000 staff, which found only 13 per cent of nurses and only 19 per cent of staff overall believed they had enough time to properly care for residents; 40 per cent of nurses and 25 per cent of allied health workers spend less than a third of their time providing direct care; almost half the personal carers spend less than two-thirds of their time on direct care; and the major complaints of staff were that they did not have enough time to spend with residents, and the facility they worked in did not employ sufficient staff. International research confirms the link between staffing and care. The most comprehensive report commissioned in recent years was the report to Congress by the US Department of Health and Human Services on minimum staff ratios in nursing homes. The report, finalised in 2001 after four years of work, found strong and compelling evidence of a relationship between staffing ratios and the quality of nursing care. It found poor staffing levels had contributed significantly to an increase in the number of bedsores and the incidence of malnutrition, dehydration, weight loss and other preventable disorders and diseases.
Reports by the Australian Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency confirm the direct link between a lack of staff and poor care, as well as highlighting the inconsistent approach adopted by that agency. I want to look at two examples of that. At the Elizabeth Lodge facility in Sydney the agency found staff shortages and training problems affected clinical care, the management of medication, continence management, behavioural management and leisure interests. One recreation officer—that is one recreation officer—had to look after 129 residents, 16 of whom were in a dementia ward. At the Valencia Nursing Home in Western Australia inadequate staffing meant residents were only washed on alternate days. That is despite all 45 residents being incontinent. Care staff said they were too busy to talk to residents.
It is clear that the current aged-care system is failing to deliver sufficient staff to provide the care and safety that residents require. Regulatory requirements for staffing, stripped away by the former government, need to be reintroduced and significantly extended. Minimum staffing levels covering all care and ancillary staff are the only way to provide a basic guarantee of care and safety for residents and their families. Accreditation standards need to be rewritten so that they are measurable and enforceable. A government that looks after the economy and creates a strong economic base needs to be able to ensure that the elderly are looked after.
The second area I want to touch on is dental care. In dental care, Labor can make real improvements to people’s lives. State governments have struggled to adequately look after dental care since the Howard government withdrew its contribution from the funding mix. What is required is a Labor solution to this problem. For some strange reason in Australia, for medical purposes the mouth is not considered part of the body. That is, Medicare effectively looks after all other parts of the body that may fall ill or be hurt in an accident, except for the mouth. I believe this has to change.
Australia prides itself on its universal healthcare system, yet we have a tremendous gap in the services we provide. Having to wait years for treatments for painful tooth and gum problems is totally unacceptable. Australia’s overall dental health is the second poorest among developed nations. It means that countries like Turkey provide better dental outcomes for their citizens than Australia. We were seen as being so bad in this area that in 2006 some Thai Buddhist monks came and volunteered dental services to the people of Queensland because of our chronic needs in dental health. So, whether it is A Current Affair with stories of people performing home dentistry or The 7.30 Report talking to industry experts, the answer is the same: dental care in Australia is in crisis and that crisis requires a national solution. Most Australians will suffer decay in at least 10 teeth by their late 30s and we have one of the highest tooth extraction rates in the developed world. Nearly 60 per cent of all care from public dental services is emergency care, with more than one tooth pulled every hour these dental services are open. It is essential that we have in place an affordable dental scheme that does not have people putting off going to the dentist until they have a chronic situation. My union did some research, through Auspoll, looking at the affordability of dental care. That Auspoll research was conducted in eight marginal seats and found that half the adults surveyed said they put off dental treatment that they needed because of the cost. Fifteen per cent of parents said they put off treatment for their kids because of the cost. Currently, public dental waiting lists have up to 650,000 people on them. The frightening thing is that these waiting lists are really just the tip of an iceberg when you have almost 50 per cent of people saying that they put off dental care because it costs too much money. Some Australians have been waiting for up to 10 years to get chronic dental issues resolved. It is time to end the pain and fix the problem.
In my electorate Mrs Hanley told me that after an extraction for an abscessed tooth in May 2005 she was advised that she would have to wait at least 12 months for a partial denture to be made. She has no molars in her lower jaw and cannot eat meat, salads and nuts. Dental care is of particular importance to the Central Coast because we have a large population of elderly people. We also have a high level of tooth decay that adversely affects the young and the elderly. One of the other 650,000 people waiting on the waiting list was Mrs Hanley’s husband. He has been on a list for over three years waiting to get his broken tooth fixed. TheDaily Telegraph told of three-year-old Cooper Agius, whose young teeth have been eaten away by medication he was taking for serious respiratory conditions. He was told he needs new crowns and root treatment, but his parents were told to sedate him for 12 months until he could get public emergency dental treatment. Again, a strong economy needs to be able to ensure that people’s dental health is not jeopardised because of its cost. We need to ensure that the fundamentals of the economy remain strong, that inflation is under control and that the benefits of that strong economy flow to all Australians, but particularly to those most in need and most vulnerable such as the elderly and those with dental problems.
We in the Labor Party are in the privileged position of being in government. For the sake of the people of Dobell, and the people of Australia, it is important that we use our time responsibly to ensure a strong economy so that we can improve the lot of our fellow Australians as only the Labor Party has been able to do in the past. It is a heavy responsibility that the Australian people expect us to deliver upon and a challenge that I look forward to with relish.
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18:33:00
Georgiou, Petro, MP
HM5
Kooyong
LP
0
0
Mr GEORGIOU
— I congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on your election to this very important position in the parliament and I hope you keep on enjoying the job as much as you seem to be enjoying it to date.
Through the Governor-General’s address, the new government has indicated an ambitious agenda covering a wide range of policy areas. I wish to focus on one of the subjects covered in the address—that of social inclusion. This is defined in the address as ‘improving the opportunities for all Australians to participate fully in Australian economic and social life’. That is certainly an aim shared by both sides of the parliament and one that I strongly support. I do not take issue with any of the specific initiatives that the government says it will implement to promote social inclusion. They deal with a variety of important subjects, such as the gap between the mortality rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. My concern is that two important aspects were not mentioned: promoting the social inclusion of migrants through English language teaching, and multiculturalism. I will not speculate on the reasons for their omission, but I note that, in Labor’s detailed election policy document An Australian Social Inclusion Agenda, there was also no mention of the disadvantage experienced by migrants or of multiculturalism.
The necessity for programs to assist migrants and particularly refugees has been acknowledged by successive governments for a long time, though that acknowledgement has not always guaranteed the provision of adequate resources. In July last year, the then shadow minister for immigration, who has been elevated to a significant portfolio, announced that a Rudd Labor government would commit an additional $49.2 million to help migrants learn English. The Prime Minister and his senior ministers have all been adamant that the government will implement its pre-election commitments, so I trust that any omission of a reference in the Governor-General’s speech to the strengthening of English language programs and settlement programs was not significant. Hopefully, the prioritisation of social inclusion will protect this program from falling victim to the government’s razor gang, because the necessity for English language teaching and settlement programs grew enormously last year when the government of the day introduced a new citizenship test. Proponents of the new test have argued that it is intended to, and will, promote integration. But, as I and many others contended when the test was proposed, in all probability it will prove to be a barrier of exclusion rather than a vehicle of inclusion. In the debate last August I said:
The fact that Australian citizenship laws have been made more inclusive in the past has provided a basis of trust, confidence and achievement. The fact that we accepted people with modest English language skills as citizens has broken down barriers, not maintained them. The establishment of this test will, I believe, diminish Australia. I do not believe that this will be apparent immediately, but I believe that it will happen, as the test excludes people who are committed to Australia and who could pass the present test. Their opportunities will be restricted, their participation will be impeded and the fairness and vitality of our society will be eroded.
That prognosis was bleak, but it may already be eventuating. Since the first test was introduced on 1 October, the number of applicants for citizenship has fallen dramatically. In the nine months immediately preceding the introduction of the test, there were never fewer than 11,000 applications a month. Since then, applications have plunged to just over 2,000 in October, 3,500 in November, 3,200 in December and 4,200 in January. In the decade preceding the test, the average number of applications for citizenship was 99,450. On current figures, the total number of applications in the 12 months following the introduction of the test is projected to be just 39,336. Is there a cause-and-effect relationship or are other factors responsible? You cannot attribute the decline to the holiday period. There was no seasonal variation in the previous 10 years and the rates are far lower in the comparable months in that period. You cannot attribute it to the fact that there are not enough people who, due to residency requirements, could apply, because there are approximately one million people in this country who are eligible to apply.
Whatever the explanation of that downturn in citizenship applications, it is troubling. Citizenship is an important element of social inclusion. It carries a range of privileges and responsibilities, which include the right to live here permanently, as distinct from the permission to remain which is granted to permanent residents; the right to apply for an Australian passport and seek consular assistance from Australian diplomatic representatives overseas; the right to register as Australian citizens children born overseas; the right to seek the full range of employment in the Defence Force and the Public Service; and, most importantly, the right to vote.
But it is not just a question of the sheer fall in the numbers of applicants; it also a question of what has happened to the reduced number of people who sat the new test. Unsurprisingly, the test is proving to be a harsher barrier for refugees than for other migrants. Around 30 per cent of those from Sudan, 25 per cent of those from Afghanistan and 16 per cent of those from Iraq were unable to pass. These results compare with a failure rate of around three percentage points for migrants in the skilled stream and 10 per cent of those who come in on family reunion. The fact is that it is the most vulnerable that this test hits the hardest. The personal cost of not getting Australian citizenship may be far greater for refugees than for other migrants. Some are stateless, so a lack of citizenship is an ongoing source of deep emotional insecurity. Many refugees, both stateless and otherwise, do not have passports, so they are unable to travel to reunite with family members scattered around the world by their flight to survive.
When the bill was introduced and the new test was being considered, few members of the House shared my view that it was so ill-conceived and unfair that it should not proceed. At the same time, many did have reservations and proposed that some protections be put in place. The Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs received evidence of strong concerns about the impact of the new test from a number of informed individuals and groups and, accordingly, it recommended that the operation of the citizenship testing regime be reviewed three years after the bill’s commencement. The committee also recommended that the proposed citizenship questions be tabled in the parliament, and I quote from the report:
Given the apparent level of community disquiet about the questions that might be included in the test, and that, as a general rule, delegated legislation should be transparent and disallowable, the committee suggests that the test questions be tabled in the Parliament to provide additional reassurance to those concerned. It would also help to ensure transparency and accountability of the proposed regime.
This was supported by both the Liberal and the Labor senators on the committee and more generally. The then opposition leader, Mr Rudd, commented that Labor had questions about the test, stating:
Show us the tests. Let’s see what sort of scrutiny they need to be subjected to.
The then shadow minister, during the debate on the citizenship bill, said:
I think that, as a matter of transparency, the government making the questions available is completely in the interests of citizenship being a process of unifying Australians. It is a logical thing to do, and it is completely in the interests of the government to do so.
The arguments for transparency that the opposition put in June 2007 are no less compelling eight months later now that it is in government and has the power to implement its positions. Indeed, if one listened to the debates in this parliament over the last few days, one would say that it is even more compelling because the word ‘transparency’ or the virtue of transparency has become almost cant.
The test questions have not been published to date and I have made several inquiries of the government to try to find out when or if they will be published. Thus far the requests for further clarification have been in vain. I suspect that this indicates that demands for transparency made by the Labor opposition are different from the capacity to meet those demands now that Labor is actually in a position to do so. I note as well that, last year, Labor tried to ameliorate difficulties that the test would cause migrants of a non-English-speaking background by amending the legislation to require that the Adult Migrant English Program and other settlement services be improved to assist migrants to participate fully in the Australian community and to pass the citizenship test. That amendment failed, but Labor now has the opportunity and the power to make good on its commitment to increase funding for these programs.
The government has stated that in April it will commission a review of the operation of the test, after it has been operating for six months. Given the government’s support for the test, I do not anticipate that this will be the fundamental review that we really need to have. I do not anticipate that it will inquire into whether the test really does provide a strong incentive for people to learn English. I do not anticipate that it will examine whether the knowledge people have to have to pass the test will make them more grateful and better citizens than those who acquired citizenship in previous decades. I do not anticipate that it will consider whether the test is penalising, excluding and alienating people who would make worthy members of our community. I do not anticipate that the review will do all this, but I believe that it should at least identify and ameliorate some of the harshest and most arbitrary features of what I believe is an expensive and counterproductive folly. Whether the review can do so depends on a number of elements that have not been announced as yet or, perhaps, have not even been decided. Most important is the independence and the calibre of the people who are appointed to undertake the review. They will need to have credibility, firmly grounded in their demonstrable integrity, knowledge of the area and sound public policy skills.
A second key element is the terms of reference of the review. The terms of reference must allow the reviewer to rigorously assess whether or not the test is achieving its objectives and whether or not there are any adverse consequences. I hope the Prime Minister’s recent intervention to ensure that aspiring applicants have to be aware of a cricketing champion of 50 years ago does not mean that the review will be limited to tweaking some of the questions.
When the initial post-test data was published, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship said:
If people are not succeeding, we need to find out why, and how we can help to support them better.
I agree, but to do that the review will have to be resourced to conduct such research as may be required to assemble evidence about the operation and implication of the test. The review must hear, in a rather more effective way than the last consultations did, the voices of those who are eager to become citizens but who find the test too daunting. It must take advice from education and health professionals about how difficult it is to study when you are a survivor of traumatic experiences before coming to Australia or when you are a middle-aged adult who does not speak English well and who is working long hours in an abattoir, cleaning offices or driving a taxi.
The review should also examine how other countries go about testing applicants for citizenship, and the lessons from these tests. This was certainly not done properly prior to the introduction of the test. For example, the UK was consistently put forward as a good model for Australia. We were not told that the UK does not test people about British history because it was considered unfair to ask immigrants questions that many British people would have difficulty answering. The report of the review of the Australian test should be published to allow discussions before the minister makes any changes. This would also be in keeping with the government’s promise of greater transparency in decision making.
I now turn to the other social inclusion issue which I mentioned at the outset: multiculturalism. A year ago this term was officially banished from the Australian government’s political lexicon. It was banished despite the fact that multiculturalism was one of the policy responses which was instrumental in Australia’s astonishing capacity to meet the challenge of an ethnically and culturally diverse society. It was a multiculturalism which explicitly insisted on a commitment to core values as the basis for a shared identity, as well as respect for diversity. The opposition at the time was critical of the government’s abandonment of multiculturalism, and the new government has resurrected the word in the title of the office of Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services. I would be interested in whether this is more than a rhetorical gesture or an act of sheer symbolism. Two things will tell us. One is when the government publishes its policy on cultural diversity. The website of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has a section for the government’s policy and for a while it has read:
This section of the website is currently being updated.
I and, I believe, many other people in the community eagerly await the news and trust it will come soon.
The other indicator of the government’s intention will be the outcome of what the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services has described as:
... an examination of how best to foster and promote the benefits of cultural diversity in the Australian community.
This examination was announced in a media release of 8 February which was boldly headed ‘A new lease of life for multicultural Australia’—lovely. Regrettably, the media release does not indicate who is undertaking the examination, what the terms of reference will be or what process will be followed. Contrasted with the declarations about the importance of transparency, one can only describe this as being distinctly opaque. If the government wishes to provide more information, I am sure that it will find in the community many people who would be willing to help.
I commend the government for identifying social inclusion as a priority of its work. I urge it to not ignore the formidable barriers to full and effective participation in Australia’s economic and social life encountered by both citizens and permanent residents who have thus far been overlooked in the government’s social inclusion agenda. To recapitulate my remarks, I call on the government to do three things. Firstly, the government should strengthen English language teaching and settlement programs. This is a commitment that must be honoured in full. Secondly, the government should ameliorate the adverse impacts of the new citizenship test. Thirdly, the government should reinvigorate the policy of multiculturalism, which has proved to be an astonishingly intelligent, successful and rewarding response to the fact of our ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! Before I call the member for Forde, I remind the House that this is the honourable member’s first speech. I ask the House to extend to him the usual courtesies.
738
18:52:00
Raguse, Brett, MP
HVQ
Forde
ALP
1
1
Mr RAGUSE
—It is indeed an honour to be elected to the chamber and, more importantly, a privilege to be here representing the people of Forde. However, before indulging too much in my own views and perspectives, I would first like to congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on your appointment and likewise congratulate all the members of the House for their success in the election, either as new or continuing members. This 42nd Parliament coincidentally includes 42 new members who, like me, are only too aware of the responsibilities that have now been imparted to them. The 24 November election was a historic victory for Labor and a well-deserved outcome for the honourable member for Griffith and our new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who as the leader of the Labor Party for only 11 months prior to the election created a viable and palatable platform and gave voters of Australia confidence in a new era of leadership that resulted in a transition to the Labor government.
As a new member from Queensland, it was clear from our results that voters wanted change. The seat of Forde recorded a swing of 14.43 per cent, the largest in the 2007 election and one of the largest since Federation. Many have speculated on what caused the extent of the swing. I believe many factors played a part in the final result, in particular the strong message delivered during the campaign that Labor could deliver on a preferred new future for us all. We as a party, and now a new government, have built expectations, and we now need to work towards delivering on those expectations. Having been a regular business traveller to Canberra in the mid-1990s, I would always include a self-imposed visit to Parliament House and this chamber. On one memorable occasion, in December 1996, after parliament had adjourned for the year, I stood in the public gallery where my friends and family gather today. I was quietly reflecting on the importance and the reverence of the House and the thought of the enormous privilege it would be to one day sit as a member in this chamber. But, to me, that seemed like an impossibility, with family commitments, business commitments and a stringent party process that would determine the person most appropriate to represent an electorate. It seemed daunting and sometimes I believed it was something I would never really have the opportunity of achieving.
Despite the enormity of the task, my own Pygmalion or self-fulfilling prophecy must have subconsciously started me on that journey. In fact, if you ponder the logistics of such adventure, it is one of Himalayan proportions. I say ‘Himalayan’ with the utmost respect and admiration for those who have scaled the famous Mount Everest. In effect, many more people have conquered the summit of Mount Everest, some 3,500 in the last 55 years, than have had the honour to serve in this chamber—1,059 Australians in 107 years. However, despite those sobering statistics, 11 years after my realisation in 1996 I became a proud new member who is so very honoured to be here to serve the people of Forde. Besides that, I would not make a good mountain climber anyway!
Forde is a hugely diverse electorate, with very little profile in the wider Australian community. This is something I intend to change—to put Forde on the map. Forde is named in honour of Francis Forde, better known as Frank Forde, who was Prime Minister for only eight days, from 6 July to 13 July 1945, following the sudden death of the Labor Party Prime Minister John Curtin. It is important to note that Frank Forde was the last Queensland Prime Minister prior to Kevin Rudd—63 years ago—and was the father-in-law of Queensland’s first woman Governor, Leneen Forde, who served Queensland from 1992 to 1997.
At 3,167 square kilometres, Forde is geographically large compared to neighbouring electorates but, as a south-east Queensland seat, also known as the Gold Coast hinterland, it is nestled against the neighbouring federal electorates of Rankin, Fadden, Blair, McPherson, Moncrieff and, over the border in New South Wales, the seats of Richmond and Page. Forde is geographically and demographically diverse, from high urban density in the north to large farmland and rural holdings in the south-west. It finishes at the New South Wales border, on the beautiful Border Ranges.
The seat of Forde involves parts of seven state electorates and three local government authorities: the Gold Coast City Council, the Logan City Council and the Beaudesert Shire Council. It includes the traditional lands and custodians of the Mununjali and Yugambeh nations and their elders—proud and productive Indigenous people who have pragmatically worked towards building a strong and enduring community. Due to the increasing demand for urban land in south-east Queensland, the areas of future potential development in Forde will become critical areas of growth and an economic powerhouse for the greater south-west of south-east Queensland. But, to do this in a way that makes economic sense, it must include a stringent planning regime to ensure environmental, social and economic imperatives to deliver long-term benefits. We must ensure that existing rural industries are supported and that good-quality agricultural land is enhanced. The farming sector to the south-west of Beaudesert has weathered torrid times, with the long period of recent drought making life difficult for farming families who had not had the level of government support they needed.
We must lock up areas of high environmental sensitivity while making sustainable, efficient and sensible decisions on areas of development. To do this means a plan of action between Commonwealth and state governments and the private sector, with the cooperation of the local government authorities in facilitating planning and progressing appropriate development approvals. The electorate at the moment has some of the largest areas of proposed development in the nation—from the large industrial estate of Yatala, just south of Beenleigh, which is regarded as the fastest growing industrial development in Australia, to the proposed intermodal transport and logistics areas of Bromelton to the west of Beaudesert. Bromelton is cited as being the largest inland port in this country, connecting the planned major road and rail freight corridors. Billions of dollars of investment are planned over the next decade. To ensure sustainability we need to understand the integration of needs for an area ready to undergo massive expansion. Industrial centres require a ready workforce, and a ready workforce requires well-planned residential communities planned around lifestyle.
Housing supply and demand in Queensland and particularly in Forde at the moment is volatile. Increased demand for housing is being driven by intense economic growth but is also due to the tardy sequencing of land release, which unnecessarily inflates the cost of housing. The integration of planning to provide appropriate health, public transport, education and community services is essential, along with the provision of timely infrastructure. A planning commitment by all levels of government is necessary to enable the timely sequencing and rollout of these new communities.
There are two major residential areas planned for Forde. Greater Flagstone, which lies to the south of Greenbank near the Bromelton development, will provide for 100,000 residents by 2030 and Yarrabilba, which lies to the south-west of Beenleigh and Yatala near the Yatala development, will provide for 70,000 residents by 2040. These developments will potentially deliver the lifestyle communities I mentioned. Better government understanding of the inflationary pressures caused by bureaucratic duplication and local red tape is essential to finding planning solutions that have a positive effect on economic outcomes, particularly outcomes that deliver the strict low-inflation regime sought by our Prime Minister and Treasurer.
Forde is diverse and includes parts of Loganholme in the north, Beenleigh and the beautiful Tamborine Mountain to the east, and the towns and shires of Beaudesert in the greater south-west. It is a unique place. With the retirement of my predecessor, Kay Elson, a long-serving Liberal member, the people of Forde had the opportunity to make a change. With this change I became the fourth member for Forde since its inception in 1984. The former Prime Minister, John Howard—who in his 11 years made only two visits to Forde, the latest being in October last year during the election campaign—said that Forde, to him, was where he could go if he wanted to know what was bothering Middle Australia. Well, on November 24, as we know, across the country and in Forde, Middle Australia resoundingly believed they had had enough.
The immediacy of my challenge is to ensure that we focus the attention of the federal government on needs and on the serious lack of both physical and social infrastructure in the electorate. The Labor campaign for the November 2007 election was built on the notion of a fair go—a fair go in work; a fair go for business; a fair go for older Australians; a fair go for our youth by providing opportunities in education and training; and a fair go for families. Every initiative of a new Labor government would find a point of reference within the electorate of Forde. Everyone was affected by the frustration of the lack of engagement by the previous government. Queensland was forgotten, and everyone on all sides of politics knew it. In my electorate, my support base straddled all sides of the traditional political fence. Both small and large business operators saw the opportunities presented by a potential Rudd government and got on board.
As I mentioned, housing availability and affordability are at critically low levels. The rate of mortgage stress and default of housing loans in Forde is one of the highest in the country. The previous lack of cooperation and coordination between the state and federal governments has meant that a number of communities in Forde are without basic transport services. For an electorate without adequate roads, transport infrastructure and services, the impacts have a dual effect on the people living in the various townships and communities across Forde. The cost of running two cars, because there is no public transport, is compounded by the effect of rising fuel and grocery prices. People in the electorate are hurting. One of my pledges to the people of Forde is to provide better opportunities to talk to their representatives in government. Coordination between the three tiers of government—council, state and federal—and regular community briefings will form part of our community engagement strategy.
High on my list of priorities is our youth. Our future is so much determined by how we nurture, support and mentor our youth. Education and training is paramount in providing them with the skills and strategies for dealing with their future lives while maintaining their individuality and motivation. Our understanding of the social aspects of their development through tangible and intangible support is critical.
I had a very humble and somewhat uncertain beginning. My mother, at the age of 17 in 1960, was pregnant and was not married. This was at a time when community perceptions and prejudices were heavily weighted against unmarried mothers. With no provision of support and a family that was not able to support her, it was decided before my birth that I would be adopted. I was very lucky to be adopted into a family who not only nurtured and raised me but imparted, amongst many things, the important values of life. I enjoyed a good public education. After graduating from high school in 1977, I took on an apprenticeship as a hand and machine compositor—also known as a comp—a trade within the printing industry. I am one of only three compositors that I am aware of who have served in this House. The two previous compositors were Australia’s third Prime Minister and first Labor Prime Minister, John Watson, in 1904, and Senator Bert Milner, whose untimely death on 30 June 1975 caused a string of events that saw the demise of the Whitlam government later that year.
For me, the events of 1975 were largely responsible for my political awakening. On 11 November, 1975—incidentally during my junior exams—the Whitlam government was dismissed. While history well records the conventional and constitutional explanations for such an action, the political cause can largely be attributed to the machinations of Queensland’s then National Party state Premier, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, who appointed a less than Labor-friendly replacement senator. The conditions of this appointment were catalytic in bringing down the national government. In Queensland, without the existence of an upper house, some of the long-accepted conventions of the Westminster system were compromised, which further led to allegations of dishonesty and corruption throughout executive government.
If you were a Labor Party member in Queensland, you may well have found yourself on the Police Special Branch files with an offensive dossier. The democratic freedoms we all enjoy in this country were severely compromised with the denial of freedom of expression, the outlawing of public congregation and the restriction of choice in what displayed many aspects of a totalitarian regime. However, the questionable activities and the promotion of cronyism by that government resulted in the conviction and sentencing of a number of former state government members on fraud and a variety of other charges. These events firmly galvanised my concern about political conservatism.
The conservative actions of the Howard government on many social issues also became the antithesis of reform, particularly on the important social reforms that emerge through changing times and expectations. This cannot be better demonstrated than by the refusal of the former government and its stance on all matters related to the reconciliation and the now celebrated apology brought down by the Rudd government on that historic day last week. I am sure the academics and the historians will analyse the actions of the Howard government and the machinations that continued in order to find excuses for why an apology should not be forthcoming. The Bringing them home report clearly explained the purpose of saying sorry to recommence the processes of reconciliation commenced by the previous Labor government. The philosophical arguments over the taxonomy of the words do not make any difference to the reality that, if there are social injustices affecting a community, governments must rise to the challenge of resolving these injustices. Reform is about recognising that something is not working and fixing it. In fact, I would argue that this is why this House exists—to debate, analyse and reform by finding a better way of doing things and to provide the appropriate legislation to deal with that change.
Reform should establish the notion of: ‘It’s not about blame; it’s about change and the need for change when it is so obviously warranted.’ The conservative philosophies and actions of the former Howard government were proven by their inflexibility when dealing with issues of social sensitivity. While the Work Choices legislation was certainly a major cause of the Howard government’s downfall, it also demonstrated to the voters that the government was arrogant and failing on many other levels. If the difference between reform and conservatism is the ability to right previous injustice, then we must always look towards reform, particularly if past decisions continue to hurt and disaffect members of our society.
Last week I was intrigued by comments from some of the opposition who seem to have the view that they have exclusivity when it comes to business expertise—an outdated, conservative and almost archaic boss-to-worker mentality—and that the coalition is business and Labor is the worker. The Labor Party proudly protects the rights of workers. A depth of expertise in all areas of business and professional practice is well represented on this side of the House. To suggest, as they did last week, that we on the Labor side have never run businesses or employed people is amusing, if not grossly naive and uninformed.
I have, for a significant part of my working life, been a small business man, employing people who incidentally were also members of the union. As a former small business owner and operator who employed a significant number of staff, I understand well the dynamics of running a business. I was a member and executive member of two chambers of commerce and served as president of one and vice-president of another over a number of years.
I spoke previously about my original trade as a compositor. But, with the opportunity to study as a mature age student, I commenced a commerce degree, converting to a teaching degree and further study, resulting in the completion of an honours degree in education. I took up positions as a teacher, lecturer, faculty and college director and, with the move back to the private sector, rolled out education and training programs in multimedia throughout Australia and South-East Asia. This led to varied business interests, including publishing small community newspapers and other media productions.
My desire to enter politics resulted in a move three years ago, when I took up offers in parliamentary and ministerial service for a state member and two senior Queensland ministers, as a policy adviser.
Mr Speaker, I further seek the indulgence of the House while I mention those special people who have had a great influence on my life and who have made my accession to this House a reality. As a member of the Labor Party, I pay tribute to the Labor cause and the generations of Labor members and elected members who have proven our philosophical stance, conscience and commitment to giving all Australians a fair go. I pay tribute to our Prime Minister and other elected Labor members in this House who fought a hard but honest campaign to convince a majority of Australians to hand Labor the responsibilities of government.
I have so many people, who played varying roles, to thank, and there is simply not enough time in this response to name them all. For that I apologise, but I will not forget them! I want to pay tribute to my mum, Lyn Raguse, who, at almost 87 years of age, has been my inspiration and my conscience. She is an Irish migrant of 81 years who still carries a good argument and is someone against whom I still have difficulty in winning a debate! I pay tribute to the memory of my father, John Raguse, who died too young at 62 and whose stoicism and strength taught me tenacity. This style of tenacity gave me strength to campaign relentlessly. I pay tribute to my childhood brother and sister, Mark and Kim Raguse, for the shared happy and eventful childhood years.
I pay tribute to my four children—Aaron, 19; Matthew, 17; Hannah, 13; Emma, 10—and their mother, Annette. They have supported me through the years and have lived with the effect of politics on family life. I pay tribute to my birth mother, Denise Fletcher, whom I finally met at the age of 29. She weathered the early trials of life yet emerged triumphant with the support of her husband, Laurie Fletcher, a man who has also inspired me with his gentle yet unrelenting support for his family.
I pay tribute to John and Daphne Loveday, who treated me like a son and were always there to support me. I pay tribute to my brothers and sisters and their families—the Fletchers—and my sister Nicole Byrnes, who made a number of personal sacrifices to help me achieve this win.
I thank Steve Searle and his wife, Alison, who always believed that success was possible. Steve’s energy and absolute commitment to the campaign were, for me, humbling and perpetually appreciated. I thank two very special and inspirational friends, Roland and Shirley Lindenmayer, who proved my theory that people from all political persuasions can come together for a common cause and influence a positive outcome and prove that democracy does work.
I pay tribute to Jim and Sandy Dennis, who were there from the start and never failed in providing help wherever and whenever needed. I also pay tribute to Jim’s mother, Mary Dennis, who, at 84, continues to hold the Labor faith. I thank Isobel Tarrago and her daughter, Aveline Tarrago, and Lucy and David Banu for their warm and generous support.
I pay tribute to my loyal friends Noni Hazlehurst and Ian Marden, who, with busy filming schedules interstate, always made the effort to be available. I pay tribute to Normie Rowe for his overt and enduring support for Vietnam veterans and for making sure we always remembered.
I pay tribute to Brett and Pam McCreadie for their hard work, friendship and the support they garnered from the QPSU. I pay tribute to those I honour as my political mentors, who, with their own busy and demanding schedules, always made time to help with advice: state members and ministers Desley Boyle, John Mickel, Margaret Keech, Evan Moorhead, Gary Fenlon, Michael Choi and Desley Scott. I also pay tribute to federal members and senators Joe Ludwig, Wayne Swan, Craig Emerson, Tony Burke, Jennie George, Bernie Ripoll and former minister Con Sciacca.
I pay tribute to my friends and family who are here today in the gallery: my two sons, Aaron and Matthew; Aaron’s partner, Alexa; Ada and Jamie Banks; Di Lydiard; Steve Alcock; Rosalia Sieira; and, in absentia, her partner, Paul Roderick.
I thank Jenny Atkinson, my campaign manager, who, with the support of several hundred campaign workers and the help of her daughter, Samantha Fuller, formed a solid team who unrelentingly pushed our cause forward. I say thank you to Maarten Sherrington and his family—his wife, Louise, and their children, Tom and Rose—who all made so many family sacrifices to ensure that Maarten was always available, particularly during those intense weeks and months of campaigning. To my other staff, Stuart Fenech, Annette Curry and Jason Whitlock: I thank you not only for what you have already achieved in my office but also in anticipation of the vibrant and exciting three years ahead of us.
I must pay special tribute to my partner, Marlene Sieira, who has weathered both a state and federal election campaign while managing her own career responsibilities and pressures. She has continued to be a stabilising influence, despite her own personal pain due to the loss of her father, Ben Sieira—a true gentleman—in 2006.
In closing, I would like to reflect on the words of the honourable member for Griffith, our new Prime Minister. In his first speech, which strongly reflects my own disposition, he said:
I do not know whether I will be in this place for a short or a long time. That is for others to decide. But what I do know is that I have no intention of being here for the sake of just being here. Together with my colleagues it is my intention to make a difference.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you to the members of this House for your kind indulgence.
Debate (on motion by Mr McMullan) adjourned.
Appropriation Bill (No
. 3) 2007-2008
744
Bills
R2905
Cognate bill:
Appropriation Bill (No
. 4) 2007-2008
744
Bills
R2923
Second Reading
744
Debate resumed from 13 February, on motion by Mr Hunt:
That this bill be now read a second time.
744
19:15:00
Dutton, Peter, MP
00AKI
Dickson
LP
0
0
Mr DUTTON
—I rise to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2007-2008 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2007-2008. I want to provide a perspective from the opposition in relation to these very important cognate bills before the House. The coalition supports the appropriate appropriation of moneys from consolidated revenues to the programs outlined in the detail of the bill, but the point that needs to be made in this debate is that this is an exercise in blatant political skulduggery by those opposite—in particular, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. This is a political stunt because the government has used this bill as an opportunity to include $643 million of so-called cuts, many of which include underspends in programs. Much of the detail in the $643 million includes transferring some of the spending across to other programs and also some cuts into programs which the coalition announced before the election or that we undertook to deliver to the Australian people prior to the campaign period but which were not implemented for administrative reasons.
This causes us some concern because, over the last few weeks, in talking about the $643 million of so-called cuts, the finance minister has attempted to rewrite history. He has used the figure of $643 million of so-called cuts to try and provide an example of the way in which his government intends to affect pressure on inflation in the Australian economy at the moment. The reality is that we have a $1.1 trillion economy. We have a leading international economy. We have government expenditure running at about $1 billion a day. Although $643 million certainly is a lot of money, for someone to suggest that $643 million would exert downward pressure on inflation is an embarrassment beyond belief, not just for the finance minister but for the haphazard Treasurer in the Rudd government.
When we look at the detail of the $643 million in so-called cuts, we see that there are some that we would agree with and some that we would not. But what is missing from the $643 million is any suggestion from the Labor Party that they could add to that figure. When we go through the funding commitments—the election promises that Labor made—we see that they are of a very similar nature to some that they have included in the $643 million figure. On the one hand, Labor are saying that they are working to rein in government expenditure, that they are trying to exert downward pressure on inflation by making $643 million in cuts in a $1.1 trillion economy; yet, on the other hand, it is okay for them to knock out funding for a sports stadium or for a particular sporting group in an electorate when they have made a very similar promise in one of their own marginal seats. It seems that that is okay; government expenditure does not extend that far. All this does is underscore the fact that this is really nothing more than a political stunt.
The Australian public is fast learning just how incompetent the Rudd government is in managing the Australian economy. That, of course, is of great concern not just to Australian families but also to Australian small and large business—the employers in this nation who have contributed so much to where we are as a nation and as an economy today.
Over the last few weeks, ministers have made coordinated speeches and spoken similar lines. Their speeches have obviously been formulated by the Prime Minister’s office. None of them are capable of writing their own speeches. All of their speeches have been formulated in the Prime Minister’s office. This government has ministers who are incapable of determining their own speeches or programs. They need to follow a script from Mr Rudd’s office. This shows their lack of depth and, in particular, the incompetence of the Treasurer and the minister for finance.
As part of this debate it is important to put on the public record the fact that, when Labor were elected to government at the 24 November election, they inherited a very strong economy. The fundamentals of the economy had remained strong because of the last 11½ years of coalition government, and they will remain strong for many years to come—we hope. We hope that Labor do not undo many of the programs that the coalition put in place. Labor did not support all of the programs that we had in place to eliminate the $96 billion worth of debt when we came into government. Unemployment under Labor was running at 10 per cent, and we brought that down to just over four per cent. We had high inflation under the Labor Party, and we brought that within the band required by the Reserve Bank. Labor opposed every step that we put in place to deliver those measures and a balanced budget outcome for the Australian people. What we fear most is that they will revert to their old ways over the coming period that they may be in government.
The point is that that sends a very disturbing message to people in this country who are making investment decisions in not just capital expenditure but also their business in terms of human capital investment as to whether or not they are going to put on staff. If we start to see a zapping of confidence in the business sector in this country then that is of great concern because unemployment will rise from there and confidence will quickly disappear. That is of great concern to the future of this country.
It is of course worth noting and recognising, as part of contributing to this debate in a factual way about the economic position that the coalition left this country in, that we inherited a $10 billion deficit and we converted that into around a $10 billion surplus year on year after we came into government. We inherited levels of government spending equal to about 25 per cent of GDP and they are now equal to about 21.2 per cent. We certainly inherited a ballooning unfunded superannuation liability, which we have now addressed by closing the PSS and creating the Future Fund, something that Labor when in government was never capable of doing. We introduced accrual accounting to provide details of the full cost of service delivery. For the first time we published a balance sheet for the general government sector and the whole of the public sector. Last time under Labor we had no idea what the value of the government’s assets were or of key liabilities like the unfunded superannuation liability. We introduced for the first time consolidated whole-of-government financial reports audited by the Auditor-General. We introduced the outputs-outcomes framework to place the focus on what was actually being delivered for the money spent. We increased the efficiency dividend on government departments to ensure money was being spent on services at the sharp end rather than on administration. We completely reformed property management and procurement practices to ensure best value for taxpayers’ money.
After having done all that hard work, the point that I make is that when we were coming into the November election we said to the Australian people, ‘If you change the government, you change the country.’ And at the moment we are seeing great evidence of that, because it is widely recognised that the Treasurer is a person who is completely and utterly out of his depth. This is a person who is spooking the financial markets at the moment. This is a person who has demonstrated that he has no capacity to understand basic economic terms. He is a person who I think will lend himself to allowing government spending to get out of control. He is a person who I think does not have a grasp on the future picture of where the Australian economy should be over the next decade.
When you look at what it is that government at the federal level under Labor will deliver, I think you need to look at the position of the state Labor governments and the way they have managed their respective economies over the last decade or so. The reality is that Labor is in no position to lecture the government on financial management. This Prime Minister ran around the country during the election making multi-million-dollar decisions and promising huge expenditure in every city. Labor’s attempt to identify savings to fund these promises has been riddled with errors and inconsistencies, which is a common theme that we have seen at a state and territory level under Labor mismanagement over recent years. Now Mr Swan is trying to pretend he can fund Labor’s election commitments from the contingency reserve, which is simply an adjustment to the forward estimates that is made to ensure maximum accuracy.
It is important to recognise exactly where state Labor debt is at the moment. Labor are going to rack up something like $50 billion in debt over the next four years. People at home might ask how on earth that is possible in today’s day and age when we have a robust economy, when we have low unemployment, when we have high participation rates and when the economy generally—not in all sectors but generally—is doing quite well. There are a number of reasons for it, but primarily it is because Labor do not have the experience to manage money. Whenever they have managed money in the past they have racked up government debt, particularly at a federal level. As I say, it was a staggering figure of $96 billion in debt when we came into government—about $8 billion a year in interest payments just to service that $96 billion of debt. I do not want the Australian economy to return to that, and Mr Swan at the moment is giving us no encouragement to believe that that will not happen.
I think we need to recognise that the coalition, when in government over 11½ years, managed the economy particularly well in relation to unemployment. We had a participation rate which peaked at about 63 per cent under the coalition government. That was an all-time high. That allowed people who before had never had the opportunity to be employed in a gainful way to participate actively in the economy, which not only provided benefits to the economy, to business and to growth but, importantly, gave those people self-respect and the ability to contribute not just to themselves but to their families as well. That opportunity was never given to at least a million people who were on the unemployment queue when Labor were last in government. At the moment the Labor Party are running around the country trying to rewrite history. They are in a honeymoon period at the moment as far as the media and in particular the gallery are concerned. That will come to an end at some stage, we hope. What we need to be mindful of is that, during this honeymoon period, Labor are not able to get away with this joke of an argument that they were left with a basket case of an economy. The Treasurer, by his own admission, says that the Australian economy was strong and is strong. But if this inept performance by this Treasurer continues then confidence will quickly go from the economy and it will be indeed a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This Treasurer has—as has my counterpart, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation—been running around arguing on the one hand that they need to honour their commitment of $31 billion of tax cuts because that was a commitment they made to the electorate in the run-up to the 24 November election and that those tax cuts, on their argument, would not be inflationary but tax cuts in out years would be. I think that goes to demonstrate how incapable this Treasurer is of carrying an economic argument. How can you on the one hand argue that, in 2011-12 or 2012-13, $30 billion of tax cuts would not be appropriate because they would be inflationary yet on the other hand argue that, in 2007-08 or 2008-09 or 2009-10, $31 billion of tax cuts would not be inflationary? You cannot walk both sides of the street. The Treasurer may well have done that in opposition, but in government he needs to be mindful of the fact that people are very closely scrutinising his every word. There are financial markets in this country which are depending on and watching every word that this Treasurer says. He cannot be out there running this politically expedient line and at the same time attempting to maintain his economic credibility, because on that front at the moment this Treasurer has a score of zero.
I think we need to be mindful of the fact that, if Labor are allowed to get away with this rewrite of history that has been conducted over the last few weeks, this argument that the coalition government threw on them some huge problem with inflation, it would be a great disservice to the history of the proud record that the coalition had whilst we were in government. At every opportunity we should defend that record, because it was a very strong record that saw the Australian economy improve, benefiting millions of Australians.
I do not want to see the federal government running around over the coming weeks, talking down the Australian economy. Mr Swan somehow says, on the one hand, that he inherited a strong economy yet he says, on the other, that it is a basket case. I do not want to see him getting away with that, because it is factually incorrect. I think the onus is particularly on the media to pull the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance and Deregulation into line when they are out spouting these untruths.
I think most Australian people would say to themselves: ‘Hang on, I can remember when interest rates were 17 per cent under Labor, when unemployment was well over 10 per cent and when the participation rate was very low, and then I can remember the years of the coalition government, when interest rates were driven down from those 17 per cent highs, unemployment came down, inflation came down and the participation rate went up. How can we now have a Labor government denying the reality of the last 11 or 12 years?’
I think the government should be put on notice that we will not tolerate a continuation of this nonsense. As I said in my opening remarks, it underscores just what a political stunt this is when the minister for finance runs around saying that a spending cut of $643 million is going to exert some sort of downward pressure on inflation in a $1.1 trillion economy. The argument just does not hold, and he really does himself a disservice when he goes out peddling those sorts of stories.
The coalition opposition will be watching the performance of the Treasurer very closely over the coming weeks, because his performance is paramount in where we are headed as a nation. He should know that—to put it very succinctly—we are watching his performance very closely, as I think most Australians are, particularly most small business people, because they are very concerned about where this Treasurer is headed. We will make sure that we attack him at every opportunity for any sort of nonsense that he continues to carry on with, particularly if he has these half-baked ideas about economic policy which just do not carry any weight whatsoever. They are clearly a politically convenient argument and they really do not serve any purpose beyond that at all.
I want to turn to another issue which really goes to show what a sham this argument from the government is in relation to the state of the economy they inherited from the coalition and how inept I think the current government will be at handling the issue of inflation. This Treasurer argued that, through their First Home Saver Account scheme, they would add about $3 billion to $4 billion to savings in this nation over the estimates. The Treasurer is arguing that $3 billion to $4 billion added to savings over a four-year period would help bring downward pressure on inflation, yet at the same time he is out there saying that state governments contributing to debt—that is, state governments going into the money market to borrow money to finance their debt arrangements—do not put upward pressure on inflation. Again, it is one of those arguments where he wants to walk both sides of the street. He says that the federal government adding $3 billion to $4 billion to savings is a good thing, which it is, but that state Labor governments running up $80 billion of debt borrowing from the same source that the Commonwealth would have otherwise is not an inflationary pressure on the economy.
Today it was amply demonstrated that the Treasurer had no capacity to understand this very simple economic argument. I think that, when commentators and economists look at these basic failings of the Treasurer, it will shortly be incumbent upon the Prime Minister to have a ministerial reshuffle and put the Treasurer into a position that he is capable of handling. The opposition really does have a concern about the way in which the Labor Party at the moment is trying to rewrite the economic history of this country. It is unacceptable, and at every opportunity we will provide the factual alternative to their political proposition.
Whilst we are examining these bills and the expenditure of the government, we will be paying particular notice to some of the funding commitments that the Labor Party has made to marginal seats right around the country. We will be asking the question of the Minister for Finance and Deregulation why it is not appropriate that some of those measures be included as part of or in addition to this $643 million if it is so important to increase that figure to bring, as he says—quite wrongly—downward pressure on inflation. These bills provide the capacity, quite correctly, to appropriate money from consolidated revenue across to the proper running of particular government departments, and the detail of that is provided in the bill. I look forward very much to continuing our discussion with the government on this very important issue of economic management over the years ahead.
749
19:36:00
Grierson, Sharon, MP
00AMP
Newcastle
ALP
1
0
Ms GRIERSON
—I rise to speak in support of the government’s Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2007-2008 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2007-2008. I note the member for Dickson’s comments about rewriting history and I would say to him: no, we are not rewriting history; we are just rewriting the history of the past government’s economic management and putting it under the spotlight that reveals so much in terms of the lack of investment for the future. Yes, we have enjoyed over a decade of sustained growth, but it is the role of the government to make sure that that sustained growth is invested in the future so that, when times are not quite so good, we have a gentle decline rather than a major fall.
These bills seek parliamentary approval to appropriate additional money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund in order to meet the requirements that have arisen since the last budget. The total additional appropriation being sought through these additional estimates bills is $3.3 billion, which is approximately 4.8 per cent of total annual appropriations.
Before moving to some of the detail contained within these bills, I want to acknowledge the hard work of the new Minister for Finance and Deregulation and member for Melbourne, Mr Lindsay Tanner. The work he has done in identifying savings and offsets of the previous government’s spending so that they may be redirected to better and more effective program priorities will deliver great dividends to the Australian people. I would also like to put on the record my respect for the minister’s competence and commitment. Having worked with him on both the economics committee and the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit during the life of the last parliament, I know the considerable understanding he has of the economic issues facing this nation and his commitment to proper process instead of political rorting and spending of the Australian public’s money for political gain and self-preservation. That is not the way of this finance minister and I know that all of us will become appreciative of that over the next three years. I was particularly proud to have him launch my election campaign in Newcastle.
These bills are, in fact, the first instalment of the new Labor government’s promise of savings. They include savings identified during the election and since the election. During the election campaign, Labor promised to deliver these savings by requiring government departments and agencies to deliver an additional two per cent efficiency dividend in the 2008-09 financial year. The first part-year instalment on that promise will be achieved this financial year. This initiative will deliver an estimated saving in expenses against annual departmental appropriations of around $100 million in 2007-08, which is a significant reduction and saving. A 30 per cent reduction in ministerial and opposition staff levels is also included, yielding a net saving of $15.4 million this year.
Administrative efficiencies will also arise from the transition from AWAs to collective enterprise agreements and statutory individual contracts. As a result, the Workplace Authority will achieve a funding reduction of $30 million in 2007-08. It is a pity that, over the last two days, we have had to watch some of the Work Choices promotional material—a huge waste of taxpayers’ money—being disposed of at great expense to the public. These appropriations also abolish the access card project, providing a saving this year of $250.6 million. This was always a controversial card. It always triggered privacy concerns and it certainly did not have the strong support of this parliament. It would also have been an additional compliance burden for Centrelink, and I think that was most inappropriate. I am pleased to see that one gone.
There is, though, one area of savings that I wish to make comment on, because, when I saw it, I had some feelings of concern myself—it relates very closely to activities being undertaken in my electorate—and that is the government’s decision to reverse the FutureGen Industrial Alliance membership, at a saving of $15 million. I note this measure in particular, because last year I had the great privilege as part of a study trip to meet with Ken Humphreys in Washington. Ken is the coordinator of the FutureGen alliance and I know how important he saw international membership of FutureGen as being. I take this opportunity in this House to personally thank Ken Humphreys for hosting my visit to meet with him in Washington and for his generosity with his knowledge and advice regarding clean coal research.
However, since we met, the US government has pulled the pin on some of the funding of this project after concern over cost blow-outs and reduced availability of investment capital for construction of new plants. FutureGen was an ambitious project which had the goal of building a new-generation clean coal power plant. However, I understand that clean coal research will continue in the US, just as it will here in Australia. In fact, Labor’s commitments to clean coal research will particularly benefit my region and my electorate, where coal exports underpin our economy and where the CSIRO’s energy flagship continues its standout research in postcombustion capture from existing power stations. This research holds great promise for sustaining coal fired energy production. The $15 million required for membership of the FutureGen alliance will now come from Labor’s Clean Coal Fund, which is appropriate. We will not reduce our focus on developing the best research options for the Australian experience.
Labor has also rightly identified government spending as an area that grew out of control under the previous government—something I noticed that the member for Dickson denied. Contrary to the rhetoric from members on the opposition benches, Labor has inherited rather challenging economic circumstances. We have underlying inflation running at 3.6 per cent and projections from the Reserve Bank of Australia of an inflation rate of 3.5 per cent until 2010. We have had five interest rate rises over the last 18 months, with at least another one waiting in the wings, and government spending grew by 4½ per cent in real terms. The primary commitment of this new government is to ensure that government spending is brought back under control so as not to put any additional upward pressure on inflation and interest rates. In an economy that is seeing high returns from the mining boom and experiencing sustained growth, but which is also facing constraints to that growth because of the previous government’s failure to invest in skills and infrastructure, it would be grossly irresponsible to allow government spending to increase at the rate that the previous government allowed.
Eliminating wasteful spending is not hard. We need only look at the shameful spend of the Howard government on advertising in their last 16 months of office. They spent $457 million—almost half a billion dollars—on government advertising within a space of 16 months. Just imagine what that would do for the issues facing us today—the big issues like climate change. On a calendar year basis, government advertising spending increased from $95.6 million in 2002 to $368.8 million in the election year of 2007. That is a 285 per cent increase, and they did not even last out the full year in 2007. And, although the former Treasurer, the member for Higgins, has at least fessed up that whilst Treasurer he did ‘worry about the sustainability’ of government spending, it seems that many of the members opposite are yet to learn from past mistakes. Labor will not indulge in wasteful spending and will instead focus on improved efficiencies and wise investments in areas of national need.
Appropriation Bill (No. 3) seeks a total appropriation of $2.4 billion, and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) seeks an appropriation of $898.5 million. Both of these bills include a number of election commitments and changes in the estimates of existing program expenditure. Some of the election commitments and new measures seeking additional appropriations for funding include $100 million to establish the National Secondary School Computer Fund—thank goodness. This fund is an integral part of Labor’s promise to deliver a digital education revolution. The digital education revolution will dramatically change classroom education by ensuring that all students in years 9 to 12 have access to information and communication technology.
The Rudd government believes that every Australian child deserves a world-class education. To be able to compete globally, Australia needs a world-class education system. This includes investing in our school infrastructure, including computers in schools and trade-training centres, investing in our teachers and establishing a national curriculum. The first $100 million of the National Secondary School Computer Fund, which is provided for in this bill, will be directed to the schools most in need, by June 2008. To identify those schools, a preliminary audit is being undertaken by state and territory government education departments, the Association of Independent Schools and Catholic education offices. The audit will identify the neediest schools so that they are able to apply for the first round of funding, which will commence in early March, with applications closing in early April. Obviously schools will be preparing for that opportunity, as they are in my electorate. Applications for the second round will be open to all Australian secondary schools in July 2008.
The National Secondary School Computer Fund will be very much appreciated by secondary schools all around the country. I know that they appreciate this commitment. Certainly for the students in secondary schools in my electorate the benefits will be quite extreme and quite amazing. Having been a principal in schools for many years, I know how vital it is to have a real and relevant education for children. They are children of the digital age, and they deserve to have that as part of their everyday studies, not just as something that is available after school for them. The young people of today are always connected. From employing staff in my office, I know the different learning and work styles of people who have had exposure to computers all their lives. It is something that I guess those of my generation envy. We are computer dependent, but we certainly do not have the computer literacy skills that young people have today. Bringing skills into the real world is vital, and this policy will do that.
The appropriation bills also allow $33.3 million for the government’s Skilling Australia for the Future program, funding which in 2007-08 will deliver 20,000 vocational education and training places that are aimed at people currently outside the workforce. I think that is another area of great neglect by the previous government—that people were not given the assistance they need to be trained, to be retrained and certainly to be moving into work. This program will commence in the beginning of April 2008, and it is the first instalment of Labor’s commitment to tackle the chronic skills shortages. Unfortunately, the previous government refused to address the economy’s skills deficit, but the Rudd government knows that it must invest in targeted training programs to help provide much-needed labour resources to sectors experiencing chronic shortages. At the election we put forward our Skilling Australia for the Future policy to help fund the delivery of 450,000 training places over the next four years, including 65,000 extra apprenticeships. The government estimates that this program will cost $1.3 billion over four years. This appropriation bill covers the first 20,000 of the additional training places that will be available from April this year.
The government also announced before the election that it would establish Skills Australia as an independent statutory body to advise the government on skills shortage issues. The government recognises the urgency of the challenge and is introducing new legislation to establish Skills Australia in this very first session of the new parliament. We will also be delivering further measures in higher education to address skill shortages in maths, science, nursing and early childhood education. I am very pleased to see that so many of our policies specifically target maths and science. Maths and science education in this country perhaps has not had the investment it has required. Maths and science provide the building blocks for the professions that are so necessary at the moment: engineers, researchers, statisticians, doctors, economic modellers and many more that are important to this nation’s future prosperity.
I take this opportunity to wish a friend and supporter, Ruth Callcott, a very bright future. Ruth is a mature age and highly skilled statistician, and she is taking up an offer from the South Australian government to complete teacher training and serve in schools in the Eyre Peninsula. It is wonderful to see such experienced, skilled and capable people as Ruth make a decision to help young people become literate in maths, at a time when there is such a marked shortage of maths and science teachers in this country. So I wish Ruth very good luck and say that South Australia is fortunate to have her talents.
The Skilling Australia for the Future program will be particularly well received in my electorate of Newcastle, which has suffered from skills shortages and has a range of excellent vocational and education training providers that have a great track record. In fact, there is a completion rate of over 90 per cent in terms of apprenticeships by our own local providers. I think no Howard government program got up to a 50 per cent retention or completion rate, so I congratulate our local providers on the work they have done.
These bills also provide $2½ million to establish Infrastructure Australia to ensure genuine accountability in infrastructure spending and to make sure that priorities are identified. There will be no regional rorts and no misuse of taxpayers’ money for this government. The previous government preferred to spend taxpayers’ money on short-term political fixes. The Rudd Labor government will focus on the long-term investments that our nation so badly needs. Infrastructure investments will be subject to expert analysis. If a government chooses to invest in a project for political rather than economic reasons, everyone will know about it. Infrastructure Australia will develop a national approach to tackling infrastructure bottlenecks, which is an area of particular interest to my electorate of Newcastle.
I have already been on the public record in the media urging the City of Newcastle to put its case forward to Infrastructure Australia to alert the minister to the needs of the coal chain in Newcastle, and certainly the F3 link between Sydney and Newcastle is deserving of much more attention. Getting freight off the F3, possibly through our port handling more freight and certainly through rail handling more freight, is long overdue. These are major projects that require federal government assistance, so we do look forward to investment in infrastructure that unfortunately was neglected by the previous government.
When I was in America last year a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, killing people and shocking the nation. Having read of the infrastructure deficits in America and of the 350 airports and thousands of roads and freeways with defect notices, I find it a tragedy to come back to Australia and see a repetition of that sort of neglect of infrastructure. The Infrastructure Australia commitment by this government is one I know the public of Australia are looking forward to.
Additional funds are also proposed in these bills for the Department of Health and Ageing. Of particular note is the $33.1 million to provide up-front capital grants and recurrent funding for the establishment of 31 GP superclinics around Australia and to provide incentive payments to GPs and allied health providers to relocate to these clinics. I know that the constituents in my neighbouring electorate of Charlton will be particularly pleased to see these funds released. The member for Charlton worked very hard during our campaign to ensure that a GP superclinic would be established in his electorate—and rightly so, as it is an area of rapid growth and high need.
These appropriation bills also provide an additional $31.8 million for rebates to households for installing solar hot-water heaters to encourage improved energy efficiency in homes and an additional $50.8 million for the National Solar Schools Plan to encourage improved energy and water efficiency in schools. It is great to see that being rolled out now so that our school communities can access these energy-saving options early.
Importantly, these bills also provide an additional $189.8 million to assist people with disabilities and their families and carers. This includes annual tax-free payments of $1,000 for each child under the age of 16 with a disability whose carer is receiving child carer allowance, and $9 million to increase the support available to people in disability business services. This will have immense positive impacts, particularly in my electorate. At least 10,000 people in the electorate of Newcastle will benefit from this program alone.
In conclusion, I support appropriation bills Nos 3 and 4 and welcome the new direction and fresh ideas for Australia’s future that these appropriations will now make possible. I also welcome the change in attitude and approach that this government is employing in government spending, making sure it is well targeted, restrained and responsible.
754
19:55:00
Keenan, Michael, MP
E0J
Stirling
LP
0
0
Mr KEENAN
—I welcome the opportunity to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2007-2008 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2007-2008. They are a part of the great tradition where this parliament authorises the expenditure of the executive, and I would very much like to use the opportunity of speaking on these bills to contribute to the wider economic debate that has been ongoing since this parliament resumed. I would particularly like to debunk some of the complete and utter snake oil that we are seeing being peddled by the government about the state of the economy that they inherited.
I think that the Labor Party has learnt from long experience that if you repeat something over and over again, regardless of its basis in fact, over time it will gain currency. I think this is what we are seeing when the Labor Party continually talks down the incredibly strong economy that it has inherited from the coalition. The shadow treasurer, I think very rightly, has described Labor’s attempts to rewrite history as Orwellian. What we have heard in this chamber tonight certainly would have done Napoleon the pig proud. It really is quite audacious that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, this new government continues to mount the argument that it inherited a bad economy.
I think we need to be extraordinarily clear: no government in the history of our federation has inherited an economy with this strength. Let us go through the facts of why that is the case. In fact, it actually bears repeating: no government in the history of our federation has inherited such a strong economy. Here are the facts. The previous government restored Australia’s AAA credit rating. We delivered more jobs. Unemployment is at record lows—lows not seen since the heyday of the Australian economy in the sixties. The previous government lowered interest rates. We lowered taxes. We improved Australians’ real wages. We improved productivity. We gave senior Australians and other Australians on pensions higher pension rates. We spent more money on important priorities, such as health, education, defence, transport and, of course, the environment. We also gave more money to the state governments to spend on providing services in the jurisdictions for which they are responsible—although, again, you would not believe that to be the case listening to some of the snake oil that we have heard peddled in this chamber recently.
On top of that, the Howard government reformed the tax system. We increased participation through the Welfare to Work program. We reformed an underperforming waterfront. The costs that were associated with the corrupt and inefficient waterfront flowed through to the whole economy, and reforming it was a hard thing to do. The minister at the time faced enormous opposition in bringing Australia’s waterfront up to world-class standards; he faced enormous opposition from the Labor Party when they were in opposition.
That is the thing about this Labor Party, even though they are very keen to now present themselves as economic conservatives, as fiscal conservatives. When the coalition was making these hard decisions in government, we never received any support from the Labor Party—in marked contrast to the support that the then Liberal opposition gave to the Hawke and Keating governments when they were reforming the Australian economy in those early days.
On top of the measures that I have mentioned, the coalition took other tough but necessary decisions. We established the Future Fund. For the first time, the unfunded superannuation liabilities of the government will now be funded. This removes the burden that would have affected younger generations, who would have had to pay the bill for this unfunded liability. In conjunction with reforming the tax system through the establishment of the goods and services tax came the largest tax relief in Australia’s history. This was followed up by further tax relief in the 2003 budget, the 2004 budget, the 2005 budget, the 2006 budget and, of course, the 2007 budget. When the current Treasurer brags in the 2008 budget about his tax cuts, everybody in this House will know that that was a coalition initiative.
During our years in government, the coalition further encouraged enterprise initiatives and savings. We lowered company tax, halved capital gains tax and removed benefit taxes on superannuation. I will return to this point later because it is a very important point. We replaced the complex wholesale sales tax, reduced petrol excise and moved from a 150 per cent diminishing value rate on business assets to a 200 per cent rate of depreciation which, in turn, encouraged investment in plant, equipment and technology. We created a more flexible workplace relations system, which helped deliver nine of the 10 most industrially cooperative years on record. Indeed, they were the best years since records started being kept in 1913—2006 being the best year on record for the lack of industrial disputation.
We also invested in key infrastructure like roads through the AusLink program. We invested $38 billion over 10 years in a program that would have been ongoing to 2013-14 through the largest innovation package in our history—Backing Australia’s Ability. We promoted competition—for example, in the airlines. I am on record as saying that we might have done more in that area. We also promoted competition in energy and telecommunications. We boosted the work ethic of the community through programs such as Work for the Dole and Welfare to Work—programs that were instrumental in increasing participation—and we now have the highest participation rates in Australia’s history. We pursued the idea of free trade and negotiated free trade agreements with a number of countries bilaterally. This has helped boost exports and helped Australian business.
We took a more strategic approach to immigration with a greater emphasis on skills. Australia is the best place in the world to live and, quite frankly, we should take the pick of anyone we need. Of all the people who would like to come to Australia, it would make sense that we would take our pick of skilled migrants who are looking to make a better life for themselves.
Probably the most telling point of all is that, during the 11 years of the Howard government, the average wealth of Australians doubled. That is an extraordinary statistic. Contrast this remarkable achievement with what we are hearing today from the Labor Party. They have come to government and been left a ‘V8’ economy, noted as being ‘the wonder down under’ in the Economist magazine. Contrast that situation with when we came to office in 1996. We inherited a $10 billion annual deficit and $96 billion of accumulated debt—debt that the coalition completely eliminated. We inherited levels of government spending that were equal to about 25 per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product. It is now equal to about 21.2 per cent. We inherited the unfunded superannuation liability that we have now addressed through the Future Fund.
During the time when the coalition was doing all these things, when we were reforming the economy, the ALP opposed us every step of the way. These fiscal conservatives that we are now hearing about in this chamber opposed our balancing of the budget. They opposed tax reform. Yet now they come in here and have the gall to masquerade as fiscal conservatives, as an economically responsible government. They opposed all the measures we took to create this economy and now they want to claim credit and try to pretend that the economy they inherited was not first rate.
In these appropriation bills the government will be spending $3.334 billion. The Minister for Finance and Deregulation and some of his colleagues seem terribly impressed with themselves for ‘wielding the axe’ on government expenditure. But, like everything with this government, the hype never lives up to the reality. To ‘wield the axe’ to save $150 million per year over four years is a drop in the ocean when it comes to a $1.1 trillion economy that is the Australian economy. So, like everything with the new Rudd government, what the Australian people will soon learn is: always look at what they do and not at what they say because their spin machine works overtime.
The Minister for Finance and Deregulation has indicated that there may be more savings at a later stage. I want to turn to my concerns about where this government might find some of these savings, because the government seems to be going down a path now that would be extraordinarily detrimental to millions of Australians, and that is the uncertainty that it has created around the better superannuation system that was instituted as one of the great reforms of the Howard years. That system took what had been a relatively complicated system and simplified it. It essentially said that when money went into superannuation it would be taxed at 15 per cent and that was it—you could take the money out and there was no further tax. That replaced a set of arrangements that were reasonably complicated and convoluted. I know, from my own experience of talking to superannuants, that it was a wonderful reform for them. I am deeply concerned that this government is now softening Australians up to change these arrangements, to add that complexity back into the system. Australians will be rightfully angry if the government does do that because it was an option that it categorically ruled out prior to the last election.
I will read for the House some of the statements ministers in this government made prior to the election and what they are saying now, after the election, because there has been a marked change of emphasis that should be of great concern to Australians who are living on superannuation. Prior to the election, on 19 November 2007, the present Treasurer was asked on the Sunrise program, with Mel and Kochie, about superannuation and whether in government he would make any changes to the wonderful system that the coalition has brought in, and I quote:
KOCH: Superannuation. Wayne Swan, will you guarantee that there will be no changes to superannuation that will water down the attractiveness of it?
SWAN: I made that guarantee in the Parliament, we are the authors of the superannuation system and we are very supportive of it.
KOCH: So you won’t fiddle, you guarantee there will be no watering down.
SWAN: I absolutely guarantee there will be no changes at all.
I will contrast this with the language he is now using after the election. We in this place all recognise weasel words when we see them and, quite frankly, this is a brilliant example. People who are around politics understand what is happening when a direct question is put to a minister and the minister uses weasel words and refuses to directly engage with that question. And when ministers are asked to rule something out and they do not explicitly rule it out, we all know that they are ruling it in. Let me contrast the Treasurer’s commitment that he gave prior to the election with what he is now saying. The Treasurer was interviewed on Meet the Press on Sunday, 10 December, and I quote:
BONGIORNO: On Wednesday, the Finance Minister signalled he has tax concessions in his sights and says measures will be announced by the end of the year. The biggest concessions are for retirement savings; superannuation tax cuts will cost around $27 billion this year and are forecast to keep going.
They then played a grab from the shadow minister for finance, saying:
There is great uncertainty for Australians in retirement at the moment who are drawing money either in a lump sum or a pension from their superannuation funds, tax free, and he needs to rule out any imposition of new taxes on those people.
The journalist Fran Kelly then directly asked the Treasurer:
Treasurer, will you rule that out amidst all this talk of having to inflict pain and restraint on everybody, will you guarantee that the tax benefits within super will be quarantined?
The Treasurer then said—and these are classic weasel words:
Well, we certainly ruled out the allegation that he was making—that there was going to be some increase in the super guarantee.
Notice that he does not actually address the question. He then went on to say:
We stand by all of our election commitments. I mean, this is just sort of desperation from the Opposition. We are very, very supportive of superannuation. We will do anything we can to enhance incentives in superannuation that are economically responsible into the future.
The point is that he was asked a direct question to rule out fiddling with the current arrangement and adding complexity to the current arrangements and he used classic weasel words to get out of it.
Sadly, this is obviously a whole-of-government approach. I will contrast what the Prime Minister promised prior to the election with what his finance minister is now saying. On 27 April on Mornings with Kerri-Anne, Kerri-Anne asked the Prime Minister—it was a hard-hitting interview—whether he would change the current superannuation requirements, and the Prime Minister said:
No, we won’t.
So I think the message that the Prime Minister was conveying to the Australian people was pretty clear, and on other occasions he promised similar sorts of things. Let us contrast this with what the finance minister is now saying—and, again, we have classic weasel words. At his Press Club speech on 6 February, the finance minister was asked by Shane Wright, the economics reporter at the West Australian, a direct question about superannuation. Mr Wright asked:
About three weeks ago you released the tax expenditure report for 07 and you noted today you are looking at tax concessions going forward ... Your report indicated that superannuation was by far the largest tax difficulty facing the budget and it has grown very quickly. Is that an area that you will have to look at if you are serious about bringing tax concessions under control?
He was asked a direct question from Mr Wright about whether Labor is going to fiddle with this very important area of retirement savings for Australians, and the finance minister—exactly like the Treasurer—resorted to weasel words. He said:
It is important to note that the report I released—I cannot recall exactly how many weeks ago it was—is effectively in that regard something that is routinely released every year and is a statement among other things of the effective cost of a variety of tax concessions throughout the overall budget.
It rarely changes much from year to year and it certainly has not changed significantly this year to the best of my knowledge. I am not going to speculate about potential target areas for the razor gang exercise. We will be sticking to our election commitments. That obviously constrains what we can do.
But, of course, he does not say that this was an election commitment of theirs, even though they have explicitly told the Australian people that. He went on say:
We will be honouring contracts and we will also be taking very seriously the situation where money has already been spent and where if the program is to cease then that money would be then away.
That is a quote from the transcript I have, but I think we get the picture. The picture is of a government that went out of its way to reassure the Australian people that this very significant reform of the Howard government would not be touched. What we have now is the government back-pedalling at 100 miles an hour on this commitment. Every Australian with a superannuation fund and every Australian who requires certainty in their superannuation investments needs to be concerned that this government is softening them up to change those arrangements.
I also think that some of the cuts that are in this so-called razor-gang review are relatively unfortunate. I respect that the government has a right to find savings—even though I think that $150 million a year is pretty pathetic and piddling, quite frankly—but I do think that it should reconsider, in particular, expenditure that it has cut in relation to encouraging new migrants to become Australian citizens. The electorate I represent is extraordinarily diverse, and I think that that program has been very successful in improving the take-up rate for people to become Australian citizens—something that I think is terribly important.
Labor has absolutely no economic credibility, coming into this chamber and pretending that it inherited anything other than the strongest economy in history since Federation. We need to put an end to this political game playing. We need to put an end to the lies that are being peddled by the government and we need to say very loudly and very clearly in this House that Labor has inherited the best economy that any government has ever inherited in the history of our federation. I urge Labor to acknowledge that and stop spreading this nonsensical snake oil. (Time expired)
759
20:16:00
Hayes, Chris, MP
ECV
Werriwa
ALP
1
0
Mr HAYES
—Mr Deputy Speaker, you would appreciate that, during the cut and thrust of an election campaign, it would be relatively easy to get caught up in making promises to all and sundry simply to secure votes. I suppose many of us would refer to that ordinarily as pork-barrelling, but it seems that many of those projects that the Minister for Finance and Deregulation spoke about only recently at the National Press Club—a couple of weeks ago, I think it was—were central to the form and behaviour of the Howard government in the lead-up to the last election. This is not an approach that I support. It is certainly not an approach that I took to the last election and it is not one that I would intend to take in any future election. I take very, very seriously the commitments that I made to the people of Werriwa, commitments that I lobbied strongly for and am committed to securing for the people of Werriwa.
The south-west of Sydney, where I reside, is a region of considerable growth. We have already seen enormous growth throughout the whole south-west and extensive growth in the population of the region, and that is set to expand further over coming years. However, it is essential that that growth be matched by employment opportunities so that the region does not simply become a series of dormitory suburbs. The potential of the south-west of Sydney is significant, and the commitments that I intend to see implemented by this government will lift the artificial restrictions that are placed on that potential.
Possibly the most significant commitment that was made by the current Rudd government for the south-west of Sydney, for the people that I represent, was the widening of the F5 Freeway between Ingleburn and Campbelltown. For far too long, in the mornings and the afternoons, the F5 has been colloquially referred to as the Brooks Road bottleneck, a source of considerable dismay for local residents in the south-west. Certainly it has slowed down their travel time as they travel to work in the morning and on their return home in the afternoon. It increases the travel time for local contractors and small business operators who travel to different parts of Sydney to meet the needs of their customers, and it increases the travel time for those who rely on our road infrastructure in shipping their freight to various parts of Sydney and the rest of the country.
The depth of feeling on this matter was demonstrated amply by the thousands of people who signed my petition calling for the widening of the F5. Many supported it because they thought it would help their daily commute. They certainly recognised the importance of improving this vital piece of national infrastructure within our region. They knew the potential for the region would be truly realised if this piece of infrastructure could be developed. The widening of the F5 would be a significant contribution to the network needed to support local businesses and to help them to develop their goods and to access markets, both nationally and internationally. They know this is an essential piece of infrastructure—the bridge to our region’s future.
The people who supported the widening of the F5 Freeway also looked to Labor to commit to an investigation into the feasibility of the Maldon-Dunbarton rail link. The Maldon-Dunbarton rail link is the opening up of a planned rail freight route that would allow the employment lands of south-west Sydney to have direct access to Port Kembla. That, again, would be seen as a significant growth generator for the south-west of Sydney and also a significant generator in providing essential infrastructure to develop the employment lands of the south-west of Sydney.
Another thing that did not escape the residents of Werriwa in the lead-up to the last election was the fact that, whilst we are living some 50 kilometres from Australia’s biggest global city, there are still suburbs in Werriwa that cannot access high-speed broadband. These are not old suburbs; these are new suburbs that are being constructed but at this stage are not able to access high-speed broadband. We have an amount of correspondence to my office from students, parents and local business operators, all indicating how this has acted as a drawback to their ambitions. It will take a Labor government to address this and provide high-speed broadband access in Werriwa, which is only 50 kilometres from Sydney.
One of the most prominent things in the lead-up to the election, not just in the south-west of Sydney, in Werriwa or in my friend’s seat of Chifley, was the issue of industrial relations. It was one of the core matters that resonated with working families right across this nation. In the last parliament, I tried to be a strong voice of protest against the Howard government’s behaviour in respect of workplace relations. As a local member I tried to make sure that the real experiences of local residents, not just hypothetical instances, were brought to the attention of this parliament. As secretary of Labor’s industrial relations task force, I travelled to most electorates in this country—indeed, to yours too, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott—to ascertain the views and experiences of all those people out there and how they were being impacted upon by Work Choices. I discovered that although what employers were doing was in many instances not illegal, that did not make it right. Right across this nation, people were crying out for a fair go. That is what this campaign was about. This last election was about people insisting that they do get a fair go from the government.
Since March 2006, when the Work Choices laws came into effect, we saw first-hand the impact that they were having on hardworking Australians and their families right across the country. During the last parliament I took every opportunity to place on record the experiences of people who worked for Lipa Pharmaceuticals and the experiences of the Esselte workers in Minto. We brought those experiences to the attention of this place. You will recall that the Prime Minister’s view at that stage was—believe it or not!—that the working families of Australia had never been better off. But tell that to the people in Macquarie Fields, tell it to the people of Minto and tell it to the people of Ingleburn, all of whom were at the wrong end of these industrial relations laws. That was not their experience. Sadly, these were people who were less able to bargain for themselves—they were people who did need the protection of government and wanted decent industrial relations laws. These were the people that the Howard government simply gave away.
I find it interesting to try to understand the rationale of the previous government in acting the way it did. Like many others, I tuned in to the ABC last night and the rationale was there for everyone to see. Whilst Labor on this side—on the other side at that stage—were recounting the many experiences of working families across this nation, there were only a few people in cabinet, if you believe what was on the Four Corners report, that had any idea that Work Choices was not resonating with working families and that it was a disincentive to vote for the government.
It does seem that, all of a sudden, very late in the piece, various people in government started to realise that the voters out there—the punters—were not mugs. People had woken up to them. As a consequence of that, we saw an enormous mood for change in this country. I am very happy to have played some minor role in that. I am very happy to have been in a position to bring the experiences of workers in my electorate to this parliament. Quite frankly, the result of the last election was very much about the experiences, the concerns and the commitment not only of the workers at Lipa Pharmaceuticals and the Esselte plant but also of the many workers in various organisations across this country who had decided that enough was enough. What they wanted for themselves and their families was something that was fair and decent. That was Labor’s platform at the last election, and that is what we are committed to delivering. I welcome the bills that have been introduced into this place.
If you listen to the 7.30 Report, most on the other side have also woken up to the fact that Work Choices is regarded as politically dead. But the next minute there were a few on the other side wanting to hedge their bets—they thought there was a slight chance that we might breathe a little more life into it and continue it for a little while longer. Labor understood that the Senate would attempt to frustrate its legislation, but now it appears that the bills will be passed. It is good to see that this mob opposite are as consistent in opposition as they were in government—that is, no consistency at all when it comes to the interests of working men and women of this country.
On climate change and the environment, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were recently awarded the Nobel prize for their efforts to disseminate knowledge of man’s impact on our climate. No doubt, in the minds of many around the world, this is one of the most fundamental things we need to address as we go forward. The fact is that mankind has impacted on the environment of this earth.
Debate interrupted.
ADJOURNMENT
761
Adjournment
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! It being 8.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
Australian Institute of Police Management Redevelopment
761
761
20:30:00
Abbott, Tony, MP
EZ5
Warringah
LP
0
0
Mr ABBOTT
—The Australian Federal Police, along with other Australian police forces, do a very good job under often difficult circumstances. That is why it is important to bring a level of intellectual rigour to police work, which the Australian Institute of Police Management at Spring Cove on North Head in my electorate seeks to do. But the fact that we need these sorts of establishments does not mean that one of the most environmentally sensitive sites in the country should be the place for a massive new hotel for police conferences. Spring Cove has been the site of the Australian police college since 1960. At present, the college comprises a handful of heritage buildings and some large temporary buildings of the type common in military establishments. But the Australian Federal Police are proposing a three-storey redevelopment comprising, amongst other things, 55 hotel suites, 47 car spaces and other major works on a site which is home to the endangered long-nosed bandicoot. It is also the only penguin-breeding colony on the mainland of New South Wales.
I want to congratulate the Australian Federal Police for the efforts that they have made to consult with the local community, including local members of parliament, but I want to send a very clear and unambiguous message to the AFP and the new government that this development should not go ahead. This is a $20 million-plus police hotel in the midst of a national park in the most environmentally sensitive site imaginable. I am referring to page 11 of the AFP statement of evidence to the Joint Standing Committee on Public Works. This development, it says:
... will create an environment that is appropriate for the long nosed bandicoot and will present a greatly enhanced image of the campus ...
How can a 55-suite hotel and a 47-place car park be a better environment than regenerated bushland for the bandicoot, for the penguins and for the other wildlife in this area?
I want to respectfully say to the AFP and to the government that this development is a potential public relations disaster to rank with the Haneef case. We do not want the good work that the AFP undoubtedly do to be compromised by public perceptions that Constable Plod has blundered into the most absolutely environmentally sensitive spot imaginable. There is an alternative. While the proposed works are taking place, the Australian police college is relocating to the School of Artillery just a few hundred yards up the road. The School of Artillery site is secure, it is available, it is far less environmentally sensitive and it should be much cheaper as it does not involve any new construction. If the new Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts is serious, he should oppose this development. If the Minister for Finance and Deregulation is serious about saving money, he should stop this development. I say to the members opposite: let us save the bandicoot, let us save the penguin, but let us most of all save the money by stopping this unnecessary development.
Parliamentary Behaviour
762
762
20:34:00
Price, Roger, MP
QI4
Chifley
ALP
1
0
Mr PRICE
—Mr Speaker, you and I have been in this chamber for a long time. I want to report to all honourable members so that they may know something that I took great exception to yesterday. I think it is one of the lowest acts I have ever seen from an opposition. Yesterday when members were about to make their first speeches the opposition called a quorum. Indeed, had I not ensured there was a quorum available subsequently through the day, there would have been a series of quorums called. I do not understand why the opposition would do this. I think they have really dug to the depths of parliamentary lows. I must confess that I have at times criticised the former Leader of the House, but I have never seen anything as low as that which was done yesterday. We have a fine tradition of respecting all members when they make a first speech, irrespective of what party they come from or even if they do not come from a party. In my opinion, it was absolutely traduced yesterday by the calling of a quorum and, indeed, the possibility of calling further quorums that was thwarted by the government.
I also want to speak about Friday sittings and some of the contributions that were made to the debate about Fridays by opposition members. It was interesting that so many of them said that there would not be a starting quorum and that the proposed changes to the standing orders involve not having a starting quorum. Of course, this is totally incorrect. I found it amusing, even when the former Attorney-General was calling for the tabling of legal opinions, as over 11½ years this parliament has been drowned by successive coalition Attorneys-General tabling legal opinions.
This again raises the issue of discipline. That was the member for Cowper’s contribution—that is, even though Deputy Speakers have had few opportunities in the Main Committee to discipline members and only recently were given the sin-bin power, in fact Deputy Speakers have disciplined members in the Main Committee and those members have subsequently been named and dealt with the next day in the House. Exactly the same would apply in relation to Fridays. Then again, there was the concoction that somehow deferring the calling of a division or quorum was something new to this chamber. At 6.30 pm on Mondays and Tuesdays any member, under the standing orders, if it is appropriate, can call for a division. There is nothing in the standing orders that would prevent a division being called on those days. There is nothing in the standing orders that would prevent a quorum being called between 6.30 and eight o’clock. That is what the standing orders are, and on Friday it is exactly the same.
I have never in this parliament seen a member refuse to leave the chamber, either under the sin-bin rule or when they have been named. I have never seen a member of parliament refuse a request by the Serjeant-at-Arms to leave the chamber. I can think of nothing more highly disorderly than that. It is true that, when members have been sin-binned, some of your predecessors have made a comment, perhaps a derogatory comment, that the Speaker and Deputy Speakers have taken exception to and they have subsequently not only sin-binned them but also named them. All these things are available to Presiding Officers on a Friday.
But, above all, Friday is not about government business; it is about backbenchers, who have been working their electorates, voicing the concerns of their constituents by way of 90-second statements, the grievance debate and even notices of motion. We are going to see that on Fridays. You cannot just listen to people in your electorate and be like a sponge and do nothing; you also have a responsibility to speak out on their behalf in this parliament. Friday provides more opportunities for backbenchers, not fewer opportunities. (Time expired)
Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria
763
763
20:39:00
Bailey, Fran, MP
JT4
McEwen
LP
0
0
FRAN BAILEY
—On 2 October last year, residents of Kinglake, in my electorate, contacted the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria with serious concerns about their overseas trained GP, Dr Hassan Alkazali. These people, in the presence of the local police, made me aware of their concerns. The most serious allegations were, firstly, Medicare fraud, and I am advised that those making the allegations have signed statutory declarations to this effect. The Medicare fraud relates to a sustained and regular practice of overbilling for appointments and overservicing. One example of this is generating surgical procedures for mole removal, regardless of the reason for consultation. The second allegation was PBS fraud. This relates to Dr Alkazali using patients’ healthcare cards to buy prescription drugs, including pethidine. Finally, what I regard as the most serious charges are incorrect diagnosis and a lack of care that have led to needless, prolonged suffering by patients. Emergency surgery had to be performed to save the life of at least one patient that I am aware of who had a condition misdiagnosed by Dr Alkazali, to prevent permanent damage caused by a course of treatment prescribed or action carried out by Dr Alkazali.
I have been advised of 64 such serious cases, and many of the people affected have made both personal and written representation to the Medical Practitioners Board. The reason I am raising these issues here tonight is that the medical board has taken no action to suspend Dr Alkazali’s licence to practice. It has done nothing to protect the residents of Kinglake.
Let me provide this House with some examples of why I am totally at a loss to understand why the medical board has not acted to suspend Dr Alkazali. The first relates to a man who sought medical attention because of severe pain and other symptoms over a period of eight weeks. At no time were tests ordered to assist in diagnosis. Rather, the patient was told to take a painkiller and rest. In sheer desperation, as this man’s condition was deteriorating, his wife took him by ambulance to the Northern Hospital, where he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and prescribed appropriate medication. For two months, this man suffered extreme levels of pain and discomfort needlessly. He died not long after. His widow, still dealing with her grief, decided that no-one should have to go through what her husband endured, so she bravely decided to tell her story to the medical board. On travelling to Melbourne to meet with the board, she was forced to encounter the very person who caused so much suffering to her husband—Dr Alkazali—even though she had been assured of confidentiality.
The second case involved another man who, over many weeks, sought assistance from Dr Alkazali for severe and worsening stomach pain. He too was told to take a painkiller and rest. He too was eventually rushed by ambulance to the Northern Hospital and underwent emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. By the time he reached the operating theatre his situation was life-threatening. The surgeons saved his life, but that man has ended up with a colostomy for the rest of his life.
On another occasion, the local vet intervened and advised a patient he knew that the lump that Dr Alkazali was going to remove in his surgery was an operation that should be performed only in a hospital. I am also advised that, as an overseas trained GP, Dr Alkazali has never worked with any supervision from other GPs.
Mr Speaker, it states very clearly in the Health Professions Registration Act 2005 that the medical board is established to protect the public by ensuring that medical practitioners are registered and to investigate the professional conduct, professional performance and ability to practise of overseas trained medical practitioners. Professional conduct relates to the manner in which the medical practitioners perform their tasks. Serious allegations have been made. In the time available to me tonight, I have only scratched the surface. The medical board has a duty to protect the public, the residents of Kinglake, and it must fulfil its duty now. (Time expired)
Holt Australia Day Award
764
764
20:45:00
Byrne, Anthony, MP
008K0
Holt
ALP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
1
0
Mr BYRNE
—Mr Speaker, as this is my first contribution in this place in the 42nd Parliament, I extend my congratulations to you on your assuming your new office. On the adjournment debate tonight, I would like to speak about a very special group of people—an unheralded group of people who mostly reside in my electorate of Holt. I have presented awards to the people whose names I will read out shortly as acknowledgement of their contribution to making our community a better place to live in. I did that on Australia Day because these people represent what is best about Australia. People who volunteer their time, their efforts and their energies are often unheralded and often go unrecognised. They are people who slip beneath the radar. You do not read about them in the Herald-Sun, the Age or any of the other papers in this country, but you walk past them in the street every day—people that you do not recognise; people that do not want to be recognised.
In an earlier contribution—I think it was yesterday—a speaker in this House said that one of the quintessential Australian characteristics is tolerance. I actually think there is another quintessential Australian characteristic, and that is called ‘understatedness’. People who volunteer like to understate the contribution that they make. So, on behalf of the community in Holt, I want to recognise these people. Some of them were quite literally dragged to the stage because they did not want to be recognised. The strength of what they do is not for the glory or for the honour; they do it because they gain a quiet satisfaction from it. This is very Australian. That is why on Australia Day at the Betula Reserve in Doveton, during an event run by the Doveton Eumemmerring Neighbourhood Renewal, on behalf of the Holt community I presented them with the Holt Australia Day Award—a certificate, a native plant from the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens and a desktop flag.
They will probably hate me for doing this, but I want to read their names into the parliamentary record. The recipients of the Holt Australia Day Award are: David Anning, Kerry Baker, Gillian Balfour, Naomi Bezeley, Caitlyn Berkers, Elva and Vern Board, Jack Cahir, Sue Crisp, Barry Cutchie, Les Eales, Gayle Errington, Vanassa Gerdes, Ken Harris, Jim and Veronica Hill, David Lowe, Michelle Lowrie, Peter McHugh, Karin McLean, Ruth Murray, Russell and Judy Owen, David Pal, Diana Polimeni, Grace Ramos, Simon Reeves, Irene and John Schmode, Bernard Simpson, Jan Trezise, Denny Van Mannenberg, Max Walker, Heather Weston, and two organisations, the Warren Opportunity Shop and the Narre Warren State Emergency Service.
I obviously do not have time to detail all the services that these people and organisations have provided, but I want to give the House and people who may be listening just a snapshot of the work that these people do. Unfortunately, time does not allow me to detail all of the work that they do to make our community a much better place.
I would briefly like to talk about Kerry Baker. Kerry has been a tireless volunteer at the Hampton Park Primary School. She has served as president and vice-president on the school council. For over 10 years, Kerry has been raising funds for the school and working to gain grants for projects such as the school chaplaincy, water conservation and a breakfast club.
Gillian Balfour works tirelessly with the Doveton Neighbourhood Learning Centre’s Home and Community Care program. She supports the elderly through a range of social and interactive activities. Gillian is also involved in the Gardens, Kitchens, Togetherness program, working to bring people from various backgrounds together.
Barry Cutchie has dedicated hours of work to those less fortunate than us. He has raised over $80,000 for Ugandan children over the past two years. He has also provided support to a school for the blind in the Philippines. In 2007 and 2008, he led teams to Uganda to build Berwick House and the Casey City Class Room. He also runs the Christmas carols on Christmas Eve called Carols by Twilight in Max Pawsey Reserve. This event is attended by over 3,000 people. A number of the Sebastian family sing there. I do not think there is a member of the Sebastian family that cannot sing or dance. They are an incredibly talented family. Another person I wanted to talk about is Ken Harris, a financial counsellor. I could go on because the stories of these people make our community a much better place to live in. It was my great honour as their local member to present the award— (Time expired)
Organ Donation
765
765
20:50:00
Gash, Joanna, MP
AK6
Gilmore
LP
0
0
Mrs GASH
—Earlier this year, in the Herald-Sun newspaper, Kate Sikora wrote a piece about Demi-Lee Brennan, a young girl who comes from Kiama in my electorate of Gilmore. The article describes her as the ‘one in six billion miracle girl’ and recounts her story where, after having an organ transplant, she changed blood types. The article says:
... the teenager is the first transplant patient in the world to switch blood types and take on the immune system of her organ donor. Her body’s ability to accept a new liver then miraculously produce new blood cells on its own has left doctors mystified.
The unique phenomenon now means Demi, 15, won’t have to take a cocktail of anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life. It also gives hope to the 1800 gravely ill Australians awaiting a transplant.
The article goes on to say that Australia is amongst the lowest organ donating countries in the world, with just something like 9.8 donors per million people. For legally valid consent registrations, amongst the most generous are females in Western Australia, representing 11.43 per cent of the state’s population. The least generous, it seems, according to Medicare Australia, are males in the Northern Territory, representing 3.7 per cent of that state’s population. In New South Wales, female donors outweigh the male donors—5.66 per cent to 4.09 per cent.
The gift of life is precious, and what better gesture than to donate your organs to benefit someone after you have finished with them. There is no point in taking them with you. One of those doing their bit to advance the rate of voluntary donation is Brad Rossiter, who lives in the Batemans Bay area. Brad is the grateful recipient of a kidney and pancreas transplant. He writes:
I live on the South Coast of NSW at Batemans Bay and have done so for over 22 yrs. I have been married to Lorae for over 21 yrs and we have a son 19yrs and is an apprentice Auto Electrician here in Batemans Bay. I am 43 yrs old and am a qualified Butcher by trade. I had been until the 11th May 2007 a Type 1 Diabetic, and having type 1 for so long I have suffered a few of the complications that go with this, and they are Amputations to my left leg and my right big & little toes. I am legally blind and was on Dialysis for 7 yrs due to Chronic Renal Failure. But on the 11th May 2007 I received the greatest gift that any Australian can receive, and that was a Kidney & a Pancreas Transplant. So now after 36 yrs I have been given by another Australian a second chance at Life. Having been through what I and my family have, I have established the Eurobodalla Renal Support Group & Organ Donor Awareness. Of course these issues are most important to me and my family and they are certainly very important to the many thousands of Australians who still await an Organ Transplant. I think that if Organ Donation was made more open for talk by the leader of our Australia then Australian people might not be as timid to become Organ Donors. This must be made an open topic to discuss by all, rather than a small form in the back of the local Medicare office.
According to the David Hookes Foundation website, research shows that more than 97 per cent of Australians say they support organ donation but this is not reflected in the registration rate. Organs that can be donated are the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and pancreas. Tissues that can be donated are the corneas—the film on the front of the eyes—skin, bone and heart valves. An individual may specify which organs and tissue he or she wishes to donate on the Medicare form. At 3 January 2008, 1,875 people were waiting for organ transplants: 1,388 were waiting for a kidney, 100 were waiting for a heart, 198 for a liver, 141 for lungs and 48 for a pancreas. In 2007, there were 198 organ donors, from whom 626 transplants were performed. My mother was a very grateful recipient of an eye transplant some years ago. The operation improved the quality of her life remarkably and allowed her to enjoy her few remaining years just that little bit more.
Mr Speaker, we can do better and we should do better. This is a challenge. Perhaps, as a gesture, both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition could do more about the education of Australians so that they consider becoming organ donors. Are there restrictions for registering as an organ donor? If you are aged 18 years or over, you can register your consent to have your organs or tissue on the Australian Organ Donor Register. Equally, you can register your objection. If you are aged 16 or 17 years, you can register your intention to donate on the Australian Organ Donor Register. Individuals under 18 years can still become donors if a family member gives their consent. Both the elderly and the young can donate—the oldest cornea donor was 103.
Mr Speaker, I will certainly take up Brad’s challenge to make a concerted effort in educating our people in Gilmore to the benefits of becoming organ donors. (Time expired)
Petrol and Grocery Prices
767
767
20:55:00
Murphy, John, MP
83D
Lowe
ALP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade
1
0
Mr MURPHY
—I thoroughly endorse the speech of the member for Gilmore. I was very proud last year that my nephew Louis selflessly gave one of his kidneys to an old school mate who was suffering renal failure. The quality of life of his mate Bill has improved markedly thanks to Louis’s selfless act.
In my electorate of Lowe, which has one of the highest proportions of households suffering from mortgage and rental stress in Australia, even moderate increases in grocery and petrol prices can have a devastating effect. Despite the evidence of financial stress being obvious in our everyday experiences, the proof has also been borne out in statistical surveys. A recent Household Expenditure Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that the cost of living has outstripped the Consumer Price Index by eight per cent between 1999 and 2004. Despite the previous government’s bluster about budget surpluses in the national account, it failed to pay attention to whether the gains achieved nationally were being reflected at a household level.
Two common complaints to my electorate office concern high petrol prices and grocery prices. Rather than doing everything possible to put downward pressure on these prices, the Howard government simply ignored the dual petrol-grocery problem. It is vital that governments anticipate problems and act on them. It is a virtue to be proactive, not reactive. That is why the Rudd government has initiated a review into grocery prices and appointed a petrol price commissioner.
With respect to petrol prices, local families in my electorate of Lowe have funnelled record levels of household income into their petrol tanks. Since 2001, petrol prices have increased by an average of 53 per cent, from 85c a litre to $1.30 a litre. Families in my electorate are facing the petrol price pinch every day. Many of them accept that world oil prices have had an influence on domestic prices and are doing their best to deal with the increases. Nonetheless, they do not accept, nor should they have to, the usual price gouging in the lead-up to public holidays, including the Easter long weekend. We will be watching the oil companies this forthcoming Easter. They are also entitled to be suspicious of bowser prices skyrocketing while world oil prices go down.
That is why it is so vital for the petrol commissioner to formally monitor and investigate petrol prices at all times. The petrol commissioner will address the alarming lack of transparency in petrol price setting and make sure sceptical families are actually getting a fair go. Oil executives have certainly not earned the right to be above scrutiny and accountability, yet the opposition, if it were to have its way, would ensure they remained untouchable. This initiative may not result in lower prices, but it will ensure that my constituents are actually paying a fair price for their petrol—not a cent more.
With respect to grocery prices, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s national grocery prices inquiry has been initiated by the Rudd government to ensure all Australians are able to afford life’s most basic necessities. The ACCC is taking a broad approach to its inquiry to ensure all aspects of the process chain are assessed. It will include wide consultation with retailers, farmers, consumer groups and other interested parties. The startling statistics tell us that this inquiry is long overdue—the price of groceries rose by 43.6 per cent in just one decade. To put this in perspective, the rates of food inflation in the US and the UK over that same period were only 25.1 per cent and 11.6 per cent respectively. Australians have been getting less in their trolley and paying more and more for it.
Despite it being a virtue to remain vigilant and proactive, the lesson has not been learnt by the opposition. Even today, the opposition baulks at attempts to ensure families are not being ripped off at the checkout counter or petrol pump. It has become increasingly apparent that Australian voters had to vote the Howard government out because they could quite literally not afford to keep them in. Constituents I have spoken with have welcomed the government’s attempts to keep petrol companies and supermarkets honest. They, too, agree that the likes of Woolworths, Coles, Caltex and Shell should not be above scrutiny and accountability. My constituents in Lowe are, at the very least, comfortable with the knowledge that these initiatives will make it harder for oil and retail executives to rip them off at the checkout counter or petrol bowser. I congratulate the Rudd government in this initiative.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! It being 9 pm, the debate is interrupted.
768
00:00:00
House adjourned at 9 pm
NOTICES
768
Notices
The following notices were given:
HV4
Garrett, Peter, MP
Mr Garrett
to present a bill for an act to establish Screen Australia, and for related purposes. (Screen Australia Bill 2008)
HV4
Garrett, Peter, MP
Mr Garrett
to present a bill for an act to establish the National Film and Sound Archive, and for related purposes. (National Film and Sound Archive Bill 2008)
HV4
Garrett, Peter, MP
Mr Garrett
to present a bill for an act to deal with transitional and consequential matters in connection with the Screen Australia Act 2008 and the National Film and Sound Archive Act 2008, and for related purposes. (Screen Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2008)
JK6
McClelland, Robert, MP
Mr McClelland
to present a bill for an act to amend the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, and for related purposes. (Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2008)
IJ4
Snowdon, Warren, MP
Mr Snowdon
to present a bill for an act to amend legislation relating to defence, and for related purposes. (Defence Legislation Amendment Bill 2008)
83N
Hall, Jill, MP
Ms Hall
to move—
That the House:
-
notes this is the 93rd anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign and in doing so remembers our most famous ANZAC, Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick;
-
recognises the extraordinary deeds of John Simpson Kirkpatrick who demonstrated courage above and beyond the call of duty when he and his donkeys rescued injured soldiers from the battle fields in Gallipoli;
-
calls for the Government to award a posthumous Victoria Cross to ‘Simpson’ in accordance with the wishes of his World War I Commanding Officers and the many thousands of Australians both young and old who demand this recognition for his acts of bravery;
-
believes it is a travesty of justice that he has been denied the award of the Victoria Cross for all these years; and
-
notes that all Australians would strongly support the posthumous awarding of his honour.
HWD
Hale, Damian, MP
Mr Hale
to move—
That the House:
-
notes:
-
that the 66th Commemoration (19 February 2008) of the bombing of Darwin;
-
the heroism of defence personnel and the people of Darwin during the raids;
-
the tragic loss of life and injuries suffered in Darwin on 19 February 1942;
-
the national significance of this day in the history of Australia; and
-
the importance of North Australia in the Battle for Australia;
-
commends the Rudd Labor Government in fulfilling an election promise in working to establish an annual day for all Australians to commemorate the Battle for Australia.
HVW
Bradbury, David, MP
Mr Bradbury
to move—
That the House:
-
notes:
-
the recent increases in interest rates;
-
the impact that rising interest rates are having on families, particularly in western Sydney; and
-
the Reserve Bank of Australia’s warnings in its latest Statement on Monetary Policy of the risks to the Australian economy of continued inflation;
-
supports the Government’s five-point plan to fight inflation.
00AMX
Johnson, Michael, MP
Mr Johnson
to move—
That the House:
-
acknowledges its support for the advancement of democracy around the world, including Pakistan; and
-
recognises the importance of ministerial accountability in our Westminster system of government.
WF6
Danby, Michael, MP
Mr Danby
to move—
That the House:
-
notes statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran:
-
calling for the destruction of Israel;
-
warning any Muslim who supports Israel that they will burn in the hell of Islam; and
-
denying Nazi genocide against the Jews of Europe and demonising Jews;
-
calls on the Australian Government, Australia being a party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to:
-
refer the incitements to genocide by President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders to the appropriate agencies of the United Nations for account;
-
initiate in the International Court of Justice an inter-state complaint against Iran for its criminal violation of the Genocide Convention; and
-
urge the United Nations to act against Iran’s threats to eliminate the State of Israel;
-
affirms the principle that no country should be allowed to call for the elimination of another; and
-
condemns the incidents to genocide by President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders.
WF6
Danby, Michael, MP
Mr Danby
to move—
That the House:
-
notes that 2007 marks the 75th anniversary of the Great Ukrainian Famine—Holodomor—of 1932–33, caused by the deliberate actions of Stalin’s communist Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics;
-
recalls that an estimated 7 million Ukrainians starved to death as a result of Stalinist policies in 1932–33 alone, and that millions more lost their lives in the purge that ensued for the remainder of the decade;
-
notes:
-
that this constitutes one of the most heinous acts of genocide in history;
-
that the Ukrainian Famine was one of the greatest losses of human life in one country in the 20th century; and
-
that it remains insufficiently known and acknowledged by the world community and the United Nations as an act of genocide against the Ukranian nation and its people, but has been recognised as such by the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine);
-
honours the memory of those who lost their lives;
-
joins the Ukrainian people throughout the world, and particularly in Australia, in commemorating these tragic events; and
-
submits that the Australian Government supports a resolution to the General Assembly of the United Nations, which may be submitted by the Government of Ukraine, that the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932–33 be recognised as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation and its people.
HWR
Parke, Melissa, MP
Ms Parke
to move—
That the House:
-
expresses concern about the shortage of organs available in Australia for life saving operations;
-
notes that where a donor is available, Australia has one of the best records in transplantation outcomes;
-
supports the efforts of the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister to increase the rate of organ donation in Australia;
-
congratulates the organisers of Australian Organ Donor Awareness Week across the country for drawing attention to the need for more Australians to become registered organ donors and to discuss their choice with their families;
-
notes that the report of the National Clinical Taskforce on Organ and Tissue Donation sets out a number of directions for improvement in Australian policies and practices; and
-
encourages Members actively to encourage organ donation in their electorates.
HVP
Perrett, Graham, MP
Mr Perrett
to move—
That the House:
-
recognises the contributions of multicultural Australia to our social, economic and cultural strength;
-
pays tribute to members of our migrant communities, many of whom have overcome severe hardship and personal tragedy in their homelands before migrating to Australia;
-
commits to uphold the Australian ideal of the ‘fair go’ and strives to build racial harmony in our community;
-
condemns recent political efforts to malign refugee and humanitarian entrant communities; and
-
recognises the positive contribution being made by our African–Australian community.
849
Sidebottom, Sid, MP
Mr Sidebottom
to move—
That the House:
-
recognises the heroic efforts of Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean and his crew mates upon the sinking of the HMAS Armidale on 1 December 1942 off the Timor coast;
-
implores the Government to award a posthumous Victoria Cross of Australia to Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean to recognise properly his valour and sacrifice on 1 December 1942; and
-
urges the Government to establish a mechanism to address outstanding issues and anomalies in the military honours system such as recognising the courageous deeds of people such as Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean on 1 December 1942.
2008-02-19
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. BC Scott) took the chair at 4.04 pm.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
771
Statements by Members
Fisher Electorate: Federal Election
771
771
16:04:00
Slipper, Peter, MP
0V5
Fisher
LP
0
0
Mr SLIPPER
—by leave—Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, congratulations on your election to your high office. My experience is that most members of this honourable place are elected for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons. While I might not agree with the philosophy of this government, my belief is that members of the parties of the government and the opposition are usually elected because they seek to make Australia a better place and they want to ensure that, as a nation, we are able to achieve our full potential.
Those of us who are candidates are ultimately elected or not elected and we represent our constituencies, but I think we are often remiss in giving thanks to those people who are our support base—those people who vote for us, those people who work for us and those people who toil for us in our parliamentary offices, often suffering abuse and putting up with a lot of nonsense from people in the community. I would certainly like to thank my wife, Inge; she has been a tremendous support to me. I would also like to thank my electorate staff—Michelle Ellis, Richard Bruinsma, Tim Knapp, Alaina Megson and Bill Van Motman—for the way in which they are able to field inquiries from constituents in the electorate of Fisher and for the manner in which they make representations to government departments and ministers and how they are able to achieve so many positive outcomes.
In our society, we tend to criticise and find fault with people but rarely do we give credit where credit is due, and this is undoubtedly one of the aspects of being Australian which is not necessarily one of the nicest parts of our national psyche. We find fault but do not give praise when warranted, and I just want to take this opportunity in the Australian parliament today to give thanks to my electorate staff, because they on so many occasions have been able to make a difference to the lives of many people I am privileged to represent on the Sunshine Coast.
Many honourable members right around the chamber would also have really good electorate staff and they on occasion might pay tribute to them as well. I am singularly fortunate to represent the very best part of Australia, the Sunshine Coast, in the Australian parliament and I am particularly privileged to have very good electorate staff. My party organisation is effective and is behind me and my community has been incredibly supportive in the period that I have been privileged to be the member for Fisher. We have a lot to be thankful for as Australians and our democratic system, which enables members of parliament and their staff to assist members of the community, is a really positive way of helping people who contribute to making our country the wonderful place that it is.
Mr Vincent Serventy
771
771
16:07:00
Thomson, Kelvin, MP
UK6
Wills
ALP
1
0
Mr KELVIN THOMSON
—by leave—Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, I congratulate you on your election to your important office. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the life of Vincent Serventy, and I am indebted in that regard to an article which appeared in a publication of the National Museum written by Tom Campbell.
Vincent Serventy died at the family home at Pearl Beach on the New South Wales Central Coast on 8 September last year, aged 91. Vin Serventy, his brother Dominic and his sister Lucy were important early movers and shakers in the Australian environmental movement, well before it became a more trendy subject. He and his wife, Carol, did a great deal of important work together in efforts to raise awareness of the Australian environment, wildlife and the nation’s heritage. Vincent Serventy came from Western Australia. He was born in Western Australia to migrant parents. With Carol and the children, he came to Sydney from Perth in 1965 via an extended trip around Australia making a TV series for Channel 9 called Nature Walkabout. I remember watching this as a young boy and it had a great influence on me. I thought it was a fabulous series and I continue to aspire to do something similar.
Vin Serventy wrote his first book in 1966, A Continent in Danger. I remember reading that book as well. I think it was a very important and influential book at its time. He was involved in significant conservation battles. He was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1976 for his work. He also became one of the founding members of the National Circle, a group of eminent Australians who used their influence quietly behind the scenes to advocate development of the National Museum.
In his 1999 memoirs, An Australian Life, Vin quoted the poetry of Judith Wright, a good friend, who said:
Seventy summers of stories he clutches round his bones.
Seventy summers are hived in him like old honey.
Those are words which Tom Campbell aptly applies to Vin Serventy. His life is a life to be celebrated and admired. It would be a fine thing if there were more people who were prepared to bravely lead from the front, sometimes against impossible odds, as he did. Sadly, the situation for Australian wildlife has deteriorated in the time since Vin Serventy wrote his book in 1966, but there is no doubt that he has had a significant influence on many Australians, that he achieved a great deal during his lifetime and that his life and work ought to be honoured in this place.
Queensland: Bureau of Meteorology
772
772
16:10:00
Lindsay, Peter, MP
HK6
Herbert
LP
0
0
Mr LINDSAY
—by leave—Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you are a Queenslander—you will understand what I am going to say. In Queensland, this year particularly, we have had some fairly wild and quite variable weather about the state. We heard in the parliament today the reference to the metres of rain which have fallen in Mackay. We have had very significant problems from monsoonal troughs coming down from the north across the state and bringing wild weather and lots of rain. We also have cyclones of course. So it is very important that our regions in Queensland have accurate weather information. Mr Deputy Speaker, in case you have not caught up with this—and I am glad the member for Capricornia is here because she may not have caught up with it either—the Rudd government has announced today that it may close the Bureau of Meteorology offices in Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton and in Launceston. That is an outrage.
83N
Hall, Jill, MP
Ms Hall interjecting—
HK6
Lindsay, Peter, MP
Mr LINDSAY
—Member for Shortland, together we have to rail against that, because we cannot have our communities in the north not protected and not served by the very professional people of the bureau. They provide an on-the-spot professional service. They are able to advise the local media in real time as to what is happening and what is expected to happen. I am advised from a Senate estimates committee that the first bureau to go, if it is to go, will probably be Rockhampton. We have to fight against that. We cannot allow that to happen. We cannot allow the Rudd government to shaft the north, because that is what this is about. The radio crosses are so important because—
83N
Hall, Jill, MP
Ms Hall interjecting—
HK6
Lindsay, Peter, MP
Mr LINDSAY
—Member for Shortland, have you lived through a cyclone, as I have? Have you been in the position where you need vital weather information locally? When you have a cyclone coming in across Halifax Bay in Townsville and it is bearing down on Townsville with 200-kilometre-an-hour winds, you need to know something about it. That is why it is important that the Rudd government be made to understand that we will not sit idly by. We will fight this tooth and nail. We will make sure that the weather bureau stays in the regions of Australia and certainly in the regions of Queensland. I back the statements made by Senator Ian Macdonald, senator for Queensland, who said today that the closure would affect the ability of the Townsville region to prepare for extreme weather conditions. I hope we can get some bipartisan help on that and I look forward to having a discussion with the member for Capricornia.
Melbourne Ports Electorate: St Luke’s Church
773
773
16:13:00
Danby, Michael, MP
WF6
Melbourne Ports
ALP
1
0
Mr DANBY
—by leave—Mr Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you on your elevation to high office. Like a lot of people who come to speak in this parliament, I want to reflect on the last few months and the joys of being a local member. Recently I attended, with my good friend the state member for Albert Park, Martin Foley, an event at St Luke’s Church: ‘150 Years—celebrating life, sharing hope’, on 7 February 2008. That was the 150th anniversary of the first service at St Luke’s, the wonderful old bluestone church in Dorcas Street, South Melbourne.
This church was, in the early days of Melbourne, the place people went to from Government House for their regular Sunday church service. The first minister in that church served for 51 years, beginning in 1858. The church served the community of Emerald Hill, which grew out of the first settlement in Melbourne. In those original days there were some 7,000 tents around the church. As it did in the past, the church continues its outreach to the local community. The church was principally formed for and worked with the poor in the area of South Melbourne. It continues that excellent work to this day.
An incredibly valuable piece of local history has been put together in the form of a video about St Luke’s. It was a very moving service. Our local Anglican minister in South Melbourne, the Rev. Nick Hearnshaw, spoke very movingly about the history of St Luke’s in South Melbourne and explained its whole history to the congregation. He was joined by the Most Rev. Phillip Freier, the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, who spoke about what an act of faith it was for people in those early days of Melbourne settlement to build a big bluestone church in that area—there was not a lot of wealth around at the time—servicing the poor in that area of Melbourne and not in the main metropolitan area. The service was concluded by a wonderful presentation from the new young minister, the Rev. John Carrick, who in a great act of faith is joining the congregation with his wife to continue with their outreach. Many of us who have been to that great cathedral in Istanbul, Santa Sofia, built by the Emperor Constantine, know how impressive churches can be. But it was, as the Most Rev. Phillip Freier said, a great act of faith to build a big bluestone church amongst the 7,000 tents of Emerald Hill back in 1858. I salute the congregants of St Luke’s and the ministers thereof and wish them another 150 years of success.
National Community Crime Prevention Program
774
774
16:16:00
Robert, Stuart, MP
HWT
Fadden
LP
0
0
Mr ROBERT
—by leave—I stand here this afternoon to support the National Community Crime Prevention Program. I firmly believe that everyone has a right to feel safe in their local communities. That is what the former crime prevention program was doing and that is why crime prevention is such an important component of building up healthy, sustainable and, indeed, safe communities. The former National Community Crime Prevention Program delivered a range of outstanding initiatives for the seat of Fadden—initiatives including closed-circuit TV cameras, equipment to engrave vital and sensitive possessions of families, a whole range of other devices, security containers and safes. Indeed, the program was a mainstay of the Neighbourhood Watch program that runs throughout Fadden, and I publicly salute the work that the hardworking citizens of Fadden do in the Neighbourhood Watch program.
However, I am concerned that clearly this is not important to the Rudd government. They apparently do not seem to think that crime is a problem. There is little, if any, mention of crime in any significant policy statements on the ALP website. There has been no mention of crime in any major policy statements since November 2006 and, indeed, the National Community Crime Prevention Program that has delivered such outstanding benefits to the electorate of Fadden has been unceremoniously tossed on the scrap heap with no word from the Prime Minister or the responsible minister and no word to the hardworking Neighbourhood Watch within the electorate of Fadden—in fact, no word at all. There has been no media release, no speech, nothing on their websites or on the ALP website. Are they ashamed of failing to renew this program that provided such vital support to community organisations like Neighbourhood Watch in Fadden? Are they ashamed to be preventing crime? They should be.
What makes this situation so parlous in the extreme is that I became aware of the Rudd Labor government’s failure only when I signed up for the email bulletin regarding this program and I was met with the message, ‘It is not envisaged that further funding will be provided under this program.’ It is an absolute insult to the hardworking men and women that form Neighbourhood Watch in Fadden that they have not been told that such fundamental access for funds is now being denied them, but they will find out when they register for email bulletins that it is not envisaged that further funding will be provided under this program. I intend to fight for programs such as this so that the hardworking men and women and families of Fadden can feel safe and secure in their homes, knowing that a government does indeed care about them.
Capricornia Electorate: Floods
774
774
16:19:00
Livermore, Kirsten, MP
83A
Capricornia
ALP
1
0
Ms LIVERMORE
—by leave—I rise today to put a human face to the disastrous flooding that still grips all corners of my Capricornia electorate and to formally thank the countless volunteers, disaster relief workers and other emergency services workers to whom many in Capricornia owe a great debt. From Sarina and the Pioneer Valley in the north to the mining towns in the west and to Rockhampton in the south, Capricornia, along with a great proportion of Queensland, has been hit by the worst flooding in decades. According to early estimates, the floods which have inundated Central Queensland will cost our state over $1 billion in damages and, of course, the human cost is immeasurable. The mining industry is facing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses caused by shutdowns, export losses and infrastructure damage. Indeed, all 33 mines in the Bowen Basin are damaged, costing millions of dollars in lost production and also threatening the economic future of many local families. The farming community has been hit equally hard. Sugarcane crops in the north have been flattened, and any surviving cattle in the Central Highlands now face the threat of bovine fever, a potentially deadly cattle virus spread by insects.
Central Queensland’s primary producers are resilient people, but after years of drought wearing them down these floods are now a bitter pill. I am informed that counselling services are being stretched to the limit by farming families seeking help. In the west of my electorate alone, volunteers have received calls from more than 4,000 people in the last month. This disaster has cost the tourism industry across Central Queensland perhaps as much as $60 million. I am aware that since the school holidays last month accommodation operators, many of them small family owned and operated businesses, have seen a huge spike in cancellations, some for up to six months in advance.
But, of course, there have been other sad tales of disaster and also tales of compassion. Sadly, a mother has died saving her six-month-old son from rising floodwaters west of Rockhampton, and there have been two other tragic deaths. There have also been stories of volunteer and emergency services crews working around the clock to restore power, give medical assistance, protect properties and at times provide that plain support and comfort to both friends and strangers which is so typical of Central Queenslanders. In this difficult time I want to acknowledge all those people who have suffered loss and offer my deepest thanks to those who have offered so willingly their help during this time of great need.
I also want to thank the government at this time for its quick response to the emergency in Central Queensland and the extension of financial support to local councils and to individuals who have been affected by the floods. We are a tough breed in Central Queensland and I know that we will overcome these current difficulties, but I do want to pay tribute to those people who have worked so hard to try and make the best of this very difficult situation.
Casey Kidz Klub
775
775
16:23:00
Wood, Jason, MP
E0F
La Trobe
LP
0
0
Mr WOOD
—by leave—I rise today to discuss the Casey Kidz Klub. The Casey Kidz Klub is a not-for-profit organisation, run by an extraordinary lady from Cranbourne North named Amanda Stapleton, that provides out-of-school care for disabled teenagers in the city of Casey. Amanda, you are doing an amazing job. You are having to spend a great deal of time and effort bringing up your teenage son, Peter, who is severely disabled, and I congratulate you for what you are doing. It shows the rest of us how easy we have it in life sometimes.
The club was founded in April 2006 to bridge a gap in support services and provide relief for families struggling with challenges associated with caring for special needs children. It is currently helping 13 families, and extra funding will allow it to help up to 40 families across the city of Casey. The Casey Kidz Klub uses a targeted blend of academic and sporting activities that are designed to explore the boundaries of each individual. Located at Beaconhills College, Berwick, the Casey Kidz Klub enjoys the support of the local community, and I am delighted that the new Rudd Labor government matched our election commitment of $39,000. However, matching funding of $39,000 from the state government is required to allow the club to access a further $39,000 pledged by the City of Casey, which is conditional on matching funding from the state and federal governments. With this money, the club will be set up for the remainder of the year. Unfortunately, by letter dated 17 January 2008, the Acting Victorian Minister for Community Services, Daniel Andrews, said that the Casey Kidz Klub does not qualify for Victorian state government funding as it is an after school care program and not disability related.
That is an absolute disgrace. Governments at all levels have a fundamental responsibility to care for those who are in dire straits or those who cannot care for themselves. I cannot think of a better cause for any government than to fund those who have children with disabilities. I find it absolutely outrageous that the state Labor government in Victoria and its Premier, John Brumby, are not looking at this program as being key and fundamental to helping out people in the worst possible situations.
This has also been raised in the Victorian parliament by Mary Wooldridge, the shadow minister for mental health and community services, who has called on the Victorian state government to recognise the Casey Kidz Klub as a state government responsibility. I urge the state government to do the right thing in Victoria and help out the Casey Kidz Klub.
Isaacs Electorate: Hanover Welfare Services
776
776
16:26:00
Dreyfus, Mark, MP
HWG
Isaacs
ALP
1
0
Mr DREYFUS
—by leave—I recently had the privilege of visiting Hanover South East Short Stay Crisis Accommodation Centre in Robinson Street, Dandenong. Hanover Welfare Services provides a range of facilities in Melbourne, including crisis and transitional housing at Hanover Southbank; the Hanover Southern Housing and Support Service, based in Cheltenham; and the Hanover Inner North Support Team and Outreach Team. I was also able to visit Hanover Southern late last year. Both Hanover Southern and Hanover South East serve the people of our electorate. Since opening its new facility in August 2006, Hanover South East has provided crisis accommodation to nearly 400 individuals and families through its 15 rooms and units. People using this service may have found themselves without housing for a range of reasons. What they all share is a need for support, for access to services and for respect at a critical time in their lives.
People who are homeless often require help with more than just housing. The staff at Hanover South East told me about their proactive case management approach. They seek to address not just housing issues but also the causes of housing breakdown. The support workers assist clients from initial entry through crisis accommodation and often on to transitional housing. They engage other health and welfare services such as drug treatment or mental health support. They work with employment agencies to help those clients who have been out of the labour market, many of them for some time, to find employment. They work with local schools to minimise the impact that short-term homelessness has on the children in affected families. They even run a weekly playgroup.
Sadly, despite the work of the staff at Hanover South East and of many individuals and organisations around Australia, homelessness remains all too common a problem in our country. On a given night, 100,000 Australians are homeless and some 14,000 are sleeping rough. Providing support and services to those who find themselves in this situation is critical to dramatically reducing the incidence of homelessness in Australia. The problem of homelessness also requires national leadership. I am pleased that the government will be building on our commitment of $150 million to construct 600 new homes for homeless people by developing a comprehensive long-term plan to reduce homelessness. Our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said in January:
I do not want to live in a country where we simply discard people. I don’t want to live in a country … where it’s acceptable for people to be sleeping rough every night. We’re not like that … we intend to make a difference.
In our endeavours to achieve this, the hard work and dedicated service of the staff at Hanover South East provides an example to us all.
Telstra
777
777
16:29:00
Marino, Nola, MP
HWP
Forrest
LP
0
0
Ms MARINO
—by leave—I represent the electorate of Forrest in the south-west of Western Australia. Like many of my constituents, I have experienced firsthand the inadequate coverage and service from Telstra’s Next G service. I am not convinced that Telstra understands its customers and their wants and needs to use their mobile phones in what is a mobile environment throughout my electorate. That is really why they bought a mobile phone: to be able to use it anywhere that they need to.
Ultimately, this means that they move around. Whether it is across country areas or in an urban area, in any form of work, they need to be able to use their mobile phone. They have grown up with the technology and it is used in their businesses as well as in their private lives. They rely on mobile phones in many instances—as do the emergency services. The inconvenience, expense, loss of income and down time to businesses caused by trialling several Next G handsets that have ultimately proven to be unsuitable to their needs has been a very costly exercise in many instances and extremely frustrating as well. I believe that constituents should be able to have confidence in a mobile service and a company that is reliable and has adequate coverage.
Constituents who have contacted my office or whom I have spoken to have basically had major problems with the Next G service in comparison to what they were using with CDMA. They were given many assurances about the Next G in comparison to CDMA but have had real difficulty in that process. They have even felt quite harassed by many Telstra sales calls demanding that they make the switch from CDMA to Next G. Many more made the switch fearing that they may not be allowed to retain the same mobile service numbers, which are important to a lot of people. They questioned the need for the haste for Telstra to switch off the network on 28 January. In my office we received so many calls about that potential switch-off time. Really the Next G service at that time was severely wanting in access and in coverage.
After making the switch to Next G, citizens were often very severely inconvenienced and quite frustrated, and could not even access the service that they needed to use. And it was certainly in no way comparable to what they were receiving with CDMA. They were inconvenienced because they had to make numerous visits back to the Telstra dealers and to the agents to demand either their money back or a least a better quality handset to try to make their phones work.
Werriwa Electorate: Sport
777
777
16:32:00
Hayes, Chris, MP
ECV
Werriwa
ALP
1
0
Mr HAYES
—by leave—I have lived in my electorate of Werriwa for over 30 years. It has a very diverse culture but a very keen love of sport. Sometimes we are a little more parochial than we might think in our support for the Wests Tigers. But sport is something that we do take a lot of pride in, particularly sport for our kids. So it is only right that I acknowledge the contribution of people in our electorate who make local sport and competition possible for the children of our area.
This year Mrs Julie Luke, who is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Western Suburbs District Junior Rugby League, was awarded the 2008 Campbelltown Citizen of the Year Award. This is indeed a wonderful achievement and a great honour. Julie’s commitment and dedication to junior rugby league and to the youth of the south-west of Sydney was rewarded by recognition through this prestigious award. Upon being named 2008 Campbelltown Citizen of the Year, Mrs Luke said:
I have been involved in children’s sport because the youth of Campbelltown are our future. I just can’t help myself doing this. I just love it. I am very honoured to have this award.
Julie was first involved in junior rugby league as a mother, progressed through her local football club, the Ingleburn RSL Junior Rugby League, and then was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Western Suburbs District Junior Rugby League.
This is one of the biggest junior rugby leagues in New South Wales. It caters for some 3,600 children to participate regularly in the sport. This involves over 16 clubs from all over Campbelltown and Liverpool which field over 220 teams. I have been very fortunate to have a personal involvement with the Western Suburbs District Junior Rugby League over the past 22 years. As a result I am very familiar with the efforts of Mrs Julie Luke and other members of her board in catering for the sporting interests of children in Campbelltown and Liverpool as well as providing competitive opportunities for elite athletes to progress through to their chosen sport.
Given the community’s concern in relation to childhood obesity, as well as issues of assimilation into various groups and the community in general, I believe the activities of organisations such as this one go a long way to addressing key issues of social development. On behalf of a grateful community, I offer my sincere thanks and congratulations to Mrs Luke and her board for such commitment and professionalism in the running of junior rugby league in the area of Liverpool and Campbelltown. It is very much to the credit of Mrs Luke herself—her guidance, her leadership and the giving of her time so freely to the youth of our area.
APOLOGY TO AUSTRALIA'S INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
778
Miscellaneous
Debate resumed from 18 February, on motion by Mr Rudd:
That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations—this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
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.
779
16:35:00
Bevis, Arch, MP
ET4
Brisbane
ALP
1
0
Mr BEVIS
—It is an honour to participate in this debate and to wholeheartedly endorse the comments made by the Prime Minister and so many members of parliament expressing our formal sorrow as a nation to the Aboriginal and Islander people against whom unspeakable atrocities were committed by order of the state and under the authority of the state. I think the Prime Minister’s speech will truly stand the test of time. The events of last week are something that people will look back on in years to come and in so doing they will want to see what the leaders of Australia in 2008 had to say about this matter. I really did find the comments in the speech by the Prime Minister to be uplifting and to be of the highest calibre. I am pleased to associate myself with those words.
I had not realised until later that day, when watching the television, that so many Australians were so keen to participate, not just to watch. To see the news that night with school assembly halls and community halls dotted around Australia, in large cities, in parks and in communities throughout the country, where so many Australians were wanting to participate, to listen to the words being spoken here and to feel part of that process was also a great thing. It was reflected in what we saw outside the parliament. After the formal proceedings, along with my wife, Cathy, I went outside to the lawns between Old Parliament House and the current Parliament House to join the people and the celebrations. I do not think I have felt a sense of universal goodwill and euphoria like that in all of my time in public life or political campaigning, or any other activity with public involvement. There was a genuine feeling of goodwill and that we had reached a watershed.
I suppose we should have realised that because it is not that long ago that we saw sorry marches in our major capital cities, where hundreds of thousands of Australians marched. I participated with my family in the march in Brisbane and I know many members of parliament on both sides of the chamber did likewise. I have been to quite a few demonstrations in Brisbane over the years. I do not think I have been to a bigger demonstration. It was a family outing. Unlike a lot of other demonstrations, there was no nasty chanting and nobody pointing fingers. It was just an expression of goodwill on the part of so many Australians. Perhaps I should have not been surprised last week to see the outpouring of goodwill.
I was moved last week to revisit the Bringing them home report that Justice Ronald Wilson prepared at the request of the then Labor government prior to the 1996 election and delivered in 1997. I remember reading it when it was tabled and I remember my emotions. I could not actually remember the detail of the stories—although I could remember how I felt—so I wanted to go back and look at some of the things that I read then. It was instructive because in his speech the Prime Minister quite rightly pointed out that, whatever people might say about good intent and goodwill—and no doubt for some that was true—the apparatus of the state singled people out by virtue of their race and colour to be dealt with in what I regard as abominable ways. When you read the accounts of the people concerned, you cannot help but be moved.
I just want to read two or three of the accounts that were contained in Justice Wilson’s report. One is from a woman who experienced these problems as a child many years ago. We might like to think they do not apply any more, but this was her account:
When anybody come to pick up a worker they used to line us up and they’d make you flex your muscles. If you were big and strong they’d pick you - like a slave market. I was sent out at 11. I worked there for seven and a half years, never got paid anything, all that time. We used to bring the cattle in … we didn’t get nothing. So I had to join the army to survive.
Can you imagine, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, our children being taken when they were young and, at the age of 11, primary school student age, being sent out to work without so much as a cent being given to them for their hard labour? No doubt they got board, lodging and food; otherwise they would not have been able to turn up for work the next day. When I read that, it reminded me of those terrible movies we watch about the southern states of America a couple of hundred years ago and the way that slaves were treated. It is abominable to think that it could happen in this country; it is abominable to think that it could happen in the 20th century. It did, and we should not be blind to it.
A couple of other accounts are from the 1960s. The 1960s are far too recent for these sorts of accounts, but they are true. There is the account of a child talking about the way she felt with the foster parents she was given to. She said:
All the teachings that we received from our (foster) family when we were little, that black people were bad … I wanted my skin to be white.
What a terrible thing it is for a young person growing up to be told that they are less worthy and for them to actually dislike their own identity so much because of what their foster parents had said. Another account said:
She [foster mother] would say I was dumb all the time and my mother and father were lazy dirty people who couldn’t feed me or the other brothers and sister.
The final account I want to quote says:
When I was 14 years old and going to these foster people, I remember the welfare officer sitting down and they were having a cup of tea and talking about how they was hoping our race would die out. And that I was fair enough, I was a half-caste and I would automatically live with a white person and get married. Because the system would make sure that no-one would marry an Aborigine person anyhow. And then my children would automatically be fairer, quarter-caste, and then the next generation would be white and we would be bred out. I remember when she was discussing this with my foster people, I remember thinking - because I had no concept of what it all meant - I remember thinking, ‘That’s a good idea, because all the Aborigines are poor’.
These were the people working in the field who were called the helpers and the supervisors and they were talking about ‘breeding them out’.
That reminded me of a more recent experience in my own employment in the early 1980s when I was an officer in the teachers union and I visited the communities on the Cape and the gulf and in the Torres Strait Islands. I can remember around 1981 or 1982 standing on the jetty at Thursday Island with one of the senior teachers as we watched these boats ferry the young teenage girls out to a boat. The boat was the state government’s ship. The government owned the ship; the government crewed the ship. It was there supposedly to provide supplies and, as I was told by the locals, the teachers, it was common practice when the boat came into harbour for the crew to ferry the young girls out onto the boat at night for a party—not the young men, just the young girls. This was the state government in 1981 or 1982. I saw it with my own eyes. It was mind-boggling to think that such things could occur in the 1980s, but they did.
I would like to think that the events of this last week or so have genuinely turned a page in the thinking of all of us in leadership roles and that we will take a leadership role in the community on this matter. It is sadly the case that not all Australians share my enthusiasm for the comments made by the Prime Minister. Our role here is to do what is right. It is clear, I am sure, to the overwhelming number of us in this parliament, whatever our politics and background, that the course set by the Prime Minister in relation to this matter is right.
I am reminded, though, of the problems we had on this with short-term, competing political influences. I well remember when Sir Ronald Wilson’s report was tabled in this parliament. The then government in 1997 refused to allow the parliament to take note of the report. The parliament was denied the opportunity to discuss it by a conscious decision of the then government. In fact, I can remember the whips office organising opposition speakers to read sections of this report into the Hansard for the next two weeks in the adjournment debate because it was the only way the parliament could record what went on. That was a decade ago. Ten years ago the government refused to allow the parliament to even discuss this document. I do not think that too many members of the opposition today would look back on that with great pride. I am sure there are many on the opposition bench now who will be surprised to know that that is what others who were occupying their seats did 10 years ago, but it happens to be the case. It is about time we got over that sort of short-term vision and looked at the longer-term issues.
I have been here long enough to see that sort of sentiment repeated a couple of times. I can remember, when the High Court made its decision on Mabo, the hotly contested debate that ensued. There were many members of the parliament who were then and are again in opposition who took exception to the proposals of the government and a number who actually attacked the High Court decision and thought that the question of Indigenous land title was fundamentally wrong and that the High Court was stepping beyond its bounds. I do not propose to refer to names of members, but indicative of some of the sentiments was a speech made on 5 October 1993 by a member of parliament who was then in opposition and is still a member of parliament. They said:
Land-holders throughout the country are worried about their title. Uncertainty has been introduced into land title in Australia through the decision brought down in June 1992 by six High Court judges. We need to bring certainty back into the land law.
The problem is that the parliament introduced the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975. We should be rolling back the Racial Discrimination Act and returning land tenure to the states. States would then be able to decide the question of land rights in accordance with their own laws and values.
I do not think too many people today would subscribe to the view that, in respect of land title or race rights, the provisions of the antidiscrimination act need to be rolled back.
That was not an isolated view being expressed by members of the parliament at that time—nor was the attitude when I first came into parliament after the 1990 election, to my amazement, towards race relations in another place called South Africa. There were a number of speeches made at that time about the evils of Nelson Mandela. I do not propose to mention the name of the member of parliament at that time who put a question on notice encapsulating this sentiment:
Is the ANC (a) no more than a political party, (b) not the largest political party in South Africa and (c) affiliated with the South African Communist Party.
This was because the government at the time had invited Nelson Mandela to come to Australia. The Prime Minister’s reply in part said:
In the Government’s view the ANC is not merely a political party but is a major partner in the political process currently underway in South Africa. At the same time it has no right to contest elections and it has no formal status within the existing political structures in South Africa.
I do not think many people today would deny the important role the ANC played. These are all related to the same question, I think, of the central equality of life on this planet and our duty as leaders to do what we know is right. I think the events last week and the sentiment broadly agreed on both sides of the chamber have advanced that goodwill. The task we all have is to try and turn that goodwill into genuine and concrete improvements for the lot of Indigenous Australians. I think the steps that were taken by the overwhelming majority of us last week are in keeping with the overwhelming wish of the people, and I hope that that goodwill extends to good deeds as we move forward.
782
16:51:00
Smith, Anthony, MP
00APG
Casey
LP
0
0
Mr ANTHONY SMITH
—I strongly support this motion in the bipartisan spirit in which it was moved in the House and is being discussed here in the Main Committee. As a nation, we say sorry to those Aboriginal people forcibly removed from their families as a consequence of the state and national policies and laws which operated until around 1970. The apology will help the healing. It will not solve every problem—we all know that—but it will help. It will remove a roadblock. It will allow our nation and Aboriginal people to move on together as one. It will build reconciliation.
All of us in this parliament want a better future for Aboriginal people. All of us want to tackle and win the war against the appalling disadvantage that affects so much of Aboriginal Australia. Governments of both political persuasions over many decades have endeavoured to make huge progress and take great steps forward. There have been pockets of success but, on the scale of things, the progress has been minimal. The bold goals that were set by successive governments over the last 40 or 50 years have not been met and the policies pursued have not succeeded.
All of us here and around Australia want to know that one day Australia will conquer Aboriginal disadvantage. We want to know that Australia, one day, will look back at the plight so many Aboriginals face today in terms of life expectancy, education and all the other indicators so many members have referred to in this debate and talk of how progress was made and how the disadvantage was conquered—a day when Australia can look back on Aboriginal disadvantage as history.
We all know that day is a long way off, but if we are ever to see it we need to confront all of the issues that are barriers on the road to that destination. Just as the bipartisan nature of this motion will play a significant role in healing and unifying, we must rededicate ourselves to the practical intervention policies that were introduced by the previous government under the former Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough. They also had bipartisan support. We have to face and confront the problems and deal with the causes of disadvantage in a practical, tangible and determined way.
There will be many speakers in this debate who will have had great experience in their roles as members of parliament and, indeed, in some cases in their preparliamentary life, meeting and visiting Aboriginal communities and seeing firsthand the daily struggles and trials that our Aboriginal and Indigenous Australians face across Australia. I do not hold myself out as being one of those people. I do not pretend to be. I do not bring to this debate years and years of on-the-ground experience. I do not pretend for a minute that I am an expert on all of the complex issues involved. But I know that this motion, which has attracted bipartisan support—and that is very important—will now, at this time, attract wide support in the Australian community. The motion deals with a major blemish in our history. But, in acknowledging that the practice of removing Aboriginal children from their parents in our past was wrong, we need to make sure we acknowledge all the history. In this regard I do support wholeheartedly the statements of the Leader of the Opposition, in his speech in the House of Representatives, recognising and acknowledging that what was done in many, but certainly not all, cases was done with the best of intentions.
The parliamentary speeches of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, as the previous member indicated, were watched in every corner of Australia. They were watched in capital cities, in many of our schools and in many of our communities and city squares right across Australia. I want to make mention of one group of people watching in the electorate of Casey that I represent. The Swinburne University Indigenous Programs Unit, in partnership with the Shire of Yarra Ranges, held a breakfast at the Balluk Yilam Learning Centre on the Swinburne campus in Lilydale. The event was, by all accounts, well attended by more than 100 people, including the mayor, local councillors, community members and, most importantly, Indigenous members of Swinburne’s Indigenous Programs Unit and community elders. They all watched the speeches from parliament, which was a very emotional experience for those in attendance.
I am told by the shire that the speeches from our parliament were received with both elation and sorrow by the Aboriginal people there in particular—elation that the wrongs of the past had been finally apologised for and sorrow at the grief that many had experienced in their lives as a consequence of those policies. The organisers tell me that there was a strong sense from the Indigenous people present, including local senior elders, that this had been a big step forward and a very big day for them. I particularly acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands within the shire of Yarra Ranges, the Wurundjeri people, who have been active supporters of the apology in our local area. Here in this parliament I thank some of those organisers: Anne Jenkins, Shane Charles, Miranda Madwick from the Swinburne Indigenous Programs Unit for organising the event, and Garry Detez from the Shire of Yarra Ranges.
784
16:57:00
Murphy, John, MP
83D
Lowe
ALP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade
1
0
Mr MURPHY
—I stand here this afternoon to support the Prime Minister’s motion on the apology to Australia ‘s Indigenous peoples. Last Wednesday in this place we honoured the Indigenous people of our land. We honoured their past and looked with hope to the future. It was also a unique day to reflect on the blemished chapter in our nation’s history and the imperfect attempts over the years to right the wrongs of the past. It is almost 17 years since this House passed the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Bill. That was a bill which set in train more than any other act the process of reconciliation in our country. It was a bill which brought about unprecedented bipartisan support for the cause of reconciliation.
Many members would recall the handshake between the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Robert Tickner, and the opposition spokesman, Michael Wooldridge, across the House of Representatives dispatch box. That was an important moment. It was a moment when parliamentarians, irrespective of their political persuasion, optimistically chose a path to reconciliation—a path that would heal the wounds of the past and recognise the tragic history of white settlement; a path that would acknowledge the dispossession of our Indigenous brothers and sisters of their land and their families. That act of parliament, that handshake, provided hope that matters of the heart and soul would be addressed once and for all. As Mr Tickner would tell the House, reconciliation was a process which was:
… intended to be substantially completed by the time of our most important national anniversary, the centenary of the establishment of the Australian nation. It is a process deliberately intended to shape the kind of country we will be in 2001 …
It is now 2008, seven years since the Centenary of Federation. Many Australians would agree that substantial reconciliation has not been achieved. Nonetheless, we will all again commit ourselves to succeeding in a test which we have so far failed.
Reconciliation cannot be measured solely in terms of resource allocation, the number of government interventions or the provision of welfare. Material progress is undoubtedly important; however, reconciliation necessarily demands much more than that. It involves matters of the heart. It involves matters of the mind, matters of the spirit. It is not hard to see why. Relations between numerous Australian governments and our Indigenous community have often been characterised by dysfunction, distrust and despair. Dysfunction, distrust and despair are understandable sentiments from members of a stolen generation that endured humiliating and degrading treatment at the hands of their government. At a conference of federal and state ministers and officials responsible for Aboriginal affairs in 1937, the Western Australian chief protector said: ‘The different states are creating institutions for the welfare of the native race and as a result of this policy the native race is increasing. What is to be the limit? Are we going to have a population of one million blacks in the Commonwealth or are we going to merge them into our white community and eventually forget that there were ever any Aboriginals in Australia?’
Linda Burney, a good friend and the first Indigenous member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, has previously stated that history for Aboriginal people is not something that is dead and gone. Given the magnitude of some of the atrocities committed, we must understand that many incidents that are of mere historical significance to us are living, breathing burdens that many Indigenous people carry every day of their lives. We acknowledge that distrust and despair is a historical experience of our Indigenous community. The heart of genuine reconciliation cried out for an apology for past wrongs—an apology for the indignity and degradation imposed on a proud people and proud culture, an apology for the systemic breaking up of families and communities and an apology for policies which did not rest on a need to prove children were actually in harm but saw the mere fact of Aboriginality as a source of harm.
In his Redfern speech, former Prime Minister Paul Keating articulated the prerequisites of reconciliation with great clarity. He said:
… the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.
It begins, I think, with that act of recognition.
Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing.
We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.
We brought the diseases. The alcohol.
We committed the murders.
We took the children from their mothers.
We practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice.
And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.
We have now progressed beyond mere recognition of past wrongs. The Prime Minister on behalf of the Commonwealth government has now rightly apologised—and what a proud day for our nation in this place last Wednesday. Without an apology there would be no healing. Without healing there would be no reconciliation. The importance of the Prime Minister’s apology, from the very institution which enacted statutes that made the forced removal of children on racial grounds legal, cannot be emphasised enough.
The consequences of the previous parliament’s stubborn refusal to apologise are for all to see. Despite many efforts, we have been unable to tackle the many challenges that Indigenous Australians face, including those in health, education and housing. Prior to the Prime Minister’s apology, there had only ever been a weak foundation for moving forward together, a weak foundation for building a future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility, and a weak foundation for genuine attempts at so-called ‘practical reconciliation’.
Sorry is a simple word, yet it means so much in the pursuit of true reconciliation. By confronting the uncomfortable truth of the past and apologising unreservedly we can move the reconciliation process forward to practical, tangible outcomes. We could not separate an apology to the stolen generation from reconciliation. To think otherwise displays a complete lack of understanding of the appalling treatment handed out to many Indigenous people. That is why last Wednesday was such an important day for all Australians. That is why last Wednesday was a momentous occasion in this House. The truth is that we could not arrive at practical and tangible outcomes with fists clenched. Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians can only do it hand in hand. Coming to grips with our history honestly and apologetically allows us to join hands and to open up new opportunities for the future. This is the lesson learnt much, much too late. With the spirit and warmth that has been shown during the debate on this motion, I am confident that we can heal the wounds of the past and move forward together.
Before concluding, I wish to say something about the concerns that current generations of Australians ought not apologise for past actions and policies over which they had no control. Recognising and apologising for past mistreatment is not concomitant with attributing current generations of Australians with guilt for those actions. We did not ask current generations of Australians to assume responsibility. Nonetheless, just as we honour and express our pride in Anzacs, who fought for freedom and liberty, we can express shame in relation to other periods in our history. Let there be no doubt that there is a lot we as a nation can be proud of. However, there is a lot in our past to make us uncomfortable. It would be abominable to suggest that only those with a black armband approach to Australia’s history should feel a need to apologise to the stolen generation. I say to them: look at our nation’s history through the eyes of the stolen generations, through the eyes of mothers who had children ripped from their arms for no reason other than their colour, through the eyes of crying children whose last image of their mothers would be one of desperation and helplessness, on hands and knees pleading for the return of their children.
Picture ourselves as parents. Can we imagine going through those experiences? Can we imagine subjecting our children to such treatment without cause? To deny these facts about dispossession is to deny our history. To refuse to apologise, despite being armed with the facts, is hard-hearted. There is nothing unpatriotic about uncovering the truth, wearing our hearts on our sleeves and apologising. To retreat from this challenge is not a sign of patriotism; it is a sign of weakness.
As the Prime Minister has stated, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors. Therefore, we must be the bearers of their burdens as well. We rightly expect the descendants of our diggers to continue honouring the Anzac legacy through annual marches and other events. As members of this House, we apologise on behalf of our predecessors who cannot. We commit ourselves to ensuring that the injustices of the past never happen again.
The previous parliament’s refusal to offer an apology has cast a dark shadow over the cause of reconciliation. However, just like the handshake across the House of Representatives dispatch box 17 years ago, we trust that the handshake between Prime Minister Rudd and the Leader of the Opposition will result in uncompromising approaches to address the many and serious issues engulfing our Indigenous Australians.
I am confident of the sincerity of the Leader of the Opposition in his resolve to work with the Prime Minister to achieve practical reconciliation. Now that the shadow has been lifted, all Australians can go forward together and achieve those goals laid down by the Prime Minister and supported by the Leader of the Opposition in this place last Wednesday. I know I speak for all Australians when we wish them well in those endeavours and I commend the motion to the House.
786
17:10:00
Mirabella, Sophie, MP
00AMU
Indi
LP
0
0
Mrs MIRABELLA
—I welcome discussion on the Prime Minister’s motion of an apology. The one thing most speakers have in common is their recognition that this is a complex issue. I agree with them and applaud any real attempt to improve the lives of Aboriginal people and abused or neglected children whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous. Further, the complexity of this situation was not best served by the secrecy of the Labor government in the formation of this motion, whether it be the fact that members, senators and the Australian people were not able to see the wording of the motion a mere 16 hours before debate began, or the fact that the government did not release its legal advice regarding compensation claims that may flow as a result of the apology. A truly open and accountable government would not have been afraid to take the Australian public into its confidence.
This motion of apology sets a worrying precedent. Noel Pearson spoke of his concern that the apology:
… will sanction a view of history that cements a detrimental psychology of victimhood, rather than a stronger one of defiance, survival and agency.
This motion of apology was marketed as being the first step towards ending the disadvantage. In essence, it will do very little to resolve the ingrained dysfunction within some Aboriginal communities.
The Aboriginal people of this land have had a tragic history since white settlement. In Australian history there have been successive policies that have been detrimental to Aboriginal Australians—the policies that ensconced the welfare mentality and dependency into the subculture; the failure to confront the harsh truths of life in Indigenous communities; the misguided paternalism which did nothing to right the wrongs of past decades; and the damaging mindset of the victim mentality, which pervaded the psyche of Indigenous affairs and made coming face to face with the more pressing problems of Aboriginal communities nigh on impossible.
When the Howard government announced the gutsy and groundbreaking Northern Territory intervention, the critics came out in full force. The Age reported then of Prime Minister Howard pulling a ‘black rabbit’ out of the hat, that the intervention was a ‘black children overboard’ moment, and that John Howard had ‘done a Robert Mugabe on our citizens’—and the hyperbole did not stop there. However, this was the first time that entrenched failure in Indigenous affairs and the ugly, detrimental, dysfunctional nature of Aboriginal communities was confronted head on. I do not believe for one moment that, had the Labor Party been in power on the reception of the report of the Northern Territory board of inquiry, they would have made the difficult decision to intervene in Northern Territory Aboriginal affairs; in fact, Labor is now backtracking and reintroducing the permit system, effectively closing many troubled communities to the outside world and to proper scrutiny.
This apology flows from recommendations in the 1997 Bringing them home report. This report not only called for a motion of apology but recommended that:
. . . ‘compensation’ be widely defined to mean ‘reparation’—
which could—
consist of,
1. acknowledgment and apology,
2. guarantees against repetition,
3. measures of restitution,
4. measures of rehabilitation, and
5. monetary compensation—
and that reparations were to be made not only to individuals but to family members, entire communities and their descendants.
The problem with the Bringing them home report upon which the apology and claims for financial compensation are based is described by well-known Aboriginal activist Noel Pearson when he states that the report:
… is not a rigorous history of the removal of Aboriginal children and the breaking up of families … it does not represent a defensible history.
Yet this is the very report upon which this apology motion is based.
If we accept that an apology is important, then why shouldn’t we get it right? The very term ‘stolen generations’ is not defined, is not qualified and, as such, is troublesome. It is a direct lift from the Bringing them home report. It is a term that is too simplistic and has become an unqualified phrase. In purely legal terms, the word ‘stolen’ has specific meaning denoting criminality. This gives rise to a host of troubling scenarios, not least of which is the question of whether welfare officers and other government employees are, by implication, to be held liable in some way for their involvement in saving children at risk of harm in local communities.
To some, this may seem like semantics, but the parliament has a responsibility to get things as right as possible. Every day in Australia there are children being separated from a parent because someone has deemed it to be in the child’s best interests. Are these children stolen? Some of the reasons that Aboriginal children were taken from their families in decades past are the same reasons that Aboriginal children are sadly taken away today. It sickens me that young Aboriginal children are still being diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases or identified as being in some other danger, yet some people would say removing them from such perilous environments would be creating the next stolen generation. The protection of children is far more important than any individual’s political agenda, including that of the Prime Minister, whose own staff led a back-turning campaign in Parliament House when the Leader of the Opposition was speaking in support of this motion.
The most recent report that highlights the level of Indigenous disadvantage is the Little children are sacred report. This is the report that led to the Howard government’s emergency intervention in the Northern Territory. The two authors of the Little children are sacred report made visits to 45 communities in the Northern Territory. Tragically, they found instances of sexual abuse in each one of those 45 communities. Similarly, each one of these 45 sites ‘indicated that alcohol was having an extremely significant detrimental effect on almost every aspect of community life, including the safety of children’. The former Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, said in his speech to the House on the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007:
When confronted with a failed society where basic standards of law and order and behaviour have broken down and where women and children are unsafe, how should we respond? Do we respond with more of what we have done in the past? Or do we radically change direction with an intervention strategy matched to the magnitude of the problem?
Thankfully, the Howard government changed direction to confront these harsh and, at times, unpalatable truths. The Northern Territory intervention included more police, restrictions on alcohol, audits on computers to stamp out pornography, acquisition of five-year leases, improving living conditions, carrying out health checks and changing the way communities are governed. All these things challenge the mindset of those who refuse to condemn the decades-old failed approach of paternalism and dependency, which has offered such dispiriting outcomes to Indigenous Australia. Mal Brough and John Howard challenged that, and we need the groundbreaking Northern Territory intervention to continue and certainly not be watered down.
The measures in such an intervention do far more to advance the cause of Indigenous disadvantage than this apology. The problem with this issue is its complexity, which is not solved simply with glib sloganeering and cushy sound bites. We do the Aboriginal people an injustice because this apology falsely purports to offer hope that the entrenched disadvantage will now be remedied simply by debate on the motion in the House.
Some people have said that we should all simply go along with the apology because it is only symbolic and, although imperfect, we should just give it our support in order to move on. This sets a dangerous precedent and trivialises the very nature of what we do in this place. The hurried and frenzied nature of the dissemination of the wording of the motion is a case in point. Any parliamentary motion has a significant implication; therefore, why hide the wording? Why only release it some 15 hours before it is to be debated? Why should we as parliamentarians be refused access to the legal advice that the government sought to allegedly protect it from compensation claims? It was either rushed or deliberately withheld from debate. There was no chance to analyse the wording and its implications, much less to proffer a differing or alternative point of view and wording.
I could not, in all conscience, allow myself to be stampeded into de facto support for a motion which attempts to neatly and glibly rule a line under an impossibly complex issue with little regard for the possible consequences for Aboriginal Australians and for the nation as a whole. Many who have dared offer an alternative viewpoint, expressed a contrary opinion on the wording of the motion or called for more debate have been called uncompassionate, callous and racist, as if compassion is strictly limited to those who endorse the Prime Minister’s ‘sorry’ motion—as if they have an exclusive monopoly on compassion. This clearly shows that we are not dealing with a unifying motion, no matter how well intentioned it has been.
The ill-defined ‘sorry’ motion is now the basis for compensation claims, which is to be expected as this was also recommended in the Bringing them home report. Tasmanian Aboriginal lawyer and activist Michael Mansell said:
. . . we won’t rest until we get that compensation package.
Former Administrator of the Northern Territory Ted Egan said the government should consider compensation. Pat Dodson called for a compensation fund in his speech at the National Press Club. One local Bangerang representative stated on local radio in my electorate a couple of weeks ago that this apology was the first step towards compensation. Just two days after the apology, the front page of the Herald Sun carried the news of a class action against the government for multimillion dollar compensation claims for members of what were referred to as ‘the stolen generation’.
These are the unintended consequences of the apology. Already the claims have come in thick and fast. It is not compensation that will fix the problems in Aboriginal communities. We all want to see an end to substance abuse, child sexual abuse, the neglect of young children, the dissemination of pornography and the cycle of welfare dependency. Children’s health, infant mortality rates, Indigenous schooling and housing—none of these issues are easy to fix, but we all want to see improvement. It is just that some of us disagree about how we are going to get there and how to bring all other non-Indigenous Australians with us.
It is important to note that Indigenous affairs spending on health programs more than quadrupled in the decade from 1996 under the Howard government. However, the allocation of money to remedy the ingrained sociocultural dysfunction within some Aboriginal communities is of itself not enough. This apology will entrench the notion of Aboriginal disillusionment and more firmly ensconce the victim mentality right throughout Indigenous Australia, as was noted by Noel Pearson in his moving and eloquent piece in the Australian on the day prior to the motion’s presentation in parliament. Pearson wrote:
One of my misgivings about the apology has been my belief that nothing good will come from viewing ourselves, and making our case on the basis of our status, as victims.
It is far more simple to offer apologies than give proper recognition of the more heartbreaking, unpalatable realities of life in Indigenous communities—two-year-olds with gonorrhoea, children as victims of gang rape, squalid living conditions, young minds diminished by an ugly mixture of booze and porn and all the other sorts of unutterable miseries that run rife and unencumbered. An apology will not fix this, but a new mindset and better policy will go a long way. To be lastingly compassionate is to make the hard, sometimes unpopular, decisions to tackle the horrific problems of systemic sexual abuse, substance dependence and lawlessness in Aboriginal communities.
For my part, it would have been much easier to take the path of least resistance, stay silent on the matter and go along with the wave of feelgood across the parliament. But I could not in all conscience be railroaded, for the reasons I have already stated above, into supporting this hastily put together motion. I accept that many agree with my stand and many do not. It is worth noting, however, that some who have disagreed with the position I have taken have been very swift in serving a tirade of abuse, which only highlights how quickly calm debate and analysis can be replaced with rigid and inflexible views where one is not even allowed to question, let alone challenge, conventional wisdom.
To all those people in my electorate, to all those people in Australia who may be afraid of expressing their point of view out of fear of being labelled callous, uncompassionate and racist, I say: ‘Fear not. We live in a democracy, a very vibrant democracy. And, although from time to time conventional wisdom and political correctness may try to silence what you truly feel in your heart, please do not give in and please ensure that your voice is heard.’ With the change of government we have been transported back to the suffocating and stifling political correctness of the Keating era. This phenomenon itself will have consequences on every corner, down every street and down every track of mainstream Australia. Indigenous Australians deserve better than this glib debate. They deserve an open and courageous debate, as do all non-Indigenous Australians.
790
17:24:00
O’Connor, Brendan, MP
00AN3
Gorton
ALP
Minister for Employment Participation
1
0
Mr BRENDAN O’CONNOR
—This evening I would like to join my colleagues and the people of Australia in marking the historic day when the parliament finally responded to the recommendation of the Bringing them home report and apologised to the Indigenous people of Australia for the policies of successive governments. The report found that across the nation between one in three and one in 10 Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970. It found that those Indigenous children were placed in institutions, church missions, adopted or fostered and, as a result, were at risk of physical and sexual abuse. These are staggering figures whose shocking effect has not dimmed in the long years since the report was first tabled 11 years ago; neither have the hurt and suffering of each generation dimmed, as they carry this shame—and, of course, this spills over into the rest of their lives.
As a result of placement in institutions or unstable fostering situations, many children were so often raised with inadequate education, either in the basics of literacy or in the culture and traditions of their own country and people. They were excluded from not only the opportunity to better their situation that education brings but also the knowledge and traditions that only come with a living connection to country and culture. Some say those whose actions resulted in this suffering did so with the best of intentions. Indeed, this was repeated by the Leader of the Opposition in his speech on this motion last week. That may be so, but it is not good enough to say that they meant well. Some undoubtedly did, but lives were destroyed despite good intentions. If no harm was intended, harm was still done. Some say that those who acted with good intentions could not have known of the effect of their actions on those they attempted to help. I say to the House: our predecessors should have known. They should have understood the hurt that was caused. Their common humanity demanded that they understand the lack of common humanity in their actions.
Some reply that, as the current generation did not do it, the Prime Minister has no right apologising in their name. But no-one can deny that it was done by people acting in our name. We elected successive governments which created the laws that enabled them to do these things. It is entirely right that the government and the parliament apologise on behalf of the Australian people because it was elected governments who drew up the laws to allow these criminal actions to be done without criminal penalty. It was done in our names.
Interestingly, some years ago, the then Prime Minister John Howard apologised to the Vietnam veterans for the treatment they received after returning from the war. I was too young to have abused Vietnam veterans myself, but I have no objection to the then Prime Minister seeking to redress this historical wrong on my behalf. To those older Australians whose memories of the Second World War are still acute, I pose a hypothetical: if the government of present-day Japan were to apologise to those Australians imprisoned under appalling conditions during the war, would you object on the grounds that the people of Japan cannot be held accountable for the actions of the past? When considering this question, keep in mind that actions by government agencies which led to the suffering of the stolen generations were going on well into the living memory of most members of this chamber.
Some object that these actions were technically legal, but should we really excuse the reality of this dispossession for legalistic reasons? Many thought or were told that the absence of their child was a temporary measure, only to lose them permanently in the welfare machine. Many children were able to retrace their lost years with the help of discovered records or relatives, only to grieve again for the loss of parents who died never knowing what became of their offspring. In his historic Redfern speech, then Prime Minister Paul Keating noted that the nation had failed to enter into the hearts and minds of Aboriginal people by simply imagining that these things were done to us. Echoing Mr Keating, the Prime Minister last week challenged those Australians who see no need to apologise to imagine that it was done to us, to imagine how crippling that would be, how difficult it would be to forgive.
And we have no right to ask for forgiveness without acknowledgement that wrong was done. Some claim that an apology is empty symbolism, that what we need are practical outcomes. I could not agree more. Despite economic pressures, the change in government presents Australia with valuable opportunities to improve Indigenous economic development and social inclusion—opportunities Labor will be eager to foster.
As Minister for Employment Participation, I certainly want to work with the government to assist in fulfilling some of these concrete aims. Employment is one of the foundations of social inclusion. It creates opportunities for financial independence and personal fulfilment. Unfortunately, the unemployment rate for Indigenous Australians is about three times higher than for others. Employment participation rates are also almost 20 per cent lower than for the non-Indigenous population. The government is committed to closing this gap within 10 years. By fostering economic development, governments create opportunities to overcome these levels of social disadvantage. But development can only occur on a foundation of sound education and training, opportunities for real employment and regional consultation and partnership. More flexible and specific mentoring and work related learning opportunities ensure Indigenous people can access paths to career development in conjunction with mainstream employment services where they exist. We want to close the gap between demand and supply of skilled workers by using industry strategies with the pastoral and forestry industries, including of course initiatives like the memorandum of understanding with the Minerals Council of Australia. We will place industry demand at the heart of the skills training system. We want to create jobs for CDEP participants in government service delivery, delivering on an election promise of $90 million over five years to train and employ an additional 300 rangers in areas where CDEP cross-subsidisation remains.
We will announce future directions on the Northern Territory emergency response after the review is released in September, but the government will continue to work with service providers to ensure that projects are developed in consultation with communities, that activities have a strong work based skills focus and that the range of activities developed meets the needs of local communities.
Acknowledgement of white Australia’s conduct towards Aboriginal people was among the very first concerns that I raised in this place. In my first speech, I called upon the government to apologise to our original owners for the atrocities inflicted upon them. ‘Seeing one’s own history, warts and all,’ I said at the time, ‘was not to wear a black armband. We have more to fear from a blindfold than a black armband.’ Acknowledgement of our history, warts and all, is a sign of maturity and of a better and more conscious society. I feel privileged more than six years on to have been in the chamber to hear what I thought was a rather forlorn hope come to pass.
I am a parent to a very young daughter, and I can barely imagine what it would feel like to have her taken from me. But my imagination fails when I try to conceive of what future she could have without her parents, without her identity, without the love and guidance and support of her family. When I imagine these things, I try to put myself in the shoes of the stolen generations and the humanity we share—it is impossible to deny. But we as a nation have denied it and last week it was time to put an end to such denial.
793
17:34:00
Johnson, Michael, MP
00AMX
Ryan
LP
0
0
Mr JOHNSON
—Last week, the first sitting week of the 42nd federal parliament, was a historic week in the life of our parliament, in the life of our nation, in the lives of millions of individual Australians and, more profoundly, in the lives of the Indigenous people of our great country. It was historic because the Australian parliament, as a body of men and women elected to represent their constituencies, made peace with another body of men and women, the Indigenous peoples of our country, in a way that is essential for our country to move forward together and in a way that is essential to fundamentally advance the cause and wellbeing of the Indigenous peoples of Australia. It was historic because, however uncomfortable it is for some members and senators, the national parliament confronted a dark side of our history. It was historic because we agreed to accept that a specific dark chapter of our history had to be met head-on and challenged in this first decade of the 21st century. It was historic because we said a policy adopted and embraced by former governments of Labor and Liberal persuasions made mistakes based on the issue of race which, in our time, is unacceptable and reprehensible.
As the elected representative for the people of Ryan, it was a very special moment to be sitting in the House of Representatives being a part of history but even more so as a witness to greater history. Indeed, it will be an occasion that I will remember for a very long time to come. As a citizen of our country, as the federal member for Ryan and as a member of the opposition, I wish to formally place on record my deep regret and my deep sorrow to individual members of the stolen generation and to them as members collectively of the stolen generation for the terrible loss, pain and suffering which they endured due to the actions and conduct of white Australians.
I do not claim to be well briefed or well informed or to be an expert in Indigenous issues. I do not claim to be well read in the history of the relationship between our Indigenous peoples and our first settlers, but I do not think one has to be an expert or a so-called expert to know the terrible pain and loss which must have been felt by the young children in particular who were forcibly removed, who were, to put it bluntly, stolen from their parents, their loved ones and their community. As other colleagues have said, and as the Prime Minister indicated in the chamber when he spoke on this motion, I personally could not imagine my 19-month-old son, who is everything to me, who is the whole world to me, being taken from me in similar circumstances because of his ethnic make-up. Therefore, this reason alone is sufficient for us to extend this apology.
I want to speak very briefly on the question of intergenerational responsibility. The primary reason I understand for not giving an apology by those who seek not to do so or have great difficulty in extending an apology is that our generation is not responsible for the conduct which harmed the spirit and soul of those who were removed against their will. With all due respect to those who hold this view—and there are some on my side of parliament—surely we can give an apology or say sorry for something that was fundamentally wrong, without feeling any guilt whatsoever for that conduct. We do not have to be personally involved in the actions, deeds or conduct to be sorry that they happened.
Last month, my wife’s father died suddenly and unexpectedly. So many of our family friends and my wife’s family’s friends and so many people who did not know me, my wife or my wife’s father expressed their sadness at the sorrow that my wife felt. They used the word ‘sorry’ to us both and to my wife in particular because they felt her personal loss and pain. They expressed their humanity and the emotion of sadness at the sorrow which another human being felt. It is for this reason as well that I find no difficulty whatsoever in supporting this motion. How can it be that our migrants, for instance, should feel any personal guilt for the deeds of white Australians? How can it be, for instance, that today’s young Australians should feel personal guilt or responsibility for the terrible pain inflicted on the first Australians? Of course they cannot. They were not citizens at the time we talk about. I personally feel no guilt or responsibility whatsoever. However, that is not inconsistent with the sentiment I now express in this presentation to the parliament. I was not of that generation, but that does not prevent me from feeling sadness and sorrow for those hurt by the policies of the time.
I think Greg Craven put it well in his piece in last Friday’s Australian Financial Review. I do not agree with everything that Mr Craven writes, nor do I support the claim for compensation which—if I read his piece accurately—he seeks to argue for. But in terms of his comment on intergenerational discomfort, he does put it well, and I wish to read into Hansard for the benefit of my constituents what he wrote on 15 February in relation to the notion that ‘people cannot be sorry for something done in the past and in which they themselves played no part’:
There are two obvious answers to this. First, I surely can be sorry over something that I did not personally do but out of which I reap continuing benefit. It was Arthur Phillip, not me, who took possession of this continent and displaced its original inhabitants, but I owe my present comfortable plot of dirt directly to his act.
Second, how is it that we can feel immense pride in historical actions in which we had no part, but apparently cannot feel sorrow or regret? If I am proud of the founding fathers at federation, the diggers at Gallipoli, and Carlton in the 1945 premiership, then I similarly can feel sorry for Australian acts of brutality and discrimination occurring before I was born.
I should say for the record that I am not necessarily a supporter of Carlton and know nothing or very little about Australian Rules football, but as an Australian I am very proud of the founding fathers and the way in which they put together our country in its present form. I am also very proud of those who have worn the uniform and served in the name of our country in many, many parts of the world and so many of whom ultimately gave the greatest sacrifice—namely, their lives. I am proud of this because my father wore the uniform, and my grandfather also wore the uniform and made the ultimate sacrifice.
Having tabled this motion in the House, the Rudd government now faces the challenge of proving it is serious about the cause of reconciliation in a very meaningful way. We all know there is a vast gap between the health and social wellbeing of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The Productivity Commission chairman, Mr Gary Banks, summed it up aptly in his 2007 report, Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage, when he said that the report revealed:
… that many Indigenous people have shared in Australia’s recent economic prosperity, with improved employment outcomes and higher incomes. There have also been welcome improvements in some education and health outcomes for Indigenous children. Yet, even where improvements have occurred, Indigenous people continue to do worse than other Australians.
That Productivity Commission report showed that there are still large gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in virtually every social area.
In the area of health the report concluded that the life expectancy of Indigenous people is estimated to be around 17 years lower than that for the total Australian population. The most recent estimates indicate that life expectancy at birth is 59 years for Indigenous males compared with 77 years for males in the total population, and 65 years for Indigenous females compared with 82 years for females in the total population. Infant mortality rates, though they have improved in recent years, are still two to three times as high as those for the total population of infants. The Indigenous rates of kidney disease are 10 times as high as the non-Indigenous rates.
In the area of education, Indigenous students are half as likely as non-Indigenous students to continue to year 12. In 2006, 21 per cent, nearly a quarter, of 15-year-old Indigenous people were not participating in school education, compared to only five per cent of non-Indigenous 15-year-olds in our communities. In the area of employment, the unemployment rate for Indigenous people is approximately three times the rate for non-Indigenous people. Indeed, in 2004-05, over half of Indigenous people still received most of their individual income from government pensions and allowances.
In a wealthy country such as Australia, there is no reason why our first Australians should be denied access to the 21st century opportunities and services that the rest of Australia can enjoy. It is only by empowering today’s generation of Indigenous Australians with vital skills and qualifications that they will be able to fully engage in the benefits that our wonderful country has to deliver. Yet that kind of comprehensive education is only possible once the fundamentals of individual safety, family security, good health and shelter are met.
It must now be the absolute policy focus of the new Rudd Labor government, and its ministers, to turn its election rhetoric and criticism of the Howard government into real, measurable achievements to fix the equality gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Now the hard part starts. On this front—the practical, as opposed to the symbolic—the Rudd government has already acted in a way which surely must leave questions in the minds of the public about the extent to which it is able to find practical solutions. Going against the Little children are sacred report, against the views of so many Indigenous leaders, against prominent individuals in the Labor Party itself, against overwhelming case evidence and, seemingly, against common sense and rational thought, the Rudd government has acted to resurrect the permit system which restricts access to Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory.
I hope that I am not saying sorry and apologising again in a decade’s time because the new Labor government failed to deliver outcomes when it had the absolute power, circumstance and goodwill of the Australian people to deliver real change. I hope that I am not saying sorry that the government focused on the symbolism and words but ignored the profound problems of the health deficit, the education deficit and the opportunity deficit. The permit system served only to protect child abusers and shelter rampant alcoholism within these communities. Indigenous leader and former National President of the Labor Party, Warren Mundine, recognised this and made public comments to that effect in the Australian. Just as important, he also recognised that, to see real improvement in the social wellbeing of remote communities, it is important to promote free trade and commerce, which, at their most basic, require the free flow of people and ideas to create commercial activities. Noel Pearson has enormous respect in the wider Australian community and is far more in touch with the Indigenous community and its challenges than probably any member of the Australian parliament sitting on the Labor benches and the coalition benches. He has long advocated a move from passive welfare to conditional welfare and the need for substantial and meaningful reform.
I congratulate the Prime Minister for his leadership on this motion. I commend his initiative and much of the way in which he has handled the apology motion. However, I was most disappointed that the Prime Minister did not release the full text of his motion well before the time he did so. Especially, I am terribly disappointed that he has elected not to release the legal advice that the Commonwealth government has received in relation to the apology motion. I cannot understand why he would not want to release this legal advice. Indeed, as an Australian taxpayer, as an Australian citizen and as the federal member for Ryan, I should have a right to know what that legal advice says in relation to compensation.
I also commend very warmly the Leader of the Opposition for the way in which he responded and the way in which he conducted himself. All those of us on the Liberal side of politics know that he is a great admirer of Senator Neville Bonner. I am proud to say that Senator Neville Bonner, Australia’s first Indigenous member of parliament, was also a member of the party that I am a member of.
When black and white Australians can live together in the suburbs, towns and cities of Australia and look each other in the eye with mutual admiration and respect then we really will have compensated the stolen generation and the Indigenous peoples of Australia. Australia is a great country and Australians are a great people. Whilst every country has its dark side—chapters and moments which, in hindsight, successive generations would prefer it had not had—there also comes a time when we can move on. The history of nation states and sovereignty is replete with such examples. But, for all that, we can look forward with anticipation, confidence, faith and optimism that Australia’s sunniest days are still ahead of us.
796
17:49:00
Adams, Dick, MP
BV5
Lyons
ALP
1
0
Mr ADAMS
—Mr Deputy Speaker Bevis, it is a pleasure to see you in the chair. I am sure you will give good rulings and keep the parliament in good order. It is great to be back. This is my first speech since being re-elected. To my parliamentary colleagues on the other side and to the clerks and attendants who keep us all going: it is a pleasure to be back and I thank you for looking after us.
It was a special day when the apology was given last week. I want to touch on the first paragraph of the Prime Minister’s apology motion. It stated:
… today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
When you think about it, all those different clans that make up the Indigenous people of Australia are incredible cultures. I will never forget visiting Wybalena on Flinders Island in the Bass Strait. It is the place to which Australian Aborigines were taken after they were gathered up by Reverend Robinson. Many of them perished as a result of the changes in their lifestyle—through not being able to live their natural life on the Tasmanian mainland. I remember that that was a very moving experience for me some years ago.
In responding to the motion of apology to the stolen generation, I firstly want to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Ngunawal people, and recognise their ancestors and elders for caring for this country for many centuries. I also want to acknowledge the traditional owners in my electorate of Lyons, in Tasmania, and thank them for looking after that most beautiful part of Australia. I grew up on a small farm of 300 acres which had the unusual name of ‘Canara’. I remember as I gazed at the Great Western Tiers, the mountains which ran not far from that farm where I grew up, asking my father what that name meant. He told me it was a Tasmanian Aboriginal word that meant ‘a small band or clan’. I have not been able to prove that or find it anywhere, and I guess that, to a great degree, that is because of the loss of the Tasmanian Aboriginal language.
I was so pleased to witness the welcome to country that formed part of the opening of this parliament. It is vital that the institution of parliament recognise the importance of these processions and events that demonstrate respect for the first people of this country. Respect is the primary value that we should demonstrate in all our relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We need to respect their history as much as ours and respect their cultures and languages as we at the same time nurse our own diverse community cultures, languages and traditions. Respect must be at the heart of engagement with the first Australians. When we design and implement government policies that affect Indigenous peoples, and when we make agreements with traditional owners to access the lands and waters for resource development, we need to demonstrate a level of respect for the aspirations of Indigenous peoples which has been lacking on many occasions so far. The welcome to country ceremony is the first step in this journey.
As I watched the speakers and dancers at the welcome to country ceremony, I thought about other amendments we might be able to make to our traditions at the opening of parliament. Given that these formal occasions draw heavily on the rules of the mother parliament of the United Kingdom, it is time to reconsider these traditions. Some we might want to keep and others we could change. My first suggestion is that we involve Indigenous people even more in the opening processes of parliament. We could probably do away with the buckles and bows of the Usher of the Black Rod and include an Indigenous owner and a didgeridoo or clap sticks to lead the House through a more Indigenous and distinctly Australian parliamentary process. Indeed, it is a sign of maturity that this government is able to embrace the cultural welcome of the traditional owners of this Parliament House and thereby within the notion of parliamentary sovereignty.
Traditional owners often assert their prior sovereignty over this country, and it is undeniable that Indigenous peoples were here long before my family, which started with the Second Fleet into Sydney, and many others who have arrived since. I hope that we can engage Indigenous peoples on an equal footing to acknowledge past wrongs as well as celebrate continuing successes. In this way we will demonstrate respect for the traditional owners and build trust into our relationships with the first people, and from this basis we can work together on improving the health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples in all parts of the country.
One of my longstanding priorities has been to invest in the education and training of young people in Lyons, the electorate that I represent in Tasmania, and of young people generally. It is an extreme wrong that some Indigenous kids do not attend school, not just in remote locations but in the regions and cities—even here in Canberra. We need to work harder and smarter to engage Indigenous families in education and training. I am optimistic about the capacity of the new Labor government to deliver on this need. With greater engagement in education and training come the opportunities for employment, housing and life choices that fit with the aspirations of Indigenous people. We are all diminished while the wellbeing of Indigenous people is so much worse than that of the vast majority of Australians.
I endorse the apology outlined by the Prime Minister and urge this House to work with purpose and energy to demonstrate respect for and to build trust with Indigenous peoples so that we can bridge the gap of disadvantage as quickly as possible. We must work hard so that last week’s achievements are not lost. We must all work harder in this parliament to achieve much more. We must assist the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in their coming together in their so-called ‘war cabinet’ to look at Indigenous housing. Indigenous housing can play an important role in improving the health of Indigenous people. We must all endeavour to make those things happen, and it is incumbent upon all of us to do so. We must narrow the gap between life expectancies or eliminate it altogether. As I said, housing will be one of the great beginnings in that area. The social indicators in relation to Indigenous Australians are very bad. There is a difference of 17 years in the life expectancy of white and Indigenous Australia. That is a very bad figure, and it is incumbent on all of us to eliminate it.
In the area of education, we must continue to improve. We must continue to bring education to Indigenous people. I understand that, in some parts of the Northern Territory, there are hardly enough schools and there are kids who do not go to school or who go to school for half a year. That is not good enough, either, and we have to work to improve that with the Indigenous people. Just imagine what apprenticeships could do for Indigenous people. Just imagine the next generations coming on that do get into training, that can get into apprenticeships, that can go on to get diplomas and that can go on to get degrees. These are the hopes and aspirations in the motion by the Prime Minister last week in that moving ceremony that we were all part of at the opening of this parliament. I certainly hope that it does move us all, that it gives us all aspiration and inspiration to go on and, as I said, work hard in this parliament to achieve many of those things that we set out to do and that we are going to strive for.
798
18:01:00
Southcott, Dr Andrew, MP
TK6
Boothby
LP
0
0
Dr SOUTHCOTT
—I would like to indicate my support for this motion in a generous spirit and in the hope that we will see further concrete improvements in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In 1924 the United Aborigines Mission opened a mission facility in Oodnadatta. This facility later moved to Quorn, in the lower Flinders Ranges, and after that to Eden Hills, in my electorate, in 1944. It was known as the Colebrook Home. Matron Ruby Hyde and Sister Rutter ran the Colebrook Home for most of its early 30 years. They were well regarded, and this was their life’s work.
Originally, the children taken to this home were Arrernte, Arabana, Antakirinja or Pitjantjatjara in background. The children attended school on site because the local primary and secondary school would not accept the Colebrook children. Later, older girls attended Mitcham Girls Technical High School and the boys went to Goodwood Technical High School. Between 1943 and 1972 some 350 children lived at this site. The home produced nurses, schoolteachers, kindergarten directors, social workers, welfare and liaison officers, missionaries and tradesmen. Amy Levai was the first primary schoolteacher of Aboriginal descent in South Australia, in 1963. She was from the Colebrook Home. Lois O’Donoghue was the first Aboriginal nurse trainee in South Australia, at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1954, and Australian of the Year in 1985.
The Colebrook Home was closed in 1972. It was razed in 1973. There is now a memorial in remembrance of the Aboriginal children who lived at the Colebrook Home. So in the electorate of Boothby there is an understanding of the events of this generation of Aboriginal children. In fact, in 1997 the local community held a barbecue for former residents of the Colebrook Home, expecting 500 people to attend. It was attended by over 2,000 people.
But in reading the history of this home there are a number of different threads that one can take. Firstly, as I mentioned, there are positives and negatives here. That the children were removed from their families from the point of view of race is something we find distasteful and unacceptable today, but there were positives which came out of this experience as well. As I mentioned, this was the lifework of the people who ran this home. They were very much focused on seeing that the Aboriginal children who attended the home would have careers, jobs and a place in society.
So let us take the opportunity presented by this motion to move forward on a whole number of areas in Aboriginal affairs. I welcome the comments by Noel Pearson and the work that is done by the Cape York Institute in recognising the problems of welfare dependency and passive reliance, which have bedevilled many of our Indigenous communities. I think his thoughts are a very welcome contribution to the debate.
I also note that, in the Productivity Commission’s 2007 report Overcoming indigenous disadvantage, there are a number of key indicators in Aboriginal communities which are improving. For example, in the 10 years leading up to 2004-05 there were large falls in unemployment rates for Indigenous men and women. The unemployment rate fell from 30 per cent in 1994 to 13 per cent in 2004-05—still too high, but a dramatic fall from where we were. Also, the proportion of Indigenous adults living in homes that they owned or were purchasing increased. The number of Indigenous adults with a certificate III level or above qualification increased from eight per cent to 21 per cent over that 10-year period.
Child health has improved over this period, but infant mortality rates are still too high, at two to three times the level of the non-Indigenous population. But, less encouraging, there are a number of areas where there has been no change. There has been no change in the incidence of low birth weight babies and there has been no change in the prevalence of hearing problems. And there are a couple of areas where there has actually been, on the basis of the Productivity Commission’s 2007 report, a deterioration, including a whole range of crime statistics and also domestic abuse.
I remember well, as a medical student, seeing an infant from Ernabella—from what were then called the Pitlands, I think, and are now called the AP lands—with whooping cough. That is a disease that is preventable by vaccination and yet is far too common in our Indigenous communities. That was probably, as a medical student, the first Aboriginal patient I was involved in the care of. Later, as a doctor, I remember having many Aboriginal patients from South Australia and the Northern Territory—patients with kidney disease, patients with vascular disease.
We do see, and it is well known in a whole range of areas, that the health of Aboriginal people is much worse than that of the rest of our community. We see a greatly increased rate of kidney disease, and there are indications that the rate of kidney disease is actually increasing amongst Indigenous people. We have seen in recent times increased hospitalisation of older Indigenous people, and that is actually associated with poor environmental health, including housing and sanitation.
As previous speakers have said, the life expectancy for Aborigines is 17 years less than for the total Australian population. It is 18 years less for Indigenous males, who have a life expectancy of 59, compared with 77 for non-Indigenous males. Indigenous females have a life expectancy of 65, compared with 82 for non-Indigenous females. These have been mentioned as areas which need to be addressed, and they will be able to tell us if we are getting anywhere. Diabetes is three times more common amongst the Indigenous population.
In the area of education, I welcome the Prime Minister’s comments about preschool education. I do make the observation though that for over 30 years Aboriginal three-year-olds in South Australia have been able to access state kindergartens and this is actually given as a great example of something that works in that 2007 report of the state of play in Indigenous affairs by the Productivity Commission. Across Australia, only about a quarter of Indigenous children currently attend a preschool. So it is an area where great improvements can be made. But, as I said, in my own state there has been provision for that for over 30 years.
In the area of employment, labour force participation rates for Aborigines is 58.5 per cent compared with 78.1 per cent for non-Indigenous people—still way too low. The unemployment rate is 13 per cent—still three times the rate for non-Indigenous people, but the participation rate has increased over the last 10 years. In recent times, we have seen a number of positive examples of companies taking their own initiative to increase the number of Indigenous people in their workforce. I think of Rio Tinto, one of the corporate leaders for the Indigenous Employment Program. There are a number of other corporate leaders in this program. In the mid-1990s at Rio Tinto fewer than one in 200 of their workforce was Indigenous; now approximately seven per cent of their workforce is Indigenous. Their subsidiary Argyle Diamonds want to see their Indigenous workforce increase to 40 per cent by 2010.
The Prime Minister in his remarks also identified housing as an important area for improvement which needs to be addressed by this commission. It is well known and it has been well known for over 100 years that housing plays a critical role in health. A recent article in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health entitled ‘The state of health hardware in Aboriginal communities in rural and remote Australia’, by Paul Torzillo and others, describes a survey of over 4,000 homes in the Territory and in four states over an eight-year period. What they found was a disgraceful state of housing in Indigenous communities. They found only 11 per cent of houses passed an electricity safety check. In 50 per cent of houses, a child or baby could not be washed in a tub or bath. There was a functioning shower in only 35 per cent of houses and only six per cent of houses had adequate facilities to store, prepare and cook meals.
In the areas of health, education, employment and housing, while there are positive signs that we can point to, there are also a lot of improvements to be made. I take this opportunity to say that it is critical that we as a federal parliament continue to work so that we do see improvements in the health, education, employment and housing of our Indigenous communities.
800
18:13:00
Ferguson, Laurie, MP
8T4
Reid
ALP
Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services
1
0
Mr LAURIE FERGUSON
—Limited time means that I only briefly cite the emotional aspects of last week and recognise the Prime Minister and the new government’s action on this matter. The only statistic I would like to cite in regard to Aboriginal deprivation, because so many other speakers have talked about that issue, is a comment by Mark Davis in the Sydney Morning Herald last week, which perhaps put it in a different context. He said:
If the Aboriginal unemployment rate applied to the whole country, the ranks of the jobless would number well over 1.4 million.
In 2006, 1262 babies died in Australia. If the Aboriginal infant mortality rate applied to the whole population, that number would have been 3155.
One of the other important aspects of the Indigenous question in this country is that their condition leads to further discrimination and marginalisation. It is the same around the world, no matter where you look. In Copenhagen at the waterfront, you will see Inuit people from Greenland heavily inebriated, marginalised and discriminated against in society. In the Netherlands, you will find that Surinamese people are very overrepresented in their prison system. It even happens in New Zealand—which we hold up as a model. A recent article in the Guardian made these points:
Maori are three times more likely to die from a violent assault (and four times as likely to be arrested for violent assault) than non-Maori. They account for over 40 % of all convictions in the courts and 50 % of the New Zealand prison population. Maori are nearly three times as likely to be unemployed, and their household income is roughly 70 % of the national average. Health wise, Maori life expectancy is nearly 10 times lower than non-Maori.
The point I am making is that the condition of Indigenous people in this country leads people to further denigrate them, to say that it is their fault and it is because of their blood et cetera. The reality is that, internationally, suppressed people have this experience. Even in the United States, where we see huge moneys gained by casinos because of a technicality in the US law, if you go beyond the communities involved you will find great deprivation, suffering, health problems, imprisonment and unemployment. So it is important to stress that the condition of Aboriginals in this country really furthers the problem in the views of many people. These people further underestimate Aboriginals, their accomplishments and their ability because of the very suffering and discrimination they suffer in the first place.
I do not want to dwell on what others have previously covered. I want to cite work done by Kim O’Grady with regard to the experience of members of my wife’s wider family. I quote as to the seizure of some members of her family:
It was 7.00 am and Kitty … and Jimmy, the two eldest, were in the car before anyone really knew what was happening. The police roughly pushed them into the car and demanded that—
the—
two remain there or they would take their mother and put her in jail. They went and grabbed Mary from Nellie’s arms and tossed her in the back of the car with her siblings. Nellie began to plead with the police not to take her baby, Mary. Nellie then turned and told Annie, her six-year-old daughter, to run and get her grandfather. Before Annie could do this she was caught by the station manager who placed her in the car. Nellie pleaded for the police to deliver up her children and all the time the children were crying and yelling for their mother. All the police did was wave a piece of paper in front of Nellie saying it was the law.
In this work it is furthermore said:
The wife of—
the—
station master appeared with the infant, Francis, later known as Phillip … Nellie was crying wildly. Then a voice came from the rear of the … car. It was Catherine—
one of her children—
and she said, “Mummy don’t cry. Don’t cry mummy ”. These were to be some of the last words that Nellie heard from her daughter.
It is further commented that it should be mentioned that at the same time this was occurring to another relative’s child, ‘Denis, who was living at Bathurst Street, Singleton’ being ‘some 150 miles’ and ‘south of Walcha’. He was ‘taken on the same day’, probably at about the same hour. In her experience, the relative’s children were placed together in a house in east Maitland. The work said:
It was here that the children had a terrible time with the “foster” mother … This woman made the girls sleep on the floor and gave them nothing to eat except bread and jam.
… … …
It has been discovered by the author that—
the mother—
… had made numerous attempts to see her girls but the powers that be at the time refused to let Nellie anywhere near her children. They often gave the excuse that the girls were in hospital and were in the contagious ward and therefore allowed no visitors.
Furthermore, it is said of the child Kitty:
It was also about this time, probably in 1926, that she was told by a doctor in the orphanage that her mother Nellie had been to hospital to have an operation and had died. In truth Nellie did not die until 1970.
It is stated further along:
It was also the time when her gaolers attempted to brainwash her into believing that she was born in Ireland and had come … with her mother by ship.
It said of another one of the sisters:
Mary had been initially sent to the infants home but now was with her eldest sister again. They were both caught by the police about 20 miles … from Singleton and returned to the home. Here, as was the custom, the nuns thrashed both girls and placed them in a room similar to a broom closet.
… … …
About 1926—
the mother—
made it to see two of her children who were, apart from Mary and Kitty, split up all around the state of New South Wales … the brainwashing had taken an enormous effect—
on the children.
When Nellie told them that she was their mother the children refused to believe her. Nellie said in a sobbing voice, “yes, I am your mummie and I love you both very much”. Kitty remembers that the nuns and the doctors immediately upon Nellie’s departure began to reinforce that Nellie was not their mother, that their real mother was dead and that they were white girls … born in Ireland.
They would say that this woman Nellie was mad. Furthermore, it is said that of Kitty, given her whole existence, that by the time she gave this testimony in her 90s to a family member she apparently talked very lucidly, with great memory of events. She spoke of an unknown person called ‘Rosemary’, who had given her a toy dog as a child. It said:
To this day—
and remember that this woman by now was in her 90s—
has a dog which she keeps with her at all times and she calls Prince.
It is not unreasonable to appreciate that this toy given to her by Rosemary may well have—
been—
the only toy that Kitty could call her own in the entire childhood. How depressing this childhood must have been for the Walsh children. It seems to the author that Kitty has stayed in this world just to make contact with her kin, and to ensure that this story is related to as many others as possible so that this may not happen again.
That is a brief extract from a very reliable firsthand account of one person’s experiences in the system. I appreciate, as some speakers have said, that in many cases people did this with good motivation. However, we can also quote—and these quotes are publicly available—health officials, politicians and welfare workers that this was also a process to possibly eliminate the Aboriginal race in this country by basically breeding it out and by isolating members of the community.
As I say, it is very appropriate that an apology was made last week, but I am hopeful that both sides of politics, in a bipartisan way, will work together to try to combat the obvious problems in health, education et cetera. As well as citing those quotes, I want to say that the seizure of four children in my wife’s family in that account was also accompanied by the seizure of about three other children. I will not go through their details, but the stories are fairly similar.
But, perhaps a little bit differently from other members, at this stage I also want to talk on a local basis of people that have striven to accomplish what happened last week. As early as 1997, after the receipt of the Bringing them home report, Parramatta City Council was one of the first councils in Australia to say sorry. This motion was moved by then Councillor Phil Russo, a long-time campaigner on these matters. My wife, Maureen, was a proud member of that council. The current Lord Mayor, Paul Barber, continues a strong tradition of commitment on these matters. This simple action led the council to being one of the first to officially fly the Aboriginal flag in acknowledgement of the dispossession of Aboriginal lands. These actions led to the Parramatta City Council forming the Parramatta Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Committee. To this day, the committee is very active in every aspect of council’s life. With members such as Doug Desjardines and Bruce Gale, the commitment of the council is assured. I must note that, after initial reticence, Liberal and independent members of the council have joined over the past decade in being supportive of these actions. I would also mention that, sadly, Auburn council in my municipality was amongst the last councils in Sydney to fly the flag. So we have the two extremes of that process.
I also acknowledge the work of local activists such as Lyn Leerson, Annie Neilson and Phil Bradley who, with other members of the Reconciliation for Western Sydney group, have persistently conducted a diverse range of activities to promote Aboriginal identity and acknowledge their suffering. Local Aboriginal identities like Frank Towney, a former shearer, long-term member of the AWU and president of my local Granville East ALP branch sadly did not live to witness last week’s events. However, he knew that the mainstream community was reaching knowledge that a terrible wrong had been committed. For these people, there was no turning back and the recalcitrance of the previous Prime Minister has now been superseded by bipartisan agreement to help right the wrong.
Similarly, the adjacent Holroyd City Council led the way in the acknowledgement that we as a community must work together to better serve the most disenfranchised in our society. To their honour, they have produced widely respected educational tools, highlighting the original Darug people. Former mayor Mal Tulloch fought tenaciously to have the new suburb in the area named after the famed warrior Pemulway. This council’s NAIDOC events are highly successful and represent a continuing commitment by council, its officers and councillors. I make the point that the Labor Party has only had control of that council for about two years in its 100 years of existence, but these measures are universally supported by all councillors of all political persuasions and there is activity by them.
I want to also briefly take the opportunity to highlight Aboriginal people’s diverse contributions to society in my area. Former local councillor Phillip Gordon’s son Phillip is a renowned museum expert in Indigenous matters, representing Australia at many international conferences in respect of museums and heritage. Leicla Brown retrained as a nurse at a stage when many would be retiring, to make a contribution to society. Her family are the backbone of Blaxcell Street Public School’s Indigenous unit, providing opportunities for cultural enrichment for the disproportionate number of Aboriginals attending that school. Roy Mundine, the father of Warren Mundine, the national president of the Labor Party, is also a local—a man who had his dog tag until the day he died and had it buried with him to make sure that there was continuing recognition of the suffering that Aboriginals endured in this country.
These are people making a local contribution. There are many other Aboriginal people in my area who possess tertiary qualifications. I hope that last week was not only the beginning of a symbolic recognition of what has been borne by Aboriginal people in this country but also the beginning of a recognition that we really do have to have a common purpose to alleviate their condition.
Internationally, you can see this no matter where you are. I talked about the Netherlands and Denmark. The indigenous people in Taiwan, who are predominately Christian, are marginalised. All we see there is the ability of the tourists to see a few folk dances. They are very much outside society. Japan’s Ainu people are also ostracised in a fashion that is perhaps comparable to the Indian caste system. These are all examples of the reality of the world, and it is happening today in Brazil as the demands of soya bean manufacturers and ranchers mean that lands of indigeneous people are seized.
The main point I would like to get across is that the conditions of Aboriginal people in this country—the fact that their educational accomplishment is so low and that one in three Aboriginal women in this country is abused—historically lead people to be further negative towards Aboriginal people because they see these conditions as somehow intrinsic to their nature rather than as part of their suppression. It does not matter what country you are in; wherever suppression occurs that is the long-term experience of people. Who knows, when the Normans conquered Britain it was probably the reality of the Saxon people. They were marginalised and they endured similar deprivation and discrimination for many centuries afterwards. You can go to Spain and France and understand that until the last 50 to 100 years the Celtic people of Galicia and Brittany had the same experience of marginalisation. You will probably also find statistics and demography that point to the same deprivation as that experienced by the Australian Aboriginal people.
I congratulate the government for its initiative on this matter. I congratulate the Leader of the Opposition for associating himself with it and hope that we can go forward on these matters.
804
18:27:00
Robb, Andrew, MP
FU4
Goldstein
LP
0
0
Mr ROBB
—I rise in strong support of this motion to offer a formal apology to our Aboriginal people. I have had a longstanding involvement with members of Indigenous communities in various remote areas of Australia and I feel very strongly about the need to address the totally unacceptable situation which characterises the circumstances of so many of our Indigenous people.
This apology is a symbolic gesture which cannot stand alone. Yet symbols are important. Symbols convey a state of mind. Symbols often convey the essence of complex situations. Symbols can soar above the preoccupations of our everyday life, and by doing so often become powerful, immutable statements.
The formal apology issued to our Indigenous Australians on 13 February was a powerful symbol, a symbol for good and an immutable and broad acknowledgement of the greatest blemish on our past, namely, the treatment of our Indigenous people. For my part, the apology is a heartfelt acknowledgement not of any one act but, as my friend and colleague Scott Morrison so eloquently implied in his maiden speech last Thursday, of the result of ‘more than 200 years of shared ignorance, failed policies and failed communities’. In many respects government paternalism and welfare has done so much to enfeeble and marginalise our Indigenous people. I have had exposure to that again and again, and it is a situation which is of great urgency and great need.
If the apology allows some closure for so many with a disadvantaged and unhappy past, if it allows them to put aside a sense of injustice, to move on, to gain confidence and resolve to improve their own lives, then this is a wonderful thing. However, a true sense of balance will only be fully achieved in Australia when we complete the unfinished business of providing Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia with a shared destiny. Until we effectively tackle the hopelessness, the substance abuse, the violence and welfare dependency that unfettered welfare or sit-down money has entrenched in so many of our Indigenous communities, there can be no shared destiny.
In the name of compassion and a well-placed sense of guilt we have ironically locked in disadvantage and a state of mind which works against many of our Indigenous people seeing how, or wanting, to take control of their own lives. Hopefully, the apology lays an important psychological foundation to empower and encourage individuals and communities to seek to improve their own lives. Hopefully, the apology raises the expectation and the accountability of our governments to apply a large measure of originality, common sense and resolve. I say originality, because so much of what we have done, despite good intent, has failed. The policy approaches of state and federal governments and successive governments have failed comprehensively. So we need to apply a large measure of originality, common sense and resolve in seeking to address the critical health, education, employment and housing issues confronting so many Indigenous communities. In doing so, the policies and approach of our governments must seek to empower individuals to foster a sense of self-worth, a sense of defiance, in many respects, and self-responsibility. It is only this state of mind among our Indigenous Australians that will be associated with any sustainable achievement of the quality of life and the quality of opportunity that will mark the achievement of a shared destiny with all other Australians. And for that reason, I see the apology as a very important starting point.
805
18:32:00
Dreyfus, Mark, MP
HWG
Isaacs
ALP
1
0
Mr DREYFUS
—I strongly support this apology. It is a decade late but its lateness makes it all the more welcome. State and territory governments apologised following the delivery of the Bringing them home report in 1997. The Australian Labor Party, in opposition in 1997, moved to apologise in this place but the motion was lost. It gives me a particular personal satisfaction to stand in this House and see the fulfilment of a promise made by the Australian Labor Party to offer the apology that was made last Wednesday, 13 February, 2008, which will be a historic day for our country.
This is a matter of particular personal significance for me as well because, along with a dedicated team of lawyers, I worked for some four years on the stolen generations case in the Northern Territory, between 1998 and 2002. Last Wednesday was a poignant day for me not just because of its historic significance but also because one of the members of the stolen generation for whom I acted in that case as counsel was present on the floor of the House of Representatives to hear the apology offered by the Prime Minister. I am speaking of Lorna Cubillo. The case was fought on her behalf, and on behalf of the late Kumanjai Gunner. It was founded on actions by the Commonwealth in administering the Northern Territory until the 1960s. In that time, the administration of the Northern Territory removed Indigenous children from their families and communities. Children were taken long distances from the communities of their birth and they were made to live among strangers in a strange place—in institutions which bore no resemblance to a home. They lost the chance to grow among the warmth of their own families, to speak in their people’s language and to learn about their country. They were treated as orphans when they were not orphans. They lost the culture and tradition of their families.
Like the case in which I appeared which was decided by the Federal Court in 2000, the Bringing them home report of 1997 is filled with stories of great sadness—not just the stories of Lorna Cubillo and Kumanjai Gunner but those of the many witnesses who appeared in the litigation in the Northern Territory, adding to those that we have read in the Bringing them home report. Some are stories of people who were forcibly removed from their families as children. Others are stories of old women whose children were taken away from them. These are stories of decades of sorrow: the sorrow of being separated from family and country, the sorrow of a mother never seeing her child again, the sorrow of never knowing your mother or your family or the sorrow of lost opportunity in meeting up with family decades after removal, knowing there is no real way to make up for lost time together.
I should give a bit of context to these events. Several of the speakers in this debate have reminded the House of Paul Keating’s 1992 Redfern Park speech when, in acknowledging the many wrongs done to Aboriginal people, he used the phrase ‘We took the children from their mothers’. It was known then that there had been removal of Aboriginal children right through the 20th century, but the extent of it was not well understood. The Going Home Conference in Darwin in 1993 was attended by several hundred Aboriginal people. It was that conference which led to, first, Robert Tickner, as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Keating government, and, later, Michael Lavarch, as Attorney-General, commissioning the inquiry conducted by Sir Ronald Wilson and Mick Dodson that produced the Bringing them home report. They of course reported to this parliament in May 1997. Unfortunately, by then the government which had commissioned their report had been replaced by the Howard government in March 1996.
There was an overwhelming response to the tabling of the Bringing them home report. Members of the then opposition read stories from the report into Hansard. Some parliamentarians were moved to tears during their speeches. There was extensive media coverage and tremendous public debate. Unfortunately, the overwhelming public response was not matched by the Howard government’s response. As Lowitja O’Donoghue reminded us in her speech marking the 10th anniversary of the report, 35 of the 54 recommendations in the Bringing them home report were ignored.
The Howard government did not act on most of the recommendations when the report was delivered and still had not acted on the recommendations when the Australian people voted it out of office last year. It was an extraordinary missed opportunity, and, notoriously, the Howard government did not act on the recommendation of an apology. Indeed, the then Prime Minister marked the 10th anniversary by telling parliament that he would not say sorry and that there would be no formal apology to Aboriginal people. He said:
My view has not changed in relation to that, and it will not change.
The decision of the Federal Court in August 2000 that there would be no extension of the time needed to extend the limitations period that both Lorna Cubillo and Kumanjai Gunner faced in the litigation was seized on by the Howard government as proof that there was no stolen generation and that the Bringing them home report was a mistake. In other words, the defeat of the litigation was made to serve a political purpose.
But it is worth remembering that in the same year, 2000, there were huge marches across bridges in Sydney, Melbourne and other capital cities. Hundreds of thousands of Australians marched for reconciliation. The marches were seen at the time as tremendous popular support for reconciliation and the Aboriginal cause but, in some senses, these marches marked an end to reconciliation and not its beginning. Regrettably, until 24 November 2007, reconciliation has limped along, wounded by the Howard government’s failure to apologise and wounded by the Howard government’s failure to even recognise the unrighted wrong of the stolen generation. I have to say that the Howard government’s response to the case left me with a sense of shame, but it made me work with all the more vigour for a change of government. What we now have from the new government is the apology that was offered last Wednesday, which is, I must say, a tremendous step forward. It is a great first step to reconciliation of Aboriginal people with the nation, and what we saw in the lead-up to the apology last week and on the offering of the apology in this parliament was an outpouring of support for Aboriginal people, a real sense that there had been a turning of the page, a change of direction and the taking of a fresh direction on behalf of the whole nation, something on which we can build.
I received in my electorate office in the lead-up to and after the apology—and this is a demonstration of the outpouring of support that there has been for the apology and the national mood that has been created by its offering—a large number of emails supporting it. They are only representative, but I want to share some of them with the House to make clear just what sentiments have been elicited by the offering of the apology.
Peter Dibbs wrote: ‘We were very proud to be Australians yesterday when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took the first step in rectifying the injustice suffered by our Indigenous population.’ Stephen McPhail wrote: ‘Congratulations on being part of the government that today made an enormously courageous and important symbolic gesture on behalf of our people.’ Lisa Hill, another of my constituents, wrote to say, ‘I have not felt proud of this country for a very long time but now I feel different. Thank you to everyone involved.’ Wendy Russell, another constituent, wrote:
Thank you for being part of and supporting a government that has at last given the Aboriginal people a sense of dignity and a feeling that they are believed in the stories they have told in relation to the stolen children.
The offering of the apology last Wednesday was a truly important day in the history of this country because it marked a very clear recognition on behalf of the whole of our nation that we have put the kind of approach that was bound up in the taking of children—which was, and it needs to be stated clearly, an approach that was based upon race—directly and squarely behind us. We now have the opportunity for what I would describe as a common future for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
I have in mind a future as one people, a future in which Indigenous people are a valued part. It is a common future which is not only about improving living standards and closing the gap in life expectancy, in health and education levels between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians but also about a common future as a distinctive Australian people—an Australian people who are grounded in the land, an Australian people who can draw on the ancient traditions of the people of this land who are, as we know, the people who can link us to the beginnings of human existence in our continent.
Finally, it is important that we treat the apology that was offered as a beginning. It marks a closing of a shameful chapter in Australia’s history where the production of the report in 1997 was met with virtual denials by the government of this country that the report had accurately described events which had happened.
808
18:47:00
Windsor, Antony, MP
009LP
New England
IND
0
0
Mr WINDSOR
—Last Wednesday, 13 February, was a very special day in many ways. If I could personalise a little: it was the 16th birthday of my younger son, and that was special to our family. A number of our family were here on a very special day. In the chamber were his brother, who is 26, and his mother, my wife—and I will not divulge her age! The 26-year-old son spent part of Thursday, 14 February, at the War Memorial and, with modern communications and a few buttons to push, he was able to trace the history of his grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s military service. That was a special thing that he could do. Last Wednesday was about recognising that many Aboriginal people are not able and have not been able to make that connection because policies of many years ago physically removed some children from their parents for no other reason than their Aboriginality.
I fully understand that there were young people who were removed for welfare reasons, and today there are people of various nationalities who are removed from their families for quite legitimate reasons. But those people who were taken away and, as I think Laurie Ferguson mentioned, treated as orphans have not had and do not have the capacity to do as my sons have been able to do—to trace their forebears. We are what our forebears are; they are part of us. And to remove that deliberately from any human being is something I think we should apologise for. I was very proud, as a member of the parliament but also as an individual, to be here on such a very special occasion. I do not think anybody who was in the chamber or in the gallery would not have been touched by a number of moments that occurred during the ceremony.
I congratulate the Prime Minister for moving the motion, and I think the words were quite appropriate. I was in the New South Wales parliament in the late nineties when a sorry motion was introduced there. I was supportive of the motion then and obviously I was supportive of the motion here last Thursday. I also congratulate the Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson. I know he has been pilloried in the press on a number of occasions in relation to some of his choices of words and, on reflection, he might well have reflected on some of the topics he branched into. But going back to last Tuesday, when we had the welcome to country ceremony, I thought both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition gave very, very good speeches. There was no doubt in my mind, on the Tuesday and the Wednesday, that Brendan Nelson was very sincere in his apology. I do not think there was any politics in his personal demeanour and body language in relation to the apology. Quite rightly, he supported the substantive motion of the Prime Minister and he has joined with the Prime Minister on the joint council that is being set up to try and reconcile some of the problems, now that the apology has been formally given.
I thought the moment that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition shook hands across the chamber was very special. It is something that I will remember from this parliament. And I thought the moment that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition walked together towards the back of the chamber encapsulated the day for me in a sense because, as they were walking towards the back of the chamber to see some of the elders who were in the chamber as guests, a voice came out of the back gallery—I assume it was an Aboriginal woman speaking—and said these very simple words: ‘Thank you.’
I know there is a debate about some of what the Leader of the Opposition said, but the substantive motion was endorsed. The way the two leaders conducted themselves and the way it was received by the people in the gallery, particularly the Aboriginal people, I thought made it a very special day. I think anybody who spent some time outside with that group knows that the emotion that was in that room was quite incredible. The only time I have experienced that sort of emotive unity of purpose—and it might seem quite strange to liken that function to the one I am about to mention—was when farmers had a rally here in 1985, when 50,000 farmers came together in a sense of unity of purpose. There was a real feeling within that group, and I experienced a similar feeling here the other day. People who did not know one another were congratulating one another and offering their sympathies and goodwill to others. Again, I thought that was a very special moment on that day.
I emphasise my congratulations to both Kevin Rudd and Brendan Nelson. I do not doubt the sincerity of either man in the apology and sense of unity that should lead out of this motion in coming to grips with the future. It has been the politics of division that has stopped any resolution to some of these problems. There must be a united approach, not just with the white community and the Aboriginal community but in the political community, to agree on a way forward that can be depoliticised. The Leader of the Opposition has an enormous opportunity to play a great role in the future debate—as, obviously, do the government and the Prime Minister.
Many speakers have spoken about the possibility of compensation. I think that has been used as a bit of a red herring for some years in order not to apologise for previous policies which were obviously out of order in the way in which they were conducted. I do not believe, and I did not get the feeling from the Aboriginal community who were there the other day, that there will be a great demand for compensation. Maybe it will be tested in the courts in some circumstances, but I think the real meaning of last Wednesday to the recipients of the apology was that they were finally recognised and that the policies which had harmed their families were recognised in probably the most special parliamentary occasion for many years. I think that was the heartfelt thanks that the lady in the gallery was giving when she just said, ‘Thank you,’ which is what you do if somebody apologises for something they have done inadvertently.
Something like 70 per cent of the population of my electorate are Aboriginal, and I consider myself to have a very good relationship with the Aboriginal people. I have known many of them for many years. I grew up near what used to be a mission near a little place called Caroona. It is now the Walhollow Aboriginal community, and a great community in any right—black, white or brindle. It is a very good community and a very good example of what can be achieved with community leadership, elder participation, particularly in relation to the strong women in that community. That has been reflected in many other areas as well. I would urge people who are a little uncertain about what this means to try to put themselves in the same position—if they had been taken away from their parents for no particular welfare reason but because of the number of their house in the street, the colour of their skin or the name of their family. I think that would be gut wrenching and would be very difficult to live with. They would not have been able—as my eldest son was able—to go to the War Memorial, push a button and trace their family because they would not have known who they were. In that sense, there would have been a vacuum in their lives.
In the few minutes remaining, I would like to reflect on my deceased colleague, Peter Andren, the former member for Calare, on the regard he had for Aboriginal people and the respect they had for him as well. There is no doubt in my mind that his spirit was here on Wednesday and it would have been a great thing for him to have participated.
I noticed that a former New South Wales parliamentarian, Col Markham, was in the audience on the day of the apology. I would like to pay my respects to Col. He was a parliamentary secretary in the New South Wales Parliament when I was there, but he was really the minister for Aboriginal affairs and a man who devoted a great deal of time to the betterment of Aboriginal people in New South Wales. Linda Burney, the Aboriginal minister from New South Wales, was there too. She has put a tremendous amount of work in. It was good to see her in tears, in the sense that she was overcome with the emotion of the day.
A couple of people in my own electorate, Joe and Pearl Trindall, who are in their 80s, are real examples of Aboriginal elders who have done it tough. They are still working hard for their people and they are great examples to the young people. We have to learn that we have to help re-establish communication in a lot of these communities. I have spent a lot of time in inland Australia. I am going back out into the deserts in July to spend some time in some of those very remote areas. In my view, we have to assist in the re-establishment of communication between the elders in the community and the young people. One of the reasons why I was opposed to the intervention in the Northern Territory is that a blanket approach such as that does not recognise the flexibility that is required. Many of those smaller communities in very remote places have not had grog for years. They made voluntary decisions, because of the integrity of their communities, to keep out alcohol, petrol and a whole range of other things.
People assume that in the Northern Territory and Western Australia there are massive problems everywhere. There are problems in some parts but there are many good communities as well. Maybe they are not communities that some of us would prefer to live in, but they are, nonetheless, communities where a sense of family and respect for elders and respect for one another are still very much alive. They are not dominated by alcohol, petrol or other substances.
I take issue with the member for Indi. She complained about having only 15 hours—I cannot remember exactly how many hours it was—to consider the 360 or so words of the apology. I would like to complain about the way in which the government introduced the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 and four other bills—545 pages—and expected it all to be passed in one day. We were expected to believe the Prime Minister and the minister as to the content of that legislation. I did not vote on that because we were not given sufficient time to go through it. I have now had time to read that legislation and there are certain parts of it that I disagree with.
In conclusion, a message to the government: I would bring back the permit system. I think there are some real arguments for the permit system in some of those communities.
811
19:03:00
Sidebottom, Sid, MP
849
Braddon
ALP
1
0
Mr SIDEBOTTOM
—Mr Deputy Speaker Washer, congratulations on your appointment to the Speaker’s panel. I look forward to sharing it with you.
The word ‘apology’ is defined by the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary as ‘a regretful acknowledgment of an offence or failure’. The word ‘sorry’ is defined by the same dictionary as ‘to be pained or regretful or penitent’. In the lead-up to this House’s historic motion of apology, I thought a lot about these two words and what they mean to me. ‘Sorry’ is such a small word, but the sentiment and psychology that complement it are more powerful than any other word I can think of, except perhaps the word ‘love’. ‘Sorry’ is more powerful than regretfulness; ‘sorry’ is more powerful than remorse. These words are all components of what it means to be sorry, but they cannot replace that one five-letter word. Forgiveness is so much easier when someone has looked you in the eye and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ That is exactly what our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, did in this place last week. Feelings of injustice, anger and hurt are nearly impossible to overcome without expressing that word. ‘I apologise. I’m sorry’—there is nothing more powerful. That is why I want to record my apology in this parliament for what happened to the stolen generations.
Contrary to what some historians such as Keith Windschuttle try to argue, along with a coterie of right-wing ideologues associated with Quadrant, fed by the former Prime Minister’s obsession to identify and promote cultural wars in what he divisively labelled ‘a black armband view of history’, about the alleged historical accuracy of the description ‘the stolen generations’, let there be no doubt that policies existed that forcefully removed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their homes and families on the basis of race. I reiterate: children were forcefully removed from their homes and families on the basis of race.
There are those who would argue, notwithstanding the hurt of the forceful removal of children in crisis at any time, regardless of race, that such practices preclude a specific apology to the stolen generations because they were part of a practice that included all races. This is in fact not true. Racist policies existed, no matter what the intention of the framers, administrators or receiving individuals or institutions—policies and practices that were based on racial identification above and beyond more generic criteria to determine state intervention to protect children at risk.
Sadly, some of the key findings of the inquiry which resulted in the Bringing them home report, released on 22 May 1997, included some very disturbing conclusions. Nationally, between one in three and one in 10 Indigenous children were forcefully removed from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970. Indigenous children were placed in institutions or church missions, were adopted or fostered and were at risk of physical and sexual abuse. Many never received wages for their labour. Welfare officials failed in their duty to protect Indigenous wards from abuse. Under international law from approximately 1946, the policies of forceful removal amounted to genocide. From 1950, the continuation of distinct laws for Indigenous children was racially discriminatory.
Forceful removal began in the mid-1800s and continued until 1970, only some 38 years ago. The governments at the time believed their official laws and policies to assimilate Indigenous Australians into the wider community were warranted. We know that they were not warranted and that other options existed. The 1997 inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, entitled Bringing them home, conservatively estimated that at least 100,000 children were removed from their families—that is, 100,000 children were directly affected; 100,000 children were taken involuntarily from their parents. I think about the flow-on effect from this: parents, grandparents and siblings, and the generations of descendants directly affected. No-one can put a definitive number on that. Descendants have felt the effect of their loved ones’ anguish and pain for many years, so more people continue to be affected.
Close to one-quarter of removed children who were fostered or adopted and were questioned in the Bringing them home inquiry also reported being physically abused. One in five reported being sexually abused. One in six children sent to institutions reported physical abuse and one in 10 reported sexual abuse. The figures in books are statistics, but the thought of each and every one of these children being physically beaten, sexually violated or psychologically abused is devastating.
Along with thousands of Australians, over many years of contemplating the sad events surrounding the forceful removal of Aboriginal children from their families, I can only try to imagine the pain and suffering associated with this policy. I can barely comprehend the gut-wrenching devastation each and every mother would have endured, for instance, upon having a child or children taken from her in such dramatic and sudden circumstances. I cannot imagine how I would feel if authorities who forcefully removed a child of mine told me my child was dead or if I subsequently found out that this was not true. I can only try to understand the plight of a child being taken and thrown into a foster home or institution where it is forbidden to speak their native language. Nothing could be more frightening. In one swift move, these children lost their family, their culture, their connection to traditional land and their entire sense of identity. It has also been reported that many Aboriginal women were bullied into signing blank ‘assent to removal’ forms.
Personally, I have always struggled to understand why there has ever been an argument over whether a federal government apology to the stolen generations was necessary. Each and every state and territory issued a formal apology to the stolen generations more than a decade ago. Our country has held a National Sorry Day for almost a decade. We have also had a National Sorry Book for the same period of time. The first and foremost recommendation derived from the Bringing them home inquiry was that we acknowledge the truth of what happened. The delivery of an apology was the first step in healing for the stolen generations. A federal government apology is clearly and obviously was needed if we want our country to move forward. Along with many others in this parliament and this country, I believe this apology is well overdue.
Critics have argued, on the basis of former Prime Minister Howard’s argument, that the current parliament should not apologise for the failings of previous governments. But I disagree. We as a government must recognise and acknowledge our collective past as a nation in order to move forward together into our future. We are very quick to acknowledge and acclaim the virtues and successes of our ancestors. It is historically indefensible to argue, as Liberal Senator Herron did on 4 March 1998, that:
An apology could imply that present generations are in some way responsible and accountable for the actions of earlier generations, actions that were sanctioned by the laws of the time, and that were believed to be in the best interests of the children concerned.
To be clear, and contrary to what some commentators would have us believe: the Commonwealth government was actively involved in the practice of removing children through both its support of such resolutions as the 1937 Commonwealth-State Native Welfare Conference and its early administration of the Northern Territory. Despite protestations to the contrary by Douglas Meagher QC, there is clear evidence that the Commonwealth did embrace Dr Cook’s assimilationist policies. For example, on 22 February 1933, JA Carrodus, who was Secretary of the Department of Interior of the Commonwealth, said: ‘The policy of mixing half-castes with whites for the purpose of breeding out their colour is that adopted by the Commonwealth government.’
Under Paul Hasluck’s administration, policy was regularised so that removals had to be approved by the Director of Native Affairs and be in the best interests of the child. But, when administrator FJ Wised recommended that no child under the age of four be removed except where the question of danger arose, Hasluck is recorded as insisting: ‘No age limit need be stated. The younger the child is at the time of removal, the better for the child.’
The Commonwealth’s much later opposition to special laws for Indigenous children did not constitute opposition to the practice of removal of children, as it was clear the courts were prepared to equate Indigenous poverty with ‘neglect’ and an Indigenous lifestyle with ‘uncontrollable’. But it was not true until the mid-1970s—when Indigenous legal services, not initially funded by the Commonwealth, started to represent children and families involved in separation orders and Indigenous childcare groups started to offer alternatives to the removal of children from their families—that the number of forced separations started to drop dramatically. In other words, there were alternatives.
Further, it has been noted that, in most jurisdictions, removals were taking place without court orders, thus infringing the legal principle, derived from the common law, that children should not be removed from their parents unless a court, on evidence proving removal is in the best interests of the child, decides otherwise. Indeed, in the 1950s, in the Commonwealth-administered Northern Territory, thousands of children were removed without any court or legal process involved. The Commonwealth was involved. We are liable.
I raised the semantics of the wording of the actual apology at the beginning of my speech but I would like to touch on it again. I think back to times when I have been seriously hurt or have felt an injustice has been inflicted upon me, and I think about how I felt when those who hurt me refused to say sorry. Then I think about the relief I felt when someone hurt me but later told me that they were sorry, and the member for New England eloquently gave examples of that. Obviously, I have never experienced anything of the same gravity as the stolen generations. I cannot imagine it. But from my own experience I can say this: sorry. There is nothing to misinterpret about that word. It means one thing and one thing only. ‘Sorry’ is the word that had to be said, and I am so proud that our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, stood in this parliament and said it. I am also pleased that the Leader of the Opposition also said sorry and that this our parliament is saying sorry.
In contemporary Australia, there is still much to be done to improve the conditions of our Indigenous people. There remains a 17-year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It is scandalous. We now need to work together as a country to improve the quality of life of our Indigenous population. Poor health and poor education continue to take a huge toll on Indigenous Australians. We need to work hard together as a nation to change these things. And, like many here, I was very proud when the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition stood together and received the thanks of our Indigenous elders after giving the apology. Together they have created a working force to try and tackle some of these problems in a very practical way.
When thinking about the future generations of Indigenous Australians, I consider the words used by Reconciliation Australia CEO Barbara Livesey in a letter she recently sent to all federal parliamentarians:
Success is built on people working together and respecting each other. If Indigenous children grow up believing that their views, culture and history are respected, then they will be more likely to have the confidence to achieve and succeed in all areas of life.
I agree wholeheartedly with this comment. Last week’s apology is the first step towards achieving this success for future generations of Indigenous Australians. This apology is about moving forward into the future together as a country. This apology means acknowledgement. It means regret. It means remorse. But, most importantly, it means we will work together to ensure these terrible events and individual and family experiences never ever happen again. I am proud to say ‘I am sorry’ and to be part of the parliament that has finally said, ‘We are sorry.’
814
19:18:00
Neville, Paul, MP
KV5
Hinkler
NATS
0
0
Mr NEVILLE
—Mr Deputy Speaker Washer, let me add my congratulations to those of others on your elevation to the Speaker’s panel.
The bond between mother and child or a mother and her children is seminal to most societies. The nurturing process may take on many guises and be expressed in many cultural practices but, in the end, it is the fundamental feature of the human condition, regardless of race, colour or religion. That is why the legal systems of the world uphold the bond between mother and child and only seek to sever it in the most exceptional of circumstances. Even foul and despotic regimes have baulked at crossing that fine line that allows the separation of children from families. It is hard to contemplate the grief of Indigenous mothers who suffered when their children were taken from them, or the sadness and bewilderment of children from simple outback environments and what they felt when thrust into institutional care, in many instances with little prospect of reunion. Some never saw their parents again. Certainly some foster parents and religious organisations and institutions did deliver a better lifestyle and future for Aboriginal children. But, equally, others were uncaring and, in some instances, manifestly cruel. Worse still, some of this was done in the name of a loving God—even to the extent of falsely telling children that their parents were dead. How could you just tolerate a thing like that?
Against that backdrop, we are challenged to examine how Australian society measures up over recent generations in the treatment of its Indigenous citizens. While I do not subscribe to generational guilt and while our judgement of past actions may be tempered by the mores of the day and the good intentions of some participants, it is time to strip away the veneer and to examine the forced separation, the hurt it has caused and the long-term effects it has had on many Indigenous Australians. I am prepared to put my own reservations aside and approach this with a generosity of heart and a spirit of healing because, if this apology does not flow from such a spirit and from sincerity, we will not move forward and, when the rhetoric fades away, Aboriginal Australians will be no better off.
I subscribe to the apology statement by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, though I must be honest in saying that I am ambivalent to the word ‘stolen’. The report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families—the operative word being ‘separation’—is very important. But that said I embrace the 17 clauses of the apology.
It would be fair to say that separated children have become in the minds of the Indigenous community emblematic of a history of injustice and marginalisation. But, as much as it is an emblem of the past, it can also be a touchstone for the future. I therefore extend my apology and sorrow and pledge myself to that future.
Sadly, amongst these expressions of goodwill and healing that we have heard this week, there are others out there with agendas masquerading as being necessary adjuncts to an apology. Those who would use it politically demonstrated that by their manipulative encouragement of people to turn their backs on the Leader of the Opposition—people, I might add, who should have known better. Didn’t they realise that their partisanship nearly defeated the inclusion which we all craved? There are those who will use this line in the sand to try to revive an indulged elite who failed their people over recent decades. Further, there will be those who want to retain the permit system to obscure transparency and accountability. Finally, there will be those who would use it as an excuse to encourage compensation and more radical political agendas.
But even let us put those to one side. I firmly believe we must aim for two tangible outcomes from this apology. Firstly, Aboriginal Australians need to genuinely accept and embrace the apology. That will be a most potent tool for breaking down the barriers and bringing all Australians on board in a joint effort to craft a future. Secondly, there must be a total commitment from all sections of Australian society to improve the lot of Indigenous communities encompassing a full range of measures—health, housing, education and employment.
The parliament’s apology should be seen as a defining line in the sand on all matters of Indigenous welfare. It should not be and has never been tolerable that Aboriginal Australians have shockingly bad indicators in almost every measure of wellbeing. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health performance framework report of 2006, Indigenous Australians are hospitalised almost three times as frequently as other Australians. They have a 17-year-shorter life expectancy. They live in overcrowded homes on very low incomes. Around half of all Aboriginals drink alcohol to dangerous levels and the same number are chronic smokers. A conservative estimate shows that almost a quarter of all Aboriginals over the age of 17 have experienced violence or have been physically threatened, while an Aboriginal child has a three to four times greater chance of being abused and neglected than he or she would in the mainstream community.
How this can be acceptable today in the Australia we live in is well beyond me, and it is down to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to accept responsibility for it. Paternalistic attitudes, no matter how well intentioned, have spawned a welfare mentality crippling many Aboriginal communities and drastically reducing self-reliance, personal responsibility and self-determination.
I feel that, for decades now, political correctness and confected cultural sensitivities have been the greatest hurdles we have faced in fixing the serious problems of Aboriginal Australians. One Indigenous leader has said:
Culture is often invoked as a justification for this lowering of expectations and standards. It will be invoked by indigenous community members as well as those developing policies and delivering programs, as a justification for not upholding rigorous standards that apply in the mainstream. We must be careful to ensure that we are not unconsciously using culture as an excuse for failure, poor performance and under-achievement … why is ‘cultural appropriateness’ never invoked as a justification for higher standards and higher expectations—and higher levels of achievement, rather than lower? Beware whenever the words ‘culturally appropriate’ are used: it is usually an alibi for low standards and dumbing down.
Those are not my words; they are Noel Pearson’s from his 2004 position paper Bending to dysfunction, bending to the problems, and I admire his courage and leadership in delivering it.
Fear of offence has left governments and the wider community hesitant, nervous and ultimately reluctant to take the big steps that are sorely needed. For far too long we have fiddled around the edges of an overwhelmingly bad situation, the vast majority of Australians wringing their hands in concern but not prepared to face up to the difficult decisions which must be made. With all due respect, holding hands and singing Kumbaya and We shall overcome might make someone feel better, but I bet it is not an Aboriginal struggling to hold onto his life on some basic reserve.
I acknowledge that some inroads have been made in recent years and that progress in some areas is accelerating. But I implore the new government, and the wider community too, to steel its resolve to keep on the straight and true track. We have drawn a line in the sand, and now is the time for big steps.
The Northern Territory intervention was a dramatic and determined action, although I concede not universally popular. But I believe it was a new beginning for families living in isolated Aboriginal communities. I applaud the new government’s commitment to keep that going. It might not be perfect, but the situation that the government faced was not perfect either. For too long, the plight of Aboriginal Australians has been buried at the bottom of the too-hard basket, papered over with banknotes. That exact approach has left us where we are today, and we all carry some responsibility for what has happened.
Those who are at the coalface of working to make life better in remote Aboriginal communities—police, nurses, teachers—deserve a gold medal. The path that they are on is tough: too little manpower, too few resources and not enough resolve at the highest levels of bureaucracy and government. ‘Shoved under the carpet’ is an apt phrase.
Let me end on an optimistic note. Aboriginal advancement has been accelerating over recent years. Indigenous Australians have excelled in a multitude of fields including medicine, health, law, art, sport, the stage and politics. There have been some marvellous Aboriginal leaders in the past, people such as Harold Blair and Neville Bonner, and more recently people like Tania Major, Noel Pearson and Chris Sarra. They are beacons for future generations, and we would do well to listen to them and work with them to make sure Aboriginal Australians have a better future.
On Wednesday a marvellous event occurred in this parliament. It was charged with goodwill and great emotion. It was a new beginning for Aboriginal people if one thing happens, which is that the symbolism of that day is captured and crafted into a future for Aboriginal people. We all bear a lot of guilt and I repeat my sorrow, but what we must not do is lack commitment from here on in. Unless there is a great commitment from all Australians, and a great acceptance and welcoming from the Indigenous population of Australia of this apology, then a lot of this will be lost and that would be a tragedy. I commend all 17 points of the statement by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and I commit myself to see that it is carried out.
817
19:30:00
Vamvakinou, Maria, MP
00AMT
Calwell
ALP
1
0
Ms VAMVAKINOU
—Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Washer, can I take this opportunity to also congratulate you on your elevation to the Speaker’s panel.
It is without any reservation that I rise to speak in support of the Prime Minister’s motion of apology to members of the stolen generation. For many years, members of the stolen generations, as well as their families, communities and community leaders, have campaigned for an apology. They have sought an apology in recognition of the pain and suffering caused by past government policies that made it lawful to forcibly remove Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their mothers and fathers, thereby severing the sacred bond which exists between children and their parents and, in particular, between children and their mothers, tearing countless families apart and opening up new wounds for a community and people already heavily burdened by the violence of the past.
From the outset, I want to recognise the struggle and the enormous sacrifices that so many members of Australia’s Indigenous community have made and continue to make in their efforts to seek recognition and justice. The apology, which took place last Wednesday, is not about our benevolence as a parliament or as a nation in saying sorry. It is about the history of Indigenous struggle in this country, a struggle in which Indigenous Australians have continued to fight for agency against an often hostile response. And it is about the history of Indigenous suffering under successive government policies and laws that institutionalised discrimination. It is this struggle that has brought us to this point in our history as a nation, and it is this struggle that I would like to pay tribute to today.
Last week’s apology was a long time in the making and many of us believe that it was long overdue. One of the most significant turning points in this parliament’s move towards an apology was of course the 1997 Bringing them home report by Sir Ronald Wilson, the former High Court judge and president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Bringing them home documented the removal of nearly 100,000 Indigenous children from their families between 1910 and 1970 as a result of laws and policies that made the practice of forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children lawful.
Whilst these laws have now been relegated to the past, the suffering they caused remains very much alive for many of our Indigenous community. Looking at the gallery as the Prime Minister and indeed the Leader of the Opposition were making their speeches of apology on behalf of the Australian parliament, what was so evident was the pain that members of the stolen generations and their families still felt, as well as the enormous importance they attach to an apology. Last Wednesday was a sombre and at the same time momentous day in which grief, pain, relief and joy all combined in a single moment that few of us will ever forget.
This apology is equally significant for non-Indigenous Australians and the way we have written our history across this great country. It is evident that a majority of Australians support the apology precisely because they recognise the wrongs of the past and understand the importance of reconciliation as a way for our nation to move forward. Many Australians watched last week’s apology at home, at work, in school or on large public screens set up across the country. What is telling is the way so many Australians sought to share this moment with others around them, whether they were close friends, work colleagues or even strangers. This was more than just wanting to share an important moment in Australia’s history; it was a collective expression of a nation’s willingness to recognise the suffering of fellow Australians and a recognition that moving forward as a nation meant moving forward together.
Last week’s apology was not about unfairly attributing individual blame to today’s generation of Australians for wrongs done in the past or forcing guilt on those who played no part in determining the policies that gave rise to the stolen generation; rather, last week’s apology was about a nation coming together in its willingness to acknowledge suffering, both past and present. It was about mutual respect. Last week’s apology was an act of recognition and an act of decency that helps to fill in some of the gaps in those official narratives that herald Australia’s birth and success as a modern nation whilst marginalising the history of Indigenous Australians. It is also an act of recognition and decency that helps bind us closer together as a nation, one that is willing to reflect honestly upon its past as a way of building for its future. We cannot be held directly responsible for past wrongs and to argue as such would be meaningless, but we have an obligation to be responsible for the Australia we live in today, for the privileges and opportunities we enjoy but that not all Australians have equal access to.
Present-day Australia is not immune from inequality, and no greater inequality exists than that between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Taking responsibility for the Australia we have inherited means recognising the inequalities that continue to cut across present-day Australia and taking action to end them. It is also part and parcel of striving for a better future for all Australians. This apology attests to our nation’s evolving character, and it is also a test of our resolve to close the gap that still exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in such fundamental areas as life expectancy, educational achievement, employment opportunities and so on.
Just as we struggle to close the gap between rich and poor and just as we struggle to make sure that gender is no longer an obstacle to individual opportunity and achievement, so we must continue to struggle to make sure that Indigenous Australians have the same opportunities in life that non-Indigenous Australians enjoy. This apology acts as an impetus to make sure that our words are matched by actions. Few underestimate the many challenges that lie ahead, but the Rudd government is committed to meeting them.
Our approach is one based on flexibility that recognises the different needs of different communities rather than tries to force a one-size-fits-all model. As the Prime Minister announced during his apology speech, over the next five years the government will make sure that every Indigenous four-year-old has access to early childhood education with proper preliteracy and prenumeracy programs. Education is the key pathway to building a secure future and creating individual opportunity. All the research shows that preschool education has significant advantages when it comes to educational successes later on in life. That is why the government has made this commitment to preschool education for all Indigenous four-year-olds. This is crucial if we are going to reverse the trend of lower school retention rates and poor educational attainment amongst sections of Australia’s Indigenous community. The government has also committed to finding 200 additional teachers in the Northern Territory and to working closely with state and territory governments to increase school attendance rates and ensure adequate classroom space, especially for Indigenous students in some remote areas.
A lot more also needs to be done in the area of health care, and the Rudd government has already started on the path to improving Indigenous healthcare services by upgrading remote health clinics and extending sexual assault counselling and renal dialysis services. This is about matching words with action. One of the government’s priorities is to expand detoxification and rehabilitation services across the Northern Territory to tackle the alcohol addiction problem.
I also welcome the bipartisan commission announced by the Prime Minister last week, whose initial brief will be to look at improving Indigenous housing and constitutional reform. These are just some of the undertakings of the Rudd government. They follow on from an apology that I hope leads to a new chapter in Indigenous affairs in this country and a further strengthening of the relationship that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians based on mutual recognition and respect. Many in this place, in speaking to this motion, have posed the question: what if it was your children or grandchildren taken away from you? It is a question that should give us all an opportunity to pause for thought.
However, there is another question that goes to the very heart of the ethics that surround this difficult chapter in Australia’s history. It is a question that was posed by the famous sociologist Zygmunt Bauman in his book Modernity and the holocaust. Writing about how we approach the tragedy of past events, Bauman suggests that, rather than asking the question, ‘What if this happened to me?’ we should think seriously about whether we would act unjustly if ever put in a situation where the denial of justice was demanded of us, whether by our political leaders or by some other authority. It is a question whose ethical force does not lie in an emphatic no; rather, it is a question that we must necessarily keep asking ourselves, a question without end that serves as a way of warding off future injustices. Last week’s apology was an important turning point in Australia’s history, and I am very happy to have this opportunity to support this motion.
819
19:40:00
Price, Roger, MP
QI4
Chifley
ALP
1
0
Mr PRICE
—It is my pleasure to follow the honourable member for Calwell on this apology to the stolen generations. Whether or not we like it, last week was a very historic week for the parliament and the people of Australia. For the first time in more than a century of national parliament we had an Indigenous welcome. We as a parliament of Australia formally acknowledged the fact that we have a very proud Indigenous community. I thought that the welcome was just outstanding and I think it made us all feel so very, very proud.
I would also like to place on record my appreciation for the Leader of the Opposition, Dr Brendan Nelson. Some may criticise the speech he gave on the apology; others may not. History will be the judge. But he gave the great gift to Australia of bipartisan support for this apology to the stolen generation. I want to acknowledge it and say as a member of the government quite sincerely how much I appreciated it.
It is fitting in talking about an apology to acknowledge the Ngunawal people, the Indigenous people of Canberra. I would also like to acknowledge the fact that in Chifley we have a multicultural group of Indigenous people. I would like to sincerely acknowledge the Dharruk people, the original Indigenous people of that area, but also acknowledge that I have elders of many other peoples as well in my electorate. It is a blessing.
I have to say that the apology is something that is very close to my heart and my home. My electorate of Chifley has the largest urban Indigenous population in Australia and for the past decade has been the only community to continue the annual walk and gathering for reconciliation. I reflect on the recently gained section of my community, namely the eastern Blacktown end. In 1814, Governor Macquarie built a school for Aboriginal people in Parramatta. They had been gathered there after European farmers drove them off their land to use it for their own cultivation. When the suburb of Parramatta began to expand, the new settlers complained about living so close to the Aboriginal people. So from there the school was moved further west to the corner of what is now Richmond Road and Rooty Hill Road North. The area around the school and the land that had been granted to the Aboriginals became known as ‘Black’s Town’, and from there the suburb of Blacktown gained its name.
I am proud to recognise the Indigenous history of my electorate, just as I am proud of the Indigenous people of my electorate of Chifley today. I am fortunate enough to have active and talented elders and community leaders in my local Indigenous community. These elders and leaders act as mentors and leaders for the younger Indigenous members in Chifley. I have spoken in this House before about Father Paul Hanna, who worked in the Holy Family Parish. He is joined by elders such as Uncle Wes, Auntie Gloria and Auntie Mavis—a Dharruk elder and direct descendant of Maria Lock—and many more who find their work with young people of particular significance. They run camps and holiday programs to give disadvantaged Indigenous residents a chance to see what their land has to offer and to pass on the wisdom of their ways, their traditions and their stories to the next generation.
We always talk about the Indigenous connection with the land, saying that this is a spiritual connection. I do not know that all of us can aspire to have that depth of understanding and feeling for it, but I can say that there are many non-Aboriginals who, when we are at sea or working the land, have a spiritual connection with it. I am certainly one of those and I feel that connection has better enabled me to serve, especially the Indigenous community of my electorate—at least, I certainly hope that that is the case.
I certainly thank the elders for the journey that they have taken me on. For over a decade the people of my community, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, have gathered for the annual Walk for Reconciliation, to continue the traditions of native people of this land, to reflect on their history and to send forward the message of reconciliation. For years I have joined them, both in helping to organise the event and in walking in support of my local Indigenous people. I have always been proud to stand in support of them during those events in the wilderness years, and last week in parliament I was honoured to be part of a government, a Rudd Labor government, which finally recognised the ultimate act for reconciliation and said sorry to the stolen generations and the Indigenous peoples of Australia and acknowledged the Indigenous owners of the land by holding a welcome to country at the opening of parliament.
In my own electorate I am often asked what this means: does it mean that the current generation should accept the guilt for the past 200 years? I think the answer to that is no. This apology is not about apportioning blame for the past but is about recognising that children were forcibly removed from their families and acknowledging the pain and suffering that was caused to Indigenous children, their mothers and fathers across the nation. This country set the world’s best practice in displacing our Indigenous people. This apology is about opening our eyes to the gross mistakes that have been committed in the country we love so dearly. We open our eyes so that we can look into the future and accept responsibility for closing the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and accept responsibility for providing better health service to neglected Indigenous communities which have seen health standards fade at the cost of their children’s wellbeing.
Saying sorry is about taking strides towards giving quality education to Indigenous communities, as our Prime Minister has already pledged to do during his address. But most of all it is about all Australians moving forward together as a people. I am again proud to be a member of parliament which will put party politics aside to create a cross-party task force to tackle Indigenous issues in our country. I note that all state and territory parliaments have already apologised to the stolen generations. Yet there is a significance to this House, a significance which comes with an apology from the federal government. It is the importance of giving the message of reconciliation a national voice, which is our ultimate responsibility in this House. We act with the intention to honour the Indigenous people of this land while reflecting on their past mistreatment. This is certainly not an easy topic to raise. It is certainly a recognition of the blemishes on our nation’s history. But we should also stand proud that, in this House, we no longer accept that we can brush aside our mistakes, leaving them ignored, and hope that problems that they have caused will go away. We recognise that inaction is never the answer, and it is far from what we were elected to do in this House. We recognise the voice of Indigenous people of this country, which on its own is not loud enough. So we in turn lend them ours. We lend them ours because we see the mistakes that they have had to face and face to this day. When the Bringing them home report was tabled it brought to light several upsetting circumstances. It is a particular disappointment that the first lines of such a report read:
Grief and loss are the predominant themes of this report. Tenacity and survival are also acknowledged.
The main findings of the report were that, nationally, between one in three and one in 10 Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970. Indigenous children were placed in institutions, church missions, adopted or fostered, and were at risk of physical and sexual abuse. Many never received wages for their labour, which was often backbreaking work carried out to build the foundations of our country. Welfare officials failed in their duty to protect Indigenous wards from abuse. Under international law, from approximately 1946 the policies of forcible removal amounted to a form of genocide, and from 1950 the continuation of distinct laws for Indigenous children was racially discriminatory.
But this only explains the need for a symbolic apology, which ignores the ongoing problems. The report has also shown us that the stolen generations mistake is not at all a phenomenon of the past but the removal of Indigenous children continues today. Indigenous children are six times more likely to be removed for child welfare reasons and 21 times more likely to be removed for juvenile justice reasons than non-Indigenous children. For this to be the case, when we know full well with regret about the forced removal of children, is appalling. I think all members must agree that, when such a resounding detail remains true, more needs to be done to rectify these issues with some haste.
Before the apology was made last week, people were still asking: ‘Why apologise?’ The thinking was that this was a problem of many generations ago. It is important that we note that not to recognise and not to act on issues that are left from those mistakes still to this day would cause dire consequences, and all members who welcome this apology should be commended for realising this fact. It is with these findings and these intentions that I am proud to support the apology made by the federal Labor government, an apology which faces the future to fix the wrongs of the past so that all Australians may continue to move forward together, one nation.
822
19:52:00
Burke, Tony, MP
DYW
Watson
ALP
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
1
0
Mr BURKE
—You do not get many weeks like last week in the federal parliament. And the interesting thing was that the significance which has brought us to have the debate that we are engaging in now was a moment where we did not pass a law. It was a moment where none of the constitutional responsibilities that we take on as members of parliament in the black-letter form were actually what was making the difference. It goes to something I referred to in my first speech in this place: the fact that the greatest power that the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia have goes way beyond our constitutional power—that, at our best, we have a capacity as a parliament to affect how Australians relate to each other.
I first discovered this back in 1996 after the then member for Oxley made her first speech and made particular comments with respect to immigration. It started an extraordinary debate across the airwaves that then went to debates across the dinner tables in people’s homes. I remember my wife coming home from work at Greenacre Childcare Centre and saying that there was a noticeable and sudden difference in the way that the children were playing. It sounded like an extraordinary link that made no sense—and yet how do you explain it when children in a long-day care centre are using racist taunts, in a widespread fashion, that for the previous year none of those children had used?
The mere fact that something is said in our federal parliament actually reaches out to the community and legitimises what is being said. In the same way, I found this again late last year when I met with members of the African community in Darwin. One woman stood up and expressed her concern that, as a result of comments made by federal parliamentarians, her children were now being teased in the playground in a way they never have been previously. She remarked to me, holding her baby, which I think was her fourth or fifth child, ‘You have to understand, Tony, we haven’t chosen Australia; we went to the United Nations in Darfur and said, “Please find us a home,” and Australia chose us.’ After her children had been treated in that fashion her line to me, which will always stay with me, was, ‘I now wonder whether we will ever be home.’ If there is any group of people who should always feel ‘home’ in Australia it is the Indigenous population of Australia.
The report Bringing them home came down more than a decade ago. The apology itself never went to laws that would be passed within Australia. The apology did not go to the exercise of executive power. Yet it did go to an extraordinary power that is held within the House of Representatives, and that is the capacity to affect the way Australians treat each other and relate to each other. That is actually what happened last week. Some people who had been critics of the apology for long periods of time had run an argument that we should not feel a sense of guilt, we should not hang our heads in shame. What we saw last week was a sense where an apology, an acknowledgement of history and a willingness to say sorry pointed not to hanging heads in shame but rather to providing an opportunity where we can walk tall together.
The best indication I could have as to what a difference the apology would make to how Australians related to each other was given to me in two ways: on the day before and on that morning. On the morning, by a very simple accident of history, I ended up receiving a call and being asked to assist in escorting the members of the stolen generation who were to sit on the floor of the House of Representatives to their seats. One man from Mutitjulu remarked to me as we made our walk across the green carpet, ‘I cannot believe I’m actually being welcomed here—welcomed to the federal parliament.’ That gives a particular significance to the welcome to country which was given to us.
The day before that, unexpectedly and driven entirely by the students themselves, the students at Kingsgrove High School decided to put together their own petition. It was done by the students, not by the teachers. They simply wrote:
Petition: apology for the stolen generations.
We the undersigned students and teachers at Kingsgrove High School support the national apology being made to the stolen generations. This is an important initial step towards the achievement of justice and equality for Indigenous Australians.
This is from an area that has very few—it has some—Indigenous residents. The ages running through the petition are generally from 14 to 17, with the occasional teacher in their 40s. These students made a decision on a school playground that they believed that there was a statement being made in the federal parliament that was deeply relevant to them as Australians.
They presented this to me in my office in Parliament House the day before the apology with a letter. The letter read:
Dear Mr Rudd
Kingsgrove High School students acknowledge the importance of showing support for the Aboriginal people by choosing to participate and support the federal government’s formal apology held in the nation’s capital Canberra on Wednesday 13 February. Students from Kingsgrove High feel the federal government’s apology will go a long way in terms of helping to bridge the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
For example, it will:
… help create pathways for Indigenous children to make better choices in life and realise their dreams.
Twenty students along with three teachers have made the journey to Canberra to witness this historic event and represent the youth of our school community. The Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, has shown exceptional leadership in initiating this legislation. It will show that the healing process starts with the word sorry. This historical legislation—
as they described it—
… will be an important step towards the achievement of justice and equality for Indigenous Australia. All Australians should be proud that after so long our representatives are doing the right thing and this will be recognised by Australia and the world. In support of the national policy, students and staff of Kingsgrove High School have signed a petition recognising this event and indicating that from all our multicultural backgrounds this legislation has universal acceptance.
Yours sincerely
The students of Kingsgrove High School
While the petition was not in the correct forms of the House, I still received it gratefully and I think it is important to have it here on the record in the federal parliament.
The night following, there was a function for the group Heywire broadcast on ABC radio where students had come from all around Australia, from country regions, and had been part of the Heywire process of putting together their own stories—their own stories regarding the different issues and challenges that young people face in the areas in which they all lived. I was taken aback by speech after speech of the young people who had been down for the week, who just wanted to talk about the leadership that they felt had been offered in the apology.
What they had done as young people from the bush was put together their stories, and I think it is important to remember that the national momentum did not begin with legislation in terms of doing something about this; the national momentum did not actually come from a recommendation contained within the Bringing them home report; the national momentum came from the stories contained within that report. These are stories where individual lives turned upside down, told simply, provided a level of shock, provided a real level of horror in their message such that we wanted to give that natural, immediate human reaction, on hearing what had happened to people’s lives in the names of laws put through the parliament, by saying to those individuals, ‘We are so very terribly sorry.’ To have been a member of parliament at the time that that step was taken is perhaps one of the greatest privileges I will have as a member of parliament in my time here. It was good that it was done in a bipartisan fashion and was recognised by all as being the first in a series of steps that we can now embark on as a nation together.
824
20:03:00
Kerr, Duncan, MP
RH4
Denison
ALP
Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs
1
0
Mr KERR
—It is hard to think of novel and heartfelt comment after the debate because so much has been said already that one would wish to echo. So I am going to just place on record some of my personal reflections and some thanks to people who over the last 20 or 30 years have been important in moving towards the day we were able to witness last week—when we witnessed the historic occasion of the Australian parliament recognising the first peoples of this country and expressing our sorrow for some of the events that had been carried out in the names of other parliaments before us and expressing our sorrow for the stolen generation.
I want to first mention a fellow Tasmanian, a man called Tom Airey. Tom is a man whom I sought at one stage to put forward for an award in the Order of Australia for the work he had done on reconciliation. He is no longer young, but his mind is still sharp, and he was sharp enough to tell me where I could go in that regard, taking the view that what he had done was no more than any other citizen should in advancing an interest that he believed passionately in. He did not want any special recognition through an honour for that work. But, at a time when the idea of reconciliation was deeply unpopular, Tom continued to hold a passion and a commitment which he lived through his life of action in Tasmania, and I want to honour him in this speech.
I also want to recognise the work that Henry Reynolds did in publishing what I think was a crucial book in opening many Australians’ eyes to the lived experience of Indigenous Australians as they experienced European settlement in this country, and that is The Other Side of the Frontier. We are all in this parliament because of the fact that our ancestors, either recent or past, came to this continent, which had previously been in the possession of the Indigenous Australians, and we have been the beneficiaries of the form of governance, the advances that have occurred in technology and the wealth that has been generated since European settlement. We have to recognise that, from a different perspective, it was seen as dispossession. It was seen as a war in which fairly defenceless people—or people with limited capacity for defence—heroically in many cases resisted what they saw as an invasion. They were pushed back in many places. I think anyone who knows the history of my state of Tasmania would be familiar with the tragedies of the encounters between Indigenous Tasmanians and European settlers—the infamous ‘black line’ where people were hunted down, not very successfully, in attempts to round up the last of the Indigenous Tasmanians; the removal of those who were found, ultimately to Bass Strait Island; the lessons taught in schools for years thereafter that there were no more Tasmanians left and that the last Tasmanian Aboriginal was Truganini, who died many years ago.
The fight was led by someone whom I do not always agree with but whom I have to recognise for his passion and commitment over many decades, Michael Mansell. He continues to be provocative and, if I can say so in this parliament, thank God that there are such provocative people, even though at times I guess that all of us find their provocations difficult. Michael Mansell first made Tasmanians aware that there was still a robust community of Tasmanians alive and kicking who recognised their Aboriginality and who wanted to demand recognition. And so, although I have had my differences from time to time with Michael Mansell and will continue to do so, I put on record in this debate an appreciation of the service that he has played in both the Indigenous and Australian communities.
I also mention two people whom I worked with when I was Principal Solicitor for the New South Wales Aboriginal Legal Service, Cecil Patten and Paul Coe. Both were involved in those early days of the debates about Indigenous self-determination. Again, they were sometimes difficult people, people who have not always had a simple past, but they are people who impress me immensely and led me to have many of the views that I still hold about the importance of recognition of Aboriginal identity and the right to self-determination, and I am certain they played their part in the events that we saw last week.
Lowitja O’Donoghue is another person that I would like to recognise in this regard. Lowitja was a Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and was a powerful spokesperson for the Indigenous community in that role, but she would have been a powerful spokesperson for the Indigenous population without that appointment and without that role. She is a person in whom humanity is best seen. There have been many occasions when discussing Indigenous affairs with Lowitja O’Donoghue that tears have been left in my eyes because of the straightforwardness of her account and the bluntness of her expression of what seemed to be so simple a set of propositions that we were so heartless in rejecting for so long.
Can I also mention the fact that I am just a little saddened there was no obviously self-identifiable Indigenous Australian in our parliament to have served before Neville Bonner, representing the Liberal Party of Australia, and Aden Ridgeway, representing the Australian Democrats. I hope it is not long until I will be able to be proudly speaking of a member of the Australian Labor Party who represents us in this parliament from an Indigenous background, because we need to find space in our ranks for the whole of the Australian community.
In reflecting on that, I go back to the days when I worked for the New South Wales Aboriginal Legal Service and recall that for some time I was also the principal solicitor for an organisation called the National Aboriginal and Islander Legal Services Secretariat. It was set up to coordinate the work of all legal services across Australia with an Indigenous background. That organisation put in a submission to the constitutional commission that was then headed by, I think, Gough Whitlam and a number of others reviewing the constitution.
One of the submissions which I participated in drafting that was put forward on behalf of the National Aboriginal and Islander Legal Services Secretariat was a proposition that is reflected in a recent proposition by Michael Mansell that Indigenous Australians should be directly represented in the parliament. Michael Mansell’s proposition, which he advanced with his usual enthusiasm for controversy on the day after the sorry statement, was that there should be a separate Indigenous state. It is not too far from the proposition that was advanced by the legal services secretariat, which was: wouldn’t it be a good thing, because we do not have geographical areas where Indigenous people are anywhere near the full majority, but why not have 12 senators elected from Indigenous Australia participating as a separate electorate and represented in our Senate as such?
Of course, if we were to move in that direction, it would be something that needs a lot of reflection and thought, but it is not different from, for example, New Zealand, where there are specified seats for the Maori, who have therefore parliamentary representation. I think it would be difficult to find that process in our House of Representatives. Constitutionally it does not fit very easily, but recognition of the idea of self-determination and the claim of sovereignty that has been made and never surrendered by Australian Aboriginal people, through a kind of treaty process that then leads to the recognition of the entitlement of Indigenous Australians to be represented in the parliament, is not an idea that we should turn our backs on.
In speaking of turning backs, at this stage of this contribution to the debate, I truly welcome the bipartisanship that was manifested in the day where both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition stood together after the debate in recognition of a common interest that we all share in putting this behind us. There is no doubt that, in the Australian community, not every Australian welcomes the fact that the political leadership has said sorry. That is also probably the case with the fact that a long time ago we buried the idea of white Australia and that was done on a bipartisan basis. Once these things are done, they can never be turned back. That is the importance of the fact of that bipartisanship. Once both political leaders and their parties accept the reality of the necessity to move beyond where they were stuck in the past, we have a political consensus that enables us to think afresh about the practical measures that are still necessary to make good the opportunities for Indigenous Australians to live a full and enriched life in an Australia we all share. It gives us the opportunity to be genuine about our relationships in a passionate way but without the kind of partisanship that has divided us in the past.
Finally, can I recognise those on both sides of politics who have worked so hard. I know that there have been people like Robert Tickner, who gave up an enormous amount in his personal life through the great debates about Wik and Mabo. I know there are people like former Senator Chaney, who made a tremendous contribution to debate from the Liberal Party. Nobody owns this exclusively. We did have a dead period of 11 years where change was resisted, but we have passed that.
It is now healthy for us to recognise that in the path that has led us here there have been many of those ordinary citizens like Tom Airey, who I mentioned earlier. There have been brave activists, like Michael Mansell and Coe and Cecil Patten. There have been academics—people like Henry Reynolds. There have been parliamentarians like Neville Bonner and Aden Ridgeway, who made the breakthrough of being Indigenous representatives in this parliament. There have been politicians on both side of the political divide like Robert Tickner and Fred Chaney. There have been distinguished former judges like Sir William Deane, who caught our hearts in the way he articulated our common interests, and there have been passionate former prime ministers like Paul Keating and Gough Whitlam.
I still remember the handing over of the dirt by former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in the first of the land returns, in the early days of my political involvement. I still treasure that memory as a great honour—although, standing for the Labor Party in 1977, as I first did when Gough Whitlam was leader, it was a little like being the voluntary passenger on the Titanic. We were not long for the world! But I do have the singular honour, I think, of being the only current member on the Labor side who can say they stood for Labor in a federal election when Gough Whitlam was still leader of the Labor Party. I was a member of this party when Paul Keating made his famous Redfern speech, which I think was another great staging post along the way for the events that happened.
Finally, can I acknowledge all my parliamentary colleagues on both sides of the House, and particularly Prime Minister Rudd, who made the decisive move to end a period where we had failed to come to terms with our history and so powerfully cemented a moment of national unity in a way that cannot be rolled back.
Debate (on motion by Ms Jackson) adjourned.
827
20:18:00
Main Committee adjourned at 8.18 pm